Where Are The Green Jobs?

The NY Times reports that uncertainty over Congressional action on cap and trade as well as the slow pace of stimulus spending has held up the growth of "green" jobs:

Growth in clean energy industries and in green jobs has been considerably slower and bumpier than anticipated, industry experts say.

But rather than giving up on its green jobs mantra, the White House will rededicate itself to promoting green industries at the jobs meeting, which will bring together business and labor leaders, politicians and economists.

The initial promise of green jobs was based on governments around the world declaring the fight against global warming to be a priority. The theory was that jobs in environmentally minded companies would grow rapidly as a result. But instead, some green-industry companies have been shedding jobs in the United States, and in some cases moving them to China.

Last week, the Gamesa wind turbine plant in western Pennsylvania announced it was laying off nearly half its 280 workers. Last month, General Electric said it would close a solar panel factory in Delaware, while Evergreen Solar, which received $58 million in state aid to build a 900-employee plant northwest of Boston, said it would move some assembly to China, costing 250 jobs.

There are myriad reasons why green jobs have grown more slowly than hoped. The clean energy component of the $787 billion stimulus package has only recently started to kick in. Energy experts say that banks, which have been reluctant to lend generally, have been especially loath to lend for alternative energy projects.

And renewable-energy companies are hesitating to invest in new plants and equipment before Congress enacts new environmental mandates, like cap and trade, to limit carbon emissions. In addition, the long recession (along with correspondingly slack energy demand) caused the clean-energy industry to delay expansion plans.

As a result, the United States is likely to install just one-eighth as much new solar power this year as Germany does, and China is expected to surpass the United States this year as the leader in adding new wind energy capacity.

“The renewable energy industry in the U.S. is an underdeveloped developing industry,” said Michael Peck, director of external affairs for Gamesa USA, a Spanish-owned company that has two wind turbine factories in Pennsylvania. “Manufacturers, developers, utilities, financiers — they don’t see the legislative pieces that they’re all hoping for to help the industry move forward.”

Ahhhh!  Setting aside global warming, there is a compelling national security argument in favor of alternative energy.  Unfortunately, a national consensus hasn't come together in support of green energy as part of a plan to stick it the the mullahs (and the Russkies, and Hugo Chavez) because that national security argument also points to developing nuclear power and "drill, baby, drill."

The Times had a good article a few weeks back abut the problem of wind, solar, and baseload power.  As an example, the wind blows at night in Montana and Texas, but people run their air conditioners during the day in California and New York.  A better national grid can solve the spatial problem; better short term storage can solve the temporal problem.

On the storage side, people hope that wind power will be used to recharge everyone's electric cars at night.

As to air conditioning, the low-tech approach to utilizing cheap night-time power would be to blast the AC at night, cool the house (or apartment) to 50 degrees, shiver through a brutal morning shower, and let the house slowly warm up during the day.

A higher-tech approach would be to "store" the cold, for example by running a huge icemaker at night; during the day, melting ice can cool the house, presumably in conjunction with the existing AC system. 

BACK IN THE DAY... when I was taking high school physics I could have figured out how much energy was involved in the water/ice conversion and compared that to the BTUs on my air conditioner.  I remember 80 calories per gram, which gets me to 317 BTUs per kilogram of water, i.e., per liter.

Let's see - This chart says I need 18,000 BTU per hour to keep 1,000 square feet cooled. 

So if I melt roughly 60 liters per hour I can cool 1,000 square feet.  Over ten hours, that requires 600 liters of water, weighing about 1320 lbs and occupying, hmm, 600,000 cubic centimeters, which is 0.6 cubic meters.  That is not a ginormous block of ice - if it were it 2 meters by 0.5 meters by 0.6 meters it could fit in a big bathtub.

Well - designing a system that could cool that much ice that quickly and then take advantage of it the next day would be tricky, but we aren't talking about a moon walk here.  Such a system could be economical *if* there was a notable discount for nighttime electricity.  And I bet if I googled around I would find them commercially available right now...

Comments

[Charlie (Colorado)]

DC.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Real easy way to get there: a "1 ton" air conditioner can make a ton of ice in a day, so that's 12000 BTU/hr. Thats a British-system ton, so 907 kg, so 907 litres, so right around a cubic yard or water. Rule of thumb is 2 ton of A/C per 1000 square feet.

So, nominally, if you can run the A/C 12 hr/day to make ice, you could have half as large an A/C unit, or you could have the same sized unit and run it only at night.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Notice that the chart says 18K BTU to cool "700 to 1000" square feet. 18000 is going to be pretty strained for 1000 square feet; go with the rule of thumb.

[matt]

Bullshit. Our company is deep in the weeds in photovoltaic and the one thing holding everything up is very simple; cash money.

When the banks start providing it and there are realistic profit margins for the manufacturers we will see it grow, but these are not, repeat not high tech jobs as the Dems would have you believe.They are screwdriver turning $7-10/hr jobs for the most part.

[Kevin B]

Or, we could move forward into the twenty-first century instead of backward into the nineteenth.

Just a thought.

[bunky]

gerbil windmill track factory anyone?

[BobM]

Matt,

You are absolutely correct. The only thing missing in your comment is that the Democrats want to pay the "screwdriver turners" $35/hr. with FREE health care.

[megapotamus]

The relative slowness of stimuli release explains why some of the projected jobs are missing but there is a much larger component. Simply put, the Green Jobber can't hold a candle to the hydrocarbonist in terms of delivered, usable energy at the outlet. We might call this fellow, the Goo Jobber; pumping oil, digging coal and passing gas. There is only one (beneficial)route away from hydrocarbons if you feel you must have one and that is to go small... Yes, nucular of one specie or another. I'm fer it. Actually, we are decades late for our atomic future but there is an area where huge consumption savings could be realized and I wonder if the cryptic first comment is suggestive of that. In the great struggle between Edison and Tesla, Tesla won. Alternating current beat out direct current because of transmission advantages but if there is going to be widescale localized energy production, and there is no reason there cannot be given no maintenance nukes and mini-turbines, then we could realize huge benefits from not having to transmit electricity over miles through a grid, smart or not-so-smart. Also there would not be blackouts spanning the nation or international borders. Of course, this means huge capital investments and a serious restraint of NIMBYism across the land but at least it does not depend on the blowing wind or glaring sun; two seriously undependable actors.

[DrJ]

Instead of making ice, one can simply use a swamp cooler if one lives in a low-humidity area. That's what we use.

[Old Lurker]

In commercial real estate, we use ice storage for time shifting electricity demand all the time. In DC the daytime cost per KWH is maybe four times the off peak cost. All of our systems work by circulating a coolant, usually water, through pipes to radiators in air handling units. All we do is insert insulated water tanks in the loop with coolant coils in them to freeze them at night and melt them in the day. If we size it right, we use no power on peak for cooling at all, just for circulating the water which is a small portion of the energy required. If we guess wrong, the ice melts before dark and the system fires up. The cost-benefit for large users is hugely positive. The stuff is off the shelf equipment.

I seriously considered it for my own house, but the capital costs did not come close to making sense. But for large commercial users, hell yes!

[DrJ]

I had no idea, OL! Interesting info.

[Old Lurker]

DrJ...it's another example of politicians muddying the waters for rational decisions. Residential users of electricity draw from the same producers that the commercial users do. But two things monkey with the market: 1)large commercial users can drive a hard bargain for off peak KWH costs, and do. 2) residential users are "sheltered" by rate setting bodies and thus cannot achieve the same on-peak vs off-peak cost savings. Some, yes, but not as large as justified by the costs of production so there is a political leveling action going on. When I did the math for my house, I could never reduce my electric bill enough to justify the capital cost. So screw em...I set the thermostat where I'm conformatble and let it run.

PS DrJ...thanks so much for connecting with my scientist daughter; your detached wise advice is a great help to her. Dinner on me when you come to DC.

[PDinDetroit]

Best Green Job at LUN - reviewing the idiocy that some manufacturers are calling "green cars".

[clarice]

If the dimwits wanted real green energy jobs, they'd do a crash program with regulatory streamling to bring lots of nuclear power plants on line and to strengthen the grid. They don't they want to cater to the muddle which is so stupid they don't realize this is a scheme to keep them poor and barefoot by folks hauling their fat carbon footprints around in private jets and limos.

[PDinDetroit]

fat carbon butt-prints

There, fixed it for you.

I liked your article over at AT, but I cannot seem to be able to register there to post comments for some reason. I register, but never get the email to activate the account...

[jwest]

Clarice is right as usual.

One massive program to build 500 identical nuclear plants would bring on a second industrial revolution. By deregulating, eliminating the logistics and liability problems of the waste and using the cost benefits of quantity purchasing and training for the one design along with modern manufacturing techniques for the components, the U.S. would regain a competitive advantage in industrial production that no other country could match.

Don’t think of this as simply free (or almost free) power for known industries. Think about what new technologies and methods would be conceived of if electric energy in unlimited quantities was as available and cheap as air.

Perhaps the confluence of economic crisis and exposure of liberal junk science will lead to someone in Washington picking up the nuclear ball and running with it.

[Neo]

After hearing the various statements by Van Jones, the former "green czar," it became clear to me that the "green" in "green jobs" had virtually nothing to do with the color of plants in nature, but rather the color of money.
"Green jobs" are what I believe Jesse Jackson used to call "Jobs with Justice".

And these guys complain about Republicans using "code words." Their code book is about 10 times as thick.

[JM Hanes]

"Energy experts say that banks, which have been reluctant to lend generally, have been especially loath to lend for alternative energy projects."

Imagine that! Seems to me this is where you plug in venture capital. Oh, wait....

[clarice]

PD in Detroit..I don't think you have to register to post at AT--just type your name in the comment (even the email addy is unnecessary there). The comments are reviewed and may hang in the queue for a while before being poisted.

[Neo]

There was the old commercial for Philadelpha Electric that ran back in the late 70's starring Leslie Nelson. The tag line ..

... but these environmentalists !!

PECO didn't run it very long

[Rick Ballard]

Clarice,

If the obvious solution were taken (build nukes) what would the Wall Street credentialed moron class do? The "trust us, we know the risks" MBS/CDS scam is flat busted and imposing additional wholly worthless transaction costs on "carbon trading" looks like the only new game in town.

Dunno about leaving those boys alone - they like playing with matches far too much for my comfort.

[Old Lurker]

Ever looked at the economics of those projects sans the tax credits? Ever seen a bank try to foreclose on tax credits when the borrower defaults? If the economic basis for the investment was phony, then the collateral is not sufficient to cover the loan. Why in the world should a non-government owned bank make such a loan?

[ROA]

They would also combine the building of nuclear plants on the coast with nuclear based cogeneration of water to reduce water shortages in California.

[MayBee]

Seems to me this is where you plug in venture capital. Oh, wait...

Heh.
On ABC Sunday, George Will pointed out to Krugman (who was whining about rich oil companies) that the US Dept of Energy has become a huge supplier of venture capital.

Nukes are the one area where liberals don't want to compare us to our greener allies like France and Japan.

[Rick Ballard]

OL,

There's also the nontrivial problem regarding bank reserves still being inadequate (even though Uncle Ben stuffed 'em chock full of Bambibucks in exchange for those nasty MBS instruments). They've just passed the 10th floor and everything is A-OK. It's just a shame that they're in the elevator shaft rather than the elevator.

[Frau Atomkraft]

Nuclear. Power. Now. The French get to laugh as other Europeans worry if gas and electricity will be available.

[Old Lurker]

nontrivial indeed...

My version of your analogy was the guy on the 10th floor shouted to the guy who had jumped from the roof "how's it going?", to which the jumper answered "so far so good!"

Both work.

[clarice]

All the richest lawyers who pumped money into the past three Dem presidential campaigns are lines up at the cap and trade green trough and have been for a while.

[Old Lurker]

I know that, Clarice. It is an asbestos claim payday raised to the exponent.

[MikeS]

One massive program to build 500 identical nuclear plants would bring on a second industrial revolution

Yup. On top of that THEY PAY FOR THEMSELVES and actually make a profit, without tax credits, at market rates!

If they were built near the existing grid, that would reduce the costs of upgrading the grid.

Well, this idea is way too sensible to ever fly in DC.

[JM Hanes]

"That is not a ginormous block of ice."

When you work out how to cool a Manhattan skyscraper that way, let me know.

Why should hapless home owners and incoming commuters from the burbs have to take all the heat? When it comes to carbon footprints, anyone talking green who lives and works in high rises goes straight into my Goracle file. Considering the black grit I used to sponge off my houseplants in Boston, I don't think they have any business complaining about second hand smoke either, but I digress. Slightly. OTOH, I don't suppose they actually open their windows, preferring their mini hypoallergenic biospheres, artificially sustained 24/7, where the indoor weather means sweaters in the summer and going sleeveless in the winter -- except for the guys in suits, of course. Maybe someone should calculate the AC drain they represent.

Speaking of windows and calculations, if someone tells me what a calorie represents in BTU's, I can questimate the human cost of opening windows at night and closing them on the south side when the sun comes up. I live down here in the sweltering exurban south, and I ran my AC a total of 3 guilt free days this year. That will all change when the Green.gov Inspector rolls around; he'll probably retrofit my windows closed -- the way they do in urban hotels. I expect the HSS Inspector will show up next with a converted Breathalizer to determine whether the CO2 I exhale falls within the legal limits.

[clarice]

My rocket scientist friend adds this"If we in the US are really concerned about global warming, we should quantify the impact of implementing cap-and-trade and sending manufacturing jobs to China—but this will get the wrong answer."

As usual, he's hard to reute.

[Rick Ballard]

"if someone tells me what a calorie represents in BTU's"

1 calorie [15° C] = 0.003 967 372 724 Btu

That site is a good one to bookmark.

[clarice]

**reFute**

[centralcal]

O/T and maybe you all saw this already, but

Bill Ayers dumps Obama

Or so Clarence Page is hoping. snort.

[I Won]

As I have always said, I am for a vigorous nuclear energy program.

Some will say that I am for it in Iran and not in my adopted country.

I want to be clear and say that we must not give in to the cynicism so rampant in the previous administration, which used crises to benefit Big Oil and Big Corporations at the cost of women being denied mammograms and our brave military men and women the resources they need in Afghanistan to capture Osama Bin Laden.

[Old Lurker]

Darn... you beat me to it Rick. I was just cutting and pasting that for JMH.

As to skyscrapers...I can tell you that the entire Washington National Cathedral and a number related prep school buildings are in fact cooled with off peak ice. As I recall the biggest problem they had was making the ice at night without waking up Clarice and her Cleveland Park neighbors.

[jimmyk]

When it comes to carbon footprints, anyone talking green who lives and works in high rises goes straight into my Goracle file.

I thought it was generally accepted that high-density living uses less energy. Maybe mass transit is a big part of that, but it's hard to believe that heating and cooling a high-rise isn't cheaper than taking those same people and spreading them out in individual houses and heating and cooling the houses. Not that any of this is the government's business, of course.

[MikeS]

If we in the US are really concerned about global warming...

If anybody believed any of that carp, they would be at the coast building sea walls!

[peter]

Centralcal, you beat me to the punch. Bill Ayers is steamed. What could that mean? Possible disclosure as to the first time he met Obama? Or the authorship of Dreams? Or is he just role-playing?
Not sure if Clarence Page understands the dynamite that Ayers represents. Perhaps he thinks he can quash it.
Ras creeping back up, but stll in negative double digits for weeks now.

[Old Lurker]

And JMH...you are right to be concerned about the inspector coming to your house. That "smart grid" they talk about - and the stimulous money given to utilities including Pepco here in DC - includes technology for adjusting your thermostat when somebody other than your spouse thinks that should be done. PUK and I had a chuckle when it was reported the green nazies in London were using aerial scans and IR sensors to spot homeowners whose houses were colder or warmer than the masters wanted. Not joking on either.

[Porchlight]

Well well well...

WUWT: Gore cancels Copenhagen lecture

The wheels are coming off....

[centralcal]

Yep, Old Lurker - they wanted to install thermostats here in my part of California that could be controlled by the utility company. There was an outcry and the PUC backed off, but I am sure it is only temporary.

[Dave (in MA)]

Is just another guy in Jughead's neighborhood going to start blowing up buildings again?

[centralcal]

Porchlight - isn't that picture of Gore so typical? I swear he looks insane. If he was just some unknown guy on the street, I would be terrified and give him a wide berth.

[Old Lurker]

Jimmyk...high rise living usually involves fewer cubic feet of conditioned space per occupant, and fewer SF of conditioned space exposed to the outside (ext walls & roofs)...than living in the burbs. Central generation of heat and cold are often more efficient as well, BTU for BTU. And then mass transit figures in after that.

[Dave (in MA)]

The day they put in a government controlled thermostat in my house is the day I'll put in a thermostat heater.

[bunky]

Algor ate the Lorax

[anduril]

Wow. Here's an interesting story re the American college girl on trial in Italy for the claimed sex murder of her female roommate: Amanda Knox Revisited. Euro ideas on fair trials are a tad different than ours, I guess.

[clarice]

Forest Hills, OL--Make as much noise as you want to.

[bgates]

OT, NRO has followed up its week of begging for money with this little gem from Daniel ("Who?") Foster:
Former President Clinton told Foreign Policy magazine that he reads Paul Krugman, David Brooks, Thomas Friedman, and Malcolm Gladwell. So, the New York Times op-ed page and a well-known middlebrow popularizer of fad science.

Seriously, how much more profound or insightful is that list than anything Sarah Palin could have come up with? (If, to be fair, Sarah Palin had been able to come up with anything).

He had no email address listed, so I wrote Kathrine Lopez to thank her for confirming my decision to not give them any money.

[Porchlight]

centralcal, someone in the comments said he looked like the devil himself. Pretty much!

[Rick Ballard]

Porchlight,

AL. Ron Gore's decision to stay away needs to be read along with Piltdown Mann's tossing Jones under the bus.

One might wonder about the probability of additional revelations concerning the Secrets of the Jerks of the Inner Circle of Climate Scientology being published prior to the grand Hope'n Hokum conference.

[Neo]

Now this is interesting ...

Human geneticists have reached a private crisis of conscience, and it will become public knowledge in 2010. The crisis has depressing health implications and alarming political ones. In a nutshell: the new genetics will reveal much less than hoped about how to cure disease, and much more than feared about human evolution and inequality, including genetic differences between classes, ethnicities and races.

I wonder exactly what the Obama Administration will do to suppress it.

Will Charles Murray rerelease "The Bell Curve" with a new chapter titled "I told you so" ?

[narciso]

Well much like that pitch for the New Yorker, many moons ago 'I read it for the humor' unintentional of course. So the economist taken in by the fake Enron trading
floor, the essayist taken in by Obama, the foreign policy guru taken in by Van Jones, Arafat Saudi foreign minister Faisal, the list goes on. Now K Lo did respond weakly with reference to Sarah's facebook page.

[Old Lurker]

"Forest Hills, OL"

I knew that C. Just making fun of your neighbors.

[bunky]

Nothing sadder than a sophisticated media involved conservative.

[Jim Miller]

Speaking of nukes, I think that NuScale's design makes a lot of sense.

I say: Power to the people.

And: Let a thousand reactors bloom. (All right, boil, not bloom.)

[Old Lurker]

"I swear he looks insane."

And some say looks can be deceiving, CC. Must the exception proving the rule in the case of Gore.

[Jane]

Rick,

Is Mann throwing Jones under the bus to save his sorry hide or is he one of the good guys. (I'm trying but I can't keep them all straight.)

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Email news alert from the WaPo:

House cancels estate tax repeal, extends current tax rate

[Dave (in MA)]

Secrets of the Jerks of the Inner Circle of Climate Scientology

Or... Inner Secrets of the Climate Scientology Circle Jerks.

[DrJ]

JMH,

if someone tells me what a calorie represents in BTUs

You may well have this on your computer (you're on an Apple, right?). Check if you have the program "units" available from a shell window. It is very useful, particularly for the really arcane unit conversions.

[clarice]

Mann invented the preposterous hockey stick and is presently under investigation by OPenn State.

[JM Hanes]

jimmyk:

In the interest of transparency, I suppose I should confess to adding a substantial dose of anti-urban, open window bias to my open windows baseline. Just in case anybody missed it. Not that I don't enjoy metropolitan amenities in my carbon based travels. But all those air conditioners pumping heat out of buildings into narrow streets, and all those cars creeping into town at a snail's pace, collecting in traffic jams....

We used to watch approaching rain clouds split when they hit the thermals of an intervening city, leaving us completely parched as they passed us by on either side. The city folks did a lot more climate changing than we did! Elsewhere, we had to install bigger culverts to handle the run off from high density housing miles away, so they were altering the ground based hydrology too. Maybe that's why the oceans are rising! My own more than questionable anecdotal observations aside, I'm not sure that concentrated living doesn't have sizable uncounted environmental costs in addition to the obvious ones.

[Rob Crawford]

Also be careful with "calories" when discussing people. Dietary calories are physical kilocalories.

[Rick Ballard]

Jane,

The Core of Jerks (IMO) consists of Hansen, Wigley and Jones. Mann is a Jerk of the Second Order, alongside Briffa, Osbourne, Amman and several others (vide Wegman Report). Mann is resonsible for creation of the hockey stick graphic which has been used to terrify the very gullible for a number of years. The Wegman Report should have entirely destroyed his credibility with its repudiation of his methodology.

He's a tenured Credentialed Moron and, as such, has been impervious until very recently. When you see his name "charlatan in a lab coat" is the appropriate association image.

[JM Hanes]

Rick:

I didn't expect anyone to do the BTU honors fast enough to lob the ball back into my court -- although I should have! I really do my window opening pro bono; it's not like I wouldn't be burning calories at something else, after all. Fortunately, as far as I know, 0 x anything still = 0, although I can imagine a skilled mathematician, such as yourself, or a computer, coming up with a don't-try-this-at-home exception. In any case, I thank you for your handy conversion page, which I have added to my bookmarks, as suggested.

[bgates]

House cancels estate tax repeal, extends current tax rate

So much for my clever scheme to have my parents whacked.

K Lo did respond weakly

Can she do otherwise? Foster's follow-up is about as believable as Chris "USO" Matthews' apology was.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI) grills Holdren on global warming junk science. (Video)

The AP reported:

House Republicans pointed to controversial e-mails leaked from climate scientists and said it was evidence of corruption. Top administration scientists looking at the same thing found no such sign, saying it doesn’t change the fact that the world is warming.

The e-mails from a British university’s climate center were obtained by computer hackers and posted online about two weeks ago. Climate change skeptics contend the messages reveal that researchers manipulated and suppressed data and stifled dissent, and conservative bloggers are dubbing it “Climategate.”

In the first Capitol Hill airing of the issue, House Republicans Wednesday read excerpts from at least eight of the e-mails, saying they showed the world needs to re-examine experts’ claims that the science on warming is settled. One e-mail from 2003 was by John Holdren, then of Harvard University and now the president’s science adviser.

The exploding controversy led Phil Jones to step aside as head of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia, the source of the e-mail exchanges. The university is investigating the matter. Penn State University also is looking into e-mails by its own researcher, Michael Mann. House Republicans asked for a separate hearing or investigation into the issue, but were rebuffed by Democrats.

“These e-mails show a pattern of suppression, manipulation and secrecy that was inspired by ideology, condescension and profit,” said U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.

Among the messages that Sensenbrenner read was one from Jones, the East Anglia scientist, in which he wrote about a “trick of adding in the real temps” in an exchange about long-term climate trends. Holdren responded that the word “trick” did not mean manipulation of data, but about a “clever way” to tackle a problem. Another Jones’ e-mail read, “I would like to see the climate change happen so the science could be proved right.”

[JM Hanes]

And help from DrJ too! Alas, I'm not sure what a shell window might be -- and wouldn't dream of asking in an active thread.

I'm really supposed to be devoting my personal BTU's to service elsewhere. If only folks would quit posting links which clearly demand immediate attention.

[jimmyk]

JMH: I could see there was a bit of an edge to your comments...

And despite my Manhattan residence, I am of course completely objective.

But seriously, all that stuff you see has to be divided by the number of people, as I'm sure you realize. Maybe there is some side effect of concentrating all that activity in a small space, though.

This just hit a button for me because of my ongoing annoyance with Nanny Bloomberg, who, despite the substantially lower CO2 emissions/energy usage/etc. per capita in New York City was insisting on all of this costly green nonsense.

[narciso]

I caught that bgates, they are just really trying to strangle this economy like a dead
cat.

Bloomberg, is there something in the water, that causes them to support this RINO on the half shell when they turned down Rudy who turned the city around.

[Porchlight]

Rick,

Re: Gore, Mann, Jones - pretty soon they will be eating each other alive trying to pass the buck. To mix metaphors.

Neo,

The data have always been solidly behind Murray. My best friend is a behavioral genetics Ph.D. and a liberal to the core. She and all her other liberal colleagues have known for years that Murray is right. They just disagree with him on the social implications. Look up Thomas Bouchard for an example of a liberal who isn't afraid to tell the truth about media "consensus" regarding IQ and genetic differences.

That's why I think it's so funny that these same people buy into the "consensus" re: junk science like AGW. Although their eyes are probably being opened right about now.

[Extraneus]

Perhaps Foster should wax eloquent on George Washington's intellectual pursuits, or Grant's or Truman's.

I don't even read the Corner anymore. Found myself skipping more posts than I read. (Which were basically Steyn's.)

Speaking of which, is it just impossible to find a neutral historical site anymore? Try googling on "intellects of the presdients" or something similar. I've already been to two sites which start out seemingly straight, and end up telling us how absolutely dim-witted Reagan was.

[Extraneus]

pretty soon they will be eating each other alive

I'll drink to that.

[DrJ]

JMH,

Check you email.

[Porchlight]

Oops, make that "tell the truth about academic consensus" re: Bouchard. In other words, the media reported that the academic consensus was that Murray was wrong. Bouchard said, "not so."

[clarice]

Hot Air:
The fallout of the University of East Anglia CRU e-mails threatens to smother the credibility of anthropogenic global-warming advocates — and the UN along with them. In a new survey conducted after the exposure of UEA-CRU’s behind-the-scenes chicanery, the Rasmussen poll indicates that a majority of respondents think AGW scientists have lied about their data. Only 26% think that such dishonesty and fraud is either not very likely or not at all likely:

Even Al (P.T. Barnum) Gore is heading for cover.

I think if we superimpose the Rathergate timeline on climategate, we are at the point where despite it being clear that no National Guard typewriter could have written the memos, CBS was insisting they were accurate.

The next stage will be the narrative is correct even if the facts are false.

[JM Hanes]

jimmyk:

I think we can pretty much write off my little self-indulgent diatribe. :-) One of the saddest stories, recently, was the one about the crisis center in NYC that had to throw out food that people left for the needy, because it contained trans-fats that it was illegal for them to serve.

I don't even know what a trans-fat is, or whether it's lurking in my cupboards, or whether I'm consuming it in vast quantities.

Some of the scariest bits of both the Healthcare and Cap & Trade bills are the vast regulatory powers they allocate to Cabinet Secretaries -- and á la TM, the faceless commissions designed to protect us from the faceless commissions designed to protect us from ourselves.

[clarice]

East Anglia says its investigation is going to be broader than originally feared--it will examine the reliability of the CRU data and not just the leak. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9CBVM701&show_article=1

[JM Hanes]

clarice:

"the Rasmussen poll indicates that a majority of respondents think AGW scientists have lied about their data."

Let's hope that's the consensus that really counts.

[Rick Ballard]

"Although their eyes are probably being opened right about now."

Porchlight,

It would be nice to think so but progs are well noted for their toleration of cognitive dissonance. What you and Clarice and Jane noted on the other thread is a defense mechanism used by progs to filter out reality to keep it from interfering with their thumbsucking gullibility. I would anticipate an increase in antisocial behavior on the part of progs as Barry the Buffoon continues to demonstrate his inability and remarkable lack of intellectual prowess. He really is "just like them".

[peter]

JMH, I have little reason to doubt that concentrated human habitation has an effect on climate. Watching the weather reports in the New York metropolitan area, it is fairly obvious that those areas which have a higher percentage of concrete and asphalt get hotter in the summer, and not so cold in the winter.
The real question is what do we do about it? The AGW scamsters decided that carbon dioxide production would be the way to regulate human impact on the climate. Any number of other ways could perform the same function; a tax on asphalt, or cement would be one. The fact of the matter is that the real issue, whether population growth is good or bad, doesn't get debated because it gets obscured by the pseudoscientific debate about whether the byproducts of industrial activity create a greenhouse effect, and whether if it does not, it is worth it to cook the books so as to convince people that it does.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

OT: This one is for Narciso and all Palin supporters:

REVIEW: ‘Going Rogue’ Reveals Palin’s Ready to Lead,br>
Brigadier General (R) Anthony J. Tata

[pagar]

"reveals Palin is ready to Lead"

Compared to what we know about Obama her high school grades revealed that"

[boris]

"progs are well noted for their toleration of cognitive dissonance"

That's the primary function of postmodernism.

[jimmyk]

The real question is what do we do about it?

Peter, a question that logically precedes that one is: Do we need to do anything about it? I don't doubt that dense urban areas have local climate effects. That does not mean that they have any global impact to speak of. Any more than the wind tunnels created by skyscrapers have any global impact.

[clarice]

JMH:"Let's hope that's the consensus that really counts."

If someone smarter than I calculated what cost in jobs and economic downturn cap and trade and the removal of jobs to China would be and the resulting greater pollution and CO2 in the atmosphere it would be a good thing.The public is always for unicorns that come free of charge and not so keen on them when they come with a kazillion dollar price tag.

The temperature changes in urban areas is an interesting thing--because the same luddites who want to deny us domestic energy and have us give up more and more are all for our living in urban areas and biking to work, eating organic foods (using more land than conventional methods) and generally immiserating us while probably making things worse.

[DrJ]

Here's one leftie response to the UEA investigation taken from today's SFGate:

So because of a few emails - that, in context, aren't shocking at all, and just reveal the normal mechanitions of experimental processes - the flat-earthers and science deniers and Jesus-with-the-Dinasaurs types will now claim that the thousands of institutions worldwide which have come to the same (actually, often worse) conclusions are all wrong! So tell me, I assume none of you deniers go to the doctor when you're sick...it's all based on the same scientific process, kiddies. Of course you're all against universal health care too...maybe that's why...

[Old Lurker]

"Some of the scariest bits of both the Healthcare and Cap & Trade bills are the vast regulatory powers they allocate to Cabinet Secretaries"

Thought we by-passed those folks now and assign those powers to Czars. Avoids all that pesky Senate Confirmation nonsense.

[anduril]

Did DrJ violate etiquette rules by even acknowledging the shell window question? More here.

[DrJ]

anduril, get a life!

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Climategate: Mann Throws Jones Under the Bus

[JM Hanes]

peter:

In reality, I think there is a huge difference between impacting the environment and altering the global climate. I share a certain, though limited, concern with environmentalists on the former. As to the latter, just reading the original IPCC report convinced me that we should be putting our money into basic data gathering, oceanic research and the development of far more sophisticated computer modeling. Ironically, one of the most damaging emails was the one in which Trenberth called the modeling which didn't comport with the last decade of static temperatures a "travesty." The fact that his proposed solution consisted of looking for different data was not so amusing.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

When you work out how to cool a Manhattan skyscraper that way, let me know.

That's actually easier. Th bigger a block of ice, the more slowly it melts on its own (a corollary of the square/cube law.) Granddaddy's ice house burned down, back in the days when ice houses stored ice cut from the lake — I'm trying to find an on-line source for this story but no luck — and continued to operate, not just through the winter, but through an entire summer, with the ice standing up well, through the summer and until the new ice house was in operation in the late fall.

So ... the Empire State Building has about 2.7 million square feet. Divide by 1000, and call it 1 m^3 per 1000 square feet (about 10 percent more than the rule of thumb, just for simplicity.) So 2700 m^3 of water, or a 14 meter cube, or about 125 feet square, and 7 feet deep. (That should fit neatly into the sub-basement.)

[Porchlight]

I would anticipate an increase in antisocial behavior on the part of progs as Barry the Buffoon continues to demonstrate his inability and remarkable lack of intellectual prowess.

Rick,

Kicking and screaming, eh? You may be right. I think I will hang back quietly behind the arras and snicker at them.

[Janet]

LUN is the Tapper article on 1st Lt. Dan Berschinski that Pagar linked to on the post-speech thread. He was in the West Point "enemy camp" audience. I sent him a Christmas package today...card, jerky, candy, electronic game.
Whenever the insanity of today's politics gets too much, I have to go out and DO something positive. God bless our Troops. The one bright spot!

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Is Mann throwing Jones under the bus to save his sorry hide or is he one of the good guys. (I'm trying but I can't keep them all straight.)

Bus. Mann is the hockey-stick guy.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Uh oh. Bill Ayres throws Obama and his war under the bus. Takes to the streets in protest. (Video)

I cracked up over this. Enjoy!
LOL.