Investors' Business Daily

peddle ~ EJ BS study:

NBCoC MISI BS study:

ref 3

404 --> WB https://blog.ucsusa.org/john-rogers/new-flawed-study-of-the-clean-power-plan-how-the-misi-study-gets-it-so-wrong-759

JUNE 12, 2015,

no lnx many

an op-ed in yesterday’s Investor’s Business Daily uses a new study to make unsubstantiated claims about the economic impacts of the proposed Clean Power Plan on vulnerable communities. Since the op-ed didn’t provide a link to the actual analysis, we hunted it down and took a look behind the headlines. And when we did, we found that the foundations of this new “analysis” are shaky indeed.

A house built on sand

The new study, conducted by Management Information Services, Inc. (MISI) on behalf of the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC), purports to look at a range of EPA regulations, but focuses on the Clean Power Plan (CPP).

energy-clean-power-plan-black-chamber-of-commerce-study-cover-not-science

But here’s the first of the study’s fatal flaws: it depends, as it explicitly says (p. 21), on the findings of seven other studies, which it lists. But those seven include:

Three studies that came out before the EPA published the draft CPP, meaning they don’t actually study the CPP as proposed—even though that’s the supposed focus of the NBCC/MISI analysis

One that was just (self-described) “preliminary analysis” from the United Mine Workers of America, a group you’d be hard-pressed to characterize as an unbiased voice in this debate

Three other studies funded by other fossil fuel interests who oppose the Clean Power Plan

Two of those studies were the focus of a recent UCS webinar showing how such studies use bad assumptions and get used to sow confusion and spread disinformation about the CPP.

One of those, done byIHS on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is the report most cited in this new work, even though it was one of those that came out before the draft CPP, and even though there was, as the Chamber itself admitted, “a big difference” between what they’d modeled and what EPA put forth (which the new study doesn’t acknowledge).

The flaws in the study by Energy Ventures Analysis (EVA) for Peabody Energy (the largest U.S. coal company) are also clear. The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions has pointed out that, unlike other studies, EVA’s didn’t even show a business-as-usual case, meaning that any CPP results were floating in a vacuum, without reference to a base case of shifting energy costs and other economic factors.

Ignoring the bedrock

Equally telling are the studies that didn’t make NBCC/MISI’s literature review:

The EPA’s own cost-benefit analysis, which showed investments in energy efficiency under the Clean Power Plan will ultimately generate savings on electricity bills nationally

Studies from academic sources, which show the CPP delivering widespread health co-benefits by reducing harmful air pollution from power plants

One by the NAACP that has documented the costly and disproportionate impacts of power plant pollution on “low-income communities and communities of color”

Another recent analysis by researchers at the University of Maryland suggesting the CPP will lead to a net increase in jobs.

But you wouldn’t glean any of that from the new NBCC/MISI report. No, it follows in the footsteps of previous misleading studies by exaggerating the costs and ignoring the benefits of climate action.

The elephant in the neighborhood

And that brings up another of the study’s fatal flaws: it forgets about climate change. In the op-ed, the only mention of “mitigation” is about avoiding the supposed impacts of the regulation. And even in the study itself, nary a word.

If you ignore the benefits side of the cost-benefit equation, it's hard to come up with anything but bad news. But when you take a solid look at both sides of the equation, you see a pretty impressive net-positive.

Hard to believe, I realize. But somehow the author makes it through the entire study without mentioning global warming. This, a purported study of a regulation, but it doesn’t even acknowledge the incredible amount of science behind the need for just such a regulation. All it’s got is one mention of “warmer climates” and the importance of air-conditioning… which, it turns out, we’ll need more of as the climate warms.

And who is going to be disproportionately affected by that warming climate and other impacts? In many cases, the same vulnerable populations that the new study is supposedly defending.

On the other hand, that grievous omission isn’t entirely surprising, since the author of the study has claimed—despite the wealth of information very much to the contrary—that more carbon dioxide is actually a good thing. Not so much.

Poor science, bad policy

It all adds up to a study that Juan Declet-Barreto of the Natural Resources Defense Council calls:

“…a cynical attempt at co-opting the Latino and African American communities into rejecting the most significant controls to power sector air pollutants and toxics affecting their health and communities.”

The Clean Power Plan is about the fundamental need to address climate change, including on behalf of those who are least equipped to deal with its impacts. A study of the CPP that forgets that isn’t worth the electrons it’s printed on.

Poor science may make for good headlines, but it definitely makes for bad policy.

JOHN ROGERS is a senior energy analyst with expertise in renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies and policies. SEE JOHN'S FULL BIO.

lnx

The EPA’s own cost-benefit analysis, which showed investments in energy efficiency under the Clean Power Plan will ultimately generate savings on electricity bills nationally
Studies from academic sources, which show the CPP delivering **widespread health co-benefits** by reducing harmful air pollution from power plants
One by the NAACP that has documented the **costly and disproportionate impacts** of power plant pollution on “low-income communities and communities of color”
Another recent analysis by researchers at the University of Maryland suggesting the CPP will lead to a net increase in jobs.

===

ibd just one ref/llusion to religion, but bs on noaa impressive:

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-stunning-statistical-fraud-behind-the-global-warming-scare/

no lnx

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration may have a boring name, but it has a very important job: It measures U.S. temperatures. Unfortunately, it seems to be a captive of the global warming religion. Its data are fraudulent.

What do we mean by fraudulent? How about this: NOAA has made repeated "adjustments" to its data, for the presumed scientific reason of making the data sets more accurate.

Nothing wrong with that. Except, all their changes point to one thing — lowering previously measured temperatures to show cooler weather in the past, and raising more recent temperatures to show warming in the recent present.

This creates a data illusion of ever-rising temperatures to match the increase in CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere since the mid-1800s, which global warming advocates say is a cause-and-effect relationship. The more CO2, the more warming.

But the actual measured temperature record shows something different: There have been hot years and hot decades since the turn of the last century, and colder years and colder decades. But the overall measured temperature shows no clear trend over the last century, at least not one that suggests runaway warming.

That is, until the NOAA's statisticians "adjust" the data. Using complex statistical models, they change the data to reflect not reality, but their underlying theories of global warming. That's clear from a simple fact of statistics: Data generate random errors, which cancel out over time. So by averaging data, the errors mostly disappear.

That's not what NOAA does.

According to the NOAA, the errors aren't random. They're systematic. As we noted, all of their temperature adjustments lean cooler in the distant past, and warmer in the more recent past. But they're very fuzzy about why this should be.

Far from legitimately "adjusting" anything, it appears they are cooking the data to show a politically correct trend toward global warming. Not by coincidence, that has been part and parcel of the government's underlying policies for the better part of two decades.

What NOAA does aren't niggling little changes, either.

As Tony Heller at the Real Climate Science web site notes, "Pre-2000 temperatures are progressively cooled, and post-2000 temperatures are warmed. This year has been a particularly spectacular episode of data tampering by NOAA, as they introduce nearly 2.5 degrees of fake warming since 1895."

So the global warming scare is basically a hoax.

This winter, for instance, as measured by temperature in city after city and by snow-storm severity, has been one of the coldest on record in the Northeast.

But after the NOAA's wizards finished with the data, it was merely about average.

Climate analyst Paul Homewood notes for instance that in New York state, measured temperatures this year were 2.7 degrees or more colder than in 1943. Not to NOAA. Its data show temperatures this year as 0.9 degrees cooler than the actual data in 1943.

Erasing Winter

By the way, a similar result occurred after the brutally cold 2013-2014 winter in New York. It was simply adjusted away. Do this year after year, and with the goal of radically altering the temperature record to fit the global warming narrative, and you have what amounts to climate fraud.

"Clearly NOAA's highly homogenized and adjusted version of the Central Lakes temperature record bears no resemblance at all the the actual station data," writes Homewood. "And if this one division is so badly in error, what confidence can there be that the rest of the U.S. is any better?"

That's the big question. And for those who think that government officials don't have political, cultural or other agendas, that's naivete of the highest sort. They do.

Since the official government mantra for all of the bureaucracies at least since the Clinton era is that CO2 production is an evil that inevitably leads to runaway global warming, those who toil in the bureaucracies' statistical sweat shops know that their careers and future funding depend on having the politically correct answers — not the scientifically correct ones.

"The key point here is that while NOAA frequently makes these adjustments to the raw data, it has never offered a convincing explanation as to why they are necessary," wrote James Delingpole recently in Breitbart's Big Government. "Nor yet, how exactly their adjusted data provides a more accurate version of the truth than the original data."

There are at least some signs of progress, however. In the case of the Environmental Protection Agency, future reports and studies will include the data and the underlying scientific assumptions for public scrutiny.

That's one way to bring greater honesty to government — and to keep climate charlatans from bankrupting our nation with spurious demands for carbon taxes and deindustrialization of our economy to prevent global warming. The only real result won't be a cooler planet, but rather mass poverty and lower standards of living for all.

An Industry Built on Debt

Roughly a decade after McClendon's rise, the Wall Street Journal reported that “energy companies [since 2007] have spent $280 billion more than they generated from operations on shale investments, according to advisory firm Evercore ISI.”

As a whole, the American fracking experiment has been a financial disasterfor many of its investors, who have been plagued by the industry's heavy borrowing, low returns, and bankruptcies, and the path to becoming profitable is lined with significant potential hurdles. Up to this point, the industry has been drilling the “sweet spots”in the country's major shale formations, reaching the easiest and most valuable oil first.

But at the same time energy companies are borrowing more money to drill more wells, the sweet spots are drying up, creating a Catch-22 as more drilling drives more debt.

“You have to keep drilling,” David Hughes, a geoscientist and fellow specializing in shale gas and oil production at the Post Carbon Institute, told DeSmog. But he also noted that with most of the sweet spots already drilled, producers are forced to move to less productive areas.

The result? “Productivity goes down and the costs remain the same,” he explained.

While Hughes understands the industry's rationale for continuing to drill new wells at a loss, he doubts the sustainability of the practice.

“I don't think in the long-term they can drill their way out of this,” Hughes told DeSmog.

While politicians and the mainstream media tout an American energy “revolution,” it is becoming clear that — like the housing bubble just a few years earlier — the American oil and gas boom spurred by fracking innovations may be one of the largest money-losing endeavors in the nation's history. And it caught up with McClendon.

In 2016, the shale king was indicted for rigging bids at drilling lease auctions. He died the very next day in a single car crash, leading to speculation McClendon committed suicide, a rumor impossible to confirm. However, the police chief on the scene noted: “There was plenty of opportunity for him to correct and get back on the roadway and that didn't occur.”

The same could be said of the current shale industry. There is plenty of opportunity for these energy companies to correct their path — for example, by linking CEO pay to company profits rather than oil production volumes — but instead they are plowing full-speed aheadwith a business model that seems poised for a crash.

But Hope Springs Eternal

Of course, business media and conservative think tanks are still selling the story that the fracking industry has produced an economic and technical revolution.

In 2017 Investors Business Daily ran an opinion piece with the title, “The Shale Revolution Is A Made-In-America Success Story.” It was authored by Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute— a free market-focused think tank funded in part by the oil and gas industry.

How does the author measure success? Not via profits. The metric Perry uses to argue the success of the fracking industry is production volume. And it is true that the volumes of oil produced by fracking shale are increasing and currently at record levels. But here is the catch — when you lose money on each barrel of oil you pump and sell — the more you pump, the more money you lose. While it is true that the industry has been successful at getting oil out of the ground, its companies have mostly lost money doing it.

However, much like with the U.S. housing boom, this false narrative persists that the fracking industry is a money-making, rather than money-losing, venture.

A Wall Street Journal headline published in early 2018 projected this eternal optimism about the fracking industry: “Frackers Could Make More Money Than Ever in 2018, If They Don’t Blow It.”

This headline manages to be, at the same time, both very misleading and true. Misleading because the industry has never made money. True because if oil and gas companies make any money fracking in 2018, it would be more “than ever.”

However, the nuance comes in the sub-headline: “U.S. shale companies are poised to make real money this year for the first time since the start of the fracking boom.”

Poised to make “real money” for “the first time.” Or to put it another way, the industry hopes to stop losing large amounts of real money for the first time this year.

In March 2017, The Economistwrote about the finances of the fracking industry, pointing out just how much money these businesses are burning through:

With the exception of airlines, Chinese state enterprises, and Silicon Valley unicorns — private firms valued at more than $1 billion — shale firms are on an unparalleled money-losing streak. About $11 billion was torched in the latest quarter, as capital expenditures exceeded cashflows. The cash-burn rate may well rise again this year.

Some historic money-losing has been going on, and is expected to continue, as reported by the Wall Street Journal: “Wood Mackenzie estimates that if oil prices hover around $50, shale companies won’t generate positive cash flow as a group until 2020.” However, Craig McMahon, senior vice president at Wood MacKenzie, notes, “Even then, only the most efficient operators will do well.”

U.S. oil produced via fracking is priced as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), which averaged $41 a barrel in 2016 and $51 in 2017. The consensus is that WTI should average over $50 a barrelin 2018, thus providing the industry another reason to keep pushing forward. However, even in 2017 with the average over $50 a barrel, the industry as a whole was not profitable.

Irrational Exuberance

In the introduction to The Big Short, Michael Lewis’ book-turned-movie about how the 2008 financial crash unfolded, he describes the finances of the housing bubble:

“All these subprime lending companies were growing so rapidly, and using such goofy accounting, that they could mask the fact that they had no real earnings, just illusory, accounting-driven, ones. They had the essential feature of a Ponzi scheme: To maintain the fiction that they were profitable enterprises, they needed more and more capital to create more and more subprime loans.”

If you substitute “shale oil and gas development companies” for “subprime lending companies,” it becomes an apt description of the current shale industry. These companies are losing more money than they make and can only sustain this scenario if lenders continue to bankroll their efforts, allowing the fracking industry to drill more wells as it points to production increases, rather than profits, as progress. Which — for now — Wall Street continues to do in a big way.

This article is the first in a series investigating the economics of fracking and where the vast sums of money being pumped into this industry are actually going. The series will look at how fracking companies are shifting these epic losses to the American taxpayers. It will review the huge challenges facing the industry even if oil and gas prices rise: the physical production limits of fracked wells, rising interest rates, rising water costs, competition from renewables, OPEC’s plans, and what happens if Wall Street stops loaning it money.

The oil industry has always been a boom or bust industry. And during each boom someone inevitably declares that “this time is different,” assuring everyone there won’t be a bust. The sentiment about the early 2000s housing bubble was much the same, with critics being drowned out by the players claiming that, this time it was different, arguing “Housing doesn’t go down in value.”

And what about for shale production? Is this time really different? Some in the industry apparently think so.

“Is this time going to be different? I think yes, a little bit,” energy asset manager Will Riley told the Wall Street Journal.“Companies will look to increase growth a little, but at a more moderate pace.” There is little evidence of restraint or moderation in the industry. Until analysts and investors start talking about profits instead of growth, however, this time is likely to end, at some point, in a completely familiar and predictable way: bust. A fate even Aubrey McClendon, the highest-paid CEO, the shale king, eventually met.

David Hughes summed up his take on the industry's financial outlook: “Ultimately, you hit the wall. It's just a question of time.”

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/disaster-capitalism-hurricane-harvey

Harvey and its aftermath offer an opportunity for gangster capitalists to further undermine the commons and the public square. Harvey has created a stage on which the profiteers and price-gougers will take advantage of a desperate public.

Harvey and its aftermath also offer an example of what can happen when Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s desire to destroy the infrastructure and legitimacy of government are applied to a national disaster. What follows will be a spectacle of greed and incompetence.

Harvey and its aftermath will also demonstrate how neoliberal policy elites help create a crisis which they in turn propose to solve through “innovative,” “free-market” solutions — most of which do not work.

Investor’s Business Daily, a site that expends most of its energy tracking the financial markets, published an unsigned editorial this week under the headline “Harvey’s Wrath Reveals the Blessing of Liberty.” (I suppose they got some pushback on that one, since it has since been changed to “If You’re Focused on the Government’s Response to Harvey, You’re Looking in the Wrong Direction.”) As you would expect, it’s pro-business propaganda, depicting large corporations as kindly souls and public-spirited friends of the people rather than self-interested, rapacious and often destructive entities.

Of course Investors Business Daily — like the corporate news media in general, is not likely to explain how unregulated free markets and unrestrained capitalism greatly worsened the impact of Hurricane Harvey.

Houston is America’s fourth largest city. Its zoning laws are largely nonexistent. Many of the city’s neighborhoods were constructed at or below the flood plain. Basic common-sense rules and guidelines about designing building codes and infrastructure that could survive severe flooding have been overruled in favor of unregulated growth of. This has been a dream come true for the rich and real estate entrepreneurs. But it is now a nightmare made real for Houston as oil and chemical facilities sit close to residential communities and the people are potentially being poisoned by toxic flood waters and air.

Global warming has exacerbated the likelihood of extreme weather events such as Harvey. Corporations such as ExxonMobil — formerly the employer of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — have long known about the dangers posed by climate change. Instead they chose to conduct a propaganda campaign that systematically sought to mislead the public about such risks. Many of these same oil and petrochemical corporations earn billions of dollars a year from the Houston area and the adjacent Gulf of Mexico....

ref

http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/harveys-wrath-reveals-the-blessings-of-liberty/

If You're Focused On The Government's Response To Harvey, You're Looking In The Wrong Direction

8/29/2017

Charity: Disasters like the one unfolding in Houston show the worst in Mother Nature, but also show the best of a free society. Even before any government agency could act, volunteers, private businesses and charities from around the country were organizing relief efforts.

There has been plenty of attention given to how well the government — particularly the federal government — is responding to the unfolding disaster in Houston. President Trump's tweet praising FEMA's response, for example, was instant news. But while there's no doubt that marshaling government resources in a time of crisis is vital, all this attention on government activities overlooks the far more important and inspiring voluntary efforts across the country.

Over the weekend, dozens of people from Louisiana showed up in Houston as part of what's become known as the Cajun Navy. This is an all-volunteer group formed during Hurricane Katrina that has grown in size since.

Autoplay: On | OffThe Cajun Navy was part of what's been described as an "armada of private boats" that came to Houston to help rescue thousands of people stranded in their homes by Harvey's relentless deluge.

Nobody ordered it, or organized it, or coordinated it, or directed it. Nobody's getting paid. But their efforts are a big reason why the death rate from Harvey has been so low.

It's just one of many stories emerging from Houston that show how, in times of crisis, Americans come together, on their own, to help each other, save lives, and solve problems. A few examples:

Gallery Furniture, a Houston-based chain store, opened two of its nearby locations to residents seeking shelter.

HEB Grocery, which has more than 150 stores in Texas, sent its mobile kitchens to Houston to provide meals, pharmacy services and ATMs.

Wal-Mart (WMT) is delivering nearly 800 truckloads of supplies to the region. It says it plans to send another 1,700 next week.

KL Outdoor in Michigan paying the shipping costs to send 2,000 kayaks to the region. Bass Pro is providing 80 boats.

Duracell is sending out free batteries to anyone impacted by the storm.

Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) has sent more than 155,000 cans of drinking water.

Airbnb activated its disaster response program, called "Urgent Accommodations," which lets evacuees find lodging, with all service fees waived. Those with rooms to spare can use Airbnb to offer their space for free.

Mobile carriers are issuing waivers and credits to customers in the area.

The owner of the Kansas-based Vapebarsent a truck load of diapers, nonperishable food, telling a local news channel that " a lot of bad things are happening down there right now and we need to help them out."

Volunteer Houston launched the Virtual Volunteer Reception Center on Monday, which lets those who want to help get matched with relief organizations and agencies.

A multitude of businesses are donating large sums of money for relief efforts, including Aetna (AET), Amazon (AMZN), Boeing (BA), Caterpillar (CAT), Wells Fargo (WFC), Home Depot (HD), Coca-Cola (KO), Lowe's (LOW).

There are less obvious ways private companies help. Waffle House, for example, has become an indicator of how bad a weather disaster is, because the restaurant chain is so determined to keep operating in the worst conditions.

Rory Carroll, writing for the UK-based Guardian newspaper about the outpouring of voluntary help in response to Harvey, put it this way: "Here was the America of the ideal: one nation, indivisible. A republic of citizens looking out for each other. No politics or polarization. No fake news or social media bubbles. A crisis all could see, and a response all wanted to be part of."

Amen to that. The nation's moral character isn't measured by the number of federal programs, or how big their budgets are, or how many bureaucrats are involved. It is measured in the willingness of its citizens to rally, organize and respond to a crisis all on their own, freely donating their time and resources, experience and know-how to help strangers in need. Too, often, these private efforts get lost in the relentless focus on what government is or isn't doing.

For all the terrible news to come out of Houston, the response from individuals, communities and businesses around the country is a beautiful thing to behold.

Of course, not everyone has been inclined to see the good emerging from the Harvey tragedy.

Chauncey Devega of the left-wing Salon, for example, could not contain his Trump bashing even for a moment, writing in a truly awful column about how "many Americans face a massive natural disaster — but the disaster of this failed presidency is even worse."

Salon should send Devega to Houston so he can see what America is really about.

Hurricane Harvey's Nationalized Insurance Nightmare

2. Investor’s Business Daily: “EPA Regulations Are ‘Jim Crow’ Laws Of 21st Century”

Investor’s Business Daily published an Aug. 12 op-ed, EPA Regulations Are ‘Jim Crow’ Laws Of 21st Century, in which a senior fellow at the oil industry-backed Heartland Institute cited a discredited study to falsely attack the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan as harmful to minorities. The headline of the piece was based on a remark by conservative author Deneen Borelli, who called the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency climate plan “the green movement’s new Jim Crow.”

peter ferrara

http://news.investors.com/editorials/polls.htm

Working Class Gives Up On Obama, Fears Job Losses

:{BY :(style="display:block"):}:JOHN MERLINE

03/10/2015 04:45 PM ET

Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/editorials/polls.htm#ixzz3ef9G8V6x

grsit; swiftboating : I don’t know how NASA’s James Hansen keeps up his pace of writing — or how he puts up with the steady stream of disinformation launched against him. I am not trying to create a cult of personality around him, but I do feel under some obligation to give his writing as much attention as possible — as I think he has done more than any other scientist to raise awareness on climate change, and deserves our thanks, not slander.

“The latest swift-boating,” Hansen explains in a new post (PDF), “is the whacko claim that I received $720,000.00 from George Soros.” Here is a smear from*Investors Business Daily*, of all places — I have no idea why investors would be interested in such drivel — which migrated over to the conservative websight NewsBusters in an article titled, “Is Global Warming Alarmist James Hansen a Shill for George Soros?“

Hansen explains, “Here is the real deal, with the order of things, as well as I can remember without wasting even more time digging into papers and records”:

rational wiki

Investor's Business Daily (IBD) is an American "newspaper" (with associated website) that (obviously) covers mostly financial, business, and investment news. Put simply, it's more or less the poor man's Wall Street Journal, which goes for its editorial pages as well. Its op-eds are, similarly, notably batty but a thousand times worse, being chock-full of Ben Steinery along with numerous denialist hit pieces, astroturf, and mouthing off by bottom-of-the-barrel wingnuts (e.g., Brent Bozell).

Their editorial cartoons can get very nutty,^[1] and their anti-environmentalism can reach astounding heights.^[2] At times, they venture into full-on, balls-out conspiracy theory territory when it comes to global warming, including accusing NASA and NOAA of conspiring to manipulate data^[3] and fabricated the now popular denialist talking point that James Hansen is a shill for George Soros.^[4] (Oh, can't forget Climategate, of course, they were all over that.) This is even less surprising when you notice that they let lobbyists and PR reps for denialist think tanks like the Heartland Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute andexperts for hire like Michael Fumento pen their bullshit all over IBD's pages. There's the other usual anti-environmental nonsense as well, including DDT denial and second-hand smoke denial.

IBD's most infamous op-ed was one that, in trying to make an argument against Obamacare, claimed Stephen Hawking would have been euthanized by the NHS if he lived in Britain. Hawking then replied that he credits the NHS with saving his life. In true IBD fashion, they then issued a "correction" noting that the "implication" in the column that Hawking was not a citizen of the UK had been "fixed."^[5] They still post less than-accurate-information on Obamacare to this day.

On personal finance matters, IBD promotes investing using CAN SLIM, a pseudoscientific technical analysis of stocks developed by IBD founder William J. O'Neil. One of the claims frequently found in IBD is that a price graph in a "cup and handle" shape indicates an ideal time to buy a stock.

[edit]External links

[edit]Footnotes

↑ Obama Akbar!, Media Matters (Heh, fiscal cliff.)
↑ For example, did you know environmentalists are to blame for the Exxon-Valdez and Gulf spills?
↑ Right-wing media forward conspiracy theory that NASA, NOAA manipulate climate data, Media Matters
↑ Investors Business Daily has as much as 100 lies on every page, Deltoid
↑ Hawking serves crow to Investor's Business Daily, Ed Brayton

Categories:

desmog

Mainstream Media Fail to Cover Story on True Costs of Coal

Yesterday, *Media**Matters* reported in a story titled, “Media Ignore Study On Real Price Of Coal-Fired Power,” that since the release of a ground-breaking report by theAmerican Economic Review, titled “Environmental Accounting for Pollution in the United States Economy,” not a single mainstream media outlet has echoed the findings of the report – not a single one.

Wrote Media Matters,

A study published in the prestigious journal American Economic Review estimates that the costs imposed on society by air pollution from coal-fired power plants are greater than the value added to the economy by the industry. The study concluded that coal may be 'underregulated' since the price we pay for coal-fired power doesn't account for its costs.

According to a Nexis search, not a single major newspaper or television network has covered the study. By contrast, an industry-funded report on the cost of EPA regulations of these air pollutants has received considerable media attention.

By contrast, the mainstream media have flocked like vultures to an American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (:{ACCCE:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:) “study,” reporting it as gospel, even though ACCCE is merely a coal industry front group. That “study” concluded that two Clean Air rules would result in the loss of 1.4 million job-years by 2020 and increase electricity rates by over 23 percent in some areas.

Mon, 2008-02-11 10:27RICHARD LITTLEMORE:{

Scientist Busts Biz Sheet for Misrepresenting His Work

National Research Council of Canada scientist Dr. Kenneth Tappinghas offered whithering criticism of Investor's Business Daily for reporting that Tapping is among those who deny that greenhouse gases are the principal cause of current global warming.

IBD had reported the lobbyist Dr. Tim Patterson's favourite theory that greenhouse gases are irrelevant and that a drop in sunspots is actually going to set off a round of global cooling, and it suggested that Tapping agrees with this position. To which Tapping responds:

“If there is a cooling due to the solar activity cycle laying off for a bit, then the a period of solar cooling could be a much-needed respite giving us more time to attack the problem of greenhouse gases, with the caveat that if we do not, things will be far worse when things turn on again after a few decades.”

28 jan 93

oreskes craig l fuller to borelli

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/09/27/investors-business-daily-has-a/

Via RealClimate, James Hansen refutes the Investor’s Business Daily’s claim that he endorsed global cooling in 1971:

Mr. McCaslin reported that Rasool and Hansen were colleagues at NASA

and “Mr. Rasool came to his chilling conclusions by resorting in

part to a new computer program developed by Mr. Hansen that studied

clouds above Venus.”

What was that program? It was a ‘Mie scattering’ code I had written

to calculate light scattering by spherical particles. Indeed, it was

useful for Venus studies, as it helped determine the size and

refractive index of the particles in the clouds that veil the surface

of Venus. I was glad to let Rasool and Schneider use that program to

calculate scattering by aerosols. But Mie scattering functions,

although more complex, are like sine and cosine mathematical

functions, simply a useful tool for many problems. Allowing this

scattering function to be used by other people does not in any way

make me responsible for a climate theory.

But hey, the hacks at IBD can churn these things out faster than Hansen can knock them down.Look:

The Soros Threat To Democracy

How many people, for instance, know that James Hansen, a man billed as a lonely “NASA whistleblower” standing up to the mighty U.S. government, was really funded bySoros’ Open Society Institute, which gave him “legal and media advice”?

That’s right, Hansen was packaged for the media by Soros’ flagship “philanthropy,” by as much as $720,000, most likely under the OSI’s “politicization of science” program.

And if you invest just $10,000 in my get-rich-quick pyramid scheme you can make as much as $720,000 profit! Once you realise that “as much as $720,000″ includes the amount $0, you understand the scam.

So what did the IBD build this story out of? Well, the OSI annual report says:

Scientist Protests NASA’s Censorship Attempts James E. Hansen, the

director the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA, protested

attempts to silence him after officials at NASA ordered him to refer

press inquiries to the public affairs office and required the presence

of a public affairs representative at any interview.The Government

Accountability Project, a whistleblower protection organization and

OSI grantee, came to Hansen’s defense by providing legal and media

advice.The campaign on Hansen’s resulted in a decision by NASA

revisit its media policy. …

The Strategic Opportunities Fund includes grants related to Hurricane Katrina ($1,652,841); media policy ($1,060,000); and politicization of science ($720,000).

So the OSI didn’t give Hansen any money at all. They did give money to the Government Accountability Project, “the nation’s leading whistleblower protection organization”, who provided legal advice for Hansen, and a detailed report. And the $720,000 is the total of grants to defend against the politicization of science, not the amount of money given to GAP.

The IBD has declared George Soros a “threat to democracy” because he helps defend whistleblowers. You can’t make this stuff up.

Of course, the usual collection of anti-science warriors blogged about it, often embellishing the story with their own fabrications.

Michael Asher at DailyTech:

A report revealed just this week, shows the ‘Open Society Institute’ funded Hansen to the tune of $720,000, carefully orchestrating his entire media campaign. … For Hansen to secretly receive a large check from Soros, then begin making unsubstantiated claims about administrative influence on climate science is more than suspicious — it’s a clear conflict of interest.

Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs:

Dr. James Hansen, who approves and issues NASA climate change statements and is one of the most alarmist global warming advocates in the US, is apparently deep in the pocket of George Soros

Jake Gontesky at NewsBusters:

So he got some big paychecks from Soros – but was there a quid pro quo? The evidence certainly indicates as much

Scott Kirwin at Dean’s World:

Nearly a million dollars. That must be a lot of money to a humble civil servant like James Hansen. However since Hansen’s climate models are riddled with errors, self-fulfilling assumptions, and bootstrapping biases, I’m not sure I would call what Hansen has done “speaking truth to power.” It’s more like “telling a rich geezer what he wants to hear for a few bucks.”

Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom:

Writes Gary Schamburg (who emailed me the article) in a loose paraphrase of Lenin, “[Soros'] money is buying the noose that will hang our country.

Maybe so.

Though I remain stubbornly convinced that a paradigm shift in the way we come to think about how it is we interpret could provide the intellectual corrective to combat the consensus-driven meaning-making that has grown like kudzu in the wake of the linguistic turn.

As far as I can figure out, the last paragraph doesn’t mean anything at all, but I like the imagery of kudzu growing in the wake of the linguistic tern.

Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters (again!):

As is typical, a global warming obsessed media don’t find this newsworthy. Think they’d be so disinterested if this smoking gun involved an oil company giving money to a Republican official?

Russ Steele at NC Media Watch:

Mr Global Warming was on the take

And on and on and on.

The latest story doing the rounds of the global warming deniers (Drudge, Instapundit, Andrew Bolt, etc), is this one from the Investors Business Daily:

Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada’s National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.

Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.

Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.

Tapping reports no change in the sun’s magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.

Well, as you know, the Investor’s Business Daily has as much as 100 lies on every page so when I read that, I naturally wondered what Tapping really said. Fortunately, tgirsch was on the case, and contacted Tapping to see if the IBD report was accurate. Tapping replied:

Thanks for the message. The stuff on the web came from a casual chat with someone who managed to misunderstand what I said and then put the result on the web, which is probably a big caution for me regarding the future.

It is true that the beginning of the next solar cycle is late, but not so late that we are getting worried, merely curious.

It is the opinion of scientists, including me, that global warming is a major issue, and that it might be too late to do anything about it already. If there is a cooling due to the solar activity cycle laying off for a bit, then the a period of solar cooling could be a much-needed respite giving us more time to attack the problem of greenhouse gases, with the caveat that if we do not, things will be far worse when things turn on again after a few decades. However, once again it is early days and we cannot at the moment conclude there is another minimum started.

tgirsch comments:

Wait, what? A business magazine and a mostly right-wing web site took a scientists statements and work out of context in the service of a political agenda? Stop the presses!

Given the history of the anti-AGW movement and their ever-moving target, $10 says they ignore how wrong they were on this one, and instead seize on the “might be too late to do anything about it” part as their next windmill to tilt at. …

Mental note: Don’t trust anything you read in the Investors Business Daily.

Update: Jan Dawson, who is skeptical of AGW also had the good sense to contact Tapper. He replied:

The article is rubbish.

I believe that global climate change is the biggest problem facing us today. As yet we have no idea of exactly how serious it can get or where the tipping point may be.

The lateness of the start of the solar activity cycle is not yet enough to be something to worry about. However, even if we were to go into another minimum, and the Sun dims for a few decades, as it did during the Maunder Minimum, it could reduce the problem for a while, but things will come back worse when the cycle starts again.

Dawson concludes:

Since I’m largely sympathetic towards the thrust of the article, I find this all the more frustrating. Either there really are scientists out there who hold the views cited in the article, in which case they should have been the ones quoted, or there aren’t and therefore the article should not have been written. Either way, it’s extremely dishonest journalism. And it simply provides more ammunition for the global warming enthusiasts since it fits nicely with their narrative about scientific consensus.

milloy

Investor’s Business Daily

General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt hasn’t yet seen the light on climate science, but apparently he has at last felt the heat for lobbying for cap-and-trade.

Immelt last week announced that he was giving up his green energy lobbying crusade and getting back to the business of creating wealth at the struggling GE.

“If I had one thing to do over again, I would not have talked so much about green,” he told a Massachusetts Institute of Technology audience.

“Even though I believe in global warming and I believe in the science ...it just took on a connotation that was too elitist.

“It was too precious, and it let opponents think that if you had a green initiative, you didn’t care about jobs. I’m a businessman. That’s all I care about, is jobs ...I’m kind of over the stage of arguing for a comprehensive energy policy. I’m back to keeping my head down and working.”

The story begins precisely six years ago when Immelt announced GE’s ecomagination initiative, a marketing and lobbying campaign to push so-called “clean” technologies, such as wind turbines, solar and other politically correct technology. I had just co-launched the Free Enterprise Action Fund, an activist mutual fund initially intended to help CEOs defend their companies against the anti-business activists that masquerade as shareholders.

A few days later, right before our fund’s debut at the JPM Morgan Chase shareholder meeting, I was sitting in a Chicago hotel with my partner heatedly discussing the GE situation. His initial reaction was to support Immelt, figuring that Immelt was simply being a good capitalist who just wanted to sell more products. I argued that GE’s participation in climate scaremongering would ultimately be economically disastrous for everyone, including GE itself.

Then Immelt really crossed the line, announcing in 2006 that GE had joined the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of radical green groups and other businesses formed to lobby for comprehensive climate and energy legislation such as cap-and-trade.

We filed a novel shareholder resolution with GE asking the company to justify its lobbying for junk science-based and economy-killing carbon caps. GE tried and failed to get the Securities and Exchange Commission to block our proposal from its proxy statement, as it did for the next several years. Each time, though, we prevailed.

The resolution gave us status and a public platform for challenging Immelt and drawing attention to the wrong done to shareholders by his carbon-cap lobbying. Thomas Edison innovated for profits, we maintained, while Immelt went to lobby the government for them.

Our continued public questioning of Immelt reached a climax of sorts at a March 2008 environmental business conference. After tough questioning from free-market advocates—a confrontation so tense that then-Walmart CEO Lee Scott remarked it had kept him up that night—Immelt retaliated by canceling my scheduled next-morning appearance on GE-owned CNBC. I haven’t been on CNBC since.

Immelt remained undeterred and nearly achieved his goal with the June 2009 passage of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. But that was his high water mark—an “achievement” GE used to solicit political contributions from its employees a month later.

A GE executive wrote in the solicitation, “The intersection between GE’s interests and government action is clearer than ever ...We must also make sure that candidates who share GE’s values and goals get elected to office ...

“On climate change, we were able to work closely with key authors of the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill, recently passed by the House of Representatives. If this bill is enacted into law it would benefit many GE businesses.”

But by the time of the memo, the air was already rushing out of the cap-and-trade souffle. Today, cap-and-tax is universally acknowledged as dead.

The politically flexible Immelt famously remarked, “We’re all Democrats now,” after President Obama’s election. Now with a budget crisis and a Republican-controlled House, the political winds have again shifted dramatically in Washington—even threatening existing taxpayer subsidies and government programs for “clean energy.”

Immelt has sensed this and has tacked accordingly. But one wonders how long the back-to-business Immelt will stay as the chair of Obama’s Competitiveness Council. Certainly long-frustrated GE shareholders would rather have him give up his day job.