Green Weenie Award
December 5, 2012 — Steven Hayward
There are a handful of indispensible writers on energy and resource issues, and if you had to narrow the list down to just the top two or three people, I’d have to name Vaclav Smil as my Numero Uno. Among Smil’s terrific books are Energy Myths and Realities and Energy at the Crossroads, but see also his Why America Is Not a New Rome. Perhaps his most useful insight is
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November 30, 2012 — Steven Hayward
The Green Weenie Award is troublesome this week, because some kinds of environmental wackiness descend into a realm so sordid that it deserves something a lot worse than a Green Weenie. Like a jail sentence, for example. The news media has always covered eco-terrorism as weakly as possible. The usual asymmetry can be observed. While every time an abortion clinic is bombed or vandalized, or an abortion doctor murdered, the
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November 26, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Ever since Obama’s re-election the climate campaign and the energy-from-carrot-juice enthusiasts have had a new spring in their step. They really think that a carbon tax, global climate treaty, and a windmill in every garage is now assured because of The One. So it’s been hard to pick a truly deserving Power Line Green Weenie from among the horde of preening weenies certain salvation is at hand. Take, for instance,
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November 1, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Okay, granted, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is huge weenie. Full stop. (Christopher Hitchens aptly called him a “picknose control freak.”) And being a giant weenie comprises all lesser forms of weenieness (weeniedom?) And while John has already take Power Line notice of Bloomberg’s silliness, he still deserves to be singled out officially to receive Power Line’s coveted Green Weenie Award for his precious endorsement of Barack Obama on the
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October 30, 2012 — Steven Hayward
There’s a race on right now between the climateers and the liberal cheerleaders for big government and economic illiteracy to see who can make the bigger fool of themselves over Hurricane Sandy. Two weeks ago in my Ashland University class I drew the students attention to Frederic Bastiat’s famous “broken window fallacy” of economics, and as exhibit one pointed to New York Times columnist (and Nobel Prize winner!) Paul Krugman,
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October 25, 2012 — Steven Hayward
The forlorn climate campaign has become the New York Yankees of the Power Line Green Weenie Award—winning the big prize over and over again on account of a bloated payroll of big egos, yet winning little affection from the people at large. Way back at the beginning of this month—seems like a long time now to go back to before the first Romney-Obama debate doesn’t it—the UN’s top climate change
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October 14, 2012 — Steven Hayward
What the heck—if the European Union can win the Nobel Peace Prize (can we have a sequel to “We Are the World” at the presentation ceremony—please, oh, please?), then can the coveted Power Line Green Weenie Award be given to a group instead of an individual or single organization? Yes we can!—as a certain contemporary figure likes to say (or used to like to say, until it became apparent that
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October 7, 2012 — Steven Hayward
This week is only a few hours old, but we have winner already for our coveted Green Weenie Award. And it’s a repeat winner—the electric car! This really is necessary because of the commenter who suggested that we idiot Californians deal with our high gasoline prices by getting electric cars; yeah, great idea with our long commutes and near highest in the nation electricity rates. Anyway, electric cars win their
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October 3, 2012 — Steven Hayward
People who have been around rural western and upstate New York recently tell me the region is chock-a-block with anti-fracking lawn signs and billboards–evidence that the greens are determined to block natural gas production in the Empire State. We noted here last week (and also here) how desperate the Thermocrats who hate energy are to stop this boon for the American economy. It will be interesting to see whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo holds
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September 30, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Earlier today, Steve gave this week’s Green Weenie award to Matt Damon for the anti-fracking movie Promised Land, which, it turns out, was financed by the United Arab Emirates. Who, trust me, acted out of a noble concern for the environment and had no thought of suppressing American fossil fuel development which would compete with the Emirates’ product and likely cost the Emirates billions of dollars. But the movie is
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September 30, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Or should I say, Team America-style, Matt Daayyymonnnn. Yes, I think we should. So his Damonness is coming out in December with a feature film entitled Promised Land that is intended to do to hydraulic fracturing for natural gas what The China Syndrome did for nuclear power way back when. You can watch the trailer here if you want, and grasp the full propaganda intent of the film. Even though
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September 25, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Very stiff competition for this week’s coveted Power Line Green Weenie Award. Al Gore is even warming up for another shot at another Green Chakra Weenie for his solar-powered mantle. But one contender has risen above the rest of the green slime to claim the prize: the electric car. Who says? The Congressional Budget Office, that’s who. In a recent report on The Effect of Federal Tax Credits on the
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September 16, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Unexpected travel last weekend postponed the weekly Power Line Green Weenie Award, but that allowed me time to catch up with an important new book bearing on someone who deserves a shelf of posthumous Green Weenies: Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring. Published 50 years ago, Silent Spring remains an iconic book for the modern environmental movement, and Rachel Carson one of the movement’s heroes. (The EPA still hosts
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September 4, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Right-thinking lefties everywhere have had their knickers in a twist over the House Republican proposal to curtail National Science Foundation funding for social science (especially political science), while maintaining funding for the “hard” sciences like physics, chemistry, etc. Well, perhaps papers like the one from Matthew Ranson, posted the other day on the Social Science Research Network, suggests why someone might look askance at social science, whether funded by the
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September 2, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Perhaps you recall the Nobel Peace Prize being given as a group award a few years back to Al Gore and the 1,200 scientists who contributed to the IPCC climate change report (though, strangely, I know several people who were part of the IPCC process and whose names are in the report, but who never saw any of the Nobel cash—seems Al Gore and the IPCC top bureaucrats kept it
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August 25, 2012 — Steven Hayward
It’s pretty obvious that this week’s Green Weenie has to go to Michael Mann for his threatened libel suit against National Review, but since I already manhandled (heh) Mann here a couple days ago, there’s no need to high-stick him again (double-heh). I’m sure Mann will win a shelf full of Green Weenies if this suit proceeds, and in any case he’s a lock for the eventual Power Line Green
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August 20, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Hard to know how to pick from among the deserving contestants for the coveted Power Line Green Weenie Award this week. The deep greenies at Grist.com deserve an honorable mention for their speculation about whether the Syrian uprising can be linked to—wait for it—climate change! (Sigh.) A deserving nod also goes to the German greens who are opposing a huge offshore wind power installation—proposed to be eight times the size
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