GREENIE WATCH MIRROR The CRU graph. Note that it is calibrated in tenths of a degree Celsius and that even that tiny amount of warming started long before the late 20th century. The horizontal line is totally arbitrary, just a visual trick. The whole graph would be a horizontal line if it were calibrated in whole degrees -- thus showing ZERO warming

There is an "ascetic instinct" (or perhaps a "survivalist instinct") in many people that causes them to delight in going without material comforts. Monasteries and nunneries were once full of such people -- with the Byzantine stylites perhaps the most striking example. Many Greenies (other than Al Gore and his Hollywood pals) have that instinct too but in the absence of strong orthodox religious committments they have to convince themselves that the world NEEDS them to live in an ascetic way. So their personal emotional needs lead them to press on us all a delusional belief that the planet needs "saving".


This document is part of an archive of postings on Greenie Watch, a blog hosted by Blogspot who are in turn owned by Google. The index to the archive is available here or here. Indexes to my other blogs can be located here or here. Archives do accompany my original postings but, given the animus towards conservative writing on Google and other internet institutions, their permanence is uncertain. These alternative archives help ensure a more permant record of what I have written. My Home Page. My Recipes. My alternative Wikipedia. My Blogroll. Email me (John Ray) here. NOTE: The short comments that I have in the side column of the primary site for this blog are now given at the foot of this document.

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30 April, 2019  

Galileo and the Medicis brought Revolution and Truth

Those who cherish freedom must recognize the work of today’s solar science revolutionaries

Jeffrey Foss, PhD

Practically everyone knows that Galileo is a heroic figure in the rise of modern science. Most people do not know, however, that the scientific revolution that Galileo launched relied on the support and protection of the Medicis. The very name of this family signifies the marriage of power and wealth that strikes fear and loathing into the hearts of those among us who – how shall I put it? – lean to the left.

But without the support of Princess Christina, wife of Ferdinand I de Medici, the truth that the Earth goes round the sun would have remained a mere theoretical novelty.

Why did Galileo turn to the Medicis? Because only they had the gold required to support his research and protect him from The Church of Rome. Why did the Medicis support Galileo? They, like many rich people before and after, supported the arts and sciences.

They also resented the stifling power of The Church, and were charmed by the gallant Galileo who dared to stand up to it. So they defended Galileo against the Inquisition, which aimed to silence him and burn his books – along with his body, perhaps, just for good measure.

Fed, funded and protected by the Medicis, Galileo launched the first great scientific revolution. With the telescope he built with his own hands, and the money of his patrons, he saw with his own eyes – for the first time of any human being – the evidence that would establish Copernicus’s revolutionary idea that the sun is at the center of our solar system, and we and our planet go around it.

The very meaning of the word ‘revolution,’ in such phrases as ‘The American Revolution,’ derives from its occurrence in the title of Copernicus’s book: On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres. Galileo was the Washington that turned Copernicus’s declaration of independence into the first revolution against establishment science and a globe altering success – given Medici cash.

Many things are said to be unsustainable these days, such as driving our cars, transporting our food from afar in ships and planes, and flying in jets merely to enjoy Thanksgiving Day with our families.

One thing that really is unsustainable, though too few realize it, is the reigning scientific orthodoxy of the 2000s. Government-funded science today serves as an Orwellian Ministry of Truth, just as Church-supported science did in Galileo’s day. Nothing could be more opposed to true science. Nothing like this would have been tolerated by America’s Founding Fathers.

The government-science orthodoxy that largely controls most people’s thoughts and actions nowadays is the idea that Earth’s climate is controlled internally by CO2 levels, and is being warmed apocalyptically by the CO2 that humans emit.

The revolutionary modern-day Copernican idea is that our climate is controlled by the sun, just like our orbit through space. Perhaps new Medicis will one day help solar scientists establish the hypothesis that Earth’s climate warms and cools following the quasi-periodic rising and falling of our Sun’s brightness. 

Everyone now believes that the Earth circles the Sun, but most do not know that the original Copernican idea established by Galileo’s first scientific revolution was in turn defeated by Newton`s scientific revolution, which showed that the Earth follows an elliptical path round the sun, not a circular one.

Newton`s elliptical path model then fell in Einstein`s revolution, which more accurately models the Earth as falling into the gravitational well caused by solar gravity.

The historical lesson is this: science progresses through revolution and renewal.

The frailty of the CO2 theory is shown in Graph (A): While CO2 has been climbing smoothly from 1890 to the present day, Northern Hemisphere temperatures have repeatedly gone up and down without any linkage to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.



Soon, R. Connolly and M. Connolly, 2015. Re-evaluating the role of solar variability on Northern Hemisphere temperature trends since the 19th century. Earth-Science Reviews. Vol. 150, pp. 409-452 [Based on Figure 31(a) and (c)].

The power of the solar theory is obvious in Graph (B): Global temperatures are clearly linked to changes in the brightness of the sun (total solar irradiance, TSI).

Though the solar theory has been marginalized by government-funded climate scientists, it should be supported for the good of science itself, which we know is an inherently revolutionary activity. New Medicis need to fund and protect the new Galileos of our age.

We the People need to start questioning government-science with the same principled scrutiny and skepticism we employ for all other government business. We need to once again recognize the virtues of privately funded science, notably its essential freedom from government control.

Those who cherish freedom must become cognizant of the work of the solar science revolutionaries, support it, and help disseminate it among the people. A good place to start would be the work of Dr. Willie Soon, whose sun-centered theory of climate change has made him a modern Galileo: a scientist shunned, denied funding – and demonized by government-supported earth-centered climatologists.            

Belief grounded in actual, replicable evidence must remain free if science is to survive – along with American life, liberty, prosperity and happiness. America flirts with severe decline when it consorts with the enforcement of scientific orthodoxy under the banner of “climate change.”

But flirtation need not lead to marriage. It’s not too late to call the whole thing off.

Via email






Green New Deal Would Reward Rich, Hurt Poor

The Green New Deal’s goal is to move America to zero carbon emissions in 10 years.

“That’s a goal you could only imagine possible if you have no idea how energy is produced,” James Meigs, former editor of Popular Mechanics magazine, says in my latest video.

“Renewable is so inconsistent,” he adds. “You can’t just put in wind turbines and solar panels. You have to build all this infrastructure to connect them with energy consumers.”

Because wind doesn’t always blow, and the sun doesn’t always shine, “renewable” energy requires many more transmission lines—and bigger batteries.

Unfortunately, says Meigs: “You have to mine materials for batteries. Those mines are environmentally hazardous. Disposing of batteries is hazardous.”

“Batteries are a lousy way to store energy,” adds physicist Mark Mills, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Also, the ingredients of green energy, like battery packs, are far from green.

“You have to consume 100 barrels of oil in China to make that battery pack,” he explains. “Dig up 1,000 pounds of stuff to process it. Digging is done with oil, by big machines, so we’re consuming energy to ‘save’ energy—not a good path to go.”

Still, wind turbines and solar batteries are 10 times more efficient than when they were first introduced. That’s not good enough, writes Mills, to make “the new energy economy” anything more than “magical thinking.”

“They hit physics limits. In comic books, Tony Stark has a magic power source, but physics makes it impossible to make solar 10 times better again.”

The dream of “green” causes us to misdirect resources. Even after billions of dollars in government subsidies, solar still makes up less than 1% of America’s energy, wind just 2%. And even that energy isn’t really “clean.”

“We use billions of tons of hydrocarbons to make the windmills that are already in the world, and we’ve only just begun to make them at the level people claim they would like them to be built,” says Mills. “Pursue a path of wind, solar, and batteries, we increase how much we dig up and move by a thousandfold.”

“You gotta clear-cut the forest. These machines kill a lot of birds,” says Meigs. “I agree that we should bring down our carbon emissions … but we should also make sure we’re spending money on stuff that really works.”

There is one energy source, though, that efficiently produces lots of power with no carbon emissions; namely, nuclear.

But people fear it. They point to the Chernobyl plant accident in Ukraine and Fukushima in Japan. “The Chernobyl plant design was idiotically bad,” says Meigs. They don’t make nuclear plants like that anymore.

What about Fukushima? “Fukushima helps prove how safe nuclear power really is. No one was killed.”

I pointed out that people were killed during the evacuation. “Fear of radiation killed people,” responded Meigs. They evacuated older people who didn’t need to go.

People fear what they don’t understand and what they can’t see.

“A dam breaks, and hundreds of thousands of people die. Nuclear plants, their safety, ironically, is actually evident in their accidents,” says Mills.

“More people have fallen off of roofs installing solar panels than have been killed in the entire history of nuclear power in the U.S.,” adds Meigs.

Yet after Fukushima, Germany shut down its nuclear plants. That led to higher electricity prices and increased carbon emissions, because Germany burned coal to make up for the loss of nuclear power.

Likewise, “in Bernie Sanders’ home state of Vermont, they shut down their nuclear plant. Guess what happened? Carbon emissions went up,” recounts Meigs. “This supposedly green state, ultraliberal Vermont, went backwards.”

If a Green New Deal is ever implemented, says Mills, it would rob the poor by raising energy costs, while “giving money to wealthy people in the form of subsidies to buy $100,000 cars, to put expensive solar arrays on their roofs, or to be investors in wind farms.”

“It’s upside-down Robin Hood,” he adds. “That’s a bad deal.”

Yet a majority of Americans—including Republicans surveyed—say they support some version of it.

SOURCE






White House rethinks plans for offshore oil expansion

The Trump administration’s proposal to vastly expand offshore oil and gas drilling has been sidelined indefinitely as the US Interior Department grapples with a recent court decision that blocks Arctic drilling, according to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.

The ruling by a federal judge in Alaska last month may force Interior Department officials to wait until the case goes through potentially lengthy appeals beforethey can make a final decision on what offshore areas to open up for the oil and gas industry, Mr Bernhardt said.

“By the time the court rules, that may be discombobulating to our plan,” Mr. Bernhardt told The Wall Street Journal in his first interview since his confirmation as interior secretary April 11.

Mr Bernhardt didn’t speculate on the length of the delay, but highlighted the court case in Alaska and said the appeals process is “going to take a while.” “What I can definitely say is, I’m not at a point now where it’s an imminent thing,” he added.

In the ruling last month, a federal judge said that an Obama-era ban on drilling in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska must remain in place unless Congress passes legislation to end it.

Environmental groups cheered news of further delay Thursday and urged for the proposal to be eliminated completely. Oceana ,an environmental group focused on the world’s oceans and an opponent of expanded coastal drilling, noted the bipartisan opposition to offshore drilling from all 17 governors of coastal states in the continental US that could see new drilling under the plan.

“Anything short of all new areas being protected would be a major problem for the communities and coastal economies who havethe most to lose from dirty and dangerous offshore drilling,” said Diane Hoskins, the group’s climate and energy campaign director Commercial interest in offshore drilling has waned in recent years during the shale-drilling boom. New techniques for tapping deep oil deposits in the middle of the country have led to record US production, drawing investment away fromthe more-complex drilling offshore and in Alaska.

That hasn’t stopped industry trade groups in Washington from supporting the plan in hopes of increasing their options.

Dan Naatz, senior vice president of government relations and political affairs at the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said a court decision shouldn’t bring the government’s work to a halt. “We’re hopeful that the Interior Department will remain committed to the regulatory process,” he said.

The industry’s hopes had coalesced around a more limited expansion in Alaska, the eastern Gulf of Mexico near Florida and parts of the Atlantic.

Offshore Florida, in particular, had wide interest from oil companies big and small because of how familiar they are with Gulf of Mexico operations, and its proximity to pipelines and refineries. But parts of the Alaska and the Atlantic largely would be expensive frontiers, limited perhaps to about a dozen major companies such as BP, Chevron and Exxon Mobil, said Dan Pickering, chief investment officer of TPH Investment Management in Houston.

“The opportunity to evaluate those areas, everyone believes they’re important,” said Mr Pickering, whose firm manages about $1.5 billion in assets. “But the number of companies that would be actively involved in exploiting those areas has shrunka lot in the last decade.” President Trump had directed the Interior Department to consider expanding offshore oil drilling,part of his signature energy policy of expanding U.S. production. The agency responded a year ago with a proposal to openoffshore drilling around nearly the entire country.

The plan would have offered the largest number of oil and gas leases in U.S. history starting late this year, opening up 90 per centof offshore areas for drilling as part of a five-year proposal.

The Interior Department said at the time its proposal could shrink, but it still drew swift opposition from governors of coastalstates, including some Republicans, who worried about the risk of oil spills from drilling accidents in tourism-dependenteconomies.

Then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke started backtracking in less than a week, promising that Florida’s coast would be off limits to drilling.

Mr Bernhardt’s comments are the latest sign that the administration is scaling back its offshore plan, which many had expectedwould move to its final stages several months ago. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Mr Bernhardt repeated that theproposal could be winnowed down, and he said the planning process was still at “step one, not step seven.” Friction with coastalstates remains an issue, Mr Bernhardt said in the interview. Federal law requires his department to consider input from localelected leaders in the five-year plans it sets to manage the waters of the outer continental shelf, which typically startclose enough to the coast for rigs to be visible from shore and reach more than 200 miles out to sea. Mr Bernhardt said heis still in the process of finding common ground with coastal governors.

“Certainly that is a very important component and I made that assurance to a lot of senators,” he said.

Many supporters and critics have been skeptical the administration could do the work within two years. Every delay raisesthe chance the administration won’t finish its overhaul and be able to defend court challenges against it in time to ensureit takes effect if Mr Trump doesn’t win a second term.

Alaska is the one state where leaders have been clamoring for new drilling, making an expansion there seem most plausible.

Instead, US District Judge Sharon Gleason put 125 million acres of the US Arctic Ocean and 3.8 million acres of the Atlantic Ocean back off limits indefinitely under a ban Mr. Obama had set just weeks before leaving office. Mr Trump had tried to overturn the ban with an executive order, but Ms Gleason said nothing in the law gives a new president power to undo a ban set by a predecessor.

It was the latest setback for an administration that has repeatedly lost efforts to defend its deregulatory actions in court.It has lost roughly 95 per cent of its deregulatory cases, according to data compiled by the Institute for Policy Integrity at NewYork University School of Law. That is three times the rate of most executive-branch agencies in prior administrations forsimilar actions in the courts, according to an analysis from the Brookings Institution.

SOURCE 





House Democrats’ Climate Bill a Trojan Horse for Green New Deal

The so-called “Green New Deal” resolution failed to get any real traction on Capitol Hill, and it’s easy to see why. The original supporting document for the “Green New Deal,” which floated the idea of banning air travel and flatulent cows, was widely mocked. The policy ideas in the resolution itself would mean a massive centralization of government and takeover of resources that would make even the most ravenous Leninist blush. 

The so-called “Green New Deal” resolution may not be taken seriously on Capitol Hill or anywhere else in America, but House Democrats are still trying to push climate alarmism. In late March, a day after the Senate rejected the Green New Deal resolution, House Democrats unveiled the Climate Action Now Act, H.R. 9, which would prevent the United States from leaving the Paris Agreement.

In December 2015, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) reached a nonbinding agreement in Paris to reduce carbon emissions. Each country set a target reduction of carbon emissions below its 2005 level to keep the global temperature from rising above 2 degrees Celsius. The Obama administration sought to reduce the United States’ carbon emissions by between 26 percent and 28 percent below its 2005 level by 2025. President Barack Obama also committed $3 billion for the Green Climate Fund, which was established with the Paris Agreement. Only $1 billion has been paid out.

In June 2017, President Donald Trump announced his intent to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. Despite some in the White House urging him to keep the United States in the agreement, President Trump delivered on an important campaign promise.

“The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers...and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production,” President Trump said in the White House Rose Garden. “Thus, as of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country.”

The economic burdens of the Paris Agreement would have been substantial. According to a study by NERA Economic Consulting, the Paris Agreement could have reduced gross domestic product (GDP) by $250 billion in 2025 and nearly $3 trillion in 2040. The number of jobs could decline by 2.7 million in 2025 and by 31.6 million in 2040.

Separately, the Heritage Foundation estimated that household incomes will decline by more than $20,000 by 2035 and that household expenditures on electricity will rise between 13 percent and 20 percent. The impact on the climate, the Heritage Foundation’s analysis determined, would have been marginal.

The Climate Action Now Act may not be as blunt as the “Green New Deal,” but it’s still a radical notion because of the lost productivity and fewer jobs that would come as a result of meeting such an extreme reduction in carbon emissions for little to no real environmental benefit. The bill would require President Trump and his administration to develop a plan to meet the target reductions in carbon emissions and prohibit the use of funds from being used by the Trump administration to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

With many countries that signed onto the Paris Agreement failing to meet their target reductions in carbon emissions, what House Democrats are trying to accomplish with the Climate Action Now Act is clear. It is a way for them to claim they’re doing something about climate change while avoiding the accountability that comes with cooking up the crazy schemes necessary to meet unrealistic targets, such as those outlined in the Green New Deal.

SOURCE 





Yes, Miss Greta Thunberg, back when I was 16 I knew everything too...

Peter Hitchens

When I was 16, I knew everything, as so many teenagers do. Luckily for me, and for the planet, quite a few adults did not immediately fall into a swoon and ask me to take over the world.

The last thing I needed (and, luckily, the last thing I got) was indulgence and praise. The Pope obdurately refused to invite me for tea. The World Economic Forum somehow failed to take an interest in my schemes for world reform.

And after a few decades of similar brush-offs, it began to dawn on me that, perhaps, in a few small ways, I didn’t know everything.

Which, as you may have guessed, brings me to Miss Greta Thunberg, the Swedish schoolgirl before whom our political and media classes were prostrating themselves last week.

Gosh, this has been embarrassing to watch. I have a sneaking admiration for Miss Thunberg’s brass neck, even if I think her plans for self-imposed poverty, cold and darkness are unattractive. But for her worshippers I have nothing but scorn.

Michael Gove, a normally intelligent Cabinet Minister, was reduced to helpless gibbering self-abasement before Miss Thunberg.

Nick Robinson, the increasingly grandiose presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, conducted an interview with her which sounded as if he was kneeling down.

And yet amid the ‘Please tell us why are you so wonderful, exactly?’ questions, Mr Robinson slipped in a query which might have been quite productive if he had pursued it. He didn’t.

Hadn’t she perhaps come to the wrong country, he wondered. Well, quite. Britain already has one of the maddest energy policies on earth, taxing the poor to subsidise windmills and solar farms that don’t work most of the time, blowing up viable coal-fired power stations so they can never again be used even if we run short of volts and watts, relying on French nuclear power, gas and even diesel to fill the gap, and hoping somehow to avoid electricity cuts.

And while we do this, the Chinese despotism is frantically building far more coal-fired power stations than we ever had, and pouring carbon into the atmosphere at such a rate that it cancels out our small but expensive and painful sacrifice many times over. It makes no sense, whatever you believe.

And what was the response of Miss Thunberg to this rather telling point? It was worthy of the slipperiest spin doctor ever to graduate from the school of Alastair Campbell. ‘If I got an invitation to speak with Chinese leaders of course I would go there, if I had a lot of time to go there by train, but actually no country is doing nearly enough.’

Twaddle. With her current status, she could demand such a meeting and get it. Why worry about the distance? She can catch up on her studies in the peace of a railway carriage. From here to Peking by train isn’t that far, and the idea that long-distance train travel is an ordeal is rubbish. It’s far pleasanter than air travel.

Then she changed the subject to a frankly irrelevant dispute about how much Britain had cut emissions, and added, lamely: ‘If we want to change countries like China the thing to do is to stop buying unnecessary things manufactured there.’

More piffle. She is quite bright enough to know that China’s tyrants would listen politely to her, have their pictures taken with her, and then ignore her completely, as they have ignored everyone else on this subject.

Well, unlike all these crawlers, I think we owe Miss Thunberg some respect. She has embraced and taken full advantage of her fame, and why not? I don’t doubt the sincerity of her view. I just don’t think sincerity is a virtue, or that it excuses her from challenge. We should treat her as what she says she is, a major figure on the world stage.

But she has little that is of any use to say, whether you believe that human action is causing climate change or can moderate it, or not.

Abject worship of such people is always wrong. Intelligent disagreement would be far better.

SOURCE 

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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29 April, 2019

Our fight against climate change will be hopeless unless we choose to have smaller families

The writer below, BELLA LACK, is well-named.  She is lacking in almost everything that  would enable an intelligent comment on her topic.  She seems totally unaware of the history of population limitation calls -- from Malthus on. See here for starters.

She makes the characteristic Leftist mistake of treating all men as equal.  That Africans and Europeans have very different reproduction rates seems unknown to her.  So lumping all birthrates together into one number is highly misleading.  A scientist would say that she fails to take account of a bimodal distribution.

What the future holds out because of the difference is a SHRINKING population in Europe and an increasing population in Africa and elsewhere in the Third World.

So if we were to follow her logic, she should be an urgent promoter of contraception in Africa while praising Europe for their "responsible" behaviour.  There is no sign that she sees that logic.  If she had another brain she would be lonely


Come 2030 I will be 27-years-old.  If population growth continues at its current rate I will be one of 8.5 billion people on Earth. That’s almost one billion more than today, and more than double the number of people alive in 1970. By 2050 some 10 billion people could call earth home.

The spellbinding beauty of mother nature is impossible to resist. Last year I travelled to Southeast Asia hoping to catch a glimpse of an orangutan at home in Borneo’s lush rainforests. Standing in warm twilight outside the Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre in Sabah, I gazed through my binoculars at orangutans hanging out in the tangled rainforest canopy. I paused for a second to reflect on the unfathomable privilege of being able to witness these creatures in the wilderness. In that moment there was nowhere on Earth I would rather have been. I was home.

Our natural world gives human beings so much and expects very little in return. But right now we are not honouring our side of the bargain. The devastating effects of global warming are already being felt by the natural world. The concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now stands at 410 parts per million. This is the highest it has been for some three million years. In Antarctica Adélie penguins are starving to death because the krill they eat are dying as sea ice retreats. In Central America the golden toad has been driven to the point of extinction due to droughts.

We gaze in wonder at our precious wildernesses but then think nothing of tearing them down. More than 80 percent of the original forest that covered the Earth 8,000 years ago has been cleared, damaged or altered. The rapid loss of species we are seeing today is estimated by experts to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate. We simply can’t go on like this.

SOURCE 






Climate protester’s cameraman asks Katie Hopkins the color of her underwear in attempt to refute her point

When a climate protester ambushed U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) leader Gerard Batten, media personality Katie Hopkins turned the tables on him, demanding that he answer just one question.

Hopkins noted that Batten had humored the protester, who had brought a friend with a camera to record him as he peppered the UKIP leader with questions, answering some 15 of his queries before she stopped him and asked where he had gone to school.

Hopkins called him “posh” several times, arguing that, in her experience, protesters appear to be affluent, and they prompt policies that would have a much more profound impact on those who were not as wealthy.

“Can I ask you a question just to interrupt the constant monologue of you talking?” she asked. “There’s this perception I have where I live, and it’s called ‘the rest of the U.K.,’ that climate protesters are massively over-privileged and kind of ‘posh’ kids — and you seem to be falling straight into that for me. So can you explain to me why it seems to be almost a luxury of the privileged that live in London to dictate to the rest of us what we should and shouldn’t be allowed to do?”

Hopkins went on to ask the protester where he had gone to school, needling him about whether it might have been a prestigious boarding school. He pointedly refused to answer, arguing that it didn’t matter.

The person carrying the camera cut in then, asking Hopkins, “What color is your underwear? I don’t give a f**k!”

Hopkins fired right back, saying, “I don’t have any underwear. I don’t wear pants. I don’t wear pants. I can show you that, too, if you like.”

The protester and his cameraman tried to turn the conversation back around to climate change but to no avail.

SOURCE 






The cult of Greta Thunberg

This young woman sounds increasingly like a millenarian weirdo.

Anyone who doubts that the green movement is morphing into a millenarian cult should take a close look at Greta Thunberg. This poor young woman increasingly looks and sounds like a cult member. The monotone voice. The look of apocalyptic dread in her eyes. The explicit talk of the coming great ‘fire’ that will punish us for our eco-sins. There is something chilling and positively pre-modern about Ms Thunberg. One can imagine her in a sparse wooden church in the Plymouth Colony in the 1600s warning parishioners of the hellfire that will rain upon them if they fail to give up their witches.

It actually makes sense that Ms Thunberg – a wildly celebrated 16-year-old Swede who founded the climate-strike movement for schoolkids – should sound cultish. Because climate-change alarmism is becoming ever stranger, borderline religious, obsessed with doomsday prophecies. Consider Extinction Rebellion, the latest manifestation of the upper-middle classes’ contempt for industrialisation and progress. It is at times indistinguishable from old fundamentalist movements that warned mankind of the coming End of Days. I followed Extinction Rebellion from Parliament Square to Marble Arch yesterday and what I witnessed was a public display of millenarian fear and bourgeois depression. People did dances of death and waved placards warning of the heat-death of the planet. It felt deeply unnerving.

It struck me that this was a march against people. Most radical protest and direct action is aimed at officialdom or government or people with power. This macabre schlep through London was aimed squarely at ordinary people. Banners and placards made no disguise of the marchers’ contempt for how the masses live. We were told that ‘Meat = heat’ (that is, if you carry on eating meat, you fat bastards, the planet will get even hotter) and that driving and flying are destroying Mother Earth. Of course, it’s okay for them to fly – Emma Thompson jetted first-class from LA to London to lecture us plebs about all our eco-destructive holidaymaking. It’s only a problem when we do it; it’s only bad when we take advantage of the miracle of mass food production and the expansion of flight to make our lives fuller and more pleasurable. They detest that. They detest mass society and its inhabitants: the masses.

In keeping with all millenarian movements, the extinction-obsessed green cult reserves its priestly fury for ordinary people. Even when it is putting pressure on the government, it is really asking it to punish us. It wants tighter controls on car-driving, restrictions on flying, green taxes on meat. That these things would severely hit the pockets of ordinary people – but not the deep pockets of Emma Thompson and the double-barrelled eco-snobs who run Extinction Rebellion – is immaterial to the angry bourgeoisie. So convinced are they of their own goodness, and of our wickedness, that they think it is utterly acceptable for officialdom to make our lives harder in order to strongarm us into being more ‘green’. People complaining about Extinction Rebellion disrupting people’s lives in London over the past few days are missing the point – the entire point of the green movement is to disrupt ordinary people’s lives, and even to immiserate them. All in the jumped-up name of ‘saving the planet’.

And now the green cult has pushed Ms Thunberg into the position of its global leader, its child-like saviour, the messiah of their miserabilist political creed. What they have done to Ms Thunberg is unforgivable. They have pumped her – and millions of other children – with the politics of fear. They have convinced the next generation that the planet is on the cusp of doom. They have injected dread into the youth. ‘I want you to panic’, said Ms Thunberg at Davos, and the billionaires and celebs and marauding NGOs that were in attendance all lapped it up. Because adult society loves nothing more than having its own fear and confusions obediently parroted back to it by teenagers. They celebrate Thunberg because she tells them how horrible they are: it is an entirely S&M relationship, speaking to the deep self-loathing of the 21st-century elites.

Young people, Ms Thunberg isn’t your leader. She’s a patsy for scared and elitist adults. Don’t do as she says. Instead, refuse to panic, mock the blather about hellfire, and appreciate that mankind’s transformation of the planet has been a glorious thing that has expanded life expectancy, allowed billions to live in cities, and made it possible for even the less well-off to travel the globe. Sin against St Greta.

SOURCE 






Green New Deal Would Have 'No Effect' On Climate Change

The impact would be "barely distinguishable from zero."

Green New Deal proponents, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), have long claimed that the GND, an expansive, costly, and dramatic change in the American economy (and in American infrastructure), would be worth it if it such extreme measures would in the long run lessen our impact on climate.

Now, though, a new study from the American Enterprise Institute questions whether the Green New Deal would have any real impact on climate change at all — leaving it little more than an effort to dismantle industry.

The AEI report breaks down the GND into bite-sized policy proposals, assessing not simply the cost, but the proposed effectiveness of each legislative item to address the core goal of the GND: reducing American carbon emissions to a "net zero" by 2050.

The researchers' ultimate conclusion? "It is not to be taken seriously."

The "net zero" emissions proposal is particularly nonsensical, AEI warns, given that such an effort would require an estimated $490 billion per year investment in "green energy" and a sharp decrease in land available for agriculture. It also fails to address a very specific problem when it comes to U.S.-specific plans for climate change abatement: it fails to consider that the U.S. is only one of several heavy carbon-emitting nations, and that the vast majority of industrial pollution comes from the developing world and from countries like China and India.

In total, completely enacted, funded, and efficiently meeting goals — things AEI does not anticipate the GND would ever do — the full plan would cut the global increase in temperature by a whopping "0.083 to 0.173 degrees," a number, the report says, is "barely distinguishable from zero."

And that's assuming that the United States could ever fully enact the Green New Deal. As The Washington Free Beacon points out, the undertaking would be akin to declaring total war on the environment and shifting the focus of every industry directly to the abatement of climate change. Every home would be outfitted to rely on alternative energy, the GND proposes, but, AEI points, out, its authors fail to account for any transition from traditional energy sources to "alternative ones," making the U.S. a land of temporary brownouts and energy restriction.

"[E]ven with an entire state's worth of solar panels," the WFB reports, "the country would still need to rely on conventional energy generation to fill in "brown out" periods, when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. Zycher estimates that this back up would require 1.4 million gigawatt-hours of energy per year, resulting in about 35% of 2017 emissions—hardly zero."

Instead, AEI found, the GND is a government control-grab, thinly disguised as an environmental bill.

"The GND at its core is the substitution of central planning in place of market forces for resource allocation in the U.S. energy and transportation sectors narrowly and in the broad industrial, commercial, and residential sectors writ large. Given the tragic and predictable record of central planning outcomes worldwide over the past century, the GND should be rejected," the report concludes.

SOURCE 






Pro coal and anti coal groups face off in Australian coal town

A police spokeswoman said an emergency call was made before midnight on Saturday after reports a loud noise was heard near the camp of protesters at Clermont. Police it was suspected the noise could have been a firecracker and no one had reported seeing the source of the noise.

Stop Adani convoy organiser and former Greens leader Bob Brown said demonstrators were having a great day in the town after a hostile reception yesterday. ‘‘There were a few firecrackers over the fence in the middle of the night, but everybody had a cracker of a night,” Mr Brown said.

However, anti-Adani protesters complained that rocks had been hurled at cars in the convoy and women were “abused and threatened”.

An additional 100 anti-mining protesters were due to arrive to join a Stop Adani rally in the town on Sunday.

Clermont’s three pubs refused to serve convoy participants yesterday and a sign was hung from a hotel which read, “go home and turn off your power and walk”. Another read, “Mr Brown and ‘Stop Adani’ protesters, you may have travelled far and wide but you won’t get food inside”.

The publican of the Grand Hotel in Clermont, Kel Appleton, said the town had been brought together by going toe-to-toe with the Stop Adani group.

“We’re just normal people, we don’t go pushing our rhetoric on anyone else like they do to us.” Mr Appleton said.

Mr Appleton said having United Australia Party leader and senate hopeful Clive Palmer, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and LNP MP Michelle Landry under the same balcony at his pub on Saturday was a surprise. The politicians arrived to show support for locals yesterday.

He said he understood locals would now leave the anti-Adani protesters alone in the town’s showgrounds as they held today’s rally.  “We still get treated we’re like a bunch of hooligans but we’re not, like I’m half proud of being called a redneck, we probably are, we live out west, there’s graziers, there’s cotton farmers,” he said. “People have driven up from Toowoomba (nine hours away) to stand on our side. “That’s what brought everyone together, just being all good people, you know.”

Mr Brown said some impartial business owners had “expressed regret” at the hostility and he thanked Queensland police for keeping the peace. “This is about every Australian child’s future security in a rapidly heating planet,” Mr Brown said in the statement. “You can back your children or you can back Gautam Adani’s mine but you can’t have both.”

The anti-Adani convoy to stop Adani’s Galilee Basin mine is trying to convince the coal-reliant Queensland town it would be better off without the industry.

But the 400-strong convoy was greeted by jeering Clermont residents lining the main street of the central Queensland mining town on Saturday.

Mr Brown has accused the counterprotesters of “thuggery”.

The former Australian Greens leader, said his “law-abiding and peaceful” convoy would be welcomed in the town, but for a “gaggle” of right-wing politicians including Matt Canavan, Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer, who spent yesterday afternoon rallying the “start Adani” group.

“It’s a complete fabrication that people in central Queensland aren’t worried about this mine,” Mr Brown said. “I was braced for a hostile reception in Mackay and it turned out it was mega-friendly.

“We should all be committed to putting the aggression to one side and talking about the issues, the key issue being the future of our children.”

However, Mr Brown said pro-Adani supporters had threatened local restaurants, forcing them to cancel reservations for members of his convoy, describing an “air of thuggery” about the group.

Police redirected the convoy to an alternate road, away from the main street, in a bid to avoid violent clashes, he said.

“Some of them came up to us, surrounding cars and tearing off flags and stickers,” he said.

State shadow mining minister Dale Last, also in Clermont, said residents were “very angry that this group’s coming out here to tell them what they should and shouldn’t be doing.” “I think these protesters will be left in no doubt they’ve walked into a hornet’s nest in this country,” he said. “They’re going to get a very, very hostile reception, I can assure you of that.”

Adani Australia thanked its supporters in a tweet on Saturday: “Amazing turnout with hundreds in Mackay showing up to support the coal industry.”

An anti-Adani rally on Sunday is expected to include speeches and singing.

SOURCE  

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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28 April, 2019  

Greenie versus Greenie

Britain's rarest birds are being put at risk by Natural England decision to revoke shooting licences, farmers warn

Britain's rarest birds are being put at risk after Natural England's decision to revoke shooting licenses, farmers have said.

They have argued that the decision to make shooting pest birds including magpies and crows without an individual license unlawful means that conservationists will no longer be able to protect the nests of songbirds from being plundered.

Landowners have argued that this has come at the worst time of year, as it is when birds are beginning to lay their eggs, and those taking care of the rare species have had no time to prepare or apply for new individual licenses.

Chris Packham has been the subject of anger for many farmers and rural organisations, as it was his organisation Wild Justice which forced Natural England to revoke the general licenses.

On Thursday, his house was targeted by angry protesters, who left dead crows tied to his gate. He tweeted that he had informed Hampshire Police, who are investigating.

However, the decision has not just been criticised by farmers and gamekeepers - conservationists have also spoken out against it.

Curlews, a shy grassland bird with a distinctive long bill, are steeply in decline and are endangered in the UK. In some part of the British Isles, their numbers have declined by 90 per cent in the last 20 years.

Curlew conservationist Mary Colwell said that the license being revoked puts them in even graver danger of extinction.

She told The Telegraph: "You couldn't have chosen a worse time to revoke the general license than this week really.

"We completely welcome a general license review, it needs tightening and more rigour, but to time it with the peak start of laying is really terrible. It's caught us all by surprise.

"Crows eat both the eggs and the young of curlews. Their eggs are quite large so they don't take them away but they intimidate the birds off the nest, smash the eggs up and eat them in situ.

"If we had time to prepare, people could have applied for individual licenses, no one would have minded if it happened at a different time of year.

"Curlews don't often re lay if they lose a clutch. So we have lost a season and that's bad news for birds in such trouble."

SOURCE 





Stop scaring children witless about climate change

Not many people can command an audience of senior politicians. Fewer still can expect cheers and a standing ovation from those they have just publicly criticised. Yet this was the reception 16-year-old Greta Thunberg received when she addressed MPs and journalists in Westminster this week. ‘Your voice – still, calm and clear – is like the voice of our conscience’, environment secretary Michael Gove told her, praying for absolution. When it comes to climate change, the normal rules of politics and the usual ways that adults relate to children have all been abandoned. Adults, it seems, now defer to children.

Schoolchildren who skip classes to protest against climate change have been widely praised. Again, it has been MPs who have rushed to lead the applause. Some headteachers, quick to fine parents for taking their children on holiday during term time, were happy to overlook pupils missing lessons to join the Thunberg-inspired climate strike. Meanwhile, some parents and teachers joined children on the protests. Not content with letting children bunk off school, there are growing calls for more lesson time in school to be given over to teaching about climate change.

A petition demanding climate change be made a core part of the national curriculum, started by four Oxford schoolgirls, has rapidly gained close to 70,000 signatures. The girls argue that ‘climate change is the biggest issue of our time, and it must be a part of our education if our generation is to understand it and help us to combat its effects’. Their cause was promoted on Twitter by the BBC’s John Simpson who asked: ‘Since this is the most important problem our planet faces, shouldn’t our children be taught about it?’ Graham Frost, a headteacher from a primary school in Carlisle, will propose a motion at the forthcoming annual conference of the National Association of Headteachers in favour of compulsory climate-change lessons for all children to include instruction in how ‘to produce protest letters and banners’. ‘I want to make sure children’s concerns about the future of the planet are being listened to by policymakers’, he said.

What’s strange about the demand for more climate-change lessons is that this topic is already a core part of the national curriculum. Climate change, wider environmental issues and sustainable development are key components of geography, which is a compulsory subject for children up to the age of 14. Climate change is also covered extensively in science, which is compulsory up to the age of 16. Beyond this, protecting the environment is frequently used as a topic in modern foreign languages and in citizenship classes. Recycling, renewable energy, tackling pollution and reducing plastic-use provide material for assemblies and poster campaigns promoting a school’s values.

The petitioners, if not their adult promoters, clearly know that climate change is already taught in schools. They acknowledge that it is part of geography and science. Their argument is that they have ‘barely learned about the climate crisis at school despite it being on the curriculum’. They want it to be taught more often, in more depth, and, as their words reveal, for it to be taught as a ‘crisis’, rather than just another topic to be covered. And who can blame them? When children are bombarded with doomsday scenarios about irreversible global warming leading inevitably to large numbers of people dying, it is hardly surprising that they feel scared. It is not unreasonable to panic, or to want to know more, if you are told again and again that there is only 12 years to save the planet, that the future is uncertain and that adults have left you with a catastrophic mess to sort out.

Children are not taught too little about climate change: they are taught too much. They are made scared, and then abandoned by adults unable or unwilling to encourage a more critical approach to the discussion. Teachers could usefully help children by putting seemingly apocalyptic data into context. They could show how tipping-point dates have, since the time of Malthus, been passed, with the world’s population not only continuing to exist but thriving. They could show that even the most secure scientific knowledge around climate change is still contestable. None of this is to suggest that climate science should not be taught – but it should be taught with adults acting as a voice of authority, keeping a sense of perspective and reassuring children about the progress that has already been made to tackle global warming, and showing how further progress to protect the environment can be made in the future.

But this doesn’t happen. Instead, having scared children about the future of the planet, adults then defer to them for solutions. Schools are looked to, not to turn out knowledgeable scientists and critical thinkers, but to produce climate activists proficient in letter-writing and banner-making. Some teachers justified time off school for climate protests as a useful lesson in citizenship. But the suggestion that children can learn more on a protest than in the classroom degrades education. It also degrades the concept of democratic engagement, which should be about winning adults over to your cause rather than hiding behind children and using them as instruments of moral coercion.

Turning education over to political activism – even if it is for a cause that many agree with – is an abdication of adult responsibility. It places children in a position of moral authority without first providing them with sufficient knowledge to think critically and reach their own conclusions. As adults, we owe it to children not to frighten them, or burden them with insurmountable problems, but rather to offer them the very best education in chemistry, physics and geography, so that later, as adults, they can decide for themselves how they want to interpret and act upon the knowledge they possess.

SOURCE 






Greenpeace Co-Founder, Patrick Moore, Vs Alexandria Ocasio Cortez “pompous little twit”








When Earth Day Predictions Go Predictably Wrong
    
As activists around the world recently celebrated Earth Day with warnings about the awful state of our planet, now seems like the right time to share the good news that actually — contrary to countless dire predictions — we’re not running out of resources. In fact, the late economist and scholar Julian Simon was right: People again and again have innovated “their way out of resource shortages.”

As Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute reminds us in an article about “18 spectacularly wrong predictions made around the time of first Earth Day in 1970,” back in 1969, Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich wrote that “Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born.” He added that by 1975, “some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions.” In 1970, he revised his prediction for the worse to warn us, as Perry writes, that “between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the ‘Great Die-Off.’”

In 1972, a group known as the Club of Rome made similarly apocalyptic predictions.

In response, Dr. Simon, who at the time of his death in 1998 was an economics professor at the University of Maryland, argued that these predictions were wholly unwarranted. There would be no extinction from starvation. Simon recognized that people are the ultimate resource and would innovate their way toward greater abundance.

Ultimately, Simon challenged Ehrlich to a wager. Ehrlich believed that population growth meant increased scarcity and, hence, higher commodity prices. Simon believed that “more people meant more brains,” which means better extraction technologies, more efficient methods of production and the more efficient use of commodities — all of which lead to lower commodity prices.

The bet itself was meant to determine whether commodity prices would rise or fall over the period from 1980-1990. If they fell, that would mean that the commodities became more abundant. If instead they rose, that would have signaled that commodities became scarcer. Simon was willing to bet that over any number of years, inflation-adjusted commodity prices would fall.

Simon won that bet. During the 1980s, the prices of the commodities in the Simon-Ehrlich bet decreased. Ehrlich’s dire prediction thankfully never came to pass. Some have argued that had they picked the following decade, Ehrlich may have won. That said, the consensus is that when looking at an index of all commodities over a 100-year period, there’s a clear decline in prices with a few short-lived periods of increase.

This failure didn’t stop Ehrlich and others from continuing to issue similarly apocalyptic predictions up to this day. In response, two scholars have picked up the Simon torch to, once again, closely study the issue. The true heirs of the great humanist and optimist Simon, Marian Tupy from the Cato Institute and Gale Pooley from Brigham Young University-Hawaii have launched The Simon Abundance Index, which offers a new and better way to measure resource availability “using the latest price data for 50 foundational commodities” (as opposed to five in the Simon-Ehrlich wager).

They base their measure on three original concepts:

The time-price of commodities, or “the amount of time that an average human has to work in order to earn enough money to buy a commodity.”

The price elasticity of population, which is a measure of whether population growth indeed increases the availability of resources.

The Simon Abundance Index, which “measures the change in abundance of resources over a period of time.”

Based on their measurements, Pooley and Tupy confirm Simon’s admittedly counter-intuitive thesis — the faster a population grows, the greater the availability of natural resources. As they beautifully conclude, “The world is a closed system in the way that a piano is a closed system. The instrument has only 88 notes, but those notes can be played in a nearly infinite variety of ways. The same applies to our planet. The Earth’s atoms may be fixed, but the possible combinations of those atoms are infinite. What matters, then, is not the physical limits of our planet, but human freedom to experiment and reimagine the use of resources that we have.”

So, cheer up! And stop freaking out about predictions of our imminent demise.

SOURCE 







GREENIE ROUNDUP FROM AUSTRALIA

Three current articles below

Warmists in government won’t save the planet but will destroy our economy

Herald readers, be independent, always, and please reconsider the false equivalence you read a week ago in a column by your esteemed scribe, Peter Hartch­er. He was tackling what is not only one of the most crucial issues for this nation’s economic and environmental future but also a central policy battleground in the federal election campaign.

Yes, it is climate change. And we are going to ventilate some fundamental facts that might be confronting for Herald loyalists. I wouldn’t question your love for Earth — it is the best planet we have observed so far and the only one of much use to us. It is useful to assume everyone in this debate cares about the planet because self-destruction is not a wise motive to ascribe to your political opponents. But the hard truth is that even if you accept the most alarming claims about the planet being in peril, it is not within the remit of you or your nation to save it. Those Earth Hour dinners, where you drive the Range Rover to the Hunter to eat Coffin Bay oysters by the light of red gum embers, may or may not be carbon-negative but they can’t help the planet.

Virtue signalling is fine to the extent that it encourages virtue but you wouldn’t want a sense of moral superiority to overwhelm awareness of futility. You need to know that global carbon emissions will increase this year by more than a billion tonnes, or more than double the total annual emissions of this country. You need to know that if we made the ultimate sacrifice and shut down this country in January, any benefit to the planet would disappear by July. For all the goodwill in the world, try to imagine how much good your Pious, I mean Prius, or subsidised solar roof panels are doing for the global environment. You need to keep all this in mind when Labor leader Bill Shorten tells you his uncosted plan to double the nation’s renewable energy target and emissions reductions goals will save us money by cooling our “angry” summers and reducing our natural disasters.

Logic reveals an entirely oppos­ite reality — that whatever the costs and complications of Labor’s dramatically more ambitious plans, they cannot and will not lead to any improvement in the climate because global carbon emissions will continue to rise.

So let us get back to Hartcher’s column, which I fear might have prompted sage nodding from some. Here is the main thrust of his argument uncut:

“When Tony Abbott was prime minister, he ordered more Australian strike aircraft and troops into Iraq. Not because Australia was big enough to turn the tide of battle against the barbarians of Daesh, so-called Islamic State or ISIS. But because he believed in the fight.

“ ‘It’s absolutely vital that the world sees and sees quickly that the ISIS death cult can be beaten,’ he said in 2014. Australia’s commitment ultimately made up less than 1 per cent of the combined effort against the terrorist thugs but it was early and firm. Abbott described it as ‘an important global concern’ and he was right. And, with more than 60 countries co-operating, it was a success. When it came to another important global concern, Abbott argued a very different case. He and like-minded Coalition conservatives have long maintained that Australian action against climate change was futile: ‘Even if carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring trace gas that’s necessary for life, really is the main climate change villain, Australia’s contribution to mankind’s emissions is scarcely more than 1 per cent,’ Abbott said last year.

“On terrorism, Abbott argued for Australian leadership. On climate change, he argued for wilful helplessness. Australia is a 1 per cent contributor in both cases. In one case, it used its 1 per cent to show leadership and effective action. On the other, it used its 1 per cent as an excuse for inaction.”


Let’s start at the end. Inaction? Under the Coalition’s target, agreed when Abbott was prime minister, Australia is committed to the Paris Agreement and emissions reductions of 26 to 28 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030. This, while China, India and a range of smaller nations increase emissions on a business-as-usual basis. The US bailed from Paris and, counterintuitively, its fixed power carbon emissions have decreased. Paris is clearly better at signalling virtue than reducing emissions.

Given the way the renewable energy target and other interventions have corrupted our electricity market, drained taxpayers’ funds, undermined power supplies, increased prices and forced job losses in steelmaking, aluminium manufacturing and other industries, it is impossible to cite a country doing more on climate at a higher cost than Australia. Power prices have doubled, coal-fired power stations have closed and carbon dioxide emissions have been reduced, taking jobs and economic growth with them.

Yet Hartcher calls this “inaction"

But let’s go to this insulting false equivalence between action on terrorism and climate change. First, terrorism is unequivocally bad; there is no possible benefit or justification for the murder of innocents in a political, religious or cultural cause. Climate change, on the other hand, is a complex and nuanced phenomenon that brings benefits such as higher crop yields and lower rates of death from severe cold. Even the most strident alarmists concede global warming produces winners and losers.

Just as the two dilemmas differ in their ambiguity, or lack thereof, so too do the prospects for overcoming them. If the US tackles Islamist terrorism we can expect some success, especially when it takes military action to eliminate a self-styled caliphate and expel Islamic State from seized land in the Middle East. If Australia contributes 1 per cent to US-led anti-terrorism efforts it is aligning itself with successful efforts by powerful actors who unarguably improve the world.

On climate, if Australia contributes 1 per cent to global efforts our costs disappear in futile gestures. Worldwide action is producing dramatic increases in global carbon emissions, so Australia’s costly actions manifestly are doing us economic harm but are not helping the environment or anyone. However much we may want to change the world, these are the facts. Hartcher and others may seek to disguise the benefits of the war against terrorism and hide the futility of climate virtue signalling but they can’t change the facts. Yet this sort of deception characterises much of the climate debate.

Shorten is allowed to dodge questions about policy costs with glib lines about the cost of inaction exceeding the cost of action. Activists get away with suggesting a ban on the Adani coalmine will save the Great Barrier Reef despite the reality that India will burn coal regardless of where it is sourced and, to the extent the reef is harmed by a warming planet, only global greenhouse emissions matter.

The defining difference between the terrorism and climate debates is the willingness to embrace reality and confront alarmism in one and the desire to shun reality and heighten alarmism in the other. Where Australia has suffered terribly from terrorism but has contributed materially to global improvements, Hartcher raises questions. But where the nation is yet definitively to suffer any setbacks from global warming and has caused itself serious economic pain through remedial efforts that cannot deliver improvements, Hartcher urges more action.

He is not alone, of course. Why are these arguments put? The reason cannot be for practical outcomes. Additional Australian efforts cannot, as Shorten would have it, cool our “angry” summers. The only possible reason for proposing additional and accelerated action before global emissions plateau is political posturing. And inflicting more economic self-harm for gestures ought to be called out.

Before people shout “denier” or question abandoning international responsibilities, none of the above is an argument for doing nothing — although intellectually coherent cases can be made for that approach. For all sorts of practical reasons including sensible environmental caution (giving the planet the benefit of the doubt), responsible global citizenship and adjusting to possible worldwide technological shifts, Australia needs to play a role.

By any reasonable assessment Australia has already done its fair share. And given the primacy of the Paris Agreement and the free ride given to many developing nations, any country that delivers emissions reductions in line with those commitments is doing some heavy lifting. The idea this nation would almost double its carbon cuts from what was agreed at Paris while global emissions continue to rise dramatically is about as stark an example of pointless self-harm as is possible. It would be as reckless as refusing to tackle terrorism.

SOURCE  






No logic in our nuclear allergy

How depressing to see Scott Morrison having to backtrack after making the obvious and sensible remark that nuclear power shouldn’t be off the agenda if it stacks up economically.

Labor environment spokesman Tony Burke bristled at the idea that the most reliable and clean form of energy the world knows should even be discussed. “Nuclear power is against the law in Australia,” he chirped, as if being the only G20 nation to have such a ban were a good idea.

It’s embarrassing to tell people in the US that nuclear energy is banned in Australia. “But don’t you export uranium?” “Umm, yes,” I say, “but flower power has more adherents than nuclear among Australia’s political class.”

In the scramble to lift the share of renewables in the energy mix, the whole point is forgotten: to curb carbon emissions, not erect wind turbines or acres of solar panels for their own sake.

Thankfully, US leaders have moved on from Woodstock. The US government provides grants and research support for US businesses to build better reactors and bolster the country’s scientific edge. Jordi Roglans Ribas, a senior nuclear scientist at Argonne ­laboratory, one of the US’s top research institutions, says developments in small — even micro — nuclear reactors look set to bring down the cost of nuclear power.

“There’s been a lot of recent technical work on making nuclear more economically attractive, including by being able to manufacture components of plants in factories and ship them to where you need a reactor,” he tells The Australian.

As part of its “carbon-free power project”, Oregon-based Nuscale is already building a set of small modular reactors for the state of Utah, which should be operational by the mid-2020s. “Our advanced SMR design eliminates two-thirds of previously required safety systems and components found in today’s large reactors,” the company says. Three of these, at about $US250 million ($350m) each, would provide more energy — and reliably — than Australia’s biggest wind farm, according to the Minerals Council.

California-based Kairos Power is working on “fluoride salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors” that can be shut down far more safely than traditional water-cooled reactors. HolosGen, based in Virginia, expects its reactors will produce electricity at a lower “levelised cost” than wind or solar can.

With almost a third of the world’s known uranium reserves, you’d think we might try to develop a comparative advantage in nuclear energy. Instead, we’d put these scientists in jail for breaking the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, which outlaws nuclear power here.

Memo to the world: Australia, with a population smaller than Texas, doesn’t approve of nuclear energy (though we’re quite happy to take the cash from those who do). How silly we look, eschewing 20 years of research. China, also at the forefront of the electric car rollout, has about 30 nuclear reactors under construction.

Ribas says nuclear power should be a natural complement to wind and solar as the world moves away from fossil fuels. “The development of massive storage capacity at low cost is of benefit to nuclear too, because when there is abundant wind, for example, you don’t need all (of a) nuclear plant’s production, so you can store it and release it later,” he says.

Replacing coal and gas with renewables entirely is an absurd idea even assuming further large falls in the cost of batteries. That would take about 10,000 giant batteries costing more than $300 billion to ensure enough storage to ensure a reliable power supply, according to recent estimates by respected economist Geoffrey Carmody.

For all the harrumphing about the “cost” of nuclear, power is cheaper in jurisdictions that have dared try it. Illinois, with just under 13 million people, has six nuclear power stations. In Chicago the average price of electricity in January was around US12c a kW/H. Energy Australia charges me 29.4c a kW/H for electricity in Sydney.

In nearby Ontario, where nuclear energy provides 60 per cent of the electricity needs of Canada’s biggest province, it was less than C13c a kW/h.

“It has two major benefits — low operating costs and virtually none of the emissions that lead to smog, acid rain or global warming,” says Ontario Power Generation. “These benefits make nuclear a very attractive option for meeting the province’s electricity needs well into the future.”

Ribas says, “Canada is very interested to evaluate small modular reactors in some remote areas.” Better not tell them what Tony Burke thinks!

Once upon a time, the Left stressed the importance of progress through advances in science and technology, mandating state funding for schools and universities. Today it’s more akin to the religious Right it once despised, vainly dismissing for ideological reasons an entire field.

The Greens want to see “a world free of nuclear power”. Yet there are about 450 nuclear reactors in operation in the world and another 60 under construction.

“There is a strong link between the mining and export of uranium and nuclear weapons proliferation,” the Greens say. Yet more than 30 countries have nuclear power stations and many more, such as Italy and Denmark, import electricity from them. About 10 countries have nuclear weapons — far from a “strong link”.

“The use of nuclear weapons, nuclear accidents or attacks on reactors pose unacceptable risk of catastrophic consequences,” they go on. In more than 70 years of nuclear power there have only been three nuclear accidents, the most recent of which, the Fukushima disaster of 2011, incurred no fatalities. Meanwhile, wind turbines are killing hundreds of thousands of birds every year.

Fukushima was built in the 1960s and hit by a tsunami. Australia offers a safer geography for nuclear power. As the closure of the giant Liddell coal power station nears in 2022, small modular imported nuclear reactors might be one option worth investigating, providing reliable, carbon-free power cheaply — and without killing animals.

SOURCE  






Labor pledges to terminate half-a-billion-dollar Great Barrier Reef Foundation grant

This payment was a totally useless Turnbull brain fart that should never have happened.  Shorten is right to claw it back

Labor has vowed to strip the Great Barrier Reef Foundation of its half-a-billion-dollar grant if elected on May 18.

Labor added that it would redistribute that cash amongst public agencies, but is yet to detail specifics ahead of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's first election-period Queensland visit this week.

Last August, a $443 million grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation by Malcolm Turnbull's government was criticised for lacking an open tender process, and for burdening an organisation that had six full time staff with a grant of such a size.

Labor wrote to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation at the time to warn them that if the party won government, it could withdraw from the existing contract.

But this marks the first time they have determined to rip up the agreement.

"Every dollar returned will be invested back in the reef and we will seek advice on the most effective way to allocate the funding," Mr Shorten said, adding that his government would consult with the Department of Environment on its reef strategy.

Mr Shorten mentioned peak science body CSIRO, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences as possible alternatives.

While the Great Barrier Reef Foundation has had all $443 million of the grant in its accounts for months, Labor environment spokesman Tony Burke has previously pointed to a contract clause that allows the agreement to be terminated if there was "a material change in Australian Government policy that is inconsistent with the continued operation of this agreement''.

In the letter warning the foundation that funding could be withdrawn, Labor advised it not to spend a disproportionate amount before the election, noting that the funds were set aside for a six-year period.

SOURCE  

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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26 April, 2019  

Clouds on the horizon: What climate change means for retail

This is just one big brain fart.  The only point of it is that bad weather can be disruptive to business, which we all knew.  The writers cheerfully assume that ALL bad weather is due to climate change -- while making absolutely no attempt to prove that absurdity. So it actually tells us NOTHING about "What climate change means for retail"

Over the last 40 years, the United States has sustained 246 weather and climate events where the cumulative costs reached $1 billion or more each — and together caused more than $1.6 trillion in damage, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. Already this year, as of April 9, the U.S. experienced two weather disasters with losses exceeding that milestone — and such events have been clustered together in recent years. Last year, the country saw the fourth-highest number of billion-dollar events, behind 2017, 2011 and 2016, and the fourth-highest tab for them ($91 billion), behind 2017, 2005 and 2012, according to NCEI.

While scientific discussion around climate change focuses on long-term trends and cost pile-ups, headlines tend to capture the dire consequences for human beings and their livelihoods in the immediate and short terms. Last year, for example, estimates from Hurricane Florence were that it could cost retailers some $700 million, according to Planalytics, which provides weather-related planning tools for businesses. Some businesses, like home improvement retailers The Home Depot and Lowe's, actually pick up sales in the aftermath.

But the reality is that individual weather events don't much jolt retailers' short-term bottom lines, either way. The immediate concern is, and should be, on safety, for customers and store staff, according to Paul Walsh, global director of consumer weather strategy for IBM.

However, retailers may want to take note of the havoc severe weather wreaks along the supply chain. "Anyone with a supply chain is going to be affected by climate change," Paul Dillinger, head of global product innovation at Levi Strauss & Co., told Retail Dive in an interview. "It's as much of an issue for us as for the Pentagon."

BSR, a global nonprofit organization that develops sustainable business strategies, has the specifics: "Physical climate risks from acute weather events and chronic climate patterns are disrupting the availability of raw material and energy supply, supplier operations, and local communities along the supply chain," according to a report it released last year. "There is a clear business case for companies to reduce these risks and strengthen supply chain performance by building the resilience of operations and communities along supply chains," the report reads, citing research on 99 companies that saved $14 billion through climate-related improvements, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 551 million tons of C02.

On the other side of the equation, retailers who do nothing to address environmental issues could be in for big losses. According to CDP, which helps companies measure and respond to the impacts of climate change, $4 trillion worth of assets will be at risk from changes to the Earth's weather by 2030.

Global climate change also has implications for inventory — the apparel that should be in stores, and at distribution and fulfillment points at which time of year is changing — according to a Planalytics report on climate change and supply chain conducted for the National Retail Federation. That research found that retailers and brands that "remove the historical impacts of weather can drive a 20-80 basis point annual improvement in profitability just in inventory management … by increasing total enterprise forecast accuracy between 2 and 6 percent on average, and up to 50 percent for specific product categories," according to the report.

"More and more it's viewed as critical and fundamental to prepare for and execute against the weather volatility that we've seen," Walsh told Retail Dive in an interview. "The fact that IBM bought The Weather Company is one sign. There's an overlap — in sustainability efforts and resiliency efforts and the integration of weather and insights. So when we start to see these tremendous swings of weather — that kind of volatility is hard to keep up with. The way you do keep up with it is to leverage these technologies to be able to respond on an enterprise scale."

SOURCE 






Another Greenie prophecy bombs:  Coffee shortage

A repeated Greenie prophecy is that we will soon run into a shortage of coffee beans. See here and here. How is that looking?

Call it the coffee paradox. The brewed beverage has never been more popular, but the price of beans is at its lowest point in over a decade and down by a quarter since October.

A pound of wholesale arabica beans, the premium variety favoured in most coffee shops, has been selling for less than $US1 since early March on the Intercontinental Exchange in New York, below what many producers say it costs to grow and process.

Coffee drinkers might not have noticed any difference in price, given the prevalence of the $US5 latte.

What has enabled the world to be awash with coffee? Factors include major advances in coffee production and a collapse in the value in the currency of the world’s largest producer, Brazil.

All About Brazil

Prices have sagged under the weight of what is expected to be another surplus worldwide coffee crop this year. More than any other, the country behind that glut is Brazil, which has expanded its already-leading share of the world’s coffee crop.

Brazil has stolen market share from Central America because of state-sponsored research and development -- including phasing in mechanised harvesting over hand-picked methods still used elsewhere.

“The problem is that (other countries) are not able to withstand the tide that is Brazilian coffee supply,” said Keith Flury, the head of research at ED&F Man-subsidiary Volcafe Coffee Research, until 2018.

When Brazil’s currency, the real, is cheap, so is the coffee that Brazil sells in dollars to the rest of the world. And the real is 60 per cent less valuable compared with the dollar than in 2011. It has fallen 12 per cent against the dollar over the past year.

“The root causes of the low dollar coffee prices are the high productivity of Brazilian production, the strong dollar and the weak Brazilian real,” said economist Jeffrey Sachs, director at Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable Development, which is undertaking a farmer welfare study backed by the intergovernmental International Coffee Organization. “Basically, Brazil is undercutting global costs,” he said.

Cecafé, Brazil’s coffee export association, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Caffeine High

Global arabica consumption is set to break records for the fifth straight season in 2019-20, Rabobank forecasts.

Yet despite the demand, the fall in prices has exposed a dichotomy between “the haves and the have-nots” in producer countries, said David Brooks, managing director of UK-based coffee-roasting company Percol.

When futures prices fall below $US1 a pound, some farmers cope by slashing spending on fertilisers and pesticides, according to Greg Meenahan, partnership director at World Coffee Research, an industry-funded group.

“Their crops become weak and next year’s crops have a higher incidence of failure,” Mr Meenahan said. “They’re just getting beaten up.”

In April, Colombia, another major coffee exporter, increased emergency aid to its coffee farmers.

“You see coffee products all over the shelves saying they’re sustainable, but people forget about economic sustainability,” said Roberto Vélez, chief executive officer of the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia.

“You have Central Americans immigrating to the US and Africans moving up to Europe because coffee prices are too low,” Mr Vélez added.

Weaker arabica prices at the wholesale level have passed through to supermarket shelves, but they remain well above where they were a decade ago. The average price of a supermarket can of coffee has come down in recent years. US Department of Labor data put the average price of coffee sold to US consumers at $US4.34 a pound.

As for a cup served in a shop or restaurant, a 2018 UBS study found the price in many major cities around the world was around $US3. Cafe prices remain high because of strong demand and because beans are only part of the cost of producing a drink, alongside things such as rent, overheads, labour, milk and sugar.

Can prices go lower? Some analysts point to a small global deficit between supply and demand in the season ending 2020, since it is technically an “off-cycle” season in Brazil, with production falling as plants recover.

However, “the husbandry the farmers give the trees is excellent and that’s decreased the cyclicality of the crop,” said Carlos Mera, senior commodities analyst at Rabobank.

SOURCE 






Earth Day Celebrators Should Celebrate Nuclear Power Too

Yesterday was Earth Day. Celebrate it by opposing more politically-motivated closures of nuclear power plants. Nuclear reactors provide a steady supply of electricity with no carbon emissions.

As Harvard’s Steven Pinker notes, “global decarbonization is impossible” without nuclear power. That’s because wind and solar power generation varies with the weather, keeping it from being a steady source of energy. In The New York Times, Pinker and two environmental experts say nuclear power is critical to the success of a low-carbon power grid, and it “is a fantasy” to rely on renewable energy alone:

“Wind and solar power are becoming cheaper, but they are not available around the clock, rain or shine … renewables work only with fossil-fuel [or nuclear] backup. Germany, which went all-in for renewables, has seen little reduction in carbon emissions, and, according to our calculations, at Germany’s rate of adding clean energy relative to gross domestic product, it would take the world more than a century to decarbonize, even if the country wasn’t also retiring nuclear plants early … . we actually have proven models for rapid decarbonization with economic and energy growth: France and Sweden. They decarbonized their grids decades ago and now emit less than a tenth of the world average of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour. They remain among the world’s most pleasant places to live and enjoy much cheaper electricity than Germany to boot.

“They did this with nuclear power. And they did it fast ... France replaced almost all of its fossil-fueled electricity with nuclear power nationwide in just 15 years; Sweden, in about 20 years. In fact, most of the fastest additions of clean electricity historically are countries rolling out nuclear power … . nuclear power is the cheapest source in South Korea. The 98 U.S. reactors today provide nearly 20 percent of the nation’s electricity generation. So why don’t the United States and other countries expand their nuclear capacity? The reasons are economics and fear.

“New nuclear power plants are hugely expensive to build in the United States today. This is why so few are being built. But they don’t need to be so costly. The key to recovering our lost ability to build affordable nuclear plants is standardization and repetition. The first product off any assembly line is expensive — it cost more than $150 million to develop the first iPhone — but costs plunge as they are built in quantity and production kinks are worked out … . China and South Korea can build reactors at one-sixth the current cost in the United States.”

In the United States, nuclear power plants are becoming more efficient and reliable. So nuclear energy production peaked in 2018, even though some nuclear power plants have closed, or are being shut down by anti-nuclear politicians in states like New York.

Under the original blueprint for the Green New Deal, which is backed by progressive leaders, all nuclear power plants would have been shut down over time. Now, however, several Democratic presidential candidates have realized that nuclear power is useful in reducing carbon emissions and slowing the rate of climate change.

The Green New Deal proposal is not a financially feasible path to a low-carbon economy. As Thomas J. Pyle of the Institute for Energy Research has noted, it would finance a lot of unnecessary and wasteful government projects that would do little for the environment.

Partly due to the cost of these projects, the Green New Deal’s overall cost has been estimated by a think-tank as at least $50 trillion and potentially over $90 trillion (four times the size of the U.S. economy). Estimates by other energy experts are similar in order of magnitude.

Meanwhile, the Green New Deal would shrink the economy by discouraging people from working, leaving the government with less money to finance clean energy. The original “Green New Deal” blueprint provided “economic security”—that is, welfare — even for those who are “unwilling to work.” Rewarding unemployment leads to fewer people working and paying taxes.

Hans Bader practices law in Washington, D.C. After studying economics and history at the University of Virginia and law at Harvard, he practiced civil-rights, international-trade, and constitutional law. He also once worked in the Education Department.

SOURCE 






Offshore wind trouble in Mass.

The second round of bidding for offshore wind contracts hasn’t even started yet. But the complaining sure has.

A spat is unfolding around whether National Grid can back out of its commitment to a wind-farm developer if a change in state laws or regulations somehow prevents the utility from being able to pass the contract costs on to ratepayers.

National Grid wants this exit clause to protect itself. But critics are telling the state Department of Utilities that this provision, known in utility-speak as a “regulatory out,” will undermine the upcoming auction.

A 2016 state law set these auctions in motion, by requiring the state’s three major electric utilities — National Grid, Eversource, and Unitil — to buy large amounts of power from offshore wind developers. The hope was to finally spark a new industry into life in Massachusetts, while curbing greenhouse gas emissions and diversifying our sources of electricity.

Round one was considered a big success. Three developers showed up to compete, with Vineyard Wind undercutting its rivals last year with a surprisingly low price. Vineyard Wind plans to use the contracts, approved by the DPU earlier this month, to finance the construction of an 800-megawatt wind farm south of Martha’s Vineyard.

Now, we’re on to round two — and the fun has begun. An independent evaluator waved a red flag earlier this month about the “regulatory out” provision that National Grid wants this time around. The evaluator, Peregrine Research Group, acknowledged that the odds of the Massachusetts rules changing in the future are slim. But this exit clause could make wind-farm financiers nervous, Peregrine noted, potentially discouraging bidders or driving up the costs for the ones who remain.

The Conservation Law Foundation agreed with Peregrine. CLF told state regulators that the exit clause threatens the integrity of the entire process, noting that Eversource and Unitil aren’t seeking a similar provision.

No state official wants costs to go up. But there’s an added complication if they do: That 2016 state law requires that the next bid come in lower than the winning price in the first round. Peregrine argues that National Grid’s exit clause will make it that much harder for the bidders to get under the cap.

As a result, Eric Wilkinson of the Environmental League of Massachusetts says he envisions a scenario where no deals get done at all in the next round. (ELM is among the environmental groups protesting the exit clause.) That would be an embarrassment for all involved, and could allow other states — keep an eye on New York and New Jersey — to pull ahead of us in the offshore wind game.

Meanwhile, Representative Pat Haddad of Somerset is prodding her colleagues on Beacon Hill to lift the price cap, to give the wind-farm developers more leeway to invest in economic development in the South Coast region. But it’s hard to know how successful she will be at this early stage.

National Grid shows no signs of backing down. Peregrine says these exit clauses are rare in the industry. But National Grid makes a point of citing its contract with Deepwater Wind (now Orsted) in Rhode Island, which includes a similar provision. National Grid told the DPU an unfavorable legislative or regulatory change at some point in the future with regard to cost recovery “could be catastrophic” for the company.

Spokesman Bob Kievra issued a brief statement, saying that National Grid is including these terms in its model for long-term contracts “as a starting place for negotiations” due to the increasing number and scale of such contracts.

If the Department of Public Utilities has a position on the matter, it’s not saying – at least not yet.

SOURCE 






"Code of conduct". That’s code for ‘conduct yourself as we tell you’

Increasingly, a code of conduct is becoming an employer’s power trip, their weapon of choice in the workplace to limit the basic freedoms of employees. And these deliberately vague terms become expensive legal battles for sacked employees. Two examples in the past two weeks. Last week, Peter Ridd, the highly respected professor of physics, won his court case against James Cook University after he was sacked for offending the univer­sity’s code of conduct.

JCU used its code of conduct to full effect. When Ridd raised doubts about the quality of science claiming the Great Barrier Reef was being damaged, he was accused of misconduct, not acting in a collegial way, disparaging fellow academics, not upholding the integrity and good reputation of JCU. It made no difference to the code’s enforcers that Ridd raised his concerns in a polite and measured manner, making clear that fellow academics were honest, though mistaken, in their work.

When Ridd raised funds online to help pay for his expensive legal battle with JCU, the university accused him of breaching the code of conduct. When Ridd sent an email to a student, attaching a newspaper article headed “for your amusement”, the physics professor of 30 years’ standing was censured for acting contrary to an earlier “no satire direction” when JCU told Ridd not to trivialise, satirise or parody the univer­sity’s disciplinary action against him. When Ridd mentioned JCU’s “Orwellian” attitude to free speech in an email to another supportive student, JCU censured him for another breach of the code of conduct.

Note that JCU discovered the offending email by trawling through Ridd’s correspondence in a distinctly Orwellian manner.

On it went. Actions and words parsed and censured, secrecy sought under JCU’s code of conduct to protect the university, not Ridd.

Last week, the Federal Court rejected JCU’s 17 claims against Ridd under the university’s code of conduct. Federal Court judge Salvatore Vasta made clear that JCU’s fundamental error was to assume its code of conduct “is the lens through which all behaviour must be viewed”. Rather than starting from the principle of intellectual freedom set out in clause 14 of JCU’s enterprise agreement with academics, a core value that goes to the mission of a university, JCU used its lengthy and loquacious code of conduct to restrain Ridd. Therefore, it did not occur to JCU, or to academics who complained about Ridd, that the best response was to provide evidence Ridd’s claims were wrong. The enforcers chose censure and sacking over debate.

Rejecting JCU’s position, Vasta found the intellectual freedom clause is “the lens through which the behaviour of Professor Ridd must be viewed”. The judge said intellectual freedom allows people to express opinions without fear of reprisal. That is how Charles Darwin broke free from the constraints of creationism and how Albert Einstein challenged the constraints of Newtonian physics.

JCU will surely appeal this decision. Other universities will also be hoping for a favourable legal determination that upholds their codes of conduct as the final word, trumping even an intellectual freedom clause in an enterprise agreement with academics.

All things considered then, we have reached a shameful state of affairs: university leaders spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to uphold coercive powers they have given themselves under codes of conduct but expending no intellectual effort in considering the need for a truly liberating charter of intellectual freedom such as that drawn up by the University of Chicago and adopted by dozens of other American colleges.

Vaguely drafted codes of conduct are a conduit for double standards. And that is why they are bogus legal instruments. Every law student is taught that contracts can be voided for uncertainty. A boss should only ever have power to adversely affect a person’s employment in the clearest and most precise circumstances. It is high time that proliferating codes of conduct are exposed as dangerously vague virtue-signalling instruments with a nasty kick to them, allowing bosses to terminate an employee at will.

SOURCE  

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

*****************************************





25 April, 2019  

Earth Day predictions of 1970. The reason you shouldn’t believe Earth Day predictions of 2009

For the next 24 hours, the media will assault us with tales of imminent disaster that always accompany the annual Earth Day Doom & Gloom Extravaganza. Ignore them. They’ll be wrong. We’re confident in saying that because they’ve always been wrong. And always will be.

Need proof? Here are some of the hilarious, spectacularly wrong predictions made on the occasion of Earth Day 1970.

“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
* Kenneth Watt, ecologist

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
* George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”
* Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist

“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”
* New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
* Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
* Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
* Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
* Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
* Life Magazine, January 1970

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
* Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”
* Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.”
* Martin Litton, Sierra Club director

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.'”
* Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
* Sen. Gaylord Nelson

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
* Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

Keep these predictions in mind when you hear the same predictions made today. They’ve been making the same predictions for 39 years. And they’re going to continue making them until…well…forever.

Here we are, 39 years later and the economy sucks, but the ecology’s fine. In fact this planet is doing a lot better than the planet on which those green lunatics live.

SOURCE 







This Earth Day, thank America: The world leader in clean air

Did you know the United States leads the world in clean air?

As I walk the halls of the Capitol, meeting with members of Congress and their staff about the energy policies that help and hurt our country’s future, I’m shocked how many people don’t know and can’t believe this fact.

Over the last 50 years, harmful air pollution known as particulate matter has plummeted. Toxic pollutants like lead, sulfur dioxide, and carbon monoxide are now nearly nonexistent in our air. Ozone is down dramatically. We’re the only highly populated nation in the world to meet the World Health Organization’s standards for particulate matter and by a long shot. In fact, our standards are among the strictest in the world.

These radical air quality gains occurred at the same time our population, energy consumption, vehicle miles traveled, and gross domestic product also grew dramatically.

Our ongoing and increasingly fraught national conversation about the environment too often misses the fact that reliable, affordable energy is the critical enabler of innovation.

Countries like Germany have tried to force their way to environmental leadership by mandating a switch to wind and solar energy before the markets and technology were ready. This led to 46% higher electricity costs, massive subsidies to keep coal plants running for backup power, and dependence on imported wood from the U.S. for cooking and heating fuel — with little or no effect on the environment.

Meanwhile, free from the burden of stringent and stifling regulations, Americans have done what we have always done best: rolled up our sleeves and gotten to work.

Take the catalytic converter, which turns toxic exhaust into harmless gases, like water vapor, by catalyzing a chemical reaction. It was perfected for use in gasoline engines in the 1950s by Eugene Houdry, a French scientist who became a U.S. citizen in 1942, and was popularized in the 1970s as an efficient way to meet the Clean Air Act standards.

According to the EPA, which calls the catalytic converter “one of the greatest environmental inventions of all time,” modern cars, SUVs, trucks, and buses are 98-99% cleaner now than they were 50 years ago. Tailpipe pollutants have nearly been eliminated, meaning our cities are no longer stifled by smog. We’re free to take advantage of the independence, mobility, and economic opportunity personal vehicles offer without sacrificing environmental quality.

That’s good old American ingenuity at work. It continues to work today in technologies like baghouse dust collectors that eliminate pollution from commercial plants and renewable natural gas generation from methane captured from landfills or wastewater treatment plants. The limitless potential of the free market and innovation, not government mandates and taxes, have driven both our economy and environment to dramatic success.

All this is made possible by access to abundant, reliable, and affordable energy. Our energy resources have the power to improve our quality of life, power our economies, and lift people out of poverty both at home and abroad, all while improving the environment. Nothing is more powerful to drive human flourishing than energy.

Today, much of America’s air pollution is not of our own making. It’s blown into the West Coast from Asia. More stringent air quality regulations will do far more to export jobs out of the U.S. than they will to make our air safer to breathe.

On the other hand, the more our energy and manufacturing sectors are allowed to flourish, the more we can export to our friends and allies worldwide — which means the more we can export our environmental quality.

This Earth Day, we should celebrate our country’s radical achievements by embracing our abundant energy resources and empowering the free market to drive more environmental and economic progress for generations to come.

Jason Isaac is a senior manager and distinguished fellow of Life:Powered, a project of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. He previously served four terms in the Texas House of Representatives.

SOURCE 






If You Love Forests, Let Them Burn

Today marks 49 years since Earth Day was first established by Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI). Since then, the United States has made great strides towards improving the nation’s collective impact on the environment. Air pollution has fallen drastically. Efforts to clean up Superfund sites have removed toxic contaminants from hundreds of lands and rivers.

One place where we are failing, however, is healthy management of our forests. Nearly a century of anti-wildfire sentiments has damaged forest ecosystems and driven up the cost of preventing and controlling wildfires. It’s time to embrace fire as a natural part of the American landscape and a crucial means of preventing devastating blazes.

Following the Great Fire of 1910, which devastated large swathes of timberland in Northern Idaho and Western Montana, fire management policy began to focus largely on fire prevention and suppression. The US Forest Service (USFS), the main public agency charged with managing wildfires, established a policy to put out all fires before they consumed 10 acres.

About a decade later, USFS updated that policy to have all fires out by 10 am the morning following the discovery of a new blaze. That policy endured for decades before its repeal in 1978, when fire managers began to realize that not all forest fires needed to be doused immediately. That recognition was progress in the right direction, but a suppression-heavy focus on fire management has continued to drive policy even today.

Fire suppression, however, is an expensive answer to stopping wildfires and it has taken a major toll on the budgets of US fire management agencies like the USFS. Twenty years ago, in 1998, US spending on wildfire suppression totaled a little more than $400 million. By 2008, those costs had risen to nearly $1.6 billion. Just last year, fire managers spent a combined $3.1 billion on suppression efforts. That spending also failed to stop states like California from suffering the most destructive wildfire season in recent history.

Suppression efforts not only increase the cost of fighting fires, but they deprive ecosystems that have adapted to the considerable benefits of wildfires. Fire confers a number of important positive ecological advantages on forests, like clearing out dead brush, preventing overgrowth, and eliminating disease and invasive pests.

Fast forward to today and it is easy to see the negative effects of the fire-suppression mindset. Side-by-side comparisons of forests from a century ago and today show that forests have become much denser since we began to aggressively suppress fires. In some parts of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, more than 90 percent of the trees are dead. The lack of fire as a cleansing mechanism has turned many western forests into veritable tinderboxes ready to go up in flames at the first spark.

So how do we fix a century of bad forest management? We get back to what worked. We let forests burn.

That isn’t to say we need to start letting fires burn out of control. Tens of millions of Americans currently live in at-risk fire areas, and ways must be found to protect those communities. But one of our best options for doing so—from an ecological and economic standpoint—lies in preventative, controlled burning.

Controlled burning is a method of preventative management by which managers actually set up, start, and actively monitor fires to reduce dead brush buildup and overgrowth in forests. This method of prevention provides two key benefits over suppression—it reintroduces fire to fire-adapted landscapes, and it reduces wildfire risk at a fraction of the cost of suppression. Controlled burning, after all, is how Native Americans managed western lands for centuries

Public perceptions of wildfire danger and environmental regulation, however, have created barriers to implementing controlled burns in western landscapes. The Clean Air Act, for example, regulates emissions from controlled burns but does nothing to regulate emissions from wildfires, even though wildfire smoke contains three times as much particulate matter as smoke from controlled burns.

Policymakers need to re-evaluate the effectiveness of controlled burning for managing future forest fires. Removing barriers to managed burns in western forests not only will reduce the cost and scope of wildfire disasters, but will restore an ecologically important practice to western landscapes.

SOURCE 





House Speaker Pelosi: ‘For Democrats, Combating the Climate Crisis…Is a Moral Imperative’

When Leftists talk morality it is time to switch off. They have the ethics of a flea

Passing climate change legislation is “a moral imperative” for the Democrat Party, House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared Monday.

In a statement in recognition of Earth Day, Pelosi declared Democrats’ climate agenda a matter of morality:

“For Democrats, combatting the climate crisis is not an issue – it is a moral imperative that compels us to act. That is why, on day one, we created the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis to put an end to the inaction and denial of science that threaten the Earth and our future.

“House Democrats also took a bold first step to protect our planet by introducing H.R. 9, the Climate Action Now Act, to keep us in the Paris Agreement, demand a real plan from the Trump Administration and lay the foundation for further decisive action from the Congress. On Earth Day, and every day, Democrats are fighting For The People, and are working to create a clean energy economy and a safe, sustainable future for our children and grandchildren to grow and thrive.”

“The climate crisis is already exacting a devastating toll,” so Democrats must act now, Pelosi said:

“In communities across the globe, the climate crisis is already exacting a devastating toll as rising seas, savage droughts, devastating wildfires and increasingly extreme and unpredictable weather patterns threaten the people and places we love. In America, the growing crisis is raising serious risk to our public health, our economy, our national security and our moral obligation to protect the environment.”

 SOURCE 






The Ridd affair is a debacle for JCU -- and its council should look into it

Physicist Prof. Ridd blew the whistle on scientific fraud at JCU and the Warmist fraudsters hate him for it. He showed that their statements about the "endangered" Great Barrier Reef depended on very selective evidence.  They had no defence against his accusations so they played the man, not the ball.  The Federal court has just overturned their attempt to fire him. 

They were relying on the taxpayers' deep pockets to ensure that Ridd could not afford to challenge them in court.  But Ridd's treatment was so palpably wrong that many people rallied to his defence by contributing to his fighting fund

The unrepentant academics at JCU have said they will appeal the finding.  They may be encouraged by the fact that judge Vasta has been overturned a few times lately.  They should not get their hopes up. He has been overturned on appeal at least 15 times but he has heard more than 1000 cases.  That's not good odds for them


Thank God for the National Tertiary Education Union. Sacked professor Peter Ridd won his Federal Court action against James Cook University this month ­entirely because the university’s enterprise bargaining agreement, negotiated by the union, included a lengthy and carefully worded protection for intellectual freedom.

And that is the simple fact. Ridd’s win (he was found to have been wrongly dismissed) was a big victory for intellectual freedom in academia, and its legal foundation is in the commitment of the tertiary union to free speech.

Why is last week’s decision, from judge Salvatore Vasta, so important? It helps to look back at the history of this dispute.

First of all, Ridd is a respected scientist. He was head of physics at JCU from 2009 to 2016, and he managed the university’s marine geophysical laboratory for 15 years. He has expertise in studies of the Great Barrier Reef.

But he held concerns about the methodology used by some colleagues who said that coral bleaching on the reef was a recent phenomenon and linked to global warming.

Ridd also questioned the methodology behind findings that sediment in run-off was damaging the reef.

Ridd spoke to journalists and made public statements about these concerns. He questioned the judgments of colleagues and called on the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority as well as the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies to “check their facts before they spin their story”.

But the point about this is that Ridd was arguing about scientific judgments. His views may be right or wrong. But they are testable in the way all scientific assertions should be tested — by observation and experiment. Scientific controversies are a staple of the history of science and, eventually, truth outs.

But the university, offended by Ridd’s contrarian views and possibly fearing the impact it would have on its relations with other bodies such as the GBRMPA and the ARC Centre of Excellence, went after Ridd personally, saying that he had breached the university’s code of conduct by not upholding “the integrity and good reputation of the university”.

The university also trawled through Ridd’s work emails and came up with things that reflected on the organisation and some of Ridd’s colleagues.

There was this statement by Ridd: “ … our whole university system pretends to value free debate, but in fact it crushes it whenever the ‘wrong’ ideas are spoken. They are truly an Orwellian in nature.” And this, referring to some colleagues: “Needless to say I have certainly offended some sensitive but powerful and ruthless egos.”

Such statements, in the view of the university, were again not upholding the university’s good integrity and good reputation.

Sensibly, [judge] Vasta took the view that Ridd was just exercising his right, contained in the enterprise agreement, to “express opinions about the operations of JCU” and “express disagreement with university decisions and with the processes used to make those decisions”.

Naturally the university doesn’t agree. In a statement last week, issued after the decision, it stood by its view that Ridd “engaged in serious misconduct, including denigrating the university and its employees and breaching confidentiality directions regarding the disciplinary processes”.

“We are a university,” JCU also proclaimed in the statement. “Within our very DNA is the importance of promoting academic views and collegiate debate.”

With respect, it is exactly the lack of commitment to academic and collegiate debate that is the problem.

If the university had taken Ridd’s scientific objections to findings about damage to the Barrier Reef seriously, it’s very unlikely that this debacle — which is highly damaging to the university — would have occurred.

There is another point that needs to be made. The science at issue here is not about whether or not global warming is occurring, or whether or not such warming is caused by humans. What Ridd questioned is whether recent bleaching (which nobody disputes occurred) is itself evidence of warming. Ridd presented evidence — which should have been ­investigated, not summarily dismissed — that bleaching is a recurring phenomenon not specifically linked to warming.

In the court decision, Vasta offered his own defence of intellectual freedom and an implicit rebuke of JCU.

“It (intellectual freedom) allows a Charles Darwin to break free of the constraints of creationism. It allows an Albert Einstein to break free of the constraints of Newtonian physics. It allows the human race to question conventional wisdom in the never-ending search for knowledge and truth. And that, at its core, is what higher learning is about. To suggest otherwise is to ignore why universities were created and why critically focused academics remain central to all that university teaching claims to offer,” the judge said.

The Ridd affair should be of major concern to the JCU council — the university’s governing body — and its chancellor, former diplomat Bill Tweddell. If the council doesn’t look into why the university sacked a professor whose honestly held scientific views happened to be unpopular, then it’s failing in its duty.

SOURCE  

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

*****************************************




24 April, 2019  

Global warming is beneficial:  The NYT says so

Most of the wealth and human progress is located in the North of the world. Even quite far North countries such as Norway and Sweden do very well.  And  it gets pretty cold there a lot of the time.

Even in Italy, it is the cooler North where the prosperity is mostly to be found.  And the warmer European countries such as Greece, Portugal, Turkey and the Yugoslav countries are not rich at all. 

But cold climates do have their limits.  All that snow shovelling and burst water pipes, for instance. So wouldn't countries in those cold climates benefit from a bit of warming?

The NYT quotes a study that confirms that possibility.  Global warming has been good for the First World countries. The small bit of global warming we have had over the last century or so has made us richer.  It has made a variety of things marginally easier for us.  So where's the worry?

Apparently the people of the warmer and poorer world not only don't benefit, they actually slide behind economically.  Sometimes it is too hot to work, for instance.

So what is to be done?  Nothing, as far as I can see.  The poorer countries have so much catching up to do in so many areas that the climate is the least of their worries.  Working to get rid of corruption would be the most likely way in which they could get ahead


Climate change creates winners and losers. Norway is among the winners; Nigeria among the losers.

Those are the stark findings of a peer-reviewed paper by two Stanford University professors who have tried to quantify the impact of rising greenhouse gas emissions on global inequality. It was published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Global temperatures have risen nearly 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, since the start of the industrial age, and the study was aimed at quantifying what effect that increase has had on national economies and the global wealth gap.

Poor countries lost out, while rich countries, especially those who have racked up a lot of emissions over the last 50 years, the study found, have “benefited from global warming.”

Inequality among nations, which has come down a lot in recent decades, would have declined far faster, it concluded, had climate change not been in the mix. It estimated that the gap in per capita income in the richest and poorest countries is 25 percentage points larger than it would have been without climate change.

The study relies on earlier research by Marshall Burke, an economist at Stanford. In that earlier work, he had found that when temperatures were hotter than average (for any reason), economic growth slowed in poor countries but accelerated in rich countries. That’s because the world’s richest countries are by and large already in cooler latitudes, while poor countries are disproportionately concentrated around the Equator, where even a slight increase in temperature can be devastating to crop production, human health and labor productivity.

For this latest study, Dr. Burke, along with Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate scientist, looked at more than 20 climate models to estimate how much countries have warmed since 1960 specifically because of climate change. Then, they estimated what each country’s economic performance could have been without such a temperature rise.

Most of the world’s poor countries are poorer today than they would have been had those emissions not altered the climate, while many rich countries, especially in the northern belt of the Northern Hemisphere, are richer than they would have been, the study found.

Between 1961 and 2000, climate change dampened per capita incomes in the world’s poorest countries by between 17 percent and 30 percent. Among the countries hardest hit were also some of the largest. India, the world’s second most populous country, would have been 30 percent richer without climate change, the study concluded. For Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, that figure was 29 percent.

Norway, which is also a big oil and gas producer, fared well: It grew 34 percent richer. The authors cautioned that data on the very hottest and the very coldest countries is relatively sparse.

Countries in temperate zones, including China and the United States, did not feel much of an effect, the study said.

“If you’re a really cool country you’ve been helped a lot,” Dr. Burke said. “If you’re a really warm country, you’ve been hurt a lot. And if you’re in the middle the effects have been smaller or much more muted.”

The findings carry enormous implications for the global debate about who should bring down greenhouse gas emissions the fastest — and who should pay for the havoc they are causing, especially in poor countries. That is already one of the stickiest issues in global climate negotiations.

Dr. Burke said this study quantified the “dual benefits” that rich countries, particularly industrialized countries in the cooler latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, had enjoyed — first being able to consume fossil fuels to grow their economies and then reaping the gains of warmer temperatures. “Other countries have not had either of those,” Dr. Burke asserted.

“They didn’t cause the problem,” he said. “They’re being harmed by it. There’s a clear equity dimension here.”

SOURCE 






Coal Miners Give AOC Reality Check After She Promises To Kill Their Industry

In a video released earlier this week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez narrated a strange version of a Green New Deal future that appeared more like a delusional fever dream than a practical plan.

She imagines high-speed bullet trains, a Democratic-led government, the demise of fossil fuels, and “in transition” energy sector workers relegated to planting mangrove trees under the guidance of Native American elders.

Seriously.

Despite being only slightly less realistic than the “Star Wars” franchise, this line of thinking in our nation’s leadership needs to be taken as a credible threat.

Of course, the coal miners of West Virginia know this all too well. Through the generations, they’ve experienced the ups and downs of coal country and the government overreach that can deal death blows to communities.

And there’s one little problem they have with Ocasio-Cortez’s plan: “There is no America without coal.”

In the video, a group of coal miners savages Ocasio-Cortez’s position on the fossil fuel, delivering a brutal fact check about what her policies would actually do to workers.

“The Green New Deal would be bad for coal miners because it’s going to put every coal miner out of a job,” said a man who identified himself as Kentucky coal miner Chris Dingess.

“If the Green New Deal passed,” said Dingess, “this is what it would do to me: I’d lose my home. I wouldn’t be able to pay for my vehicles. I’d have to find a new profession and start all over from scratch, and try to figure out a way to live.”

This is a far cry from the future of sustainable mangrove-planting jobs envisioned by Ocasio-Cortez.

And since these men have witnessed the brutal reality of what regulation can do to a coal mining community, their prediction is actually based in the real world.

“AOC, this is my message from coal country,” said a man who identified himself as John Manuel, a West Virginia coal miner with 37 years in the industry.

“We have been coal miners all of our lives. Things have gotten safer and better in the coal industry for the coal miners. “And we are here to stay.”

If a New York liberal like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to put these men and the tens of thousands of others like them out of a job, she’d better be prepared to face the consequences of her actions.

Gutted communities, unemployment, and a power crisis would only be the beginning of her “decade of the Green New Deal.”

SOURCE 






Earth Day Is About Being Scolded by Celebrities

Today is Earth Day, and you know what that means: It's time to get scolded for living in the world! Environmentalists are better than you because their entire identity is centered around believing as much, so you will sit there and take your punishment. You'll hear the same crap you heard last year, and the same crap you'll hear next year, such is their commitment to recycling.

There's no point in saving the planet if nobody sees you doing it, which is why the environmentalist movement needs celebrities. The other day Emma Thompson brought about tangible, lasting change by flying 5,000 miles to march against airplanes. But was she willing to shave off all her facial hair? Was she ready to make that sacrifice for Gaia? Jason Momoa is. He just deforested his whole face!

If you're not sure how Aquaman shaving off his beard raises awareness, well... now you're aware he did it, right?

Momoa shot that in Jordan, where he's currently filming Dune, and presumably he didn't walk or ride a bicycle to get there. So... the biggest problem with flying all over the world on airplanes is the little bottles of water they give you? Really? Well, he's very handsome and seems like a good dude, so it's nice that he's doing whatever he's doing with those cans.

Speaking of water, say what you want about Ed Begley Jr., but he's so committed to conservation that he drinks his own wee-wee. If you have absolutely nothing else to do today, you can watch him do... whatever this is:

Lots of celebs are doing everything they can to save the planet with the mountains of cash they make by despoiling the planet. Did you know Leonardo DiCaprio has invested his own money in something called "vegan meat"? The future depends on this vital research into oxymorons.

Meanwhile, I hope you'll join me in commemorating Earth Day by doing absolutely nothing differently. George Carlin called it, almost 30 years ago: "The planet has been through a lot worse than us."

I'll believe there's a crisis when the people who tell me there's a crisis start acting like it. If these guys wanted me to believe they care about the planet, they'd leave it alone. Just imagine all the carbon that wouldn't be released into the atmosphere if environmentalists would just shut up.

P.S. Credit where it's due: Ira Einhorn, the man who created Earth Day, ended up killing his girlfriend and composting her remains. What better way to reduce her carbon footprint?

SOURCE 







Obama Era Judge Shuts Down Trump’s Attempt To Open Fed Lands to Coal Mining

A federal judge in Montana delayed a Trump administration attempt to open up more federal lands to coal mining on Friday, The New York Times reports.

U.S. District Court judge Brian Morris ruled that the Trump administration illegally overturned a moratorium placed on coal mining on federal lands by former President Barack Obama.

Obama instated the policy in 2016 as part of his administration’s environmental agenda to cut coal usage.

Morris’ decision states that former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke did not consider the full environmental effects of overturning the coal mining ban and ordered the Department of the Interior to redo and expand environmental studies on the matter.

The DOI is looking into the court decision before taking further action, the Times reports.

“Federal Defendants’ decision not to initiate the [National Environmental Policy Act] process proves arbitrary and capricious,” Morris, who was nominated to the federal bench by Obama in 2013, wrote in his decision.

The next push to overturn Obama’s moratorium on selling coal mining leases for federal land will fall to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.

Bernhardt took charge of the DOI as acting secretary after Zinke left the department in January. The Senate confirmed Bernhardt’s nomination on April 11.

Trump campaigned on reviving America’s faltering coal industry to save jobs in the sector as well as promote U.S. energy independence from foreign sources.

Environmental activists and Democrats have hampered the administration’s progress, claiming that emissions from the sector are worsening climate change and may do irreparable harm to the environment.

The courts themselves have put up some of the stiffest resistance to the Trump administration’s policies. A federal judge in Alaska struck down two different Trump administration acts in March.

In one case, the Trump administration negotiated a land swap with a remote Alaskan community so the village could construct a road to the areas only all-weather airport.

The second court ruling struck down an order from Trump to revoke a ban on oil and gas exploration in federal waters in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.

SOURCE 






A Consensus of Amazon Employees Reject the Radical Climate Change Agenda

Announced with great fanfare last week was a letter from 4,500 Amazon employees urging the company to rethink how it deals with climate change. The workers want the company to reduce its carbon footprint and incorporate their vision of climate-change mitigation in its decision making.

For starters, they advocate passage of a shareholder resolution next month to force the company to address how it might lessen its contribution to man-made warming. In addition, they want Amazon to withhold its cloud business from oil and gas companies that utilize the service to extract more fossil fuels.

The release of the letter was widely reported under headlines like “Thousands of Amazon employees urge company to do more on climate change.”

A much better headline would read “99.3 percent of Amazon employees do not endorse climate change letter.” That is because the signatories represent an amazingly tiny percentage of Amazon’s workforce of 613,300 workers worldwide. If the issue of man-made catastrophic warming were the existential threat it is so often made out to be, one would expect to at least get a measly one percent of the workforce to sign up if only to virtue signal.

The same media regularly tout the mythical “97 percent consensus” of scientists who support the notion that man-made warming is harmful. Yet, in this case, they seem to put huge stock in an incredibly small set of workers at a huge company that they believe should have an oversized effect on policy.

The supposed 97 percent consensus that is trotted out at every opportunity to support the idea of catastrophic man-made warming is based on a paper written by John Cook in 2013. Cook defined his consensus to be that man had caused the majority of the global warming since 1950.

To get to 97 percent he cast a wide net (which would include the likes of me), but more importantly, he misrepresented his own statistical results in the publication.

An independent study by David Legates and two co-authors reviewed the scientific papers that Cook had used in arriving at the “consensus” and discovered multiple serious errors in Cook’s methodology and results.

In fact, they determined that only 41 out of the 11,944 climate papers Cook examined had explicitly stated that man caused most of the warming since 1950. The percentage of such papers was only 0.3 percent, quite a different story than that advanced by the mainstream media.

Please note that this actual percentage supporting the “consensus” is strikingly similar to the 0.7 percent of the Amazon employees who cared enough to endorse the climate change letter.

Dr. Legates said: “It is astonishing that any journal could have published a paper claiming a 97% climate consensus when on the authors’ own analysis the true consensus was well below 1%.

“It is still more astonishing that the IPCC should claim 95% certainty about the climate consensus when so small a fraction of published papers explicitly endorse the consensus as the IPCC defines it.”

Richard Tol also reviewed Cook’s work and concluded: “Cook’s 97% nonsensus paper shows that the climate community still has a long way to go in weeding out bad research and bad behavior. If you want to believe that climate researchers are incompetent, biased and secretive, Cook’s paper is an excellent case in point.”

David Legates and his co-authors labeled the “consensus opinion” as “agnotology.” In case your lexicon does not include that word, the definition of agnotology is “the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data.”

This is a term you should consider using when referencing those promoting the consensus myth, or those who seek to foist their politically-driven ideas to control the uncontrollable (climate) on major institutions like Amazon.

SOURCE 






Australia’s new battlefield: insiders vs outsiders: As in Brexit Britain and Trump’s America, it’s the elite vs the people.

The Left's electric car fantasy is totally inappropriate for the  Australian people and the policy could yet be their  undoing

If you trust the polls, Labor leader Bill Shorten will win next month’s Australian federal election, as surely as the British voted to remain in Europe and Hillary Clinton won the US presidency in 2016.

Shorten has been the consistent frontrunner for more than two years and faces a centre-right coalition with weakened authority after five years of internal division and two changes of leader.

Yet there is good reason to suspect that polling may be as reliable as it was in 2016.

Like Britain, the US and much of the democratic Western world, Australia is undergoing a transition from the politics of left and right to a contest between conformist insiders and woefully disobedient outsiders.

Shorten and the prime minister Scott Morrison feel obliged to tread cautiously across a treacherous cultural landscape. One false move could trip the next political explosion, as Shorten did two weeks ago when he announced a bold policy on electric vehicles.

Australia was lagging behind the rest of the world, he said. A Shorten government would ensure that by 2030, 50 per cent of vehicles sold on the market would be powered by batteries.

Had Shorten sought advice from anyone living more than five kilometres outside the Canberra political triangle, the thought bubble would never have been released.

Australians love their cars with the passionate intensity mid-America displays towards guns. The backlash was immediate. Alan Jones, the country’s most popular talkback radio host, declared that the issue would lose Shorten the election.

Shorten compounded his problems two days later when he was asked by a breakfast radio presenter how long the batteries took to charge. ‘Oh, it can take, umm … it depends on what your original charge is, but it can take, err, eight to 10 minutes depending on your charge’, Shorten ventured.

A more accurate answer would have been eight to 10 hours.

Few Australians would be embarrassed by Shorten’s accusation that they are behind the rest of the world in the quality of the exhaust emitted from their tailpipes. They live in a country of vast distances and rough terrain with the third-lowest fuel taxes in the developed world. Miles per hour still counts for more in the Australian car market than miles per gallon.

Others are welcome to drive Ford Fiestas, VW Golfs and Vauxhall Corsa, the three top-selling vehicles in Britain. But they’re a little squashy for four grown men even without their fishing rods.

Which is why Australians prefer the Toyota HiLux, Ford Territory and Mitsubishi Triton, the current top-selling vehicles, which emit almost twice the CO2 of the Fiesta but are far better suited for rounding up sheep in a wet paddock.

Few nations could rival Australia in its unsuitability for electric vehicles. The challenge of installing chargers at convenient intervals along Australia’s 7.6million kilometres of roads is hard enough. It is considerably more difficult than in the UK, for example, where there are 77 cars per square kilometre, compared to Australia’s 2.5.

Utility vehicles, or ‘utes’ in the local vernacular, SUVs and four-wheel-drives account for more than 60 per cent of the small vehicle market in Australia and their popularity is growing.

There is no electrical equivalent of these vehicles on the market. We’re told that the Hyundai Kona could be on sale by Christmas, but at $60,000 – $20,000 more than the petrol version – you can forget it.

The global mania driving the introduction of electric vehicles seems puzzling viewed through Australian eyes. If Norway chooses to spend billions of krone earned by selling oil on subsidies to bribe its citizens to drive electric cars, then let them. Unlike the Norwegians, Australians do not have 31 billion watts of hydro-generated electricity at their disposal.

Yet the technological obstacles and investment challenges are treated with little regard by the elite, where anxiety about the predicted effects of global warming are keenly felt. Support for electric cars, like enthusiasm for renewable energy, is strongest in well-to-do suburbs close the city, frequently close to the beach, where they drive cars the least and are soothed by maritime breezes on stinking-hot summer days.

The hostility to electric vehicles is not helped by the performance of the political and policy elites who have a track record of policy disasters in energy. The last Labor government used draconian cross-subsidies to force investment in wind and solar power with unfortunate results.

Australians once enjoyed among the cheapest electricity in the world. Now it vies to be the most expensive. The intermittent supply from renewable energy has made the grid unstable. There have been lengthy blackouts in South Australia and Victoria, where coal-fired power stations have been forced out of the market.

The intellectual elites who created this mess still struggle to see where they went wrong. If it worked for Denmark, why wouldn’t it work here?

But Australia is a very different country. Like other net exporters of energy, the relatively high level of emissions per-capita does not reflect local habits.

It exports some of the world’s cleanest coal, thus contributing to a reduction of emissions in some countries. And if coal is considered too dirty, there’s always gas, in which Australia leads the world in exports.

Agriculture, of which Australia is also a net exporter, contributes 16 per cent to national emissions, most of which comes from enteric fermentation in ruminant livestock – a polite way of saying belching and farting, for which there is no known antidote.

These peculiar national characteristics help to explain why climate policy is Australia’s Brexit: the issue that divides the intellectual elites with their grand theories from the rest of Australia with its no-nonsense practical outlook. It is the touchstone issue on which the nation divides along non-party lines, and could once break up a barbie in those innocent days when the two tribes grilled their steaks together and parked their six-cylinder Holdens in the same drive.

Like Brexit, leaders would prefer if they didn’t have to take sides, for fear of causing offence and disunity within their own party. Like Brexit, however, there is no fence to sit on. Shorten, the leader of the party that pays increasingly little attention to the workers that once defined it, is siding with the intellectuals, promising to abate roughly three times the amount of greenhouse gas by 2030 than Australia is obliged to do under the Paris Commitment.

If he thinks such virtue-seeking will go unquestioned by hoi polloi beyond the beltway, he will be disappointed. It is proving to be an electoral disadvantage in the outer suburbs and in regional Australia where a Trump-like revolt, if it ever happened in Australia, would be likely to break out.

It is here that Morrison is discovering surprise middle ground on the continuous issue of climate policy. Like Shorten, he promises action to reduce emissions, which 70 per cent of Australians favour. His appeal, however, is toward practical, measured policy, rather than one that seems intellectually pure.

‘You don’t have to choose between the economy and the environment’, Morrison says. ‘You don’t have to choose between your job and the environment.’

Any predictions about the result next month must be heavily qualified. The political duopoly that has been in place since the end of the Second World War is fraying. Populist independents and pop-up parties are strengthening and will almost certainly hold the balance of power in the next parliament, as they have for the past 12 years. They may also increase their presence in the lower house, increasing the chances of a hung parliament.

The Liberal/National Coalition, which has been in government for 18 of the past 24 years, comes to the poll as a weakened force, despite an exceptionally strong economy and low unemployment. PM Scott Morrison, who has been in office for less than eight months, has gone some way to restoring the government’s fortunes and repair the internal disunity, but time was never on his side.

The weekend polls still put Labor ahead by 52 per cent to 48 per cent. Yet if Morrison can manage to tap the well of discontent against the outlandish climate policy pursued by much of the political class, the coalition may yet confound those who have written them off.

SOURCE  

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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23 April, 2019  

Extinction Rebellion Activists Break Down After Failing To Close Heathrow

Young climate change activists broke down in tears on television today as they protested at Heathrow Airport on the fifth day of Extinction Rebellion demonstrations in London.

Around 15 youths, all aged under 17, arrived at the UK’s busiest airport on Good Friday for the planned demonstration, where they unfurled a banner with the words “Are we the last generation”.

Footage showed the youngsters becoming emotional, with one protester saying he was “afraid for the future of this planet”.

The protest is part of wider demonstrations around the capital organized by the campaign group Extinction Rebellion (XR), which has blocked routes around Marble Arch, Oxford Circus, Parliament Square, and Waterloo Bridge since Monday.

Protesters stood by the tunnel that leads to Terminals 2 and 3 at the airport, but all roads around the roundabout remained open.

Extinction Rebellion said police had warned the youngsters at Heathrow that they could be arrested.

Dozens of police officers surrounded the group, who were stopped from blocking the road.

The airport had said it was braced for disruption after protesters announced plans to target the transport hub.

A spokesman for Heathrow Airport had said it was “working with authorities to address any threat of protests which could disrupt the airport”.

Pictures showed the youngsters becoming emotional and embracing during the demonstration.

The activists said they were motivated by a “constant fear” for their future, according to a statement from Extinction Rebellion.

In an interview with LBC, one boy said: “This is more of a symbolic protest to show the fear… the love that we have for this planet. “I’m not afraid of arrest, I’m afraid of the future of this planet.

Organizers said the action would be escalated to include Heathrow on Good Friday, with around 500,000 people expected to fly out for Easter breaks over the bank holiday weekend.

The airport said it was “working with the authorities”, while Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Nick Ephgrave said: “Protesters can expect a robust police response. We are determined to keep the airport operating.”

Scotland Yard has warned protesters the force had “strong plans” in place with a significant number of officers ready to respond.

Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, told BBC Breakfast on Friday that protests had been “very, very difficult” for the force because it was an “alien” situation for most of them.

But he said that with more than 1,000 officers being deployed the streets will begin to be cleared.

He added: “This is very, very difficult for us because my colleagues have never come across the situation that they are faced with at the moment.

“They are dealing with very, very passive people, probably quite nice people, who don’t want confrontation whatsoever with the police or anyone else but are breaking the law.

“We are having to adjust to that, we are having to deal with the circumstances that are put in front of my colleagues, but be very robust so we can start clearing the streets and you will see that starting to happen today.”

SOURCE 






What Gives? UN Climate Report (Due 2022) Excludes Geologists

As usual, the Green/Left need to shield themselves from the facts

Geology is a key science to help our understanding of earth’s past climate. Yet, once again, the corrupt UN IPCC will deliver another biased report in 2022 that excludes ANY geologists.

Geologist, Dr Roger Higgs exposes the reasons for this shameful omission in his paper ‘IPCC Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change next report (AR6, due 2022) ? 784 authors, yes 784, but again NO geologists!‘

Published at researchgate.net Dr Higgs writes:

“My Technical Note 2018-2 exposed the astonishing lack of geologists (the very scientists most qualified to speak on climate change) among the 838 (sic) authors of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5, 2013-14) of the United Nations’ IPCC.”

The IPCC’s next report, AR6, is just as much a betrayal of open and honest assessment of our planet’s climate system.

Dr Higgs explains:

“The author listings (below) show the “necessary expertise” is lacking: geologists are again excluded, rendering the collective authorship  incompetent  for  their  stated  mission  of  reviewing  the  scientific  literature  to  assess  climate  change.  By  this omission, IPCC ignores Earth’s history  (!)  and  the  copious  geological  evidence,  latterly  backed  by  archaeology, that sea level (barometer of global temperature, via ocean-water expansion and polar ice melt) undergoes a rapid (100-500 year) and large (1-3 metres)  oscillation every 500-2,000 years, caused by  volcanism and solar fluctuations, certainly not  by industrial CO2! See my other 2019 technical notes here on ResearchGate, giving some of the evidence for such sea-level oscillations.”

Anyone examining the list of authors posted for the new UN climate (AR6) report can see that Dr Higgs has a point: in Working Group  I  (WGI),  ‘The  Physical  Science  Basis’ there are 232  authors,  including  meteorologists, oceanographers, climate scientists, glaciologists, physicists, geographers and computer modellers.

But nowhere will you see ANY geologists.

Meanwhile, WGII, titled ‘Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’ shows 323 authors and again among them are no geologists. Then there is WGIII, Mitigation of Climate Change. This lists 229 authors and, surprise, surprise – no geologists.

So, that is a grand total 784 expert authors and not a single geologist among them. Why is this?

Dr Higgs thinks the problem is political, not scientific. He identifies that there is an unabashed political quota of authors to represent designated (politically correct) groups.

These include:

*   44% from developing countries and countries with economies in transition

*  53% new to the IPCC process

*  33% women

This ‘diversity’ is politically and ideologically concocted; not determined by excellence but rather whether the authors meet pre-approval not for what they know, but simply by being a particular identity (i.e. identity politics replacing scientific competence).

Dr Higgs laments:

”How lovely: no geologists, but at least we have politically correct quotas of  women,  third  worlders  and  youngsters!  Worse: the 53%  “new”  people  are  doubtless nearly all younger than 50, i.e. biased, indoctrinated through school and university with the ‘CO2 = pollutant’ fallacy.”

If the oh-so-noble UN can craft a body of authors that neatly fulfils its identity politics agenda, why then cannot it serve the interests of science and rightfully include in that group at least a small number of geologists to ensure this important field of research is adequately considered in the mix?

Higgs puts it bluntly to readers:

“Are you content that this biased, under-skilled, politically-driven organization, having judged the greatest issue of  modern time, global warming, to be manmade, has unleashed multi-trillion-dollar expenditure (relentlessly raising  your family’s taxes & energy bills) to cripple the global economy and downgrade human living standards worldwide?”

Higgs, R., IPCC Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change next report (AR6, due 2022) ? 784 authors, yes 784, but again NO geologists!  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331974185

SOURCE 






Apologists for poverty: There is nothing progressive in green calls to overthrow capitalism

Climate protesters Extinction Rebellion have spent the week blocking London’s roads, staging die-ins, glueing themselves to trains, climbing on top of buses, and even chaining themselves to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s house. The activists’ aim is to cause maximum disruption and get themselves arrested to draw attention to climate change. Protest leaders claim that humanity faces extinction unless carbon emissions are cut to net zero by 2025.

They have compared themselves to Gandhi and Martin Luther King. A BBC podcast asks if Extinction Rebellion are ‘the new Suffragettes’. They have been endorsed by many on the radical left who have persuaded themselves that a serious rebellion is afoot.

Last week, left-wing new media outlet Novara Media posted on social media a video of veteran eco-warrior George Monbiot. In it, Monbiot calls for an end to green tinkering and the ‘micro-consumerist bollocks’ of sustainable cotton buds, etc. Instead, he says, ‘we need to get to the heart of capitalism and overthrow it’. The audience cheered and the clip went viral, with over one million views. James Corden from Gavin and Stacey retweeted it. Leftists tweeted excitedly about a decisive and radical shift in the ‘Overton Window’ in favour of abolishing capitalism.

Traditionally, the left would campaign in favour of human progress, more wealth, with a greater share of that wealth going to ordinary working-class people. Novara Media’s organising principle of ‘Fully Automated Luxury Communism’ nods to this aspiration. In Marxist terms, capitalism would come to be replaced with a communist society of abundance for all.

But strip away the pseudo-radical talk of rebellion and revolt and it becomes clear that neither Extinction Rebellion nor Monbiot’s eccentric ramblings should be talked about as a serious left challenge to capitalism. It is not a call to ditch capitalism in favour of a new system that could provide abundance for all. On the contrary, the environmental critique of capitalism is that we have too much stuff, too much wealth, and we should now return to a pre-industrial feudalistic state.

For instance, in that viral clip, two of the things Monbiot told us to give up are meat and air travel. Flight, the ability to traverse continents in ever shorter periods of time, is surely one of the greatest gains of modern times. For several hundred pounds, you can travel to the other side of the world. For less than £100, you can travel to practically any nation in Europe. Similarly, the abundance of food that the developed world is able to enjoy is a triumph of modernity. Developments in modern farming, packaging and transport mean that meat no longer has to be rationed. Even the poorest people in the West can enjoy a meat-based diet in a way that would have only been possible for aristocrats less than a century ago. According to environmentalists, this progress is a very bad thing.

The environmental attack on increased living standards for the poor is often explicit. Back in 2007, annoyed that teenagers ‘in one of the poorest parts of Britain’ could afford ‘expensive haircuts, fashionable clothes and mobile phones’, Monbiot concluded in a Guardian column that rich nations have reached the logical place to stop growing. Not only that, but they should start shrinking and become poorer. ‘Bring on the recession’ was the headline he chose when he republished the article on his website.

In his 2007 book Heat, Monbiot described environmentalism as ‘a campaign not for abundance but austerity, not for more freedom but less… It is a campaign not just against other people, but against ourselves.’

Many observers have noted the overwhelmingly white and middle-class composition of the Extinction Rebellion protests. Unsurprisingly, few working-class people are likely to share the environmentalists’ belief that we are all too wealthy and should embrace restraint, rationing and recession.

Where calls to overthrow capitalism were once made in the name of abolishing human misery, today’s anti-capitalists make clear that their goal is to promote human misery. Capitalism may be exploitative and unequal, but the new anti-capitalism is downright anti-human.

SOURCE 






Dealbreaker? Electric vehicles emit more CO2 than diesel ones, German study shows

Electric vehicles in Germany account for more CO2 emissions than diesel ones, according to a study by German scientists.
When CO2 emissions linked to the production of batteries and the German energy mix - in which coal still plays an important role - are taken into consideration, electric vehicles emit 11% to 28% more than their diesel counterparts, according to the study, presented on Wednesday at the Ifo Institute in Munich.

Mining and processing the lithium, cobalt and manganese used for batteries consume a great deal of energy. A Tesla Model 3 battery, for example, represents between 11 and 15 tonnes of CO2. Given a lifetime of 10 years and an annual travel distance of 15,000 kilometres, this translates into 73 to 98 grams of CO2 per kilometre, scientists Christoph Buchal, Hans-Dieter Karl and Hans-Werner Sinn noted in their study.

The CO2 given off to produce the electricity that powers such vehicles also needs to be factored in, they say.

When all these factors are considered, each Tesla emits 156 to 180 grams of CO2 per kilometre, which is more than a comparable diesel vehicle produced by the German company Mercedes, for example.

The German researchers therefore take issue with the fact that European officials view electric vehicles as zero-emission ones. They note further that the EU target of 59 grams of CO2 per km by 2030 corresponds to a “technically unrealistic” consumption of 2.2 litres of diesel or 2.6 litres of gas per 100 kms.

These new limits pressure German and other European car manufacturers into switching massively to electric vehicles whereas, the researchers feel, it would have been preferable to opt for methane engines, “whose emissions are one-third less than those of diesel motors.”

SOURCE 






‘We are in a crisis’: Australia’s recycling nightmare

For some reason, plastic is a great Greenie demon and there is a big imperative to recycle it.  Dropping it down a hole is apparently not good enough any more. A lot of Australia's playing fields and parks were once dumps but that is no longer wise, apparently.

But most plastic cannot economically be recycled so the little we do recycle requires government subsidies and support of various kinds. It costs money to recyle.  Making something useful out of rubbish is difficult. The fantasy that recycled rubbish can pay for itself is long gone. And the great bulk that we do not recycle we send overseas where they mostly burn it. But now other countries don't want it either, even if we pay them

If the Greenies had a brain they would be pushing for a total ban on plastic food and drink containers.  Many drink containers are already made of glass, steel or aluminium, which are fully and easily recylable. One's shopping would get slightly heavier as plastic bottles are lighter than steel or glass ones and aluminium containers do not work well in the larger sizes.  But I guess that glass, steel and aluminium are just boring old stuff that you cannot get a virtue claim out of


As our plastic waste piles up at overstretched facilities or is dumped in Malaysia and Indonesia, the crisis is getting too big to ignore.

Australia has catapulted headfirst into a crisis that’s been building for a long time.

The nation is trapped under a mountain of its own waste, lacking the resources to even begin to deal with it — and plastic is our biggest demon.

While Aussie households have gradually become accustomed to sorting rubbish for recycling, the illusion of success was shattered when China abruptly stopped accepting our refuse in 2017.

The country had been processing 60-70 per cent of the world’s recycling, but when it realised the negative impact on its environment, it suddenly shut the door. India has cut us off, too.

Australia has only a few dozen processing plants compared with China’s thousands. So our bottles, containers and coffee cups have been piling up at overstretched facilities, or shipped off to be illegally burned or buried in Southeast Asia.

“Nobody’s built any infrastructure,” Plastic Forests founder and owner David Hodge told news.com.au. “The Federal Government is a basket case.

“Just imagine there’s no garbage trucks coming down the street any more to pick up rubbish. That’s the situation we’re in. “We are in a crisis.”

After 20 years of relying on China, Australia is suddenly facing a visceral nightmare, as we start to drown in our own materialism.

While we have made some steps towards reducing single-use plastic, we still use around 3.3 billion plastic bags, 2.6 billion coffee cups, 2.4 billion plastic straws and 1.3 billion plastic bottles each year.

Soft plastics cannot be recycled, and when households dump plastic bags in the recycling bin, it acts “like chewing gum going through the machine”, which may have to be stopped and decontaminated.

“When we put it in our recycling bin, where does it go?” asks Mr Hodge. “It’s taken almost a generation to train Australians to recycle.

“It needs this — almost emergency powers to step in and address it.”

NSW is the only state or territory without at least a commitment to ban single-use bags. Major retailers have already cut them out, with Coles and Woolworths driving an 80 per cent drop in the consumption of plastic bags nationwide by December last year.

Many want to see federal action, with Labor promising to ban single-use bags and microbeads by 2021 if it wins the election as part of a $290 million plan to cut waste and clean up the oceans. But the solution to our self-made hell will not be easy.

Australians are becoming aware of their impact, with the ABC’s War on Waste having a huge impact in 2017 after it exposed that we were ranked fifth in the world for generating the most municipal waste. A video of supermarkets dumping edible bananas helped it become the broadcaster’s most successful social media campaign.

Nine’s 60 Minutes this week tackled how recyclable rubbish is being dumped in Indonesia, Vietnam and, in particular, Malaysia, which received more than 71,000 tonnes of our plastic in the last year alone.

But the wake-up call has come late in the day, and answers are desperately needed.

Suggested solutions include replacing our plastics with biodegradable versions, taxing non-recyclable or “virgin” plastics, stockpiling the rubbish while we improve our recycling capabilities or burning plastic to create energy.

All of these ideas come with their own costs and challenges. Mr Hodge says he’s concerned the Government will rush headlong into burning plastic for electricity — a hugely expensive energy source — when it could focus on investing in the “circular economy” and creating jobs in the process.

We are living in what he calls a “DUD economy” — Dig it up, Use it, Dispose of it. Most things don’t work like that: more often, water, food and materials are part of a cycle.

“Everybody’s trying to do everything as cheaply as possible, it’s not long-term sustainability,” warns Mr Hodge. “It’s just an enormously expensive fuel.

“We want to keep plastic as plastic.”

Companies are now manufacturing garden furniture, bollards, park benches and cable insulation from recycled plastic. Plastic Forests has found a way to create a mini wheel stop from plastic film using a grant from NSW Environmental Protection Agency’s “Waste Less Recycle More” $802 million initiative.

Australia needs smart investment, clear thinking and innovative ideas to deal with the monumental challenge. This catastrophe may be the wake-up call we need.

SOURCE  

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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22 April, 2019  

What David Attenborough told BBC viewers about this raging orangutan fighting a digger is only part of the truth... and that's just one of the flaws in the great naturalist's 'alarmist' new documentary

DAVID ROSE issues a cautious rebuttal

One of the most talked-about programmes of the past week – a primetime documentary on BBC1 – featured two people many seem to regard as living saints.

One was the presenter, Sir David Attenborough, the other Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenage activist inspiring climate change ‘school strikes’ in several countries, including Britain.

The film’s title was Climate Change: The Facts, and these, Sir David claimed, are now ‘incontrovertible’. The film’s message was so bleak it could have been made by Extinction Rebellion, the eco-anarchist protest group which has brought Central London to a standstill.

No one has done more to convey the marvels of the natural world than Attenborough, and his long career has rightly earned him public acclaim.

Sadly, on this occasion, I believe he has presented an alarmist argument derived from a questionable use of evidence, whose nuances he has ignored.

According to Sir David, climate change, is the ‘greatest threat’ to humanity in thousands of years. ‘We are facing the collapse of our societies,’ he intoned, insisting we ‘must all share responsibility… for the future of life on Earth.’

Attenborough is about to turn 93, while Thunberg is just 16, but they issued the same warning. ‘It’s our future and we can’t just let it slip away from us,’ she told viewers. Yet ‘nothing is being done, no one is doing anything’.

The film rounded off a week which had already seen the BBC invite Extinction Rebellion extremists on to its news shows to expound the message – without serious challenge – that unless we cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2025, ‘our children will die’.

Last year, the BBC issued guidelines instructing editors that inviting comment from ‘climate change deniers’ was ‘false balance’. In practice, this has meant that those who accept climate change is real, but less threatening than some such as Attenborough claim, have effectively been banished from the airwaves.

Now the Corporation has given acres of airtime to protesters demanding the overthrow of democratic governments and an almost immediate end to fossil fuel-derived power, heating and transport – in other words, the abrupt termination of civilisation as we know it.

Thunberg has become a global media darling, her pronouncements cherished as if they were holy writ.

‘I want you all to panic,’ she told the Davos economic forum in January: and Attenborough’s film may well have persuaded viewers to do just that – and, perhaps, to join the Extinction Rebellion barricades.

Watching it did fill me with horror, but not at the threat from global warming. It was at the way Sir David and the BBC presented a picture of the near future which was so much more frightening than is justified.

Climate science remains a field riven by deep uncertainties. The film largely glossed over these – and where faced with alternatives, it plumped unerringly for the most pessimistic version of the ‘truth’.

Let me be clear: I am not a ‘denier’. Global warming and climate change are real, in large measure caused by humans. According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), our emissions were responsible for more than half the 0.6C – 0.7C global average temperature rise recorded between 1951 and 2010.

But I am also convinced that the ‘panic’ Thunberg desires and Attenborough’s film will encourage is not helpful when it comes to making policy designed to tackle it. Moreover, it is a grotesque travesty of the truth to claim that ‘nothing’ has been done: for example, since 1990, UK emissions have fallen by 43 per cent, according to the Government’s Committee on Climate Change. Not only that, Government statistics say 56 per cent of our electricity came from low carbon sources in 2018, our last coal-fired power station will close in six years and the Government has pledged to ‘decarbonise’ electricity by 2030.

Above all, the Climate Change Act requires Britain to reduce its 1990 carbon emissions by no less than 80 per cent by the year 2050, making us the first major economy to make such a dramatic commitment. To say that ‘nothing’ has been done is as risible as it is dishonest.

One of the film’s most questionable aspects was its claim that extreme weather events such as floods and storms have already got worse and more frequent, thanks to global warming, along with wildfires.

It did say that attributing reasons to any single event is difficult, and derived from probabilities. But in the words of interviewee Michael Mann, a US climate scientist, the effects of climate change are ‘playing out in real time’, and are ‘no longer subtle’. Cue images of monster waves and hurricanes, accompanied by doomy music.

But is this true? The IPCC, regarded by mainstream scientists as the world’s most authoritative source, says there have been some changes, such as higher rainfall. But its Fifth Assessment Report, published in 2013, stated there are ‘no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century’. It added: ‘No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricane counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin.’

A separate IPCC report last year said that cyclones in the tropics would in future be less numerous, although some would be stronger.

In 2014, a group of IPCC experts published a paper about flooding. So far, they said, ‘no gauge-based evidence has been found for a climate-driven, globally widespread change in the magnitude/frequency of floods.’

Another memorable segment of the film showed a father and son narrowly escaping from one of several devastating fires last year in California. These, too, were ascribed to global warming.

Surprisingly, several recent scientific papers suggest that wildfires have been declining in recent years – even in California, where statistics gathered by the local agency, Calfires, says the number across the state has roughly halved since 1987, following a peak in the 1970s.

According to a study published by the Royal Society in 2016, ‘many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem’. In reality, however, says the study: ‘global area burned appears to have declined in past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape than centuries ago.’

Equally questionable was the film’s claim that global warming is triggering a wave of extinctions, with eight per cent of species under threat solely because of it.

This also appears to oversimplify the findings of the IPCC, which said in 2014: ‘There is low confidence that rates of species extinctions have increased over the last several decades. Most extinctions over the last several centuries have been attributed to habitat loss, over-exploitation, pollution, or invasive species.

'Of the more than 800 extinctions documented by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, only 20 have been tenuously linked to recent climate change. It says: ‘Overall, there is very low confidence that observed species extinctions can be attributed to recent climate warming.’

The IPCC is clear that further warming will make things worse, but has found ‘low agreement’ over which species are at risk, and when extinctions might occur.

Attenborough made yet another contentious claim about corals, claiming that one third of the world’s reefs have perished due to ‘heat stress’ in the past three years.

It is true that the record high temperatures recorded during the powerful ‘El Nino’ event of 2015/16 – which saw the central Pacific warm by several degrees and drove warmer weather elsewhere – damaged corals badly.

But many have begun to recover, including those of the supposedly moribund Great Barrier Reef.

I suppose it could be argued that this film merely jumped the gun a little, by portraying climate impacts which, while not discernible yet, soon will be.

But here we must turn to its most provocative claim of all – that IPCC computer model projections show that, by the end of this century, world average temperatures will be between three and six degrees higher than now. Needless to say, this would be devastating.

In fact, the IPCC issues not one but four such projections, each one showing what would happen with differing levels of future greenhouse gas emissions.

The most pessimistic – known in the trade as ‘RCP 8.5’ – suggests that by 2100, the world would indeed be much hotter: according to the 2013 IPCC report, between 2.6 and 4.8 degrees above the average between 1986 and 2005.

This, of course, is lower than the 3-6 degree range predicted by Attenborough.

Meanwhile, there is evidence that RCP 8.5 is almost certain not to take place. First, it posits population increases far higher than those now thought likely by many demographers.

UN forecasts claim the global population will reach 11 billion by 2100, but several expert teams now say falling birthrates mean it will peak much earlier.

‘It will never reach nine billion,’ says the eminent futurologist Jorgen Randers. ‘It will peak at eight billion in 2040 and then decline.’

For the RCP 8.5 prediction to become a reality would also require a massive increase in the use of coal, and the reversal of the emissions cuts which many countries have already achieved.

All of which means the world is more likely to conform to what are known as RCP 4.5 or RCP 6. Under RCP 4.5, the IPCC says, the ‘likely’ range of warming by 2100 would be between 1.1C and 2.6C; under RCP 6, between 1.4C and 3.1C.

A BBC spokesperson said yesterday that the film said the 3-6 degrees of warming was a reasonable estimate given the current emissions trajectory, and said emissions ‘have been following the RCP 8.5 curve rather than the alternatives.’ Under this, an upper limit of 6C was possible.

She added: ‘The film sought to make clear that scientists don’t know exactly what may happen.’

I’m not trying to argue that climate change is trivial, nor that the world doesn’t need ‘action’ to deal with it. On the other hand, we have already seen what can happen when ‘panic’ determines policy: the introduction of measures conceived by a need to be seen to be doing something under pressure from groups such as Extinction Rebellion.

Without making this clear, the film revealed one of the worst examples of this unfortunate effect. A powerful sequence showed an orangutan, fleeing loggers who have been eradicating Borneo’s rainforest.

This is disastrous for both wildlife and the climate because, as the film pointed out, a third of global emissions are down to deforestation, because giant trees lock up a lot of carbon.

But why are Borneo’s forests being cut down? The reason, as Attenborough said, is palm oil, a lucrative crop used in products ranging from soap to biscuits. Unfortunately, he left out the final stage of the argument.

Half of all the millions of tons of palm oil sent to Europe is used to make ‘biofuel’, thanks to an EU directive stating that, by 2020, ten per cent of forecourt fuel must come from ‘renewable’ biological sources. Malaysia says this has ‘created an unprecedented demand’.

To put it another way: misguided ‘action’ designed to save the planet is actually helping to damage it – although the EU has pledged to phase out palm oil biofuel by 2030.

Another example of a misconceived effort to save the planet is Drax power plant in Yorkshire which is fed, thanks to £700 million of annual subsidy, by ‘renewable’ wood pellets made from chopped-down American trees – while pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere than when it burnt only coal.

In theory, the trees it burns will be replaced – but a large part of its supply comes from hardwood forests that take 100 years to mature.

There are times when climate propaganda – for this is what this was – calls to mind the apocalyptic prophets of the Middle Ages, who led popular movements by preaching that the sins of human beings were so great that they could only be redeemed by suffering, in order to create a paradise on earth.

Perhaps this is how Attenborough, nature journalism’s Methuselah, sees himself. But climate change is too important to be handled in this manner. It needs rational, well-informed debate. Too often, cheered on by the eco-zealots of Extinction Rebellion, the BBC is intent on encouraging quite the opposite.

SOURCE 






Delingpole: ‘Climate Change: The Facts’ Was the BBC’s Biggest Lie Ever

The increasingly unwatchable and slavishly woke BBC plumbed new depths last night. It gave a prime time slot to a piece of environmental propaganda so blatant, shameless, and dishonest it might just as well have been a political broadcast on behalf of Extinction Rebellion.

Even the programme’s title was a lie. "Climate Change: The Facts" was a farrago of alarmist cliches, exaggerations, and untruths which have been debunked on numerous occasions.

It lied about the cause of wildfires; it lied about heatwaves; it lied about storms and floods; it lied about polar melting; it lied about sea levels; it lied about coral reefs; it lied about droughts.

Yet many viewers may well have been taken in because the programme was presented with breathy earnestness and apparent authority by the doyen of TV wildlife ‘experts’ Sir David Attenborough. And accompanied by the kind of dramatic footage and stirring music guaranteed to bypass the brain and appeal directly to the emotions — as all the most effective propaganda does.

“If you liked Triumph of the Will then you’re going to love Our Planet,” I wrote recently of Attenborough’s new Netflix series, which uses exactly the same techniques: amazing nature photography; manipulative music; a trembly voiceover making all manner of scientifically dubious assertions in order to scare the viewer into the appropriate state of climate fear.

But "Climate Change: the Facts" was more unscrupulous and dishonest still.

What I found particularly objectionable was its use of emotive trickery to help deceive the viewer into buying its specious arguments.

For example, on the subject of heatwaves, we were shown heartbreaking footage of thousands of flying foxes (giant fruit bats) in Australia which had dropped dead out of the trees during a particularly hot spell last November in Queensland.

“There was a deafening sound of babies crying,” said the voiceover of a distraught Australian conservationist, over images of piles of dead bats, and an orphaned baby bat being hand fed some milk from a bottle. “This is climate change in action,” muttered an unnamed Australian. “We need to wake up!” said another.

The unwary viewer might easily have been gulled into drawing two erroneous conclusions from this.

First, that the bats really had been killed by “climate change”. (Which they hadn’t. This was an extreme weather event of the kind which, no doubt, has killed many thousands of flying foxes on previous occasions in history — only without the presence of camera crews to record the incidents.)

Second, that the world divides into two kinds of people: those who love the planet and cute baby bats and who consequently believe in the urgency of combating climate change; those who don’t give a damn. (Which is another entirely false premise. It is quite possible to care very much about the natural world without buying into the false claims of green-ideology driven, anti-growth, anti-human environmental activists.)

Paul Homewood has been through its various claims with a fine-tooth comb and found many to be misleading and inaccurate.

Among his criticisms:

Attenborough shows a surface temperature chart of dramatically rising temperatures but a) fails to mention that the more accurate satellite temperature data shows no increase since 1998; b) fails to explain why temperatures rose sharply in the early 20th century, long before CO2 emissions began to rise significantly; c) fails to mention that since the 19th century, Earth has been emerging from the Little Ice Age — probably the coldest period since the end of the Ice Age.

The extreme weather bogeyman. Various talking head ‘experts’ assure us that heat waves are getting more intense. But last summer’s heatwave in the UK — cited as evidence of this — was no hotter than the summer of 1976; nor was the recent one in Queensland when temperatures reached 42 degrees C — also cited — anywhere near as bad as the one in 1972 when temperatures reached 49.5 degrees C. In fact, Homewood notes, there is considerable evidence that heatwaves are actually becoming less common.

Michael Mann (quoted as an expert witness): “You’re going to get more rainfall, more superstorms, worse flooding. We’re seeing the effects of climate change now play out in real time” Homewood: Maybe one of the most dishonest parts of the programme. Even the IPCC can’t find any long term trends in tropical cyclone activity or flooding. And severe tornadoes are have become much less common in the US.

Attenborough: “Rising seas are already displacing hundreds of thousands of people from already vulnerable coastal areas.” Homewood: Pure hyperbole. Where is the evidence to support this claim? Sea levels have been rising steadily since the mid 19th century.

On polar ice caps, it is claimed that ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland is “worse than expected”. Homewood: In fact, according to NASA, the Antarctic is actually gaining ice. It is symptomatic of the whole programme, that Attenborough does not mention this inconvenient fact.

As for Greenland, I’m not sure what the experts were “expecting”, has any relevance at all. What we do know though, is that temperatures in Greenland are no higher now than they were in the 1930s.

Attenborough: “In the last three years, repeated heat stress has caused a third of the world’s corals to first bleach and then die.” Homewood: There is absolutely no evidence for this, and I have not even seen that claimed about the Great Barrier Reef. And as we now know, the death of GBR corals was drastically overstated. Indeed, as scientists like Peter Ridd and local reef experts have long maintained, corals quickly recover from bleaching, which was just as bad in the 18thC.

In sum, where in reality there is increasing doubt and debate among scientists on the issue of ‘climate change’, this #fakenews documentary pretended the opposite: that the weight of evidence points unquestionably to an imminent climate catastrophe which can only be averted if we take concerted global action now.

“It may sound frightening but the scientific evidence is that if we have not taken dramatic action in the next decade we could face irreversible damage to the natural world — and the collapse of our societies,” said Attenborough. [Fact check: there is not a single piece of scientific evidence which suggests anything of the kind. Perhaps that’s why he covered himself with the word “could.”]

“What is happening now in the next few years will profoundly affect the next thousand years,” he declared elsewhere. [Fact check: no it won’t; barely in the slightest. The planet is 4.5 billion years old. It’s perfectly capable of taking care of itself, regardless of our ludicrous delusions otherwise.]

This isn’t science. This is the purest political activism — and it’s quite extraordinary that the BBC, theoretically committed by its charter obligations to fair and accurate broadcasting, should have allowed itself to be used as a platform for such blatant fearmongering, misinformation, and propagandising.

The BBC supposedly represents the entire viewing population. (Otherwise, why should we all be forced to fund it with our compulsory annual £154.50 per household licence fee?) Yet here it is speaking on behalf of a narrow clique of mostly metropolitan, left-liberal types who pay lip service to the green religion because it’s such an easy way of publicly signalling their virtue.

Those many of us — perhaps the majority of the population — who, with good reason, are sceptical about the global warming scare are treated with utter contempt, as if our opinions don’t matter.

Anyone with an even rudimentary grasp of the climate debate knows, for example, that Michael Mann, James Hansen, and Naomi Oreskes are key members of the climate industrial complex with a long track record of aggressive political activism on behalf of the environmental movement. Yet here they were being presented by the BBC — and by Attenborough — as if they were dispassionate, wholly trustworthy climate experts.

Even by the BBC’s abysmal standards, this programme was a disgrace: an insult to the intelligence, a betrayal of the Reithian principles on which the BBC was founded, and a shameless piece of propaganda on behalf of the watermelons who would destroy our civilisation.

As for Sir David Attenborough, it’s time this whispery voiced, gorilla hugging, walrus scaring Malthusian was recognised for what he is: not as a national treasure but as a national embarrassment long, long past his sell-by date.

SOURCE 






Democrats Want to Rejoin the Paris Accord. Let’s Recall Why It Was Such a Bad Deal

When the Obama administration negotiated the Paris climate agreement, conservatives argued that it should move through the proper treaty process and be sent to the Senate, where elected senators could weigh in and potentially reject the deal.

President Barack Obama didn’t do that. Instead, he unilaterally signed the deal, making it all the more easy for a future president to un-sign it.

Now that President Donald Trump has announced his intent to withdraw from the costly, ineffectual agreement, House Democrats think it’s time to involve Congress.

Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced the Climate Action Now Act, a bill that would block the Trump administration from withdrawing from the Paris accord and enforce the commitments made under the Obama administration. Those commitments include reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 by 26-28% compared to 2005 levels.

Trump was right to announce his intent to withdraw from Paris. While the climate is indeed changing and human activity is playing a role, the chances of looming climate catastrophe are simply unrealistic and not grounded in reality.

But even granting such a looming catastrophe, the Paris Agreement itself would do little to alter the climate. To have any impact whatsoever on climate, the entire world would either have to quickly change the way it consumes energy or simply remain undeveloped. Both options are devoid of reality.

While many countries are rapidly expanding their use of renewable power, forecasts indicate that coal, oil, and natural gas will continue to provide the overwhelming majority of the world’s energy needs well into the future. For developing countries, the highest priorities are to reduce energy poverty and improve living standards.

Those who are clamoring for action on climate change are the ones who should actually be most upset with what a sham the Paris agreement is. It’s been celebrated as a breakthrough achievement of the world’s developed and developing countries coming together, but it is anything but that.

With no enforcement mechanisms in place and no repercussions for failing to meet emissions reduction targets, countries are essentially free to do whatever they want, meaning they will continue on their business-as-usual trajectory without making any changes. China, for instance, can peak its emissions in 2030 even though projections have their peak emissions falling before that year.

India, for its part, has pledged to reduce its emissions levels, or cuts its ratio of carbon emissions to gross domestic product. That ratio may well go down so long as carbon emissions rise at a slower rate than GDP, but carbon emissions will keep rising all the same.

Actually, India committed to emissions reductions that are less than what the country would achieve if it continues on the same track it is currently on today. In other words, it set the bar so low that it can continue along its businesses-as-usual trajectory of emissions intensity and come out looking like a climate hero.

As the Manhattan Institute’s Oren Cass wrote, “It’s easy to slim down to 180 pounds, if you weigh 175 to begin with.”

Pakistan was more honest than most about its emissions prospects, stating bluntly, “Given the future economic growth and associated growth in the energy sector, the peaking of emissions in Pakistan is expected to take place much beyond the year 2030. An exponential increase of [greenhouse gas] emissions for many decades is likely to occur before any decrease in emissions can be expected.”

Global compliance with the Paris Agreement has been nothing short of abysmal. In fact, most nations will soon fail to meet the deadlines they agreed to.

The original hope that each nation’s contribution might somehow push other countries to “do more” is not playing out. This deal was a hodgepodge of arbitrarily defined commitments with no enforcement mechanism. It was doomed from the start.

Following through with the Obama administration’s commitments would impose clear economic harm on the U.S. by driving energy prices higher—and that’s just a small part of the overall cost. Americans would pay more for food, health care, education, clothes, and every other good and service that requires energy.

These higher costs would be spread across the entire economy and would shrink overall economic growth and employment. Heritage Foundation analysts estimated that the regulations required to meet the Obama administration’s commitments would impose the following costs by 2035:

An overall loss of nearly 400,000 jobs, half of which would be in manufacturing.

A average total income loss of more than $20,000 for a family of four.

An aggregate GDP loss of over $2.5 trillion.

Other countries would continue getting a free pass under the agreement, but if the U.S. signed back on, one can be sure that environmental activist lawsuits would make sure the U.S. kept its obligations.

To make matters worse, the climate regulations encompassing the U.S. target may not even achieve the desired results and would require additional regulations. And that would just be the beginning. The Paris Agreement requires ever-increasing targets as time goes on, which would further increase the cost of compliance. These efforts would return us to the same costly and ineffective policies that the current administration is unwinding.

Congress should instead advance pragmatic policies that will actually drive innovation in energy and environmental protection.

SOURCE 






NAACP Embraces ‘Green’ Agenda, Showing It No Longer Represents Black Interests

I try to keep an open mind about policies and regulations that impact communities of color. After all, the government’s No. 1 priority should be the welfare of its people.

But with interest groups now linking arms despite having little if anything to do with each other, it can be hard for the average person to discern which policies will serve them best.

For example, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People released a new study this month called “Fossil Fueled Foolery,” which claims to reveal how the fossil fuel industry manipulates communities of color.

Yes, you heard that right.

The contradictory 28-page report criticizes the industry and even highlights its “Top 10 Fossil Fuel Industry Tactics”—but nowhere does it offer a solution to our growing energy needs. There’s also no mention of energy poverty, a real phenomenon plaguing the black community in which households can’t afford basic electric and heating needs due to high energy prices.

Those energy prices are only pushed higher by “green agenda” policies. So the very people the NAACP claims it is helping are actually the ones being negatively impacted by the energy policies it promotes.

The NAACP’s report states that “[t]he Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has put the world on a 12-year countdown to take urgent and aggressive action on eliminating the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change.” This same statement caused hysteria among environmentalists calling for drastic measures like the Green New Deal.

And despite studies and articles written about how the Green New Deal would hit minorities and black communities the hardest, many presidential hopefuls continue to embrace the plan.

In the report, the NAACP lists the “Top 10 Fossil Fuel Industry Tactics” that it claims are being used to manipulate communities of color. Yet some of these tactics are nonsensical, including the very first one, which says the fossil fuel industry “invest[s] in efforts that undermine democracy.”

The irony is that the NAACP is doing just that: investing in a study and promoting misleading information.

Another tactic listed (and the most absurd) is No. 10: “Embrace renewables, seek to control the energy economy, and quell energy sovereignty.” Come again?

The NAACP is simply trying to smear conventional energy sources in an effort to stay in with the left. But such tactics will only backfire on the people the NAACP claims to represent: low-income and black communities. We need look no further than the city of Baltimore, the national headquarters of the NAACP, where some residents pay 50% to 75% more in energy bills because of green energy policies that have fallen short.

This reflects a loss of mission on the part of the NAACP, which was founded to advance the interests of black people—not buy wholesale into one side’s energy policies.

In recent years, new organizations like Black Lives Matter have fostered a stronger presence in the black community than the NAACP. Other groups like the African American Episcopal Church Council of Bishops have called for the NAACP to reinvent itself.

Many black people, including myself, have questioned the relevance of the NAACP and its views. There is in fact more diversity of viewpoint within the black community than the NAACP lets on.

Proving this point, Rev. Clenard Childress Jr. and Alveda King—the niece of Martin Luther King Jr.—slammed the NAACP in 2017 for supporting abortion, despite the fact that abortion is the largest destroyer of black lives in America.

Even the NAACP’s name is outdated. I can’t remember ever being called “colored.” That word was removed from the U.S. census report in 1980. It’s no wonder the NAACP is struggling to stay relevant.

The truth is that the NAACP has been left behind. This “Fossil Fuel Foolery” paper shows exactly who the NAACP serves: the coalition of the liberal elite. Low-income and black Americans will have to look elsewhere for genuine representation.

SOURCE 






Australian chefs pledge to no longer serve unsustainable seafood

Keeping fish stocks healthy is a laudable goal but very large areas of Australian waters are national parks in which fishing is prohibited so the panic is unfounded.  The restaurateurs will end up giving their business to some of our many Vietnamese restaurants if they are not careful.  Viets are brilliant cooks -- including seafood

Chefs from 40 leading restaurants across Australia have pledged to no longer serve unsustainable seafood as part of the Australian Marine Conservation Society’s (AMCS) new GoodFish Project launched today.

All the restaurants have agreed not to source or serve seafood that is red-listed as “Say No” in Australia’s Sustainable Seafood Guide - an independent scientific analysis of seafood production researched and published by AMCS.

World-renowned Australian chef Ben Shewry, owner of Attica in Melbourne, is also announced today as the project’s official GoodFish Ambassador. Attica is currently ranked the 20th best restaurant in the world.

Chef and GoodFish manager Sascha Rust said: “Chefs have an incredible ability to talk to people through food. We are trusted guides for society on how we eat and what we eat.

“Chefs that are coming onboard with GoodFish are sending a very clear message. This community does not want to support practices that are damaging our oceans and putting the long-term sustainability of the oceans and food they love at risk. Instead, they want to be able to celebrate great seafood that’s sustainable.”

Shewry’s restaurant Attica was ranked 20th in “The World’s 50 Best Restaurants” awards for 2018 - the only Australian restaurant to make the list, independently judged by chefs, restaurateurs and critics.

Shewry said he was "absolutely thrilled and honoured" to be asked to be the GoodFish ambassador having first started using Australia’s Sustainable Seafood Guide some 10 years ago to guide his sourcing.

He said: "The GoodFish project aims to build a community of chefs in Australia to come together to work on this problem. We have a moral responsibility. We need to understand the ingredients that we are cooking with, and no more so than what comes from the oceans."

"In my position as a chef, I have a big influence on what people eat and what other people cook because our restaurant is well known.  If I don't have have what I would call a clean menu - if I don't have best practice, the most sustainable menu I can have in terms of shellfish and seafood - then I am contributing to the problem."

So far 40 restaurants across the country have signed up to GoodFish, including Alanna Sapwell (Arc Dining, Brisbane), Alejandro Saravia (Pastuso, Melbourne; Uma, Perth), Ben Devlin (Pipit, Pottsville), Thi Li (Anchovy, Melbourne), Jacqui Challinor (NOMAD, Sydney) and the team behind Three Blue Ducks (Byron Bay, Sydney and Brisbane).

Rust added: “Our aim here is to bring together a strong community of voices to protect our oceans so they can continue to provide joy, and food, for generations to come.”

Australia’s Sustainable Seafood Guide, which celebrates its 15th birthday in 2019, covers some 92 per cent of all the seafood consumed by Australians, including locally-produced and imported species.

The guide has three colour-coded classifications, where consumers and chefs are advised on green-listed “Better Choice” species, and to “Say No” to red-listed species and “Eat Less” from an amber list.

Adrian Meder, AMCS Sustainable Seafood Program Manager, said the guide assesses fisheries and aquaculture operators on a range of practices, such as the stock status of the species, the methods used to catch or farm them, and impacts on other marine wildlife and habitats.

He said: “Chefs are real arbiters of our seafood choices and the best chefs are closely connected to the supply chains from the ocean to the plate. That so many of them are now using Australia’s Sustainable Seafood Guide to make sure their customers get the best seafood choices is not just a testament to the guide, but to them as guardians of the future of food.”

The guide assesses some 160 wild caught and farmed fish choices covering more than 92 per cent of the seafood consumed by Australians. Some 50 fish choices are green-listed, 53 are amber and 57 are coded red for “Say No”.

Because Australia’s Sustainable Seafood Guide is fully independent of government and industry, Meder said it remains the most used and trusted source of information for the seafood-loving Australian public.

Via email from media@amcs.org.au

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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21 April, 2019  

Defeat for environmentalists in Alberta

Conservatives in western Canada have won a critical regional election, with voters rejecting the province of Alberta’s incumbent leftwing government and setting the stage for a fight with the federal government over environmental policy.

The bitter election was fought largely over the economy, pipelines and the environment. Running on a campaign slogan of “Alberta: Strong and Free”, winner Jason Kenney and his right-wing United Conservative party (UCP) pledged to revive the province’s troubled oil and gas sector, cut taxes and scale back environmental policies enacted by the previous government.

“Alberta is open for business,” Kenney told a raucous crowd, after pulling up to the stage of his victory celebration in his blue campaign pickup truck. “Help is on the way and hope is on the horizon.”

Premier Rachel Notley of the leftwing New Democratic party was vying for her second mandate in the province of Alberta, having previously shocked the country when she and her party stormed to victory in 2015. The historic win broke an unprecedented 44 years of conservative rule in the province and was heralded as a new age in Alberta politics.

But a second time around, her promises of a balance between environmental regulation and businesses growth appears to have been rejected by a majority of Albertans, with frustrated residents defecting to the the UCP. Despite her strong favourability ratings, Notley becomes the first premier in the province’s history to fail to secure a second term.

She was the last remaining female premier in the country, a dramatic shift from 2013, when six women held the job in five provinces and one territory. “I am enormously proud of our record – and you should be too,” she told supporters as she conceded the race to Kenney – adding that she would remain as opposition leader. “I wish him and his government well. We all do and we must because we all love Alberta.”

With Kenney’s legislative majority, the province appears set to return to the status quo of conservative government.

Loud cheers broke out in the Big Four Roadhouse, a venue in the Calgary Stampede grounds where UCP members had gathered. Provisional results at 11pm eastern (0400 GMT Wednesday), an hour after voting ended, showed the party had won 62 of the 87 seats in the provincial legislature.

“This means vindication of the very, very difficult defeat that we received in 2015. That was a protest vote, this is a positive vote,” said Marguerite Denis, who co-managed the campaign of one UCP candidate.

Much of the bitter campaign centred around pipelines, with both Notley and Kenney vowing to complete the Trans Mountain pipeline, a critical infrastructure project for the province that has languished in regulatory review since the summer. A prolonged energy crisis in the province – largely the result of overproduction of oil with no clear access to market – has forced energy companies to sell crude at deep discounts, costing thousands of jobs and billions in lost government tax revenues.

While the majority of voters expressed frustration over the economic crisis in the province, they remained skeptical of the socially conservative positions taken by the UCP. Throughout the election Kenney’s party was dogged by accusations of racism and homophobia, promoting candidate resignations and statements of contrition from others.

Premier-designate Kenney will have to deliver on promises he made to revitalise the region’s oil sands, something experts caution might be more difficult than anticipated given the high cost of production and a wariness of investing in capital-intensive projects.

His victory is the latest in a string of conservative wins at the provincial level since 2015 and spells trouble at the national level for Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government, which has recently fallen in the polls after a political scandal and is locked in multiple legal battles with provinces over the federal carbon tax.

Kenney has vowed to scale back the key aspects of the province’s environmental legislation. But any changes to environmental policy that fall below Trudeau’s emissions threshold will trigger the federal government imposition of a carbon tax on the province.

SOURCE 






Climate Change and the Ten Warning Signs for Cults

Have you thought to yourself that the Climate Change movement seems more and more like a religious movement?

I have, so I researched how to identify a religious cult. Rick Ross, an expert on cults and intervention specialist, developed a list of ten warning signs for unsafe groups, which is published by the Cult Education Institute. So let’s take a look at all ten signs and compare:

1. Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.

The leading advocates of the Climate Change movement are politicians, entertainers, and even children. Climate preachers such as Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio lack any formal scientific training whatsoever, and live personal lives of unparalleled luxury while prescribing carbon austerity for the masses. Yet no one is permitted to point out their scientific ignorance or call attention to their hypocritical lifestyles.

Child advocates such as Greta Thuneberg and the crudely indoctrinated children of the “Sunrise movement” are essentially sock puppets for their shameless activist handlers. Refuse to bend the knee to these tiny fascists, as Diane Feinstein most recently did, and the mainstream left will relentlessly attack you as an accessory to mass murder.

The authority of Climate Change leaders is entirely unmerited and absolute, yet no one is permitted to hold them accountable for their ignorance, inexperience, or brazen lies. Thus, the Climate Change movement clearly meets the first warning sign for unsafe groups.

2. No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.

The conclusions of the Climate Change movement may not be challenged or questioned under any circumstances. Those who dare scrutinize the conclusions, methodology, or prescriptions of “climate scientists” are categorically dismissed as a “Climate Denier”, an excommunicated untouchable whose opinion is no longer valid on any subject.

Questions and critical inquiry aren’t merely dismissed or refuted. The unfortunate heretic immediately experiences a relentless ad hominem onslaught of scorn and hatred from the political and media left, and is often subjected to accusations of outright murder. Simply question the effectiveness of a “carbon tax” and you may find yourself tied to a stake.

There is no tolerance for questioning the Climate Change movement, and thus it clearly meets the second warning sign for unsafe groups.

3. No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement.

Hardly anyone knows just how much money is spent on “Climate research” every year. The cost is spread out among laughably useless study grants, wind and solar farm subsidies, carbon offset credits, “green” building code evaluation and enforcement, salaries for bureaucrats solely dedicated to “climate concerns”……you get the idea, it’s a lot of hazy money.

The abhorrent practice of “sue and settle” was a flat out money laundering scheme that allowed sympathetic government officials to transfer millions of tax dollars to radical leftist environmental groups. The practice only ended when the Trump administration used executive power to clamp down on it.

The total amount of yearly financial expenditure on the Climate Change movement is vague, difficult to track, and often carried out in unethical manners. Thus, the Climate Change movement exhibits the third warning sign for unsafe groups.

4. Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.

This one is pretty obvious. The Climate Change movement always shouts out revised and updated apocalypse predictions, eerily reminiscent of the stereotypical bum on the sidewalk with that “The End Is Near” sign. “The world will end in X years if we don’t do X” is the constant refrain. The years always pass, and the apocalypse never happens. Interestingly, this is a characteristic of multiple religious cults (such as the Seekers of Chicago, and the Order of the Solar Temple). At the moment, we apparently have 12 years to nationalize the entire economy and phase out fossil fuels before we all die a fiery death.

There’s also no shortage of conspiracy theories about who they consider to be Earth’s greatest saboteurs. They have an enemies list. The fossil fuel industry is at the top of it, with widespread tinfoil hat theories about oil companies burying patents for efficient renewable fuel recipes to keep us all guzzling gasoline.

The “repent or burn” doomsday preaching is the most well-known staple of the Climate Change movement, and quite clearly exemplifies the fourth warning sign for unsafe groups.

5. There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.

Climate alarmists who leave, step back from, or even lightly criticize the movement are immediately subjected to vicious smear campaigns. Dutch professor Richard Tol experienced this phenomenon firsthand when he removed his name from an IPCC climate report and criticized the reports excessively apocalyptic predictions.

The smear campaign was led by Bob Ward, director of policy at the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change ‘This has all the characteristics of a smear campaign”, Tol said. “It’s all about taking away my credibility as an expert.”

The treatment of Professor Tol is not uncommon, and clearly demonstrates that the Climate Change movement exhibits the fifth warning sign for unsafe groups.

6. Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.

Professor Tol is not an anomaly. Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT, Dr. Nils-Axel M?rner, and countless other former IPCC in-crowd climate experts were subjected to smear campaigns from their colleagues and the news media for the crime of throwing cold water on the outlandish predictions of the Climate Change movement.

This pattern is all too familiar to anyone who has studied what happens to individuals who leave the Church of Scientology, and clearly meets the sixth warning sign for unsafe groups.

7. There are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group/leader.

The abuses of the Climate Change movement are loud and proud. They vociferously attack their perceived enemies for public consumption, and are cheered on by fellow travelers in the journalism class. Most recently they brainwashed a bunch of kids and marched them into an octogenarian Democrat Senator’s office to beg not to be murdered by a ‘No’ vote on impossible legislation. Have you seen those kids in Diane Feinstein’s office? You should, it’s creepy, here they are:

https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1099076130089459712

These tantrums and protests aren’t only meant to rally supporters of the Climate Change movement. They are a form of intimidation, a tactic used to silence those who question the gospel. There is ample evidence that the Climate Change movement meets the seventh warning sign of an unsafe group.

8. Followers feel they can never be “good enough”.

The atonement process for Climate warriors always demands more. It started with using a recycling bin and grocery bags. Now, in 2019, being a good follower means imposing veganism on the masses and issuing fatwahs against innocuous objects such as plastic straws and grocery bags. Despite all the efforts of the faithful, Climate minions maintain a constant state of dread and despair, knowing they can never truly do enough to stop the coming doom.

Clearly, the eighth warning sign for unsafe groups applies to the Climate Change movement.

9. The group/leader is always right.

When have the climate leaders been called wrong for their failed predictions? Regardless of the weather, they are always intrinsically correct.

Flood? Climate Change. Drought? Climate Change.

No Snow? Climate Change. Too much snow? Climate Change.

Tornado? Climate Change. Hurricane? Climate Change. Lack of hurricanes? Climate Change.

See how this works?

One of the best aspects of the movement is “weather is climate until it isn’t”. The acolytes of Climate Change will point out the window in a heat wave and say, “See? We’re right!”

If a skeptic points out the window during a blizzard, the same acolytes will simply cry “Weather isn’t climate!” It’s a game they can never lose, one in which they are never wrong and always right.

Thus, the ninth warning sign for unsafe groups clearly applies.

10. The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing “truth” or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

The path to discovery for the Climate Change movement is an intentionally vague discipline referred to as “climate science”.

Did you carry out a study on gender and glaciers? Climate Science.

Did you think up the worst possible scenarios that have no actual chance of happening (actual portion of latest National Climate Assessment)? Climate Science.

https://twitter.com/Oil_Guns_Merica/status/1066697180428279809

Any “science” that confirms the tenets of the Climate Change movement is deemed “climate science”, while actual scientific research that disputes their conclusions is derided as “denialism”.

The tenth warning sign for unsafe groups is clearly met.

The Verdict: It’s a cult
According to the established, scientific guidelines developed by cult experts, the Climate Change movement fits the bill for a potentially unsafe group.

When I looked up these established warning signs, I honestly expected Climate Changeists to meet two or three of them, NOT TEN! The disturbingly religious nature of this supposedly “scientific” movement should alarm any thinking human being, especially since the movement now openly seeks to nationalize the entire economy.

It’s time for conservatives to realize what they are dealing with, and act accordingly. Rather than debating Climate Change activists, it may be time to start staging interventions.

If someone you know is a member of the Climate Change Movement, and you are interested in intervention strategies, please visit https://culteducation.com/prep_faq.html.

SOURCE 






Bipartisan Support for Electric Vehicle Handouts Betrays Taxpayers
    
Excessive partisanship and endless acrimony are common complaints lodged against the political class. There’s a lot to be said in favor of this narrative, but bipartisanship isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be, either. As evidence, consider the latest attempt to extend corporate handouts for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers.

The Driving America Forward Act was recently introduced to extend the existing EV tax credit well beyond its current limits. Unsurprisingly, its sponsors include both Michigan Senators, Democrats Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, as well as Republican Senators Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Susan Collins of Maine. A companion version was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Dan Kildee, also a Democrat from a district in Michigan.

Under current law, a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 is available to consumers of the first 200,000 vehicles sold by each manufacturer, after which the credit is phased out. Both Tesla and General Motors have exceeded the cap, a fact that has driven a lobbying frenzy to extend the benefit. This wouldn’t be the first time the credit was expanded, as the original incarnation of the credit applied only to the first 250,000 electric vehicles sold across all manufacturers.

This new legislation will allow for the purchase of an additional 400,000 vehicles to be eligible for a $7,000 credit, but it might as well be permanent. If Congress passes the bill and it’s signed into law, Washington will be sending a clear signal to manufacturers that the gravy train may never end. All the EV makers must then do is flood Washington with lobbying and campaign donations once the next deadline approaches and the cycle could no doubt continue.

The current credit is expected to cost $7.5 billion in federal revenue from last year through 2022, according to the Congressional Research Service and the Joint Committee on Taxation. The costs of the newly expanded credit are not yet available but would be considerably higher.

Almost 80% of those utilizing the EV tax credit have incomes over $100,000, making it not just a corporate handout but also a transfer from all workers to wealthier Americans. And despite its advocates’ claims, the EV tax credit fails to reduce the alleged threat of climate change.

Because all personal vehicles in the United States account for only a small fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions, even an unrealistic influx of electric vehicles would prove to be negligible. Besides, standard internal combustion engines emit far less pollution today than they have in the past. Simply replacing older cars can do as much or more to benefit the environment than even entirely switching over to electric vehicles.

This is at least the third major push to extend EV tax credits over the last year. The persistence of the issue is indicative of a political reality less obvious than the typical Republican versus Democrat framework. In economic parlance, it’s called concentrated benefits and diffuse costs. The benefits are conveyed to EV manufacturers and those few consumers (most of whom make over $100,000), but the costs are spread out across the larger population.

While the manufacturers and relatively wealthier consumers of electric vehicles have a strong incentive to support the tax credits, the average cost per taxpayer is low and thus of little political concern. Yet, when all the crony handouts that come about because of this same dynamic are added up, it represents a more significant sum and is a more obvious problem. But translating that burden into a political force that’s capable of resisting the well-funded pleading of special interests is extremely difficult.

In this case, the fact that the handouts are already set to end if Congress just does nothing should benefit the taxpayers. That’s often not the case, and it explains why the special interests have failed several times already in their attempts to preserve their benefit. Unfortunately, it’s readily apparent that they’re going to keep trying again and again to enrich themselves at the expense of the taxpaying public.

SOURCE 







Time Traveler Ocasio Cortez Brings A Message From The Future: The Magical Green New Deal Has Saved The Planet

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thinks she is the master of everything and now she is adding time traveler to her resume.

Now she has narrated a new video from the future when her magical Green New Deal has saved planet Earth from Republicans, Fox News reported.

The Federalist Papers Reports:

In a video released on Wednesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told a “story from the future” in which her “Green New Deal” transformed the American economy and rescued the United States from the dire threat of climate change.

The freshman congresswoman predicted that Democrats would take both chambers of Congress and the White House by 2020 — ushering in a “decade of the Green New Deal” that prompted the “social and ecological transformation to save the planet.”

“Lots of people gave up, they said we were doomed,” she said in the video in which she blamed fossil fuel companies for the damage.

“But some of us remembered that as a nation, we’d been in peril before — the Great Depression, WWII — we knew from our history how to pull together to overcome impossible odds,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Championed by Ocasio-Cortez, the “Green New Deal,” has been criticized as unrealistic and too expensive. According to a conservative think tank’s estimate, the plan could cost upwards of $93 trillion, more than four times the national debt as of April 15, 2019.

But in the video, published by the climate-oriented Sunrise Movement, Ocasio-Cortez described Green New Deal legislation as “the kind of swing-for-the-fence ambition we needed.”

“Finally, we were entertaining solutions on the scale of the crises we faced without leaving anyone behind,” she said.

Her plan included public works projects, a “federal jobs guarantee,” and Medicare-for-all, which she predicted would become “the most popular social program in American history.”

SOURCE 







Climate claim of the Australian Left dismissed

The Labor Party is caught with the arrogance of being the election favourite for too long. The economist whose research Labor belatedly invoked this week has dismissed Bill Shorten’s assertion that Labor and Coalition climate change policies “cost the same”.

Interviewed by The Weekend Australian, internationally recognised economist Warwick McKibbin criticises both sides for inadequate emissions reduction policies — but he says the Opposition Leader’s pledge to use international carbon permits to ensure there is no economic cost differential with the government is “completely uncertain” as a proposition. This knocks out the core justification used by Shorten this week to defend the economic cost of his climate change policies.

Labor has not done the analysis or the modelling of the economic impact of its 45 per cent 2030 emissions reduction target, announced three years ago.

The upshot is that it has relied on the 2015 McKibbin analysis commissioned by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, with the economist telling The Weekend Australian he is “surprised” Labor has not spoken to him despite relying on his work, now four years old and subject to substantial price changes in the marketplace since then.

McKibbin, who is based at the Australian National University, calls out the pathetic nature of Australia’s flawed climate change response. He brands Labor’s recently released policy using the current safeguard mechanism to cut pollution as “a third-best response but better than nothing”. He says the Morrison government’s hasty revamp of the Abbott government’s Emissions Reduc­tion Fund is “not very effective” and while “it will have an impact at the margins, if you are looking at long-term cuts in emissions then it becomes very expensive”.

Asked this week how he could justify his claim that Labor and Coalition climate change policies will cost the same — given Labor’s target is a 45 per cent reduction as opposed to the government’s 26 per cent — Shorten said: “Because we are costing our 45 per cent reduction with international offsets, so in fact it does cost the same.” The international permits become the vital factor in Shorten’s policy. In releasing his mechanism on April 1, Shorten said Labor would “open up access to international carbon markets that allow businesses to trade in those markets” — a policy widely welcomed by the business sector.

Questioned about this and the rising cost of international permits since his 2015 analysis, McKibbin says it is “extremely difficult” to estimate the future cost of buying permits. “This depends upon the relative cost of abatement in the future; that is, the domestic cost versus the cost of international permits. And this is completely uncertain,” he says.

Shorten’s claim was based on the modelling assumptions, McKibbin adds. His problem, however, is “if the price of international credits (is) higher than the abatement costs in Australia then there will be no international credits available because they will be too expensive.”

Slight problem? No, major problem. Hence, Shorten’s assertion about the “same” climate change cost is “completely uncertain”. The moral here is that if you are invoking the work of a prominent economist to justify a central election claim — because you have no other evidence — then it helps to have spoken to him.

Labor’s arrogance as an election frontrunner is extraordinary. Shorten’s initial denial on superannuation taxes was more such evidence. Shorten presumably thinks the government cannot touch him on the costs of respective climate change policies. Yet he sounded rattled replying to journalists during his main doorstop on Thursday.

“You keep going on cost,” he said. “I want to say to you, let’s get this straight. What is the cost of taking no action? … You know, these News Corp climate change deniers and, of course, their ally, the Prime Minister, a coal-wielding, climate-denying, cave-dweller on this issue. They all say ‘look at the cost’. Well, they never mention the cost of extreme weather events, do they?”

McKibbin, significantly, holds no brief for the government. Asked which side has the more credible policies, he says: “I would say it is a line ball. It really depends upon the policies implemented. Having said that, Labor appears to be more committed and more ambitious to deal with the climate issue, and that is an important part of the policy design.”

McKibbin warns it is “enormously important (to have) a bipartisan and flexible policy in order to generate fresh investment and benefit from new technology”. Yet this campaign reveals no end to the domestic culture war over climate change, with the grief this will bring to households and business.

It is noteworthy the Greens say they will oppose having international permits in any Labor scheme, with spokesman Adam Bandt saying the ALP must “give up” on such permits — suggesting more trouble in the Senate if Shorten forms a government.

Scott Morrison’s campaign argument is that Labor’s targets will damage the economy, thereby reinforcing the Prime Minister’s overarching attack on Shorten’s tax, economic, spending and industrial relations policies. But Shorten has a powerful pitch — he campaigns as the only major party leader prepared to take decisive action on climate change.

The McKibbin 2015 analysis came in two reports — the first on international action and the second on Australian action under different scenarios. Labor has a problem but it can also take heart from the conclusion: its higher targets have a higher economic cost but the difference is manageable.

McKibbin modelled four scenarios with emissions reduction targets by 2030 of 13, 26, 35 and 45 per cent. The report says: “A post-2020 target will cause a small slowing of economic growth. By 2030, all impacts are no more than 1 per cent of GDP.”

He found that under all four scenarios average annual GDP growth would be above 2 per cent.

The conclusion was that the government’s 26 per cent target saw the cost to GDP of 0.58 per cent by 2030, compared with a 1 per cent GDP cost under the 45 per cent Labor target.

“The difference in GDP between the 1 per cent and 0.6 per cent is about $60 billion,” McKibbin says. “And that $60bn figure is not a major impost on a $2 trillion economy.” It is not a major impost, but it is an impost.

The point is that the cost difference between the Coalition and Labor targets is material and is upwards of twice as large under Labor. Having endorsed the McKibbin model, Shorten has to live with the consequences. Did he know what he was doing? Surely not.

McKibbin says: “If you use international permits then it is possible to reduce the cost by 50 per cent” — the proposition Shorten has seized upon. But the McKibbin qualification — and it is a big qualification — comes at this point: “That depends upon the price of such permits” — and McKibbin warns that enters the zone of never-never-land uncertainty, to borrow a Labor phrase.

There are three other fundamental features that arise from the McKibbin analysis. First, McKibbin found what most other studies have also concluded, namely that “Australia and Canada face larger economic impacts than other developed economies, including the US and EU, in achieving similar emissions reductions relative to a historical base year”.

That is, climate change action has a greater cost for Australia, which, by implication, raises the question: what is the justification for those politicians in demanding high Australian targets or asking the Australian people to carry a greater burden than people in most other developed nations?

Second, McKibbin says the economic harm to Australia arises mainly from what the rest of the world does — not what Australia does. He said in 2015: “The impact on Australia from the Paris Agreement largely depends on the actions of the rest of the world in reducing their demand for our fossil fuels and our carbon-intensive exports. Around 80 per cent of the loss in GDP in Australia is caused by the policies of other countries.”

This assessment comes in McKibbon’s first 2015 report on the international system, and this finding of the GDP damage to Australia is separate from his second report, which looks at the GDP damage arising solely from various scenarios that Australia adopts.

In a recent opinion piece McKibbin warns that the GDP damage from global restructuring could be significant for Australia. He suggests a reduction in real wages relative to trend of about 2-3 per cent by 2030. He says GDP by 2030 is estimated “to be 2 per cent lower than otherwise, of which 0.4 per cent of that is due to Australia’s policy”. In short, the climate change impact on this country from the rest of world will be serious. Our economy is exposed because of its fossil fuel nature.

Third, McKibbin says, looking at Australian decision-making, that policies are probably more important than the targets. “What matters are the policies that both parties use to reach their targets,” he says.

By implication, this is a critique of the Coalition for the past five years, given its chronic inability to agree on policy.

Morrison, who has campaigned strongly during the past week, tried to make a virtue of such chaos. Campaigning in Tasmania, he said: “See, we’re not going to have an emissions intensity scheme. We’re not going to have a carbon tax. We’re not going to have a carbon price. That’s not what we’re proposing.”

The government is left with its re-funded and renamed Emissions Reduction Fund with its $3.5bn budget to purchase emissions reductions with taxpayer funds. Labor, with its range of policies, looks far better equipped to deal with climate change but that’s essential given its higher 45 per cent target.

Whenever possible the government refers to the climate change report from BAEconomics led by Brian Fisher, former head of the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, whose recent analysis contrasted the government and Labor targets.

The report found the government’s 26-28 per cent target would result in the economy growing at 2.8 per cent a year over the decade, compared with the trend of 2.9 per cent. It found cumulative GDP losses at $69bn, with the average real yearly income for a full-time worker to be about $2000 lower than trend and about 78,000 fewer jobs.

By contrast, it found under Labor’s 45 per cent target that the economy would grow at 2.3 per cent over the decade compared with the 2.9 per cent trend. This meant cumulative GDP losses of $472bn, and a fall in real annual wages of about $9000 a year by 2030, with job losses at 336,000.

Morrison rejected the report’s findings for the government but accepted them for Labor. He said the Fisher report was based on an economy-wide carbon price and this was not government policy.

Given the discrepancies between the McKibbin and Fisher results, it is timely to take heed of McKibbin’s warning: “There needs to be a healthy debate on the economics of climate policy and not an attack on the credibility of any model builder. Yes, the models will disagree — but a bad model with transparent assumptions is better than arbitrary analysis based on wishful thinking.”

Shorten was right when he said the climate change debate in Australia over the decade “has been dysfunctional and dishonest and divisive”. Labor has had the courage to run on ambitious targets but it has an obligation to put the economic consequences of its policies to the public.

The Opposition Leader said that “in climate change there will never be enough figures to satisfy the climate sceptics”. Forget the sceptics. This election is not about the sceptics. Labor proposes a radical policy change certain to have a far-reaching impact. It needs to satisfy the public. Voters are entitled to know the economic impact of Labor’s policies, and to not be treated as fools.

The government has done an impressive job treating them as fools with its own policy gyrations during the past four years.

“I don’t think either side of politics has the necessary
long-term policy to effectively make deeper cuts beyond 2030, if this is what is required,” McKibbin says.

SOURCE  

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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19 April, 2019  

Ending California’s Wildfire Nightmare

Given the severity of last year’s deadly wildfires, let’s hope California’s new governor, Gavin Newsom, takes a more productive approach to the problem than his predecessor, Jerry Brown, who largely deflected blame to global warming.

While Mr. Brown did acknowledge that forest management is “one element” of controlling wildfires, the real culprit, he hastened to add, was climate change. “Managing all the forests everywhere we can does not stop climate change—and those that deny that are definitely contributing to the tragedy.”

Wildfire policy is incredibly complex and many factors contribute to the frequency and severity of fires. But global warming—human-caused or otherwise—is among the least of them.

In a December 2017 blog post, University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor Clifford Mass, who is no climate-change skeptic, used a detailed data analysis and literature review to debunk claims that California wildfires are related to global warming.

Because of California’s naturally dry summers, Mr. Mass noted, “grasses, shrubs and other fuels will be dry by the end of summer and during fall, no matter what. And even if the fuels weren’t dry, they would dry within hours of the initiation of strong, offshore winds—which accompany virtually every major fire event. So even if the summer/fall temperatures rose and the conditions dried further under global warming, IT WOULD NOT MATTER. Without any additional warming, the fuels in late summer and fall are dry enough to burn over coastal California and always have been [emphasis in original].”

There is “no credible evidence that global warming is causing an increase currently, or will increase in the future, the number or intensity of wildfires over coastal California from San Diego to the San Francisco Bay region,” Mr. Mass added, citing numerous studies. “Those that are claiming the global warming is having an impact are doing so either out of ignorance or their wish to use coastal wildfires for their own purposes.”

While human activity is not culpable for increasing the severity of fires by changing the climate, there is plenty we can do to mitigate the effects of fires. This includes conducting more prescribed, or controlled, burns; creating fuel breaks; and forest thinning and logging. These measures have been stifled, however, by stringent environmental policies, resulting in the buildup of flammable undergrowth and overgrown forests with weakened, less fire-resistant trees more susceptible to drought and bark beetle infestations.

As a 2018 report from California’s Little Hoover Commission—an independent state oversight agency—stated, California must shift from primarily reacting to large wildfires through emergency firefighting to more proactive forest management. “A century of fire suppression remains firmly entrenched within federal and state firefighting agencies and has left forest floors deep in flammable groundcover,” the commission said. Prescribed burns are often hampered by regional air-quality regulations, the report noted, because “while wildfires do not count against air quality standards, prescribed fires do”—a policy that should be changed immediately.

In addition to the mismanagement of forests and open spaces, the state and local governments have exacerbated the problem through policies that restrict the supply of housing and otherwise significantly hike housing prices, encouraging people to move farther from city centers and suburbs to more affordable—and more fire-prone—exurbs and rural areas. California has compounded this predicament by preventing insurers from charging the full risk-based cost of insuring homes in more dangerous fire-hazard zones.

There are some things beyond our control, such as California’s steep mountain slopes and the occasional strong Santa Ana and Diablo winds that spread fires quickly.

But there are many things political leaders could do, such as amending the environmental regulations, restrictive housing policies, market-distorting insurance regulations and forest-management practices that have exacerbated the personal and financial costs of the fires. In all these cases, government intervention has aggravated the problem while greater private property protections and free markets would help ameliorate it. More care also must be taken to prevent accidental fires, such as those triggered by sparks from utility equipment, which apparently started several of last year’s fires.

Scapegoating the nebulous notion of climate change, particularly when the scientific evidence appears to refute that it has any relation to the frequency or severity of the wildfires, will only ensure more destruction this year and in future years. The saddest part is that much of this destruction is preventable.

SOURCE 






One way to save the planet: Build more nuclear plants

About 30 miles north of Manhattan, the Indian Point Energy Center looms over the banks of the Hudson. It produces 11 percent of the electricity consumed in New York state and a quarter of the power used in the New York City area. And that power is completely free of the carbon-dioxide emissions associated with fossil fuels.

But by early 2021, Indian Point will fall silent, the victim of environmental opposition, shaky economics and a governor who said closing the plant was his personal mission. Supporters of the shutdown said that the plant’s power could easily be replaced by conservation and renewable sources such as wind and solar.

That was wishful thinking. In reality, Indian Point’s power will be replaced mostly by electricity made from natural gas. Which means that, despite Gov. Cuomo’s ambitious plans to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, our region’s emissions are about to go up.

The scenario facing New York — nuclear plants closing as officials make rosy promises about renewable energy — has been playing out around the US, and around the world, in recent years.

Half a dozen US nuclear plants have shut since 2013, and at least a dozen more are on the chopping block. In Europe, Germany has closed about half its nuclear fleet. When these plants shut down, their power is almost always replaced by fossil fuels.

For example, Germany, which touts itself as a green energy leader, is actually Europe’s worst greenhouse-gas emitter.

Fortunately, there is a new wave of environmentalists who are speaking out in favor of nuclear. These include former NASA climate scientist James Hansen and onetime Whole Earth Catalog publisher Stewart Brand. If we’re serious about bringing down carbon emissions, they say, we need to save the nuclear plants now operating — and start building new ones.

These “pro-nuclear greens” need to overcome a mountain of disinformation. For example, on safety: Despite its scary reputation, nuclear power is actually the safest way to produce electricity. No one has ever died from radiation exposure involving a US nuclear plant. (In fact, more people have died falling off roofs installing solar panels.) Only one death has been attributed (somewhat dubiously) to radiation from Japan’s Fukushima accident. Even the 1986 Chernobyl disaster didn’t produce the predicted health catastrophe.

Compared with that of strip mines, oil wells, and pipelines… nuclear power’s total environmental footprint is almost dainty.
Meanwhile, people die when coal mines collapse, gas pipelines explode and oil trains derail. And millions of people have been killed by air pollution from coal-burning power plants. When nuclear replaces those energy sources, it actually saves lives.

Nuclear power is also the cleanest way to produce electricity. Unlike fossil fuels, nuclear plants don’t release toxic or smog-forming emissions. And nuclear plants take up very little land. Compared with that of strip mines, oil wells, and pipelines — or, for that matter, vast arrays of solar panels and wind turbines — nuclear power’s total environmental footprint is almost dainty.

Some renewable energy advocates say we don’t need nuclear because wind and solar power can quickly take its place. That’s wrong. Renewable energy can play a valuable role, but, since wind and solar only produce power part of the time, they always need a backup. A recent study from MIT showed that the best way to reduce emissions would be a mix of renewables and “carbon-free resources,” including nuclear power.

Wind and solar are heavily subsidized by both federal and state governments today. Meanwhile, natural-gas prices are near historic lows. That combination puts many nuclear plants in an economic bind. What’s the answer? Nuclear advocates say nuclear should be included in the same subsidy programs that favor renewables.

And, in fact, New York state has done that with three upstate plants even as it moves to shutter Indian Point.

A better plan for taxpayers and ratepayers would be to reduce the subsidies going to wind and solar and use that sum of money to help keep nuclear plants functioning. In the long run, we’ll have a greener, more reliable and more affordable electricity grid if we keep nuclear in the mix.

SOURCE 






"Wetland" abuses

Timothy Dayton

The North American Wetlands Conservation Act has resulted in a huge land grab by the federal government and the erosion of the rights of the property owner.

In most cases where the government decides it needs the rights to a property, or wants to restrict the use of a property for public good, the landowner is bought out or paid for the use. They go through a process of eminent domain.

In the case of wetlands, however, since the areas grabbed were huge, the government failed to compensate the owners for the loss of rights to the property.

My father bought farmland that backed up to a harbor off Lake Erie well before it was declared to be wetland. Then the government decided that area should be wetland, and thus my father could not develop the property unless he were to donate another property to be wetland in this piece’s stead. Really?

So those with financial backing bought up all kinds of swamp away from development and donated that, then built their housing developments and marinas along the shores of Lake Erie where the property values were truly high.

I am not blaming the developers, but was that really fair? And if you could trade for pieces of land in the next county, then, really, how vital were all these “wetlands” that the Environmental Protection Agency declared?

To add insult to injury, my father’s land was taxed as waterfront and lake accessible even though he could not launch a boat from it. He got no break on any score and no compensation, and he was not grandfathered even though he owned the land before the government grabbed his rights.

The government decided, the government took away his rights. If the government is all about needing wetlands, then buy the property and pay for it at market rates. Let’s share the cost of this wonderful program with everyone who might benefit.

That’s what they are supposed to do and what they do when they build a new road or put a new building: They buy the land

SOURCE 






Green New Deal has a dirty secret

The dirty little secret of the Green New Deal is not that it is an unserious proposal that has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with the sense of entitlement of elite progressives. That is not a secret at all. It is common knowledge. The secret of the Green New Deal is that this valentine to socialism from Senator Ed Markey and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is already obsolete.

For the American people have already passed their Green New Deal, through the miracle of free market innovation — not in the House and Senate but in the Permian Basin, at the Bakken Formation and the Marcellus Shale. The left will not admit it, but the fact is Americans are living in a golden age of clean energy, right now.

The natural gas revolution, made possible by both the discoveries of new reserves and the development of technologies to extract it from previously inaccessible deposits, has helped the United States cut pollutant emissions by 70 percent over the last three decades. Despite adding almost 100 million people to our population since 1990, an increase of 30 percent, even total carbon emissions have increased by only 2 percent. Greenhouse gas emissions are not just rising slowly. They are actually falling in recent years.

The left has long said we need to treat climate change and environmental protection as the moral equivalent of war. If that is true, where are the celebrations now that it is a battle we are finally winning? Why? Because when the facts do not fit with the liberal political narrative, they often print the narrative as fake news. Progressives said we need to find new, clean sources of energy to get us away from coal and oil. Well, we have. Natural gas is clean.

According to the climate group Carbon Brief, natural gas use has cut 50 percent more emissions than wind and solar power combined. Gas also has negligible local pollutants, 50 percent less carbon emissions than coal and 30 percent less than oil. What is not clean is the record on the left of opposing the development of natural gas-rich regions and the infrastructure such as pipelines that needed to further lower the costs of energy to consumers and the environment.

It often seems like the liberal environmentalism is not scientific at all. They know as well as everyone else that if fully renewable energy sources such as wind and solar will ever become competitive and cost-effective, that day is decades away. They know that in the meantime natural gas is answering the demands of our growing economy and the societal call to develop cleaner sources of fuel. But they do not care. They simply know in their hearts that all fossil fuels are bad, period, and renewables are good, period. But that is not science. It is a religion and a not very good one at that.

Countries such as Germany that have allowed their energy policy to be determined by feelings instead of facts are moving in the wrong direction. Despite spending massive amounts of money on clean energy “reforms,” Germany remains the largest consumer of coal in Europe. The German government now admits it will not achieve its goals to reduce emissions, yet the German people are still paying the highest energy prices on the continent. Hundreds of billions of dollars in government spending and artificially higher prices all in exchange for not much reduction in emissions. Unfortunately, that remains the approach the left wants to impose on the country with preposterous schemes such as the Green New Deal.

Rather that adopting an approach that has not worked, the United States should double down on what is already working. Happily, that is what President Trump and his administration are already doing. His administration has increased permitting for pipeline infrastructure and extraction leases. He has opened federal lands to more drilling and allowed the consumers, engineers and entrepreneurs of the energy industry to drive progress toward a smaller global carbon footprint. With our domestic surplus, we can export American natural gas around the world and replace coal and oil now being burned internationally.

A future of natural gas-powered vehicles and ideally more extraction of natural gas from Europe, Asia and Africa could accomplish more in a decade than what the “no fossil fuel” zealots have done in five years. There is enough natural gas in the earth now to meet our energy needs for years and years to come. The scientific, economic and political fact is that the American people and the world do not need a Green New Deal. We already have one.

SOURCE 






Australian Left's carbon costs to hit $25bn

All in pursuit of a chimera

Australian businesses could be forced to spend more than $25 billion on international carbon credits to meet Labor’s 45 per cent emissions reduction targets by 2030, jeopardising one of Bill Shorten’s fundamental election pillars, which he declared would have no cost to the economy.

Threatening a repeat of their 2010 scuttling of Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme, the Greens yesterday warned they could block Labor’s use of international carbon permits in the Senate over concerns that the policy was overly reliant on international permits to meet the 1.3 billion tonnes of carbon abatement needed in the next 10 years.

The Labor leader yesterday came under fire after being unable to explain what the cost of the ­policy would be, given carbon permits are set to play a key role in meeting the target.

Experts believe the price of international carbon offsets could hit $62 a tonne over the decade but, allowing for an average of $50 a tonne, the hit on businesses would be about $25bn to meet Labor’s target.

This is based on an assumption that more than 500 million tonnes of abatement would have to come through either the purchase of international carbon credits or further land-clearing controls and reforestation, which would prove politically explosive in the bush.

A day after refusing to answer questions on the cost to the economy of Labor’s climate policy, Mr Shorten yesterday declared a 2015 report by economist Warwick McKibbin showed “our 45 per cent reduction, including international offsets, has the same economic ­impact as the Liberals’ 26 per cent”.

Mr Shorten seized on the McKibbin report’s forecast that economic growth would continue at more than 2 per cent under ­either scenario through the 2020s to dismiss suggestions Labor’s policy would be a hit to the economy.

“I don’t accept the characterisation that it is a cost,” the Opposition Leader said. “We’re going to grow. And we’re going to grow ­because we are going to move to a lower carbon pollution economy.”

The McKibbin study, conducted for the Abbott government, showed that a 45 per cent carbon emissions cut on 2005 levels — the same as proposed by Labor — would strip about 1 per cent of GDP by 2030, compared with 0.6 per cent under the Coalition’s 26 per cent cut.

By offsetting nearly half the necessary cuts with international carbon offsets, which Labor has committed to doing, the McKibbin study found the GDP hit from a 45 per cent emissions reduction could be slashed to 0.6 per cent — the same cost as under the ­Coalition.

The study did not factor in the government’s use of carried-over credits from over-achievement in the Kyoto climate agreement, which Labor had elected not to use — a move that will further push up the cost of its policy.

Professor McKibbin cautioned that the modelling assumed a carbon price mandated by the government at the time of $US5 a tonne in 2020, rising to $US10 in 2030. “If the price of offsets in the world is higher than we assume, that effect is gone,” he told The Australian yesterday. “We don’t know what the price of offsets will be in 2030. These numbers are not precise in any sense.”

The price of carbon permits on the EU market has more than tripled in the past year due to reforms to curb oversupply. Permits for delivery in December traded at €26.86 ($42.22) per metric ton on Tuesday. Modelling by former government scientist Brian Fisher, an author on the Inter­governmental Panel on Climate Change and now head of BAEconomics, has estimated the international carbon price will be $62 a tonne by 2030.

A Labor campaign spokeswoman said yesterday the party was yet to determine how much of its 45 per cent in emissions cuts would be delivered through purchasing international permits.

Greens climate change spokesman Adam Bandt said the minority party would resist the use of international permits in any Labor scheme, threatening a Senate showdown with a future Shorten government.

“International offsets are like paying someone to go on a diet for you while you stay at home eating burgers and pizzas,” Mr Bandt said.

“I’m confident climate laws can pass the new Senate, but Labor is going to have to give up on international offsets and accept a plan to quit coal. Greens and Labor worked together and compromised in 2011 to get real climate ­action and we can do so again.”

The Greens under Bob Brown sank Mr Rudd’s carbon pollution reduction scheme, arguing it wasn’t ambitious enough. The party backed Julia Gillard’s carbon tax the following year.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor said yesterday Labor needed to tell voters and the business community how much would have to be paid to international carbon offset brokers under its policy. “Australians need to be informed about the amount of money that is going to be paid to other countries as part of this scheme,” Mr Taylor said. “If international credits average $50 over the decade, if they have to achieve 500 million tonnes, that’s $25bn going offshore.”

He said Labor was also yet to explain what emissions target ­industry would face, how fast would emissions be brought down, how its emissions trading scheme would work, and how it would treat emissions from the heavy transport fleet.

Under its policy, the Coalition has to cut 328 million tonnes of carbon emissions to meet its 26 per cent reduction under the Paris target by 2030. Labor has to cut about 1.3 billion tonnes. Government analysis of Labor’s policy suggests it will deliver just 815 million tonnes of abatement by 2030 without significant controls on land clearing and the purchase of international carbon credits. The 45 per cent reductions in the energy sector would lead to a reduction of 247 million tonnes, while emissions controls on cars would ­deliver a reduction of 59 million tonnes, according to the former Climate Change Authority.

Agriculture is exempt from Labor’s policy. The expansion of the safeguard mechanism on the business sector, which will cap carbon emissions for companies that produce more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon a year, is estimated to lead to a reduction of 509 million tonnes. This leaves 511 million tonnes still to be taken out of the economy that would have to be largely met through the purchase of international carbon permits.

The debate yesterday came amid new evidence of a surge in employment in the renewable energy industry, with new ABS figures showing 17,740 renewables jobs in 2017-18, up by 28 per cent on the previous year.

SOURCE  

***************************************

For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

*****************************************





18 April, 2019  

Critical Australian academic’s firing was ‘unlawful’, court finds

He dared ridicule the Global Warming messiahs in his university who said that climate change was devastating Australia's Great Barrier Reef.  He showed clear evidence that they were deceptive.  So his university was out to "get" him by hook or by crook, mostly crook.  They are now more furious  with him than ever. Liars hate being exposed

A Federal Court judge has ruled James Cook University acted unlawfully when it sacked physics professor Peter Ridd after he publicly criticised the institution and one of its star scientists over claims about the global warming impact on the Great Barrier Reef.

Professor Ridd last night welcomed the decision and called on the university’s council, its governing body, to make vice-chancellor Sandra Harding accountable for the legal defeat. “The university has broken the law. What is the university council going to do about this? The vice-chancellor has brought the university into disrepute,” he said.

In his verdict, judge Salvatore Vasta said the university’s grounds for dismissing Professor Ridd — that he breached the university’s code of conduct — were improper. He found that all 17 findings used by the university to justify the sacking were unlawful.

Judge Vasta found that a clause in the university’s enterprise agreement, which upholds academic freedom, justified Professor Ridd’s conduct. “This trial was purely and simply about the proper construction of a clause in an enterprise agreement,” he said.

Judge Vasta also said the university had misunderstood “the whole concept of intellectual freedom”. “In the search for truth, it is an unfortunate consequence that some people may feel denigrated, offended, hurt or upset,” he said.

A penalty hearing will be set for a later date.

At a three-day hearing last month, barrister Chris Murdoch, representing the university, argued Professor Ridd went beyond his right to intellectual freedom by personally attacking his colleagues, threatening to “hurt” the university and breaching confidentiality directions.

In 2016, Professor Ridd emailed a journalist to allege images given to the media by university colleagues were misleading because they showed poorly affected corals, which were selected over nearby healthy coral and used to show “broadscale decline” of reef health.

Professor Ridd claimed the use of the images was “a dramatic example of how scientific organisations are happy to spin a story for their own purposes”.

He also said his colleague Professor Terry Hughes, the head of JCU’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, would “wriggle and squirm” when asked to explain discrepancies in the images.

Professor Ridd was censured again in 2017 when he repeated the claims on Sky News.

After a third alleged violation of the code of conduct, including allegedly leaking confidential university information, Professor Ridd was sacked in April 2018.

James Cook University last night challenged Judge Vasta’s ruling in a lengthy statement from its provost, Chris Cocklin, which accused the media of inaccurate reporting on the case.

“We disagree with the judgment and maintain we have not taken issue with Dr Ridd’s nor any other employee’s rights to academic freedom,” Professor Cocklin said.

Professor Cocklin, who was involved in Professor Ridd’s disciplinary process, said the university was “considering its options” on the matter.

“We disagree with the judge’s comments and are also troubled by the fact he fails to refer to any legal precedent or case law in Australia to support his interpretation of our enterprise agreement, or academic freedom in Australian employment law,” he said.

Professor Ridd’s legal action was partially funded by conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs and a GoFundMe web page which raised $260,000 from 2500 donors.

IPA policy director Gideon Rozner said the judgment was proof that Australian universities were confronted by a “free speech crisis”.

“This judgment should rightly send shockwaves through Australian universities regarding their commitment to academic freedom and how they deal with academics who hold a contrary view to established group think,” Mr Rozner said.

SOURCE  






We should end tax giveaways to electric vehicle owners

It’s no secret that America’s highways and bridges are crumbling and that federal and state Highway Trust Funds are underfunded, wasteful and raided frequently to finance other pet projects, such as California’s ill-conceived "bullet” trains.

Many major highways, such as I-95 between New York and Washington, I-90 in Chicago and I-5, I-10 and I-405 in Los Angeles, barely can handle current traffic. More vehicles are added every month, making congestion worse. Continuing deterioration of the roads means more traffic jams, driver stress, road rage and accidents.

Yet the owners of electric vehicles (EVs), who drive on the same roads as everyone else, are exempt from paying the taxes earmarked for building and maintaining transportation infrastructure.

That is no surprise, since the taxes are levied on gasoline purchases and EV drivers don’t buy gasoline. But it doesn’t make sense when you consider the fact that electric vehicles, because of their weight, cause just as much — if not more — road damage than conventional vehicles. It is unfair, therefore, that only drivers of conventional cars must contribute to repairing roads and bridges — and financing new ones — while EV owners get free rides.

Equally problematic is the $7,500 federal tax credit that’s available when a new EV is purchased. The tax credit (or “tax expenditure” in Washington-speak) essentially is a subsidy that encourages upper-income Californians and other well-heeled individuals, to purchase electric vehicles; it already has cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Some states have sweetened the subsidy, adding up to $5,000 in income-tax credits for buying electric vehicles, exacerbating the shortages in their state highway funds.

As of this writing, the federal tax credit applies to the first 200,000 EVs sold by an auto manufacturer. Both Tesla and GM have reached that limit, but a coalition of EV companies and environmental activists is seeking to expand the credit.

As is so often the case, the cost of the credit is borne mainly by the majority of drivers who can’t afford to buy expensive EVs and rely on conventional gasoline-powered vehicles to commute to and from their jobs. Most of the beneficiaries of the tax credit are upper-income individuals who purchase EVs for environmental reasons and would do so with or without the tax credit.

The net result is that highway trust funds, already underfunded, are being shortchanged further, as government entices more drivers into EVs.

The shortfalls emphasize the political influences under which the trust funds operate, namely concessions to “greens” at the expense of everyone else.

Given the expected increase in the number of EVs in the years ahead, America’s roads and bridges likely will deteriorate even more and perhaps more rapidly, without meaningful changes to the funding system.

As a matter of fairness for all drivers, the federal tax credit for EVs should be eliminated and EV owners required to pay a tax that would go toward supporting federal and state highway trust funds. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has introduced a bill that would establish an annual tax for EVs and other alternative fuel vehicles to replace lost revenue from the gasoline tax.

The nonpartisan Manhattan Institute estimates that ending the federal tax credit for electric vehicles would save taxpayers $20 billion over the next decade.

Given that the number of EVs sold last year in the United States reached 361,300, or 2 percent of total cars sold nationwide, it is clear that a road-use tax on EVs — paid either at the time of purchase or annually — would do much to improve the financial condition of the highway trust funds. It’s astonishing that Congress hasn’t demanded such a change.

For reasons of equity alone, highway funding should be the responsibility of EV owners and drivers of gasoline-powered cars alike. They share the roads; they need to share the costs.

SOURCE 





The Province of Alberta Shows Dangers of a Carbon Tax ‘Deal’

The Fraser Institute in Canada recently released my study critiquing the province of Alberta’s approach to carbon pricing.

My analysis for Fraser confirms what I’ve been arguing here on the pages of IER for years: in the United States, conservatives and libertarians should run from any “carbon tax deal” that promises to shrink the size of government while battling climate change. No matter their promises, in practice government-imposed “carbon pricing” schemes never live up to the guidelines for “efficiency” laid down by their proponents. In this post I’ll illustrate myth vs. reality in the case of Alberta.

The Climate Leadership Plan (CLP)

As I explain in my Fraser study, the province of Alberta implemented a Climate Leadership Plan (CLP) in November 2015. It included a carbon tax (at CA$30/ton which will increase to $50 by 2022).

Yet the CLP includes more than just a mere “price on carbon.” It allocates a third of the carbon tax revenue to “green” investment projects, designed to promote a transition to a low-emission economy. It also includes specific climate objectives, such as an annual cap (100 megatons) on oil-sands emissions, and phasing out coal-fired electrical generation by 2030.

The CLP Fails on Textbook Carbon Tax Reform

Even if we stipulate the standard argument for a “market-based carbon tax reform,” the CLP fails on several fronts. First, it is not revenue neutral, even though its official website—in a move that would warm George Orwell’s heart—proudly proclaims that it is. To support this claim, they are merely reinventing definitions, such that “revenue neutral” means “the government will spend all the money in some fashion.” Some of the money is rebated to households, but (as I explained in the previous section) a third or so is earmarked for “green” projects. This is of course not what “revenue neutral” means.

A second problem is the specific objectives superimposed on top of the carbon tax. In principle, a carbon tax levied at the correct level is supposed to “internalize the externalities” and correct the “market failure” of greenhouse gas emissions. It is redundant—even on the terms of the carbon taxers—to levy specific mandates on top of this external “price.” In my study, I referred to another Fraser publication that estimates that the cap on oil-sands emissions would reduce emissions at a marginal cost of more than $1,000 per metric ton! That is about 20x the standard estimates of the “social cost of carbon,” which shows these policies have little to do with the “scientific” case for pricing carbon.

The Problem of Leakage

Yet even the basic concept of a carbon tax levied at the provincial level is quite dubious. The problem is what economists in the literature refer to as “leakage,” where businesses and households can (over time) shift their emissions out of regulated jurisdictions into regions where there are lower (or no) government constraints on emissions.

For example, suppose the province of Alberta implemented a draconian $500/ton carbon tax, and enforced it ruthlessly. That would certainly cause measured emissions from Alberta to fall quickly, and after a decade (say) of this new regime, we would expect to see very low emissions from the province.

However, that doesn’t mean global emissions would have fallen the same amount, relative to the original trend. This is because many Alberta residents (or those who had been considering moving there) would avoid the province, because they wouldn’t want to live in a region with such high taxes on gasoline and electricity.

When all was said and done, the effect of a draconian carbon tax levied just in Alberta would be to wreck the Albertan economy, while having little long-run impact on global carbon dioxide emissions. Indeed, to the extent that some manufacturing operations relocated out of Alberta and into China, you might see emissions (for those operations) increase, since foreign production is often more carbon-intensive.

The way to incorporate the above reasoning into the standard framework is like this: When computing the “social cost of carbon,” analysts are implicitly considering a globally enforced carbon tax. That’s really the only way to make sense of the number, even on its own terms. But instead when we ask, “What should the ‘optimal’ carbon tax be at the provincial level?” we have an entirely different situation. Even if we stipulate the standard approach that justifies carbon taxes, the actual size is much lower than the “social cost of carbon” when we are talking about small jurisdictions.

Conclusion

If Canadian provinces (or U.S. states) implement a regional carbon tax, they shouldn’t fool themselves that they are “doing the right thing.” Even on their own terms, the most they can argue is that they are sacrificing their own economies through a symbolic gesture that by itself isn’t worth the cost, but which might encourage others to follow suit. Yet if framed that way, most of the public would run for the hills.

In this post I have focused on Alberta’s Climate Leadership Plan (CLP) and shown how it fails to live up to the promises of those selling a “carbon tax reform” package. In practice, a carbon tax will not be revenue neutral, and it won’t be set at the “correct” level as determined by academics. Households and businesses will suffer from higher energy prices and slower economic growth, with very little to show for it in terms of environmental benefits—even stipulating the basic framework of human-caused climate change.

SOURCE 






The Question of Sea Level Rise

By S. FRED SINGER

Sea level has risen about 400 feet since the last glacial maximum of ~18,000 years ago (see fig. below).

Currently, sea level is rising at the rate of 1-2mm per year—and has been rising at that rate for the past several centuries.



At that rate, sea level will be about six inches higher by 2100—a long way from Al Gore’s 2006 estimate of a 20-foot rise.

By choosing a short interval, 1910–1942, of certified warming, I can show the lack of any acceleration (see below). SLR does not depend on ocean temperature—or CO2.



Every one of the individual records of SLR shows this constancy of SLR.

But water expands when heated, so why doesn’t SLR accelerate as temperature rises? I assume that evaporation of sea water offsets the expansion, with increased humidity and precipitation. I fully expect to see more ice deposited on the Antarctic continent—probably too hard to measure accurately.

But the long-term rise in global S.L. is caused by the average, slow melting of glaciers and ice sheets around the world, which adds water to the ocean. (See fig. of Sea Level versus Time. Note also that the melting of floating [polar] ice doesn’t add water to the ocean and therefore does not affect sea level.)

I published this research in the Wall Street Journal on May 15, 2018. I fully expect that the IPCC will reflect my thinking after an appropriate delay. IPCC estimates are decreasing in successive reports. So the IPCC seems to be moving in that direction, as explained, in Nature Rules the Climate, comparing successive Assessment Reports.

SOURCE 






Big Donors Pave Youth Group’s ‘Road’ to Green New Deal

A self-described army of young people devoted to climate change activism are taking their show on the road to build support for national Democrats’ Green New Deal and to counter business interests that favor fossil fuel use.

The Sunrise Movement first attracted media attention when hundreds of its followers organized sit-ins at congressional offices following the 2018 midterm elections. The movement’s network of activists is touted as including teenagers and college-age students and graduates.

In a widely reported encounter in February, elementary school children from San Francisco urged Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to support the Green New Deal. The Sunrise Movement posted a video of the spirited exchange, which also included middle and high school students, on its Facebook page.

Beginning April 18 in Boston, the environmental advocacy group will go on a speaking tour, called “Road to the Green New Deal,” that will visit nine major U.S. cities. The tour is set to conclude May 13 in Washington.

The group’s stated goal is to make the 2020 elections a referendum on climate change and to implement the hotly debated Green New Deal as policy in 2021.

“Sunrise hopes the media falls for its image of itself as a youth-led grassroots activism for the Green New Deal, springing up naturally,” Scott Walter, president of Capital Research Center, told The Daily Signal. “In fact, the group is a creature of the professional left.”

The Green New Deal has not yet been folded into a legislative proposal, but exists in the form of nonbinding resolutions before Congress.

On Feb. 7, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., introduced House Resolution 109 while Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass, introduced Senate Resolution 59. Both call for a “10-year national mobilization effort” to completely end the use of fossil fuels in the U.S. and transition the nation’s economy to so-called renewable energy sources.

The Sunrise Movement has an entire website devoted to the Green New Deal, including a strategy page that describes the major goals of the proposal. A total of 91 co-sponsors in the House and 12 in the Senate have signed up, according to the latest figures. 

The feasibility of the Green New Deal has become a point of contention between climate change activists with the Sunrise Movement and elected officials in the Democratic Party.

Feinstein released a statement on the “small group of children, young adults, and parents from the Sunrise Movement” who encountered the California Democrat in her San Francisco office.

“Unfortunately, it was a brief meeting, but I want the children to know they were heard loud and clear,” she said.

Feinstein, a former mayor of San Francisco, has expressed opposition to the Green New Deal because she does not view it as affordable.

Nicolas Loris, an economist with The Heritage Foundation who focuses on energy and environmental issues, wrote a report that finds the Green New Deal would prove costly to taxpayers, consumers, and the economy. Loris co-authored a commentary with Kevin Dayaratna, a statistician with Heritage, that begins to calculate the costs of the Democrats’ proposal by 2040.

So did the youth advocacy group come together out of spontaneous enthusiasm for the Green New Deal?

Although the Sunrise Movement has been described as a “grassroots” group in favorable profiles appearing in Rolling Stone, The New Republic, and other liberal media outlets, it received critical financial and organizational support from some of the most well-funded, well-established environmental advocacy groups, according to the Capital Research Center, a Washington-based nonprofit that examines how foundations and charities spend money.

The Sunrise Movement was founded in April 2017 as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit under the tax code and as an extension of  Sunrise Movement Education Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 2014, according to Influence Watch, a project of the Capital Research Center. Sunrise Movement Education Fund is also known as U.S. Climate Plan Inc.

Sunrise Movement co-founders include Varshini Prakash, the lead spokesperson, and Sara Blazevic, the group’s managing director.

Prakash attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she was a leader of the Fossil Fuel Student Divestment Network. Blazevic also worked on that campaign while attending Swarthmore College.

The students advocated that colleges and universities pull any investments from producers of coal, oil, and other fossil fuels.

Two former Wesleyan University students, Matthew Lichtash and Evan Weber, are also co-founders. Weber, now political director for the group, took part in the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement.

The only nonstudent co-founder is Michael Dorsey, a former board member of the Sierra Club who served on the EPA’s National Advisory Board under President Barack Obama.

Dorsey became acquainted with Lichtash and Weber while he was a visiting professor at Wesleyan. The connection marked a key turning point as the professor and the two students worked together to secure a grant of $30,000 to craft an action plan for climate change that evolved into the Sunrise Movement Education Fund.

Follow the Money to Big Green

So where does the money come from for the upcoming speaking tour, as well as other Sunrise Movement initiatives aimed at advancing the Green New Deal?

The group’s 2017 IRS filing shows that it earned $72,902 and spent $31,210. Weber has said in media reports that the Sunrise Movement received a $50,000 donation from Sierra Club Foundation.

The group rents office space from the Sierra Club in the nation’s capital, according to Influence Watch.

The Fossil Fuel Student Divestment campaign that drew in Prakash and Blazevic also shines light on the connection between Sunrise activists and some of the largest environmental advocacy groups.

The campaign originated at Swarthmore College, according to a 2015 report from the National Association of Scholars, a network of academics and private citizens committed to academic freedom.

From there, the student divestment campaign grew with financial assistance from 350.org, a Brooklyn-based environmental advocacy group with a presence in 188 countries.

Influence Watch describes 350.org as holding an “uncompromising stand against oil, gas, and coal, the industry, and its leaders.” Bill McKibben, an environmental activist and former journalist, founded the organization in 2008.

Walter, the president of Capital Research Center, said in an interview with The Daily Signal that the Sunrise Movement’s close association with outfits such as Sierra Club and 350.org belies its claim to grassroots status.

Walter said that the Sunrise Movement Education Fund, which is responsible for fundraising for the Sunrise Movement, has its own palpable connections to well-endowed environmental advocacy groups.

For starters, Influence Watch notes, Sunrise Movement Education Fund shares the same street address in Washington as the U.S. Climate Action Network. Public records show the network itself is backed by some of the wealthiest left-leaning foundations, including the Sea Change Foundation, the Energy Foundation, Kendeda Fund, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Tides Foundation, and Oxfam America.

The Sunrise Movement is listed as a member of the U.S. Climate Action Network.

“Sunrise rents office space from the Sierra Club, an advocacy group that spends over $107,000,000 a year,” Walter said, adding:

Sunrise is in the same building that houses the activist group U.S. Climate Action Network, which last year gave Sunrise an ‘Empowerment Grant’ of an unknown amount. Sunrise’s board of directors includes representatives from other well-heeled environmental groups including Michael Dorsey, a former Sierra Club national adviser, and Betamia Coronel, national organizer for the radical agitation group 350.org.

The Sunrise Movement held its first sit-in in November in partnership with Ocasio-Cortez, then an incoming congresswoman, at the offices of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., then the incoming House speaker.

In December, other sit-ins took place at Pelosi’s offices and those of Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., now House majority leader, and Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., now chairman of the House Rules Committee.

Inside Philanthropy, in a published profile of the Sunrise groups, identifies the Wallace Global Fund, the Rockefeller Family Fund, and the Winslow Foundation as major backers of the organizations.

The Daily Signal last week sent a request for comment to the Sunrise Movement, asking whether its close association with environmental advocacy groups such as Sierra Club, 350.org, and U.S. Climate Action Network in any way compromises the group’s appeal as a grassroots organization that represents average Americans.

Stephen O’Hanlon, a spokesman for the Sunrise Movement, had not responded by publication time.

The Daily Signal also sought comment from the Sierra Club, 350.org, and U.S. Climate Action Network. None had responded by publication time.

The Sunrise Movement says on its website that public opinion is on the side of its policy stances. But Walter said he sees the group as advancing narrow special interests that are losing public support.

“The left specializes in creating networks of groups designed to look like they were born out of spontaneous civic activism,” Walter told The Daily Signal. “In reality, they’re often led by the same D.C. lobbyists and influencers pushing an unpopular agenda.”

On March 26, the Senate voted 57-0 against proceeding to debate on the Green New Deal, with most Democrats voting “present.” Sixty votes were needed to begin debate.

All 53 Senate Republicans voted against the nonbinding resolution. Three Democrats and one Independent who caucuses with the Democrats—Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Doug Jones of Alabama, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and Angus King of Maine—also voted no.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., joined the other 42 Democrats in opting to vote “present.”

SOURCE 

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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17 April, 2019  

Conspiracy theories behind attack on Roundup

They can't fault the scientific tests

For years, scientists at Monsanto Co. worked closely with outside researchers on studies that concluded its Roundup weedkiller was safe.

That collaboration is now one of the biggest liabilities for the world’s most widely used herbicide and its new owner, Bayer AG, which faces mounting lawsuits alleging a cancer link to Roundup.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys are putting Monsanto’s ties to the scientific community at the center of a series of high-stakes suits against Bayer. Since the German company acquired Monsanto last June, two juries in California have sided with plaintiffs who have lymphoma and blamed the herbicide for their disease. Bayer’s shares have fallen roughly 35% since the first verdict.

In both cases, plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that Monsanto’s influence on outside studies of Roundup’s active ingredient tainted the safety research. The attorneys obtained certain Monsanto emails showing outside scientists asking the company’s scientists to review their manuscript drafts, and Monsanto scientists suggesting edits.

Gary Kitahata, a member of a jury that ordered Bayer to pay $289.2 million to a former California groundskeeper with non- Hodgkin lymphoma last August, said Monsanto’s interaction with outside researchers played an important role in jurors’ deliberations. He recalled being struck by emails allegedly dealing with “things like ghostwriting, influencing scientific studies that were done.” A judge later cut the award, which Bayer is appealing, to $78.5 million.

Last month, a federal jury in San Francisco awarded $80.3 million to another man with non-Hodgkin lymphoma who had used Roundup, a verdict Bayer also plans to challenge. Another trial is under way in Oakland, involving two more of the 11,200 U.S. farmers, landscapers and others who have filed suit, threatening product-liability costs at Bayer for years to come.

Bayer said hundreds of studies and regulatory decisions across the globe show the active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, is safe and isn’t carcinogenic. Regulators in the U.S. and abroad have continued to approve its use, in some cases after having gone back and taken another look at research criticized by plaintiffs’ attorneys.

“Plaintiff lawyers have cherry-picked isolated emails out of more than 20 million pages of documents produced during discovery to attempt to distort the scientific record and Monsanto’s role,” Bayer said. A spokesman said the documents at issue relate only to secondary reviews of past research, not to the original science. He added that the outside scientists have stood by their conclusions.

In the U.S., Roundup has become almost as fundamental to farming as tractors. American farmers use it or other glyphosate-based herbicides on the vast majority of their corn, soybean and cotton acres, making it a factor in American agriculture’s steadily rising productivity.

Monsanto developed the chemical decades ago and later introduced crops genetically engineered to survive being sprayed with it, driving what is now a more than $9 billion seed business for Bayer.

Annual sales of glyphosate herbicides, including by rivals, total around $5 billion, according to Sanford C. Bernstein.

Growing resistance

Despite their regulatory acceptance, the herbicides have faced growing resistance, especially since a 2015 decision by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a World Health Organization unit, classifying glyphosate as likely having the potential to cause cancer in humans. In January, a French court banned a Roundup product with the ingredient, even though it had a European Union seal of approval.

Costco Wholesale Corp. recently pulled Roundup herbicides from its stores, said an executive of the retailer. Certain cities in California, Florida, Minnesota and elsewhere have barred glyphosate weedkillers on municipal property.

Other farm-state lawmakers have defended the herbicides.

The attack on Monsanto’s role in research that deems Roundup safe is led by Baum Hedlund Aristei Goldman PC, a firm representing more than 1,400 plaintiffs. It has selectively released hundreds of company emails obtained through discovery and put many of them on its website.

“These documents provide evidence that Monsanto’s been actively engaged in manipulating the science regarding glyphosate’s carcinogenicity,” said Michael Baum, the law firm’s managing partner.

One document cited by plaintiffs’ attorneys is a 2000 email that Monsanto’s Hugh Grant, later CEO, sent following the publication of a paper upholding Roundup’s safety.

“This is very good work, well done to the team,” he wrote to Monsanto scientists.

They weren’t the paper’s authors. Outside scientists were. An acknowledgments section cited Monsanto researchers as having provided scientific support. They had reviewed the text and data, according to internal Monsanto communications. Mr. Grant, who has retired, declined to comment, Bayer said.

Bayer said collaboration with outside scientists is important for purposes such as testing safety and efficacy, and it provides properly disclosed compensation, adding that this pay isn’t given to influence their scientific opinions.

Helmut Greim, a retired toxicology professor at the Technical University of Munich who has worked with Monsanto, said, “There is this perception that industry is evil and that whoever is involved with them is at least equally evil.” He added: “If the industry asks a scientist to help, I see it as my duty to do so. But one shouldn’t let oneself be influenced.”

Some regulators say when a research paper discloses industry funding, they take into account the possibility of corporate influence on the findings.

“We generally are a bit more suspicious,” said Bjorn Hansen, executive director of the European Chemicals Agency.

The chemicals agency and the European Food Safety Authority both re-examined glyphosate studies questioned by plaintiffs’ attorneys and let stand their approvals. The agencies said they look at the raw data in research, so that the kind of study the attorneys question—a review of past research— generally doesn’t carry much weight.

Health Canada also recently took a second look at studies on which it had based its approval of glyphosate herbicides, after critics raised concerns about Monsanto’s role in research. The Canadian agency assigned a separate group of its scientists to go over the studies. Their review didn’t change its conclusion.

Bayer says Roundup has been proven safe, but two U.S. juries have found otherwise.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently doing a periodic review of the glyphosate science, ahead of a decision expected soon on extending glyphosate’s longstanding U.S. approval. The EPA’s most recent review of glyphosate’s potential human risk, in late 2017, continued to find the chemical unlikely to cause cancer in humans.

Corporate support

Scientific research in industry and academia has become more entwined over the years, scientists say, as corporations have become a more important funding source.

Since 2007, U.S. federal government spending on basic scientific research has plateaued at around $38 billion annually, according to data from the National Science Foundation. Corporate funding has roughly doubled in that time, to about $27 billion.

For researchers with fewer options allowing them to be fully independent, “to some extent, they have to play by the industry’s rules,” said Sharon Batt, an adjunct bioethics professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

A 1998 review of 70 articles on the safety of a hypertension medication found that authors who produced conclusions supporting its use were nearly twice as likely as neutral or critical authors to have financial relationships with manufacturers. The review, on drugs called calcium-channel antagonists, was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

A 2003 analysis of studies on industry-sponsored biomedical research found corporate- funded studies were more than 3½ times as likely to show results favorable to companies as were studies with no industry funding. The analysis appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In 2002, researcher Susan Monheit was writing an article on glyphosate herbicides used against aquatic weeds and sent a draft to a Monsanto regulatory-affairs official for fact checking. The official forwarded it to Monsanto toxicologist Donna Farmer, according to emails that the Baum Hedlund law firm obtained in discovery and that The Wall Street Journal reviewed.

Ms. Farmer told the official the paper needed organizational work. “During one editing I had basically re-written the thing—then decided that was not a good thing to do so I tried to just correct the inaccuracies,” she wrote to the official, Martin Lemon.

In an interview, Ms. Monheit, who worked at the California Department of Food and Agriculture, said Mr. Lemon passed along Monsanto’s suggestions by telephone and she followed some of them, such as deleting references to old information. “I certainly didn’t want to use data that was out of date,” she said, but “I was wary of having Monsanto influence the article.”

Noxious Times

When her article was published in a weed-control newsletter called Noxious Times, concluding the chemical posed minimal risk to wildlife, a note described it as the product of a review of previously published research and consultations with pesticide chemists and eco-toxicologists. The note didn’t name Monsanto.

Bayer didn’t make the employees available for interviews.

In the late 2000s, Monsanto financed a study done partly by Pamela Mink, then an assistant professor of epidemiology at Emory University, reviewing past research on glyphosate’s safety. Shown a draft, Monsanto’s Ms. Farmer suggested some edits, mostly to the introduction, and circulated the draft to fellow company scientists, according to documents produced in the litigation and reviewed by the Journal.

One of the Monsanto scientists, Daniel Goldstein, added his own suggestions. “There are a couple places where I read the sentences several times, and I just can’t gather what the underlying message is,” he emailed Ms. Farmer.

The two suggested deleting redundant phrases, asked for math to be double-checked and corrected names.

When the paper was published in the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology in June 2012, some of the critiqued passages didn’t appear, while others were rephrased and expanded. Brian Stekloff, a lawyer representing Bayer, said in court last month that Ms. Farmer moved around words in the introduction and added context about Roundup products that outside scientists would not have had.

The final paper was significantly different from the draft but had the same conclusion, which was that the researchers had found no pattern showing glyphosate exposure caused cancer in humans.

Its authors were listed as Dr. Mink and three other researchers who, like her, were affiliated with science consultancy Exponent Inc. The paper said one of the authors had been a paid consultant to Monsanto. “Final decisions regarding the content of the manuscript were made solely by the four authors,” it said.

Dr. Mink didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Dr. Greim, the retired Munich toxicology professor, said Monsanto approached him in 2013 about helping it publish some unpublished internal research it earlier submitted to regulatory bodies.

He said Monsanto officials sent him a draft of a report. “I told them, ‘That’s not how it’s done, you need a lot more information’” to support the conclusions, Dr. Greim said. He said he went back and forth with company scientists for months, asking them to add details such as the number of animals and organs studied, and changing the presentation of the results, until he felt the paper was satisfactory.

Monsanto accepted all of his suggestions, Dr. Greim said, and “there were a lot of passages I ended up writing.” He said he was paid €3,000, or about $3,400, for his work.

When the paper was published in Critical Reviews in Toxicology in 2015—finding no link between the Roundup ingredient and cancer—Dr. Greim appeared as lead author. A “declaration of interest” section said that he had been paid by Monsanto and that his three co-authors had connections to the glyphosate business, including one who was employed by Monsanto.

In an internal Monsanto memo released by Baum Hedlund, a Monsanto scientist listed among his accomplishments “ghost wrote cancer review paper Greim et al. (2015).”

Dr. Greim, who has sat on various German and EU scientific advisory committees, said he didn’t care what was said internally because that wasn’t what happened.

Bayer attorney Mr. Stekloff, speaking generally, said in court last month that there were instances of “dumb emails” and “bad language” among the many company documents produced in the case, but “the overall record demonstrates that this was a company committed to testing and committed to science.”

SOURCE 






Ocean Power Generating Systems—Going Nowhere Fast

The number of companies that hoped in vain (some still do) to harness ocean power for “free energy” is steadily increasing.

One of the latest outfits not doing so well is Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. (OPT) of Monroe Township, NJ, USA.

According to its website ( https://oceanpowertechnologies.gcs-web.com/  ), it “is a pioneer in renewable wave-energy technology that converts ocean wave energy into electricity” and they have several patents to prove it.

Indeed, OPT was founded more than twenty years ago. In 2007, its shares on the NASDAQ stock exchange, adjusted for several stock share consolidations since (1[new]-for-10[old] shares), traded in the neighborhood of $4,000 per share. Right now you can get them for about $3 a piece, clearly, a hot investment.

Let’s look at the range of basic ideas to harness ocean power

Power From Wave Energy

That’s probably the most common attempt for power generation from the oceans. After all, there are nearly always and everywhere small (0.5 m) waves to be found at any shore. A variety of stationary (firmly placed in the on the bottom) and floating designs have been proposed. For example, the floating Pelamis Wave Power idea of sizable, partially water-filled, elongated tanks would create internal swapping back and forth of the water (like your kid making waves in the bathtub) and would drive an internal turbine. It didn’t work out and the company folded.

The OPT idea also has floating devices, in the shape of bottom-anchored buoys. Their technical specifications do not actually give details on how the wave energy is to be converted to electricity.

Another, stationary concept was thought of by the SeWave wave farm project in N?panin, Faroe Islands. The (rising) water was to compress a fixed airspace in the rock onshore that would drive an air turbine. It was to be in place by 2010. It has not been heard of since.

The same idea, actually built in 2000, was the Islay LIMPET, then claimed to be the world’s first commercial wave power device. It has been decommissioned since.

Power From Salinity Gradients (Osmosis)

That idea relies on the long-recognized concept of osmosis, which is the natural process of salinity equilibration between water of low salinity (freshwater) and high salinity (saltwater). It requires both, in similar quantities and a semi-permeable membrane that allows water molecules to pass through, but not the salt-ions. It was tested in a pilot plant in Norway several years ago. It may work well in a laboratory setting with clean water but not so with actual ocean water. The tiny membrane pores get readily plugged with other materials and the system was not found to be commercially viable.

Power From Tidal Currents

In 2016, with considerable fanfare, the Cape Sharp Tidal (CST) company launched its “long-awaited” underwater test turbine in the Bay of Fundy. The Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Canada, has among the largest tidal sea level changes in the world and, for that reason also nearby strong tidal currents. The project built a large underwater turbine that was to convert the tidal in-and-out flows to electric power.

The euphoria didn’t last long. In late 2018, CST, co-owned by Nova Scotia’s Emera Inc. (EI), and the Irish company OpenHydro Ltd. (OH), a subsidiary of the French co. Naval Energies, (NE), have hit the end of the road. Both CST and OH filed for bankruptcy.

It didn’t surprise me. The large underwater turbine, placed somewhat offshore where the bay is approximately 500 m or more wide, could not possibly deliver the anticipated power. The current had plenty of room to flow around the “obstacle” of the turbine without creating much power.

Power from the Tides

There are a few well known tidal power plants that actually work. They are in Canada, France, South Korea, and the UK. All have large barriers that allow the incoming tide to raise the water level behind them and drive regular water turbines at low tide. They operate essentially in the same way as any dam that uses the energy of the different water levels in the upside reservoir and the lower release point.

Still, such systems also have their limitations and other problems. One limitation is the nearly constant change in the tides. To begin with, the time windows around the high (to fill the reservoir) and low tides (to generate power by emptying it), where the most energy can be had, is quite short. Then, such structures interfere with other activities, like marine traffic to a harbor and a healthy range for fish to seek forage or to spawn. In addition, the occasional humpback whaleand possibly other “flotsam and jetsam” can cause problems.

In Summary Then

Ocean power is not easy to harness. So far, only a few tidal power plants exist that actually produce a reasonable amount of electric power—at predictable intervals. All attempts at getting constant power generation from waves and currents have failed to deliver anything close to the promises. Of course, wind power generating systems are not much different.

The reasons have been known for a long time.

As stated on a UK government site in 2006:

The main problem with wave power is that the sea is a very harsh, unforgiving environment. An economically-viable wave power machine will need to generate power over a wide range of wave sizes, as well as being able to withstand the largest and most severe storms and other potential problems such as algae, barnacles and corrosion.

But don’t give up on your “free ocean energy” dreams yet—there are still plenty of tax dollars to be had to foster them.

SOURCE 






Canadian officials decide not to sue oil companies over environmental costs

Officials from Vancouver Island and coastal British Columbia communities in Canada met over the weekend to debate whether to sue oil and gas companies to help offset the cost of cleaning up damage from floods and wildfire.

David Screech, the mayor of View Royal B.C., notified his Twitter followers Sunday that the measure was defeated.

“The motion was soundly defeated just now at our conference. No lawsuits,” he wrote in response to questions from people concerned about what such a measure might mean for the industry. Screech’s office confirmed to The Daily Caller News Foundation that the measure was defeated.

Canadian taxpayers spent roughly $350-million on programs designed to fight B.C. wildfires in 2018. Fire suppression measures cost more than $568 million in 2017, according to media reports.

B.C.’s auditor general said in a 2018 report that costs associated with man-made global warming across Canada could reach between $21 and $43 billion annually over 30 years.

One Canadian official who previously supported such measures is now reversing course. “Since we passed the original motion, I have had some second thoughts,” Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps said in an April 4 interview on CBC. “I think there might be more prudent and more timely approaches.”

She cited reports suggesting Canada is experiencing a higher rate of global warming than many other countries.

SEE ALSO: Yellow Vests And Rubber Boot Cowboys: Inside Canada’s Pro-Pipeline Convoy

Helps added: “Time is running out and fighting lawsuits is probably not the best way to spend our time when we’ve got a planet to save.” Her newfound opposition to climate lawsuits stands in stark contrast to many of her American counterparts who are seeking climate lawsuits of their own.

New York City officials sued ExxonMobil and others in January 2018 for damages wrought by natural disasters.

U.S. District Judge John Keenan ultimately dismissed the lawsuit in July 2018, arguing that litigating such an action “for injuries from foreign greenhouse gas emissions in federal court would severely infringe upon the foreign-policy decisions that are squarely within the purview of the political branches of the U.S government.”

It’s the third such lawsuit brought against oil companies Exxon, Chevron, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and ConocoPhillips.

A U.S. District Court judge in Northern California struck down identical lawsuits in 2018 brought by the cities of San Francisco and Oakland.

Opponents of the litigation frequently criticize the trial attorneys behind the litigation, claiming that the lawsuits are nothing more than a get-rich scheme.

SOURCE 





Pocahontas unveils her plan for the 640 million acres controlled by the federal government

Warren’s “plan for public lands,” released Monday, includes banning coal, natural gas, and oil production, and making all national parks free to visit. Warren’s goal is to tackle climate change while spurring economic development on federal lands.

“It is wrong to prioritize corporate profits over the health and safety of our local communities,” Warren wrote in a Medium post announcing her plan. Warren says she wants to “make public lands part of the climate solution – not the problem.”

“That’s why on my first day as president, I will sign an executive order that says no more drilling — a total moratorium on all new fossil fuel leases, including for drilling offshore and on public lands,” she wrote.

That’s a complete one-eighty from the Trump administration’s agenda of promoting natural resource development. Warren also set a goal of getting 10 percent of U.S. electricity generation from renewable energy on public lands and waters.

“My administration will make it a priority to expedite leases and incentivize development in existing designated areas, and share royalties from renewable generation with states and local communities to help promote economic development and reduce local dependence on fossil fuel revenues,” Warren wrote.

Conservatives were critical of Warren’s plan to halt all new fossil fuel production, saying it would endanger hundreds of thousands of jobs.

“Declaring war on western states where energy production makes up a lot of the economy is probably not a great idea when you represent a state that has to import natural gas from Russia to get through the winter,” said Dan Kish, a senior distinguished fellow at the Institute for Energy Research.

Fossil fuel production on federal lands and waters supports 676,000 jobs and $134 billion in economic output, according to Interior Department figures. Some Native American tribes also subsist off revenues from coal gas and oil production.

“‘Banned in Boston’ is going to take on a whole new meaning to the men and women who keep the lights on in this country,” Kish told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an email.

SOURCE 





Leftist industry spokesman in Australia is dubious about electric cars

Kim Carr, Bill Shorten’s industry spokesman, last year warned that electric vehicles posed serious ­social ­issues and would require a one-third expansion in electricity ­production.

Senator Carr, who has a long history of supporting the domestic auto industry dominated by traditional carmakers Ford, Holden and Toyota, urged a Senate committee to consider “the reality versus the mythology” of electric vehicles, just six months before standing alongside Mr Shorten to launch Labor’s signature electric car policy.

The left-wing powerbroker has also strongly argued against “pumping up the tyres” of imported electric vehicles, batting away calls from the Electric Vehicle Council last year for up to $7000 worth of subsidies for every EV sold.

Senator Carr, who will head Labor’s electric vehicle-led bid to rejuvenate Australia’s car industry, last year expressed scepticism over the suitability of the cars outside major cities, and questioned whether they could be used as “batteries on wheels” — as claimed by advocates — to manage peaks in energy use.

The Victorian senator told the Senate’s electric vehicle inquiry, chaired by independent senator Tim Storer, that the high cost of electric vehicles would put them beyond everyday drivers. “The electrification issue does pose really serious social (issues). There’s an in-built demographic question there about people who can afford the Tesla, versus some of these smaller vehicles,” he told the committee last September.

“And if you’re away from a ­regional centre of any size then the capacity to actually use these vehicles is somewhat limited. So I think that needs to be clear when we’re talking about the reality versus the mythology.”

Senator Carr tackled the head of the Fast Cities consortium during the inquiry, questioning his suggestion that electric vehicles would stabilise the energy network without the need for a one-third expansion in energy output. “What evidence do you have for this?” he asked Fast Cities head of corporate development Paul Fox. “No one else is telling us that this is going to be able to be done without an expansion in the capacity of the grid.”

Senator Carr said more batteries were “not the answer to our ­energy problems”, declaring: “If you put a one-third increase in ­demand on the energy system, we’re going to actually need to ­increase our generation capacity.”

He said yesterday he stood by his comments, arguing regulatory changes were needed before electric car batteries could be used to feed back energy into the grid to ensure car warranties were not voided. “We have to change the regulations, we have to change the building codes,” he said. “This is one of the theories that is constantly put forward, but it needs to be put into context with the regulatory changes that are required.”

He said the government had offered “no policy direction” on the introduction of electric vehicles, which Labor wants to increase to 50 per cent of new vehicles sold by 2030. The government estimates they will make up 25 per cent to ­­50 per cent of new car sales by 2030.

Labor plans to offer assistance to electric vehicle carmakers in Australia through its proposed $1 billion advanced manufacturing fund. “I would like to see us make electric cars in Australia because Australians are top-class manufacturers when you have a government who supports them,” Mr Shorten said last week.

Senator Carr’s comments came as a photograph emerged on social media of Josh Frydenberg’s ­election campaign vehicle, a plug-in hybrid Mitsubishi Outlander.

The Treasurer is a big supporter of rechargeable cars, declaring last year there would be a million on Australian roads, up from about 8500, by 2030.

The Senate’s electric vehicle inquiry found electric vehicle uptake in Australia lagged behind comparable countries due to “a relative absence of overarching policy direction” from the government.

“In the committee’s view, widespread use of EVs in the Australian transportation fleet would deliver significant economic, environmental and health benefits to Australian consumers and society,” the inquiry found.

“It would also create new opportunities for Australian industry.”

Energy Minister Angus Taylor said the Coalition was concerned that Labor’s plan to cut carbon emissions from transport would hit everyday voters.

SOURCE  

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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16 April, 2019  

UK: Thousands of eco-activists start to descend on London to 'shut down' the capital and cause misery for millions of commuters

Environmental protesters will converge at five locations in London tomorrow to cause disruption, block roads and 'shut down the city'.

Activists, known as earth marchers, have been making their way in to central London for weeks for the 'International Rebellion'.

And many have been encouraged to illegally camp in Hyde Park overnight in to tomorrow so they can 'come together, form relationships, consolidate plans, and gear up for the days ahead,' according to campaign group Extinction Rebellion.

From Monday, thousands of people are expected to gather at Marble Arch, Oxford Circus, Waterloo Bridge, Piccadilly Circus and Parliament Square to block traffic during a three-day protest.

The 'festival' of action will include people's assemblies, performances, talks, workshops and food.

Campaigners will be able to attend training sessions 'to make sure everyone is prepared for the mass civil disobedience to follow,' Extinction Rebellion say.

And although the movement is a peaceful one, participants are being warned there is always the possibility of arrest. 

Those considering camping in Hyde Park have been warned they could be breaking the law, as doing so without permission is an offence under Royal Parks legislation.

A spokeswoman for The Royal Parks says Extinction Rebellion have not asked for permission to begin the protest in the park and that camping is not allowed.

She said: 'We never allow camping in the parks for reasons of safety, security, lack of welfare facilities and the impact it has on the park. It also removes public space from other park visitors.

'Those camping in the parks are breaking the law. Enforcement of the park regulations is a matter for the Metropolitan Police.'

Police said their operational response 'would be dependent on what if any other issues might be ongoing at the time'.

Scotland Yard said they have 'appropriate policing plans' in place and that officers will be used from across the force 'to support the public order operation during the coming weeks'.

They added: 'We will always provide a proportionate policing plan to balance the right to a peaceful protest, while ensuring that disruption to communities is kept to a minimum.

April Stewart, who travelled from Carmarthenshire in Wales for the demonstration, said the prospect of being arrested 'doesn't phase me'. The 52-year-old artist said: 'I am not someone who is normally drawn to civil disobedience. I am moved by this cause, by this moment in time that we have to make a difference.'

Asked if she thought the Government will take notice, she said: 'I guess that depends how effective we can be in shutting down the city.

'It has to inconvenience them enough, it has to inconvenience the financial system, it has to inconvenience the tourist industry, it has to inconvenience the Government enough to recognise that they need to engage with this.'

She said the disruption would mimic disruption they expect will be caused in the future by the effects of climate change and the destruction of the ecosystem.

Police advised people travelling around London in the coming days to allow extra time for their journey in the event of road closures and general disruption.

SOURCE 






Behind the Green New Deal: An elite war on the working class

At the heart of the GND is a plan to outlaw hydrocarbon energy and produce all electricity from wind, solar and other ­renewables. This isn’t just wildly impractical. It would deliver a crippling blow to the economy. Coal, oil and gas left in the ground are jobs and income buried forever, causing a permanent contraction in the productive capacity of the economy. The GND would thus be a declaration of war on blue-collar America, imperiling the Trump recovery and its half a million new manufacturing jobs.

Republicans have decried the GND as “socialist.” But whatever its real-world outcomes, and they were horrendous, at least the old socialism in theory sought to advance the economic interests of the working class. The GND does the opposite.

Subsidizing wind and solar while rooting out carbon is very expensive. That’s why industrial electricity prices in Europe are nearly 50 percent higher than they are in the rest of the Group of 20 advanced nations — and why energy firms are loath to invest in Europe.

Transplanting such European-style policies across the Atlantic, as the GND essentially aims to do, would kill energy jobs and drive up the price of energy in America. For American workers, the unspoken message from GND environmentalists is: Go and learn computer programming, or at best you will end up wiping snow and sand off solar panels.

The GND, in other words, is ­redistributionist, yes, but the redistribution goes from the bottom to the top — from the poor and from workers to wind and solar investors. Again, Europe’s example is ­instructive. The drive to subsidize renewable energy led Britain to drop its pledge to abolish fuel poverty. The official measure of fuel poverty, defined as households spending 10 percent or more of their income on energy, kept rising. So it was ­replaced with a new government definition less sensitive to rising ­energy costs, instantly halving the number of households officially deemed fuel poor.

Meanwhile in Germany, Europe’s wealthiest country, at one stage more than 300,000 households a year were being disconnected ­because of ­unpaid bills.

“It is only gradually becoming apparent how the ­renewable energy subsidies redistribute money from the poor to the more affluent,” the left-of-center Der Spiegel newspaper editorialized. Energy companies know that the best way to avoid accusations of price gouging is to claim that it’s to fight climate change. For this reason, ­renewable energy acts as a conspiracy against the less well-off.

In the US, a capitalist aristocracy is pushing wind and solar. Its members include blue-blooded capital from the likes of the Rockefeller, MacArthur and Ford foundations, and Silicon Valley billionaires touting phony claims of 100 percent ­renewable energy. Climate change is ethics for the super-rich. The self-righteous rhetoric of this aristocracy legitimizes the vast accumulations of wealth by the green robber barons of the 21st century.

The big question Republicans should ask is: Why?

Successful prosecutors show the motive behind the crime. So it is in politics. The supposed motive ­behind the GND — fighting climate change — doesn’t wash. If the scheme were genuinely about climate change, green activists would be campaigning to expand nuclear power rather than trying to shut it down. The truth is the climate war isn’t about climate. It is and always has been deeply ideological.

Control energy to reverse the ­Industrial Revolution and abolish industrial capitalism — these are the real targets of green ideology.

The progressives’ climate war is a war that will be lost before the first shot is fired. America doesn’t exist in a climate bubble. China, India and other developing economies are going to keep growing and keep emitting. The good news is that the GND could well fracture the Democratic coalition, pitting billionaire funders and upper-middle-class green ­activists against blue-collar workers and ethnic minorities for whom well-paying jobs and cost of living come first.

Both for reasons of principle and political advantage, Republicans are right to put GND front and center. But the message they need to ­develop shouldn’t just focus on the plan’s impracticality. Instead, the right should hammer at the left’s class war against workers. Hone and repeat that message through 2020, and they will win.

SOURCE 






Climate Alarmists Follow Acid Rain Scare-Book

There is nothing coincidental about common déjà vu features of a CO2 climate crisis-premised war on fossil fuels and a hysterically-hyped sulfur dioxide (SO2) emission acid rain environmental calamity a half-century ago.

Both scams have claimed to be based upon dire computer model-based predictions calling for costly interventions.

Both also involved the same sorts of crony constituencies: alarmist “scientific authorities,” deep-pocket NGO promoters, and headline-hungry politicians eagerly rewarded by swarms of credulous media reporters.

The acid rain scare began in 1967 when Svant Odén, a soil scientist at the Agricultural College of Uppsala, wrote a broadly circulated sensationalist article about forestry damage he attributed to a “chemical war” between nations of Europe in the leading Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.

Growing public concern regarding environmental impacts of industrial-sourced acid rain prompted the Swedish government to convene a group of experts to investigate the matter that was chaired by Bert Bolin, the head of Stockholm’s International Meteorological Institute.

The Bolin panel’s 1971 report was a flimsy political document clothed in scanty science which authoritatively concluded that: “The [human] emission of sulfur into the atmosphere . . . has proved to be a major environmental problem.”

The assessment only sheepishly mentioned that European forests had actually seen considerable increases.

One also had to read 50 pages further into the report to discover that the “has proved to be” reference wasn’t really assured at all.

It went on to say, “It is very difficult to prove that damage, such as reduced growth rates due to the acidification of the soil and related changes in the plant nutrient situation, has in fact occurred.”

This disclaimer regarding the existence of scientific certainty is reminiscent of another one buried 774 pages into IPCC’s Third Assessment Report summary exactly three decades later.

It stated, “In research and modeling of the climate, we should be aware that we are dealing with a chaotic, nonlinear coupled system, and that long-term predictions of future climate states are not possible.”

In 1980, under President Carter’s prompting, the U.S. Congress passed legislation for a ten-year National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP).

Nevertheless, neither the U.S. nor the U.K. signed a 1985 Helsinki Protocol that committed Western parties to cut their emissions to 30 percent below 1980 levels.

The Reagan administration established a nine-member panel under NAPAP to conduct peer reviews of more than 3,000 scientific studies that had previously been conducted by research groups convened under a Carter Memorandum of Intent with Canada.

NAPAP’s 1987 review harshly criticized the poor scientific quality of the model-based studies. It also concluded, “The vast majority of forests of the United States and Canada are not affected by decline (emphasis in the original).”

Although the more than half-billion-dollar 10-year- long acid rain study yielded no “smoking gun,” the EPA had begun establishing the groundwork to regulate sulfur dioxide even before those NAPAP results were in.

A media-fueled environmental alarm had provided a welcome pretense for SO2 “allowance trading” under the Clean Air Act of 1990, the precursor for UN-Kyoto Protocol climate-alarm- premised carbon-capping proposals which followed.

The media frenzy surrounding Senator Al Gore’s 1988 Congressional hearings on global warming provided a dream opportunity for Enron, one of the biggest SO2 trading market players, to also cash in on climate alarm.

Enron then owned the largest natural gas pipeline outside of Russia.

They reasoned that since their natural gas market was competing with coal — a larger CO2 emitter — a carbon cap-and-trade market modeled upon SO2 credit exchanges would be a huge boon to their business.

Enron’s CEO Kenneth Lay had met with President Clinton and Vice President Gore in the White House on Aug. 4, 1997, to prepare a strategy for the upcoming UN Kyoto conference that following December.

This was the first step toward creating a global carbon-trading market that Gore and Enron both coveted.

An internal Enron memorandum stated that Kyoto would “do more to promote Enron’s business than almost any other regulatory initiative outside the restructuring [of] the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States.”

Al Gore and his partner David Blood, the former chief of Goldman Sachs Asset Management were poised to make windfall profits selling CO2 offsets as stakeholders in the Chicago Climate Exchange.

Lobbying before a 2007 Joint House Hearing of the Energy Science Committee, Gore told members, “As soon as carbon has a price, you’re going to see a wave [of investment] in it . . . There will be unchained investment.”

Fortunately, Congress didn’t bite, and it was Enron that ultimately got capped.

Ironically, SO2 blamed for forest damage and CO2 attributed to a looming climate disaster are both natural plant fertilizers that make the world greener.

And once again, costly emission-credit trading scams premised upon unsupportable crisis hyperbole benefit no one.

No — not even Bambi.

SOURCE 






Sanity and humanity return to the World Bank

Paul Driessen

President Obama infamously told Africans they should focus on their “bountiful” wind, solar and biofuel. If they use “dirty” fossil fuels to raise living standards “to the point where everybody has got a car, and everybody has got air conditioning, and everybody has got a big house, well, the planet will boil over.”

So when South Africa applied for a World Bank loan to finish its low-pollution coal-fired Medupi power plant, his administration voted “present,” and the loan was approved by a bare majority of other bank member nations. The Obama Overseas Private Investment Corporation refused to support construction of a power plant designed to burn natural gas that was being “flared” and wasted in Ghana’s oil fields.

As David Wojick and I have documented, eco-imperialist, carbon colonialist policies by the World Bank and other anti-development banks have perpetuated needless energy deprivation, poverty, disease and early death in Africa, Asia and beyond for much too long.

But now the World Bank’s executive board has unanimously approved President Trump’s nominee as its new president. Former Treasury Department Under Secretary for International Affairs David Malpass has long criticized the bank for its lack of transparency, multiple low-interest loans to China (even as China became an economic behemoth), and insufficient focus on private-sector development and a stronger, more stable global economy for all nations and families. He just began serving a five-year term.

A few critics predictably claimed Malpass had “committed economic malpractice” and would be “a disastrous, toxic choice.” However, others praised his experience, skills, free-market principles, and commitment to accountability and poor country development.

“Malpass is the ideal candidate to cleanse and modernize an institution charged with helping developing nations climb the economic ladder,” said Deroy Murdock, whose travels have given him a firsthand  look at rampant poverty and malnutrition all across the globe.

A healthy dose of sanity and humanity is clearly in order. In recent years, the World Bank strayed far from its original 1944 mission of reducing global poverty, providing financial aid and guidance to needy countries, and giving “life-saving global health and humanitarian assistance” to “the world’s most vulnerable populations.” Instead, it increasingly focused on “fighting the effects of climate change,” supporting wind and solar energy projects, and combating emissions of plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide.

In 2018 alone, the World Bank provided $20 billion for such projects. Its cumulative loans to China now total more than $60 billion – even as the Middle Kingdom increasingly engaged in predatory loan practices. “Sri Lanka, for example, was forced to cede control of the strategic port of Hambantota to China Merchants Port Holdings Company, after falling into the ‘Chinese debt trap,’” Murdock wrote.

Other supposed multilateral “development” banks followed the World Bank’s callous lead. Most stopped financing coal-fired power plants, slashed or ceased funding for oil and gas exploration by poor countries, and emphasized “total de-carbonization” in their lending practices.

In their warped worldview, manmade climate change dangers that exist only in computer models are a far more pressing concern than horrific real-world, present-day deprivation, disease and death.

Right now, around the world, over a billion people still do not have electricity; another 2 billion have electrical power only sporadically and unpredictably. In Sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 700 million people (the population of all Europe) rarely or never have electricity, and still cook and heat with wood, charcoal, and animal dung. In India, over 200 million people still do not have access to safe drinking water.

Every year, hundreds of millions become ill and 5 million die of lung and intestinal diseases from inhaling pollutants from open fires, and from lack of clean water, refrigeration, bacteria-free food and decent clinics. Largely because they lack electricity to power modern economies, nearly 3 billion survive on a few dollars per day, and more millions die every year from preventable or curable diseases.

But the anti-development banks still focus on “climate change mitigation” and financing “the shift in energy production to renewable energy technologies, and the shift to low-carbon modes of transport.”

Such as horses, oxen and walking, one supposes. People in those countries have been there, done that. They will no longer tolerate being told these banks will help them improve their lives only a little, only to the extent that doing so would conform to climate and sustainability guidelines, only as much as could be supported by wind, solar biofuel and geothermal energy.

Carbon colonialism is on its way out. It’s about time. Will the Malpass World Bank help lead the way?

In what can only be seen as a massive show of defiance and common sense, developing, emerging and modern economies have well over 215,000 megawatts of coal-fired generating capacity under construction: China 128,650 MW; India 36,158; Indonesia 11,466; Japan: 8,724; Pakistan 3,300; Philippines 2,890; Poland 4,170; South Africa 5,429; South Korea 5,429; Vietnam 9,705.

The Africa Development Bank also knows fossil fuels still represent the way forward to a healthier and more prosperous future – and will for decades to come. The AfDB is again financing coal and natural gas power generation projects, because it understands that abundant, reliable, affordable electricity is essential for real progress – and cannot possibly be achieved with expensive, inadequate, intermittent, unpredictable wind and solar power. The continent’s geothermal energy is also woefully inadequate.

Africa has the lowest electrification rate in the world. Its per capital power consumption is a miserly 615 kWh per year, AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina emphasized. Compare that to 6,500 kWh per person per year in Europe, and 13,000 in the United States.

The average African’s access to electricity is equivalent to the average American having this miraculous, all-purpose power available 1 hour a day, 8 hours a week, 411 hours per year – at totally unpredictable times. Try running your home, hospital, school, factory, film industry or World Bank office on that.

In reality, most of Africa’s electricity is generated in one country, South Africa, and the vast majority of the continent’s people still have zero, zip, nada electricity – except maybe enough photovoltaic power to charge their cell phones and power a single light bulb in their primitive huts.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her coterie of petroleum-denigrating socialists have no inkling of what life would be like without oil and natural gas. This short video gives a graphic clue of life under their Green New Deal. But in reality, even the metal, wood and cotton items the video leaves behind when petroleum is yanked away would disappear without oil and gas to get raw materials out of the ground and turn them into everyday products – and to grow, harvest and weave cotton into T-shirts and undies.

Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe and many other sub-Sahara African countries have vast coal deposits that would last at least a century at rates necessary to electrify those countries. Many also have enormous oil and natural gas resources. Those fuels must no longer be ignored under the “keep it in the ground” mantra.

Of course, all this anti-fossil-fuel fervor is justified by cries of “[r]climate change.” But the issue isn’t whether the climate or weather is changing. It’s whether humans and fossil fuels are truly causing any observed changes … whether any changes will be dangerous or catastrophic – and whether alarmist scientists have any actual, credible evidence that could survive scrutiny by a Presidential Commission on Climate Change that they are scared to death President Trump might create.

Hopefully, David Malpass will set a more realistic, more human-rights-focused tone at the World Bank – and for the various multilateral development banks. Billions of lives hang in the balance.

Via email






Recycling:  Another failed Greenie idea

It costs money to make something useful out of rubbish -- so most of it is just burnt.  But they are not allowed to burn it at home -- so it is shipped overseas for that.  We pay them to burn it

We all think we’re doing something decent for the environment when we recycle — but the truth about where it ends up might shock you.

Most of Australia’s plastic rubbish ends up being stockpiled in warehouses or shipped to South-East Asia to be illegally burned.

This means that, instead of being recycled, mountains of it is being dumped, buried or burned in illegal processing facilities and junkyards in Southeast Asia.

Sunday’s night’s episode of 60 Minutes explores the contentious practice and it argues it began when China closed its doors to Australia’s plastic waste just over a year ago.

It argues that, for more than two decades, our plastic recycling industry was reliant on China — who we sold our mixed and often contaminated plastic waste, and they melted it down into new plastic goods to sell back to us and the rest of the world.

However, much of it is now just stacking up in the yards and warehouses of Australian recycling companies — as we don’t have the facilities to reprocess it ourselves.

“I think most people in Australia feel lied to, I think they feel disappointed,” Plastic Forests founder and owner David Hodge told 60 Minutes. “Ninety per cent of people do want to recycle, and they need to be enabled to be able to do that.”

Since China stopped buying our rubbish, India — which was the fourth biggest import for Australia’s waste — followed suit last December.

As a result, Australia’s recyclable rubbish is now being dumped in Indonesia, Vietnam and, in particular, Malaysia, which received more than 71,000 tonnes of our plastic in the last year alone.

Mr Hodge told the program the worrying trend has come about as a result of a lack of planning in Australia. “We haven’t built the infrastructure. We haven’t thought ahead,” he tells Bartlett. “Now we’re here and we’re drowning in plastic.”

Analysis of our waste exports commissioned by the Department of the Environment and Energy stated that several Asian countries, including Malaysia have proposed crackdowns on waste imports.

“If Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand enacted waste import bans similar to China’s, Australia would need to find substitute domestic or export markets for approximately 1.29 million tonnes (or $530 million) of waste a year, based on 2017-18 export amounts,” the analysis warned.

The Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia (WMRR) chief executive officer, Gayle Sloan, has taken aim at the Federal Government — saying it has done “done nothing” since China shut us off.

She told ABC, the 1.2 million tonnes of recyclable materials households are producing could be turned into jobs and investment if the circular economy can only take off. “We’ve had meetings, we had more meetings, and then we’ve had more talk, and we had no action,” she said. [In other words it costs money to recycle]

Now, Mr Hodge’s company is hoping the exposure of mainstream media coverage will make the government and the public take notice.  “Recycling only works when people, corporates and government buy products made with recycled content,” the company wrote on its Facebook page this week.

“As we know, the options to send our waste or a misallocated resource overseas will come to an end.”

SOURCE  

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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15 April, 2019  

How to Have a Useful Conversation About Climate Change in 11 Steps

There is an article under the title above here.  It is aimed at convincing people about the danger of anthropogenic global warming.  So is it from some high-powered Warmist source?  No.  Rather curiously, it is by a professor at a Tibetan Buddhist college located in Portland, Oregon.

Even more curiously, it actually says nothing about global warming. It is a manual telling how to persuade anybody of anything.  And it is a pretty good one.  The steps outlined make sense in any discussion of a sensitive topic.

So for once I see nothing to criticize in it

COMMENT FROM A READER:

I read the article. It is a focus on a method of persuasion. It was not a method of finding the truth. The person seeking to discuss the issue with another goes about it with the assumption that he is right and the only objective is to change the mind of the other. Interesting that no where does the exercise promote the idea of seeking the truth through an exchange of ideas, scientific information and observation.  It will not work on a neighbor while helping him clear his drive of 12 inches of snow in mid April.

The exchange may work on a closed mind if true facts are the basis of the discussion. The exchange will easily fix the opinion of someone that enters the discussion with no opinion and any logical set of information is used to make the persuasion. I see it as a trick to be used on indifferent, unsuspecting, persuadable individuals. The method is a one on one approach and will not work as group therapy. One on One will be an extremely slow message unless you can also convince the audience of one to now also spread the gospel.






Can wind turbines cause cancer?

John Droz writes:

President Trump caused quite a stir in a recent speech when he said that wind turbine noise could cause cancer. Of course the press immediately attacked him as being ignorant, dishonest, anti-wind, etc.  Since I wasn’t sure about the facts, I decided to look into it and to talk to some experts.

The conclusion is that there is good scientific evidence that he is right!  

(Note: any competent, honest journalist could have found what I discovered online.)

Droz gives the evidence here






The Invalidation of Future Sea Level Rise Projections
    
Paper Reviewed: Watson, P.J. 2018. How well do AR5 sea surface-height model projections match observational rates of sea-level rise at the regional scale? Journal of Marine Science and Engineering 6: 11, doi:10.3390/jmse6010011.

In providing the rationale for his paper published in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, Watson (2018) writes that "despite the increasing complexity and resolution of [climate] models, their utility for future projections will always be conditional on their ability to replicate historical and recent observational global and regional data trends of importance (such as temperature, sea level, CO2 trends, etc.)."

Indeed, model projections must always be evaluated by observations, regardless of their assumed complexities and abilities. Without such validation, and a thorough understanding of a model's predictive limitations, its output should never be utilized in the formation of policy. And so it is a welcomed exercise that Watson set out to compare model predictions versus observations for one of the key parameters in the climate change debate -- sea level rise.

In his words, Watson's work "provides a snapshot of how closely current rates of sea-level rise from observational data records (tide gauges) are represented by the ensemble mean of the [IPCC's] AR5 model-projection products at the regional scale, considering 19 sites across the global ocean over the period of common coverage (2007-2016)." And to accomplish this comparison, Watson applied singular spectrum analysis to "efficiently isolate the externally (or climate-change) forced signal from all other contaminating dynamic influences (including internal climate modes)" for both types of data, i.e., model projections and observations. The results can be summarized in the figure below.

Figure 1 presents the average rates of sea level rise over the period 2007-2016 for each of the 19 globally-distributed stations with associated error bars in the upper, middle and lower panel. It also displays the AR5 ensemble model-predicted average rates of sea level rise for three different greenhouse gas emission and future temperature scenarios (RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP 8.5 in the upper, middle and lower panel, respectively). Two important points can be summarized from this image: (1) the error margins of the IPCC's model predictions of future sea level rise are quite large and (2) those wide margins "[mask] the fact that the mean velocity for the model-projection products exceed observational records for nearly all stations and Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) [scenarios]." And with respect to how great in magnitude the model projections of sea-level rise are from reality, Watson reports that when all station records are considered across all RCP experiments the average gap is between 1.6-2.5 mm/year. To put this difference in perspective, over the past decade the ensemble model-mean projections of future sea level rise are approximately twice the magnitude of that which is observed in the tide gauge observations.

Commenting on these important findings, Watson understates the obvious by stating "evidence suggests the AR5 projection-model outputs for sea surface height appear to be rising at a faster rate than the observational (tide gauge) records over the decade of common coverage," adding that his work provides "an early warning sign that the evaluation of ocean model components with respect to projected mean sea level could be relevantly improved."

Or, in plain English, this work demonstrates that the model projections of future sea level rise are garbage, invalidated by real-world observations despite their large error bars. Consequently, another phantom pillar of the climate alarmist movement is swept away by truth. How long is it going to take for the real climate deniers to acknowledge these and other observational facts that falsify their narrative of dangerous future climate change due to rising CO2 emissions?

SOURCE 






Forcing the Theory to Work

Charles Kettering, a former head of General Motors Research once observed, ( in theory)“There is no difference between theory and practice. ( in practice) There is one difference. Practice won’t let you forget anything or leave anything out. In theory, problems are easily solved because you can leave something out.”

While he made that statement at least 72 years ago, climate advocates have latched onto the part about problems being easily solved by leaving something out. What they leave out is observational data that conflicts with their preferred assumptions.

Those who rely on the climate orthodoxy to promote their agenda are wedded to the results of complex computer models that have been constructed to demonstrate that the increase in CO2 emissions inevitably leads to dangerous warming. What they leave out is the fact that their model projections overstate warming. This is shown in the following graph produced by Professor John Christy.

The explanation for this difference is that the models assume a greater climate sensitivity than is demonstrated by the climate itself. According to the National Academy of Sciences, climate sensitivity is “the equilibrium global mean surface temperature change that occurs in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration. Climate sensitivity is a function of numerous feedbacks among clouds, water vapor, and many other components of the earth’s climate system. It is presently one of the largest sources of uncertainty in projections of long-term global climate change.” The NAS went on to say that some uncertainties could be reduced or removed if there were better temperature records and better estimates of past radiative forcing. That falls into the category of wishful thinking because the records and estimates cannot be rehabilitated. There are too many variables involved with past temperature records to significantly improve their accuracy.

Analysis by Professor J. Ray Bares, University College Dublin, concludes that models underestimate the amount of heat radiated into space from the tropics. This conclusion is consistent by Dick Lindzen’s research demonstrating an “iris” effect in the tropics. In addition, Pat Michaels’ work on climate sensitivity shows that studies since 2011 estimate a lower sensitivity than the IPCC or the models that are used to project warming.

So, why do advocates of the climate orthodoxy cling to predictions of catastrophic warming when more recent research confirms a lower climate sensitivity as does the climate itself? There are several plausible explanations. One is that many are very risk adverse and believe in the Precautionary Principle which in Dick Lindzen’s words, “Everything is uncertain, thus anything may cause anything, and thus we should do something about it.” This is taking an abundance of caution to the extreme.

Another explanation is that some environmentalists have strong objections to economic progress and the way in which it is achieved. They want to control the means of production and how the economy evolves. Of course, they also happen to be high up on the economic ladder, so they can be cavalier in wanting to deny the benefits of economic growth to others.

In the end, if extreme energy policies are the mechanism for responding to climate change, resources will be wasted and the impact on warming and its climate effects will be imperceptible.

SOURCE  





Compromise is possible

If protecting us from increased levels of CO2 really is what they want

More and more businesses and industries are buying into the climate orthodoxy that human activities are the primary cause of climate change .  And, democratic candidates for President are making it a wedge issue that will put further pressure on business and industry to get on board.

While a large number of scientists support this hypothesis, for a variety of reasons, it still is only a hypothesis that relies on complex computer models that have been built using a large number of assumptions that attempt to fill gaps in knowledge.  While short term business objectives may justify going along to get along, there is an unexplored alternative that would not compromise the business community and damage our economic system.

Instead of being politically correct and accepting the climate orthodoxy and the actions that flow from it, industries and businesses should lay out an action oriented agenda that neither accepts or rejects the orthodoxy.

The United States is making more progress than most developed countries in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, some of which is the natural evolution of technology and some due to wrong headed policies that suppress fossil fuel use. 

Instead of accepting renewable standards biased in favor of wind and solar, a focus on incentives to shift to natural gas and revive the nuclear option would be more cost-effective.  Nuclear has two big hurdles—fear and cost.  The fear that has resulted from nuclear accidents that did not result in any casualties can be addressed by a well developed communication initiative that focuses on why nuclear should be the preferred option for reducing emissions and why it is in consumers interests to support it.  The cost issue is more difficult but it is not an insurmountable hurdle.  Two major cost drivers are the regulatory approval process and the lack of reactor standardization.  The progress being made with smaller modular reactors holds promise in lowering costs, increasing public comfort and, in competing with wind and solar.  The case needs to be made for a level playing field in power generation benefits consumers so that alternatives can be judged fairly.

The unneeded and wasteful subsidies for ethanol should be eliminated by demonstrating that tail pipe emission standards can be met without an ethanol mandate and that the production process actually leads to an increase in CO2.  Ethanol manufacturers should not be given a free ride.

Sea level rise, independent of the human component, is a serious problem but one for which near term solutions are readily available.  Coastal regions need to revise building codes so that new structures are not allowed so close to the waters’ edge that damage from sea rise and coastal storms is almost inevitable.  Currently, flood insurance is subsidized by the Federal Government, lowering the true cost of insuring coastal structures.  This subsidy should be eliminated.  Most of the Netherlands is below sea level and yet the Dutch have developed technology for mitigating the effects of flooding, Industry should support a vigorous program to adopt some of that technology. 

While the natural process of decarbonization is taking place, industry ought to support and participate in research to better clarify and define the extent of human influence on climate as well as of other factors identified by the IPCC. The  IPCC identified uncertainties provide a solid basis for a collaborative research program for demonstrating that the science is not settled and developing a better understanding of factors beyond CO2 that influence the climate system.

For over 20 years, estimates of climate sensitivity have varied by a factor of three. Research should be pursued to make that estimate more precise.  Over the same time period, Danish scientist, Henrick Svensmark has been conducting research to better understand the effect of solar activity on climate and to demonstrating how solar related mechanisms affect cloud cover and cloud formation. Additional solar related research should make clear that the effect of solar activity on warming has been underestimated in making attribution determinations.

A recent audit of temperature data by Dr. John Mclean has raised serious questions about the data bases that are the foundation for models and projections of future climate catastrophes.  The data bases from the Hadley Center and NOAA should be independently audited to validate or refute McLean’s findings.  We already know from work by Professor John Christy that US temperature measurements have seriously over estimated actual temperatures.

 Collaborative research on natural variability, the actual impact of increasing CO2 levels since the warming effect is not linear, and on improving models in order to add to our state of knowledge and demonstrate that industry is being part of the solution and not the problem.

Americans are sorely in need of being educated on what is realistic in terms of emission reduction impacts.  If the US adopted all measures that are minimally economically plausible, the effect on global warming and climate would be marginal because the sources of emissions and increased atmospheric levels of CO2 are China, India, and developing nations that show no real inclination to reduce their use of coal or to accept lower levels of economic growth.

The alternative to taking a stand on principle and engaging in a constructive, realistic action agenda is to get rolled and rolled often.  The threat to the capitalist economic model is growing as evidenced by the percentage of people who believe socialism is preferable and by the support for the Green New Deal.  Proponents of the Green New Deal and similar programs must be challenged to show the cost of these programs, their effect on the economy, as well as on global warming.  That information would be sobering.

Past business strategies for confronting the climate orthodoxy have not worked. They have resulted in losing but losing gradually.  It is time to try a third way that is based on challenging climate advocates to join in a collaborative research and policy initiative.  They will most likely reject such an approach because they are winning. But that would demonstrate that they are more interested in scoring points than in developing cost-effective solutions.  That would put then on the defensive.

SOURCE 

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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14 April, 2019  

President Trump’s policies are helping restore American energy dominance

By Rick Manning

President Trump’s determination to end damaging regulations on energy production has unleashed American innovators to remake the world’s energy markets as the United States is now a net energy exporter.  Private companies and individuals freed up to focus on getting oil, natural gas and coal out of the ground has led to a renaissance that has only been dreamed of for the past three generations when the bonds of energy dependency shaped much of American policy and our national mindset.

The freedom of American energy independence and, yes, even energy dominance in the foreseeable future will shape the 21st century world economy if only our policy makers avoid the temptation of trying to turn back the clock to the days of scarcity  when Americans faced long gasoline lines and odd/even day purchase rationing at the pump.

But American, indeed North American and South American energy dominance, is not just the avoidance of the pain caused by the lack of affordable energy, but instead is being able to bear the fruits of inexpensive abundance.  Electricity generation is essential to the modern economy, and being able to produce electricity inexpensively, reliably and resiliently is one of the foundational building blocks to the 21st century re-industrialization of America, demonstrated by the more than 500,000 new manufacturing jobs created on our shores since President Trump took office.  This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of American economic growth, as the President’s trade, tax and regulatory policies continue to create the environment for a thriving, expanding economy.

On the environment front, there is one international regulation which should be supported by every American, IMO 2020.  IMO 2020 changes the fuel composition allowed to be burned by cargo/container ships to a low sulfur mix away from extremely high sulfur bunker oil.  Container ships are equipped to make this conversion, and America has the refinery capacity to supply much of the shipping world’s fuel needs.  This conversion matters because just 16 container ships create more sulfur dioxide pollution (smog) around the world than all 80 million internal combustion cars in the world combined.  Energy dominance doesn’t mean environmental stupidity, and due to America’s capitalist driven modern oil refinery system, once again our great nation is in the lead in providing the means to care for the world’s air while keeping the engines of a strong economy roaring.

Capitalism works.  It creates abundance through innovation.  And out of that abundance, American companies can profit while helping the world dramatically cut worldwide air pollution.  Not through impossible to meet government mandates, but through common sense problem solving and innovation.

SOURCE 






MIT-educated GOP congressman grills John Kerry for ‘pushing pseudo science’ on climate change


Massie

A House Oversight hearing on the subject of climate change turned into a heated sparring match between conservative Republican Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and former Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday.

During a contentious moment in Massie's line of questioning, the Kentucky congressman asked the former Obama cabinet secretary about the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

During the exchange, Massie pointed out that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are currently much lower than the average amount that has been present since mammals have existed on planet earth.

"Yeah, but we weren't walking the planet," Kerry stammered before rebutting that atmospheric CO2 levels are the highest they've been in "the past 800,000 years."

Massie countered by asking why those levels were higher before that particular mark. After some back and forth, Kerry tried to dismissed Massie's carbon questions by saying it was "just not a serious conversation."

"Your testimony is not serious," Massie fired back to applause from the hearing chamber. "When you can't answer the question, that's the best answer you got."

At one point, Massie also questioned Kerry's qualifications as an expert witness on climate science, noting that he holds a political science degree, rather than one in the hard sciences.

"So I think it is somewhat appropriate that someone with a pseudo science degree is here pushing pseudo science to this committee," Massie said of Kerry's credentials.

Massie explained that his questioning stemmed from Kerry's assertion in his prepared statement that the White House was "convening a kangaroo court" on the matter.

An engineer by trade and training before he ran for Congress, Massie also possesses bachelor's and master's degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Massie is also probably one of the greenest members of Congress in how he lives his everyday life. His entire Kentucky farm is solar-powered and operated with several other environmentally-sustainable processes.

"There is a not climate denier in this room," Massie began his line of questioning. "The climate was different yesterday, it was different 10,000 years ago and it's going to be different 10,000 years from now, whether there's a human on this planet or a domesticated animal."

However, he added that he believes that there are "some photosynthesis deniers" and "natural climate deniers" who try to conflate man-made effects on the environment with climate change from natural causes.

SOURCE 






Weepy Inslee: 'We Have to Decarbonize Our Entire Economy in the Next Several Decades'

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, one of many Democrats running for president, told a CNN town hall Wednesday night that his candidacy comes with a promise:

"I will make you this pledge right now, if I am elected to this high honor, I will make defeating climate change the number-one priority of the United States."

Inslee told the gathering, "We have to decarbonize our entire economy in the next several decades. This is a massive re-industrialization of America. And I think the Green New Deal has succeeded in helping people understand that."

Inslee has called the Green New Deal an "aspirational document." "Do you fully endorse it?" CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him.

"Well, I endorse exactly what is going on here, which is, this has done three really beneficial things for America," Inslee said:

Number one, it's got people talking about climate change. You know, this is one of the reasons I'm running. There was only four minutes of climate change in the last three presidential debates. I'm going to end that.

Number two, it has also raised people's ambition as to the scope of the challenge. Look, we have to decarbonize our entire economy in the next several decades. This is massive re-industrialization of America. And I think the Green New Deal has succeeded in helping people understand that.

And third -- and this is really important -- it has led people to recognize that we have to not -- to have not just a transition, we have to have a just transition to clean energy, where the first victims of climate change, which are marginalized communities, get help and communities of color. That has been a very successful thing.

Someone in the audience asked Inslee what a transition to a green economy would look like, and what he would say to Americans who live in economies that depend on coal, gas and oil.

Instead of answering that specific question, Inslee talked about a woman who lost her mobile home in a tornado.

So Blitzer followed up, asking Inslee, "What happens to the approximately 1.2 million Americans right now, still working fossil fuel extraction and power generation?"

"It's a very important question," Inslee responded. "Look, one of the things we talk about in this is that we need a just transition. This is going to be a huge transition. We are a fossil fuel-based economy largely right now, and we know we're going to have to go to clean energy sources by the mid-century. This is just a scientific fact.

“But while we do this, we have to make sure that people during that transition have opportunities along with everyone else. So we need to do the kind of things we've done in Centralia, Washington, where we are closing our last coal-fired plant, to have about a $55 million fund to help those employees in training and transition assistance, to help businesses, where we can make sure that local economy continues to thrive, and give a transition period of several years so that there's not, you know, trauma for these families.

“This is very important, Inslee said. “But we know we can do this."

Inslee said the most rapidly growing job in America is solar installer, followed by wind turbine technician.

"This is a future that I believe is our destiny to grasp. And when we do it, we're going to bring everybody along. That's the American way, and I'm pledging that tonight," he said.

SOURCE 






'The Sky Is Falling! We're All Going to Die!'

We're told climate change is going to end the world, but the solutions are terrible

I have to say, I was somewhat troubled when I heard that in just 10 years, life as we know it is going to end … or something. When I listened to the explanation of what we needed to do to save the world, I was even more concerned.

I guess my problem is, being older and still having my faculties, I seem to remember in the 1970s Time magazine had an article about the coming Ice Age. Still waiting! In 2008, Al Gore predicted that because of global warming the East Coast would be under water in 10 years. Wait — that would have been 2018. I was in New York City in January and it “seemed” to be okay.

Several years ago, the ice pack in Antarctica was not shrinking but growing — at a rate of 100 billion tons per year. Wow! Billions? That seems like a lot, but I’m no expert; I could be missing something. I don’t know where you live, but I’m happy if the weatherman gets it right for the upcoming weekend. Yet we have experts telling us what will happen in 100 years. Now it’s down to only 10 years.

I am amazed at how much Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez learned while working as a bartender. She must have really studied at her job. Her degree was in economics and international relations. We’re told “climate change” is settled science. I was in school before Time predicted the coming Ice Age and I was told that science is never settled, because we are always learning new things.

But I want to keep an open mind, so I looked into what we need to do. I have to say, I will miss hamburgers. I know cows fart a lot (I’m a senior citizen, so I relate) but still, no burgers? No more air travel? No planes? Well, no planes for most of us. The really smart people will still need to get around and we can’t fault them for that, can we?

I will look forward to having my home rebuilt to be energy efficient, I guess. Will I have to pay for it or will the government do it? As all of us have to do that, seems like that could be expensive. But if that is what we need to do, I guess I will just have to get with the program.

Electricity is going to be pretty hard to get when all we have is wind and solar power. I mean, I live in the South, but we don’t have wind like when I lived in Nebraska! We have sunshine, so that may work … some days. France’s nuclear plants produce nearly 70% of that country’s power. Wow! I mean if the French can do that, we surely can. Wait, that’s not allowed either; no nuclear plants.

The proponents of the Green New Deal really care for us. Trust them! Just give them everything we have and they will see that it happens. There is one thing of some concern. It seems we are the only country that is supposed to destroy our economy and way of life to save the world. What about the rest of the world? What will they do?

We could totally destroy our economy, the greatest and freest in the world, and it will make no difference if other nations do nothing. Has Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez floated this by Russia, China, India, and most of Africa? I’m not hearing anything. Those nations alone would completely eliminate any change we “might” make; especially when we do not have conclusive proof that humans can change the weather on this planet.

Congresswoman, get some buy-in from these other nations and get back to us! Something to think about?

SOURCE 





Electric car natural disaster warning: Families could be left stranded if charging stations are shut down during dangerous storms

Australians who lose power during heatwaves, floods, cyclones, and hail storms could be left stranded as the energy market operator seeks to ban charging electric vehicles.

The charging of electric vehicles would be one of the first things The Australian Energy Market Operator would look at shutting off as a non-essential function, according to The Courier Mail.

AEMO is responsible for ensuring a stable supply of electricity to services such as hospitals when the grid is struggling due to network issues or natural disasters.

It can accomplish this by asking households to switch off energy draining appliances such as air-conditioners.

However, it can also direct power companies to shut off supply to certain areas.

There is concern the extra load on the power grid from electric vehicles may cause power shortages.

A Shorten government would impose new emissions standards on vehicle manufacturers - dramatically increasing the number of electric vehicles on the road.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor said he is concerned about Mr Shorten's plan to 'force the most popular vehicles off the road to meet Labor's damaging 50 per cent electric vehicle target and 105g CO2/km vehicle emissions standard.'  

'Our favourite vehicles are on Bill's hit list. Seventeen of the top 20 most popular models in Australia don't meet Labor's vehicle emissions standard.

'As usual, Bill Shorten has not done his homework. If you don't understand Labor's new car tax, don't vote for it.'

SOURCE  

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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12 April, 2019  

The five ways the human race could be WIPED OUT because of global warming

I guffawed when I saw the title of this article but I had to read it.  We know that all bad things are attributable to global warming but this is the first prophecy of human extinction I have seen.  Author Bill McKibben is an old global warming hysteric from wayback but has never yet managed to make an accurate prophecy  -- and this one will be no better.

I am not going to fisk it all.  It is too silly for that.  It is just a collection of extreme improbabilities.

But I am amazed that he is still pushing the ancient and constantly overturned food-shortage barrow.  That shows he is an outright fraud. A couple of degrees of warming would open up for farming millions of acres in Northern Canada and Southern Siberia.  Food would become super-abundant.  And the extra rainfall from warmer oceans would green a lot of the earth's desert areas.  Australian and Canadian farmers already do wonders in low-rainfall areas. Think of their productivity leap with more rain

And the claim about IQ is wild.  I know of no sound source for it and IQ research is something I monitor.  He seems unaware that submariners routinely live in super-high concentrations of CO2 but no effects of it on their IQ are known.  Does anybody think that the USA would put into its nuclear submarines crew who are likely to go ga-ga?

McKibben may be relying on the old Satish study that I have previously critiqued. That study was so tiny, used no sampling and made no allowance for adaptation that its relevance is very doubtful but it should be noted that in that study high CO2 did show some adverse effects on human performance but also showed some positive effects. Not much for McKibben to hang his hat on.

Here's a little excerpt from the Satish study that is rather fun:

An inverse pattern was seen for “focused activity,” with the highest level of focus obtained at 2,500 ppm and the lowest at 600 ppm. Thus, most decision-making variables showed a decline with higher concentrations of CO2, but measures of focused activity improved. Focused activity is important for overall productivity

So overall productivity was best at the very highest level of CO2. CO2 improved your focus. Quite the opposite of what McKibben claims to fear.

Amusing that of all the bad effects of global warming that he lists, the only actual death so far that he claims is of one 12-year old boy


The deadly possible consequences of global warming have been laid bare in a book that reveals the terrifying ways the human race could be wiped out.

From a total food-system collapse, to a catastrophic sea-level rise and the return of lost deadly diseases, 'FALTER: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?' lists the lethal, and unexpected, ways that humans could become extinct.

Author Bill McKibben, a scientist and environmental activist who wrote the influential End of Nature - one of the first books for a mainstream audience on climate change - has followed up with this doomsday study of possible homosapien endgames - which include rising tides, falling crops and exploding populations.

Oceans heating up and disrupting photosynthesis leading to mass suffocation

 By the end of this century if the world's oceans continue to warm up they might become hot enough to stop oxygen production by phyto-plankton by disrupting the delicate process of photosynthesis, a 2015 study in the Journal of Mathematical Biology suggested.

More than two thirds of the earth's oxygen comes from phyto-plankton so the disruption of photosynthesis would more than likely result in the mass extinction of life on earth through suffocation.

While the melting ice sheets could trigger catastrophic natural disasters capable of decimating entire countries. In fact, increased seismic activity has been registered in Alaska and Greenland, suggesting this process has already begun.

Melting icecaps sparking catastrophic tsunamis destroying coastal life

 Additionally, the increased seawater could create a bending in the earth's crust which would prompt a massive increase in volcanic activity with lava poisoning marine life.

'That will give you a massive increase in volcanic activity. It'll activate faults to create earthquakes, submarine landslides, tsunamis, the whole lot,' the director of University College London's Hazard Centre told Rolling Stone magazine.

Scientists have evidence that such an event happened before. Some 8,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age, a section of Norway's continental shelf collapsed creating a series of gigantic waves which swept all signs of life away from coastal Norway to Greenland.

Such was the violence of the waves, thought to be some 65ft tall, that a landmass connecting Britain to parts of Europe was drowned.

Deadly diseases in frozen animals thawing out and contaminating the water supply

 Melting icecaps has revealed a treasure chest of well preserved artifacts and specimens for scientists to study. But they could also bring the return of lethal diseases trapped in permafrost.

One example the book lists is a reindeer carcass that thawed after many thousands of years. The exposed body released anthrax into the surrounding water and soil which they infected two thousand reindeer grazing nearby, and they in turn infected some humans who hunted them - killing one 12-year-old boy. 

Permafrost creates the perfect conditions for microbes and viruses to survive because 'it is cold, there is no oxygen, and it is dark'. 

Scientists have managed to revive an eight-million-year-old bacterium they found beneath the surface of a glacier.

While researchers believe there are fragments of the Spanish flu virus, smallpox, and bubonic plague buried in Siberia and Alaska, which could all infect humans should they be released from their frozen state.

Increased carbon dioxide causing decreased brain function

McKibben also points to the increased carbon dioxide levels impairing cognitive ability. Again, by the year 2100, carbon dioxide levels could rise to a thousand parts per million, while would cause a 21 percent cognitive regression.

A study on the effects of cognitive impairment through carbon dioxide poisoning showed the most pronounced effects on 'crisis response, information usage and strategy' functions within our brains, one Harvard study reported.    

Food supply breakdown causing mass starvation

While humans have for large parts of the late twentieth and early twenty first century managed to keep ahead of an exploding global population, it has come at a great human cost.

Farmers have been displaced in third world countries, forcing them into slums, while fertilizers, pesticides and machinery has increased production radically.

However, that production could be completely halted with increased heat and drought, with studies on coffee, cacao and chickpea growth highlighting the damning effect warming has on them. 

The food source humans most rely on, though, is also the ones that are most at risk.

Cereals are the cornerstone of human nutrition providing the vast majority of the world's calories: corn, wheat and rice all evolved as crops in the climate of the past 10,000 years - so a sudden spike to that climate, at a rate evolution cannot maintain, means the crops will die and fail to grow in the new, parched land.

A 2017 study in Australia, home to some of the world's highest-tech farming, found that 'wheat productivity has flatlined as a direct result of climate change.'

Wheat yields tripled between 1990 and 1990 but have stagnated since then as temperature increases and rainfall declined by nearly a third.

In June 2018, researchers found that a two-degree Celsius rise in temperature - which is what the Paris accord is targeting - could cut U.S. corn yields by 18 percent.

A four-degree increase - the earth's current trajectory would cut the crop almost in half.

It is a similar story for corn, the planet's most widely grown crop. The systematic breakdown of mass agricultural farming would see the foundation of human sustenance wiped out, plunging the earth into a mass scavenging race for nutrition.

SOURCE 






Scientists Prove Man-Made Global Warming Is a Hoax

Not quite but temperatures were much higher 3 million years ago while CO2 levels were the same as today. It seems clear that CO2 was not the cause of the warming 3 million years ago so how do we know that there is any connection now?  We don't

The far-left ThinkProgress reports that scientists have finally proven that the theory of man-made Global Warming is a total hoax.
Of course, no one will admit it, but that is exactly what has happened.

A new scientific study shows has revealed the following:

Current CO2 levels of 410 parts per million (ppm) were last seen on Earth three million years ago, according to the most detailed reconstruction of the Earth’s climate by researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and published in Science Advances.

Yes, you read that correctly, three million — million — years ago CO2 levels on Earth were the same as they are today, but there is one major difference between three million years ago and today…

Three million years ago, we humans were not driving cars or eating the meat that requires cow farts; we weren’t barbecuing or refusing to recycle or building factories; there was no Industrial Age, no plastic, no air conditioning, no electricity, no lumber mills, no consumerism, no aerosols.

In fact, three million years ago, there were probably no human beings on Earth, at least not human in the way we use that term today. And yet…

CO2 levels were the same then as they are now…

Hmmm…?

But I thought humans warmed the planet? That’s the hustle we’ve been sold for three decades now — you know, that WE are the problem.

We have also been told the problem is DEFINITELY NOT a billions-year-old planet running through cycles where the temperature might fluctuate a bit. Oh, no, that could never be it — so stop saying that could be, you Denier.

Well, what about the Ice Age that occurred thousands and thousands of years before the Industrial Age.

Shut up, Denier.

And yet…

According to the study, scientists also discovered that during this period of Global Warming “there were no ice sheets covering either Greenland or West Antarctica, and much of the East Antarctic ice sheet was gone.”

How is this possible 2,999,971 years before Arnold Schwarzenegger bought his Hummer?

It gets worse:

Temperatures were up to 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer globally, at least double that at the poles, and sea levels were some 20 meters (65 feet) higher.

How is that possible 2,999,945 years before Americans moved to the suburbs and lit up the charcoal grills?

SOURCE 






The attack on CO2 emissions is an attack on combustion -- which has been behind most technological progress

Science is not the only subject where there is limited public knowledge. There seems to be little understanding of human history. Throughout history, the discovery of fire has been recognized as the greatest factor in the development of civilized society. To generations connected to the earth’s real physical struggles, the benefit of fire is unquestioned. To those who have ‘evolved’ free of lives most basic demands, it is important that we remind ourselves of the necessity of combustion.

The greatest initial benefit for mankind from fire was light in the dark and warmth in the cold. This was soon followed by the cooking of food, which reduced disease transmission, improved digestibility and refined tastes. That was soon followed by fired clay pottery and sanitation of water thru boiling.

Sometimes limestone rock surrounded the fire pit, and when heated, produced cement. This led to mortar, stucco, concrete and better bricks. Fire allowed us to refine and mold metals, and to clear vast areas of existing vegetation so that humans could cultivate crops. Fire gave us the first method controlling epidemics by burning infected bodies, possessions, even villages. Fire was also man’s first weapon of mass destruction.

When harnessed to steam engines, fire freed us from the drudgery of muscle work and the uncertainty and inefficiency of sail. Fire lifted the first balloons, which gave mankind the gift of flight. When liquid fuels were developed for internal combustion engines, there was an unimaginable increase in the individual’s production capability. This ‘force multiplier’ has had a tremendous impact on everyone’s life.

Think of the countless lifetimes it would take in walking or horse riding to duplicate the travels of the average person in a modern society. Think of the countless hours of drudgery in your life if every blade of grass and board of wood was cut by hand. And yet, that has always been mankind’s duty, until the twentieth century. Then there was a weird coincidence of events.

First, tractors freed millions from the horse drawn plow to live in a post-agrarian society. As industrialization efficiency improved most physical labor could be replaced with managerial and bureauctic employment. Large portions of the population were for the first time in history freed from most daily contact with the harsh conditions previously required to exist on this planet. They were now empowered to manage and dictate the behavior of those still bound by nature.

Then in the last century two other forces developed to reinforce this absurd and detached evolution in life style. Progressivism developed at the beginning of the twentieth century to employee this newly freed population in the utopian dream that mankind’s energies could now be planned and controlled by expanding government bureaucracy.

Failure of these plans, in many places and at many times, in the last century have not deterred the still fervent belief that the perfect autocracy is soon to be achieved. Those freed from the dictates of nature were now the masters and overseers of those still bound by the forces of nature. The mid century Nihilist philosophy of ‘values are baseless and nothing is knowable’ would stem from these same detached minds.

Educators embraced both movements and indoctrinated the rapidly expanding population of detached minds. These great minds were now free from having to make any sense and from needing the correct answer. The ultimate expression of this detached and completely unrealistic movement is the current pseudo-science of the climate debate and the villianization of combustion.

Funny that it only takes a few generations of luxury brought by combustion to renounce the benefit of combustion. Carbon dioxide is a benign molecule that is essential to life molecule. The one word that describes each of us the moment when we quit producing carbon dioxide is DEAD. And now these great, detached minds are telling us that to solve a non-existent problem we must be taxed and completely controlled on our use of combustion.

No level of control by these freed minds will provide the expected outcome so the rules will be ever changing and ever increasing. The only way a bureaucrat can get a raise is to create new opportunities within the bureaucracy.

Global warming, which was modified to global climate change to accommodate the current cooling cycle, is the worst ‘science’ since the world was flat. Prolonged exposure to CO2 levels fifty times higher than normal have no measurable side effects and yet the EPA has just declared that CO2 is a toxic substance.

Believing that the world was flat didn’t change the planets shape.

Believing that carbon dioxide is a toxin does not make it a toxin.

Believing that a change of several parts per million of a simple, naturally occurring, and three-atom molecule is going to impact the climate is delusional.

The forces that will be the only beneficiary of carbon control are now controlling the only information allowed in the debate of these new laws, taxes and regulations.

The fix is in because the loyal opposition is a little too loyal to the same puppet masters. As we all know, fire can be our friend or foe. But it is not something that government can or should have complete control over. We are being offered a great restriction in our freedom in exchange for the creation of a new government revenue stream. We must resist these forces tampering with the cornerstone of civilization. We must demand genuine climate change debate.

I refuse to follow the Neo-Maoist leadership and their lemming like propaganda network. Typical of ‘New Think’ is the ‘New Speak’ term for those of us counterrevolutionaries who oppose the AGW indoctrination. We are labeled ‘deniers’ when in fact we are ‘deniees’….those who are denied a right to express our informed opinions in this declared settled debate. Central planning can dictate, but they have no answers.

Society would not exist without science or combustion. And yet, science has proven easy to corrupt and combustion easy to demonize. It is time for those of us with some level of residual cognitive ability to rebel against this oppressive mind control system. I chose to follow in the footsteps of Patrick Henry. I will man the barricades against the AGW fraud until my last CO2 ladened breath.

SOURCE 






“RRR” (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) is mostly a “feel-good” idea without any benefit

I have no problem with any of the “RRR” terms per se, but only within the framework of proper cost/benefit analyses. Willy-nilly application of any of those “R’s” without an understanding of their true effects, their costs (both here and elsewhere), or (known) better alternatives, makes the problems only get worse, not better.

The (environmental) problems we now have in parts of the world are mostly because of inadequate treatment of “garbage.”  The “RRR idea” is, unfortunately, contributing to the problems, for a simple reason.

Typical household  garbage is no longer (and hasn’t been for decades now) a “clean” assemblage of materials that can be easily composted to produce fertile soil, or even be reused/recycled to produce newer or better materials for any purpose.

Not only do we not have the capability to convert all kinds of plastics, like food containers, magazine mailing envelopes, and numerous other plastics into new products, even if we could, it still would be a waste of energy. From collection, to storage, to sorting, to cleaning, to actually “recycling,” each step consumes energy, labor, space, clean water and — in the end – is a no-win situation all around.

Not long ago, our local “recycling” system recognized it, in a small part only, by no longer accepting Styrofoam for recycling. It is now to be disposed in regular garbage.

Garbage should be Destroyed, not “Recycled”

I find it truly amazing how folks who proclaim to be highly concerned about such things as “pollution,” “climate change,” and related concerns can be so naïve to expect that “out-of-sight” is the same as “problem solved.”

Garbage should be destroyed for good, for several good reasons. Nearly all of it cannot actually be recycled and turned into other products. The most obvious reason is that most materials are not clean enough to do so and, even if they were, it still would be an energy-wasteful exercise in futility.

So, what’s the solution out of this apparent dilemma?

Simply add another “R”

That additional “R” stands for “Recapture” of the energy content. Any modern garbage incineration plant with catalytic “afterburners” can do that. Thousands of tons of municipal refuse can thus be reduced to a few cubic feet of solid material, some of which can truly be recycled (e.g. metal components) and the current landfill sites will last for centuries.

SOURCE 






A lot of dam potential

CFACT’s recent article “What’s the Dam Deal?” by Grace Cancelmo raises important questions about expanding the use of dams for hydropower and other useful purposes. The US Energy Department (DOE) has done some interesting research on this topic, because dams are already our biggest renewable energy source, by far. Increased interest in mitigating droughts and floods also points to dams as a possible strategy, so I decided to look into the potential for increasing the use of dams in America.

As Cancelmo points out, there are already a great many dams, with over 90,000 listed in the National Inventory of Dams. The Inventory started in 1972 with 45,000 dams (I was involved in creating it, as a junior engineer) so we have doubled since then.

Very few of these dams have hydropower capacity, so the first thing to look at is adding that capability. After all, the dam is already there, so the cost is minimal compared to building a new hydro dam.

However, every existing dam already has one or more purposes, so its ability to handle hydro generation may be limited. Let’s quickly look at the main purposes and how well they might handle hydro.

To begin with, there are two basic types, namely those with the ability to store a lot of water for future use and those that cannot do that for one reason or another. They can all still generate power, but the ones without storage can only do so when the water happens to be there. In this respect they are like wind and solar power, which is unpredictably intermittent.

Two of the principle no-storage types are navigation and recreation dams. A number of the major U.S. rivers have been what is called “canalized,” which means they have a series of locks and dams so that boat traffic, especially freight barges, can use them. These are navigation dams. They do not store water but there is a big river flowing over them so pretty good hydro potential.

A lot of the smaller dams in the Inventory are built for recreation, especially boating and fishing. These reservoirs will have houses and docks built around them, so the water level has to stay pretty constant. This means they cannot store a lot of water, and then release it later to generate power, because this causes a large variation in water level. But if there is a good stream or river flowing through then it can be used to generate hydro, when it is flowing well.

Those with storage can wait until the power is needed, which makes their power more valuable. However, whether they will have water to store, or to spare once stored, will still be unpredictable, as it depends on how much precipitation occurs and when it happens. Three common types of dam with potential storage capacity are those for flood control, municipal water supply and irrigation water supply.

Back in 2012, DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory did an assessment of the potential for adding hydro to America’s non-powered dams. The numbers are pretty large.

The study estimates that the nation has over 50,000 suitable non-powered dams with the technical potential to add about 12,000 megawatts (MW) of hydropower capacity. The 100 largest capacity facilities—primarily locks and dams on the Ohio, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas rivers operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—could provide 8,000 MW of power combined.

Note that there are 10,000 more dams now then back then. Also, this study did not consider increasing the power capacity of existing hydro generating facilities.

In short there is significant potential for adding hydropower capacity to America’s existing dams.

SOURCE 

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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11 April, 2019

Melting Glaciers To Drown Us (At 2 Inches A Century!)

Paul Homewood below satisfies himself with some entirely justified sarcasm about this latest scare but the larger point is that glaciers wax and wane all the time so extrapolating from just one recent 55 year period tells us nothing.  It would be easy to select another period that showed glacial advance.  The Little Ice age, for instance, is relatively recent (from about 1300 to about 1850) and during it most glaciers advanced

We read:

Melting glaciers causing sea levels to rise at ever greater rates
by University of Zurich

Melting  ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic as well as ice melt from glaciers all over the world are causing sea levels to rise. Glaciers alone have lost more than 9 trillion tons of ice since 1961, raising water levels by 27 millimeters, an international research team under the lead of the University of Zurich has now found.

Glaciers have lost more than 9 trillion tons (that is 9,625,000,000,000 tons) of ice between 1961 and 2016, which has resulted in global sea levels rising by 27 millimeters in this period.

The largest contributors were glaciers in Alaska, followed by the melting ice fields in Patagonia and glaciers in the Arctic regions. Glaciers in the European Alps, the Caucasus and New Zealand were also subject to significant ice loss; however, due to their relatively small glacierized areas, they played only a minor role when it comes to the rising global sea levels.

Comment:

Wow!! 27mm between 1961 and 2016! Two inches a century. Head to the hills!

SOURCE 






Washington's famed cherry blossoms threatened by rising sea levels

More likely by tourism

Washington D.C.'s cherry blossom season has gone well this year, thanks to warm weather that has coincided perfectly with the annual blooming that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each spring.

But officials are claiming that Washington's iconic trees are under a looming threat that requires emergency action.

Decades of wear and tear from foot traffic, combined with rising sea levels and a deteriorating sea wall have created a chronic flooding problem in the Tidal Basin. The 107-acre man-made reservoir borders the Jefferson Memorial and is home to the highest concentration of cherry blossom trees.

"The Tidal Basin is at a pivotal moment," said Jeff Reinbold, acting superintendent for the National Mall and Memorial Parks division of the National Park Service. "The area was never designed for the kind of use it sees today."

The National Park Service, along with the Trust for the National Mall and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is undertaking a campaign to save the Tidal Basin. In addition to rebuilding the battered sea wall and addressing the flooding problem, the groups want to improve walkways and update security systems.

Twice a day at high tide, a large stretch of sidewalk next to the Jefferson Memorial is submerged by the rising waters. During the heavy rains that routinely occur in Washington, the floodwaters completely overflow the sea wall in multiple locations and soak the tree roots.

It's more than just an inconvenience.

Teresa Durkin, senior project director of the Trust for the National Mall, said the higher silt concentration of the floodwaters is shortening the life span of the hundreds of cherry blossom trees that ring the basin.

"The infrastructure is breaking down because of the daily flooding. The trees are being inundated with brackish water," she said. "People do love these trees and we keep having to replace them."

Early estimates are that the rehabilitation project would require as much as $500 million, with organizers seeking a combination of government money and private donations.

The organizations are partnering with American Express, which is funding the creation of the Tidal Basin Ideas Lab and inviting architectural and landscape design firms to submit proposals for replacing the sea wall and refurbishing and modernizing the entire area.

Sean Kennealy, the chief of professional services for the National Mall and Memorial Parks division, said the original 1880s design of the Tidal Basin simply wasn't equipped to handle the kinds of crowds and traffic the area now receives. That traffic has only increased as more monuments have been added to the Tidal Basin area over the years: a memorial to Franklin Roosevelt opened in 1997, and the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial was inaugurated in 2011.

Even without the worsening flooding problem, Kenneally said the entire network of sidewalks and pathways needs to be expanded to accommodate the modern visitor numbers.

"People have started making their own paths through the grass because the walkways are either not wide enough or underwater," Kennealy said. "The trees just aren't being protected the way they should be."

For now, the Tidal Basin's structural issues remain fairly low key. Janice Contreras, a tourist from Arizona visiting the Tidal Basin on Wednesday, said it didn't really affect her experience. But it's hard not to notice a large stretch of sidewalk seemingly being reclaimed by the advancing waters.

"Does that really happen twice a day," she asked. "It doesn't really bother me, but there's no way that's good for the trees, right?"

SOURCE 






Trump Order Will Clear the Way for Stalled Constitution Pipeline

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump will sign an executive order to streamline energy projects like the Constitution Pipeline, a 124-mile natural gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to New York. Despite winning federal approval in 2014, the pipeline has yet to be built, thanks to New York regulators who denied the pipeline a permit under the Clean Water Act.

Trump will unveil the order at the International Union of Operating Engineers International Training and Education Center in Crosby, Texas, on Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported. Another executive order will promote cross-border energy infrastructure, like the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

New York's moratorium on hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") seems to have caused a natural gas shortage, making the Constitution Pipeline more important.

The Clean Water Act wasn’t "intended to give a state veto power," Dena Wiggins, president of the Natural Gas Supply Association, told Bloomberg News. "The actions New York is taking not only impact New York, they are impacting the entire Northeast, because we can’t get a pipeline through the state in order to provide gas service to the Northeast."

Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) has insisted that "no corporation should be allowed to endanger our natural resources," so New York "will not relent in our fight to protect our environment."

Trump's pipeline order is unlikely to result in immediate construction, because only Congress has the authority to restrict states' authority under the Clean Water Act, and because many pipelines lack adequate Interior Department reviews. Even so, the order "will be construed as opening the door to overcoming these hurdles that states are throwing up," Christi Tezak, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, told Bloomberg.

States should encourage these pipelines, rather than hampering them. The people of New York need natural gas.

SOURCE 







U.S. refining capacity hits another all-time high, set to grow big-time in 2019 and beyond with IMO 2020

U.S. oil refiners had another huge year in 2018, averaging 17.3 million barrels per day in refinery runs while its capacity expanded to almost 18.6 million barrels per day, according to data compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

As the U.S. became the number one producer of petroleum in the world in 2018 thanks in large part to the shale oil boom, oil refiners led the way by once again ramping up their capacity and putting to rest concerns about its ability to meet demand in the market.

In fact, current utilization of refining capacity is at about 93 percent, and it has not topped its high of 95.6 percent in 1998 in spite of there being more oil to refine.

Meaning, there’s still a lot of room for growth in this expanding industry, if the first month’s data for 2019 is any indication, with capacity rising to an all-time high of nearly 18.8 million barrels per day in January, an increase of nearly 200,000 barrels a day from that time last year.

Put another way, if you’re thinking about drilling a well, right now, you might want to do it in the United States because you are guaranteed to get your barrel to market rapidly no matter what the spot price is.

One area that will help further the industry along are International Maritime Organization (IMO) regulations set to go into effect in Jan. 2020 that will reduce sulfur content of emissions of bunker fuel utilized by cargo container ships to no more than 0.5 percent sulfur. The plus for refiners will be added sales for the lower-sulfur content fuel.

And U.S. refiners, already serving the single largest oil-consuming market in the world, will be there to meet the challenge, as refiners once again expand capacity to meet the demand, for example in Louisiana and Texas.

The U.S. already has about 2.8 million barrels per day of coking capacity needed to meet the market for lower-sulfur fuel. That’s not far off from the 3.3 million barrels per day of bunker fuel that is consumed currently, or 4.2 million barrels per day when existing lower-sulfur fuel demand is taken into account.

The tale however may lay overseas in terms of meeting the rest of the market. Those that make the investment ahead of time will be the biggest winners in the new cargo container ship fuel market.  How refiners abroad respond to the change is another matter, and will determine how great of an impact on global prices there is.

Right now, the biggest loser of the new IMO regulations will be Russia, which exports the most higher-sulfur bunker fuel in the world. In 2017, it exported about 35 million tons or 702,000 barrels a day.

With an already robust market, supply should meet the demand rather quickly, meaning any spike in prices may only be temporary as it is ultimately offset by increased production and refining of the lower-sulfur fuels.

And if worst comes to worst, and overseas refiners cannot meet the demand, you can be sure U.S. refiners will do so in very short order. This might be the first regulation in history that boosted U.S. exports.

SOURCE 





Electric vehicles can be risky, just ask Australia's Keneally

Bill Shorten’s electric vehicle policy troubleshooter Kristina Keneally knows more than most the dangers of pinning too much hope on the rapid rise of electric cars — her husband Ben Keneally was chief Australian strategist and marketer of failed EV venture Better Place.

The Israeli-founded company, which filed for bankruptcy in 2013, was an early mover in the EV business, developing a battery-charging and switching service that it planned to roll out across Australia.

Mr Keneally worked with the head of the company’s Australian arm, dot.com millionaire and one-time Victorian Labor MP Evan Thornley.

The company was named one of the world’s “top-50 green game-changers” in 2011, with Mr Thornley predicting EVs would arrive in Australia “in mass volumes” by 2012.

The business model was built around cars with interchangeable batteries. Senator Keneally told The Australian yesterday that Better Place had picked the wrong technology. “Better Place promoted battery-swap stations, which people didn’t want,” she said.

“Better Place’s main global competitor, Tesla, and its main Australian competitor, Brisbane-based Tritium, focused on ultra-fast charging stations and are going from strength to strength.”

She said the fast-charging technology that ultimately beat Better Place was “precisely” the technology that Energy Minister Angus Taylor endorsed last year with a $6 million taxpayer-funded investment.

Labor has been under pressure over its pledge last week to set a target for EVs to make up half of all new vehicle sales by 2030, and implement a tough new carbon emissions standard for light vehicles of 105gCO2/km.

Senator Keneally leapt into the role of EV policy defender, getting a Department of Environment official to confirm in Senate estimates committee hearings this week that the government’s carbon abatement policies assume a 25-50 per cent EV uptake by 2030.

She also dug up pictures of Liberal MPs in EVs, and articles by Josh Frydenberg expressing his admiration for the technology. Scott Morrison has claimed Labor’s EV policy would “end the weekend” by pushing Australians out of four-wheel-drive vehicles into cars that couldn’t tow boats or caravans.

“Here he is, Joshy hanging out with some electric vehicles,” Senator Keneally said on Monday, waving a photograph of the Treasurer in an electric car.

Mr Keneally worked for Better Place from 2009 to until March 2013. The company filed for bankruptcy in Israel in May 2013, and was liquidated in November that year.

When Senator Keneally was NSW premier, Better Place was reportedly invited to exclusively bid for a recharging network by the state-owned EnergyAustralia, which ultimately did not proceed.

The then premier said at the time that she absented herself from cabinet discussions whenever electric cars were discussed.

SOURCE  

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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10 April, 2019  

More Attenborough fakery

Greenies just can't help it. Reality is so unkind to their theories

Walruses seen falling to their deaths as they scaled high cliffs to escape climate change could have died because they were being chased by polar bears, a zoologist has claimed.

Footage from Sir David Attenborough's Netflix documentary Our Planet showed walruses plunging off 250ft high cliffs in northeast Russia.

The animals were said to be making the dangerous climb to higher ground to escape receding sea ice due to warming seas.

Hundreds of walruses became confused by a combination of shrinking ice cover and their own poor eyesight, causing them to scale cliffs and often plummet to their deaths when they attempt to return to sea, the show stated.

In the disturbing clip, walruses could be seen perched precariously on the edge of the rocky cliffs, unaware of just how high up they were.

It's not the first time a David Attenborough-narrated programme has been faced accusations of faking dramatic wildlife footage.

In 2011 Frozen Planet admitted after the show aired that filmmakers used footage of cubs taken at a zoo using fake snow in the Netherlands and spliced it with polar bear clips from the wild.

Then the BBC's Blue Planet 2 series in 2017 saw creators defend the use of studio shots taken in laboratories as it featured images of coral bleaching that could only be filmed with lights and specialised cameras.

The Blue Planet team also recreated a rock pool on board a ship to film up-close zebra mantis shrimp and the long teeth of the fangtooth fish. 

In the recent Our Planet episode of the Frozen Worlds series, Attenborough says that all the walruses know is that they need to join the others and find food.

But a leading zoologist has accused filmmakers of using 'tragedy porn' and 'emotional manipulation' to gain viewers.

Susan Crockford, of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, claims the animals were more likely to have been driven over the cliffs after being chased by polar bears.

She cited a famous incident in 2017 near where the Netflix series was filmed, where 20 polar bears chased walruses over to top of cliffs at Kozhevnikova Cape, Ryrkaypiy, in eastern Russia, according to the Siberian Times.

Describing the footage as 'contrived nonsense', Dr Crockford told the Telegraph: 'This powerful story is fiction and emotional manipulation at its worst.

'The walruses shown in this Netflix film were almost certainly driven over the cliff by polar bears during a well-publicised incident in 2017, not because they were confused by a combination of shrinking ice cover and their own poor eyesight.

'Even if the footage shown by Attenborough was not the 2017 incident in Ryrkaypiy, we know that walruses reach the top of cliffs in some locations and might fall if startled by polar bears, people or aircraft overhead, not because they are confused by shrinking sea ice cover.

'The bears were then able to feed off the many carcasses after the survivors took to the water.'

Sophie Lanfear, director of the Frozen Worlds series that features the Our Planet episode, defended the footage, saying two crew members watched the animals fall and claimed they were not being chased by polar bears.

She said: 'We filmed Pacific walrus falling from high cliffs. They were not being driven off the cliffs by the polar bears and we know this because we had two team members watching the cliffs from afar who could see the polar bears and were in radio communications with us to warn us about any bears approaching the crew closer to the walrus and the cliffs.

'Once the walrus had rested at the top for a few days they wanted to return to sea when all the others below started to leave.

'We would watch them for hours teetering back and forth on the edge before finally, falling off.

'Fundamentally, the reason walrus used this haul out location is because of a lack of sea ice in the region, meaning they are coming ashore more frequently than they did in the past.

'Especially mothers with their pups. And at this particular site, once the beach below the cliffs was full, they spread out and up the cliffs and were unable to find their way safely down, with tragic consequences.'

During the scene in Our Planet, Sir David said: 'A walrus' eyesight out of water is poor. 'But they can sense the others down below. As they get hungry, they need to return to the sea. 'In their desperation to do so, hundreds fall from heights they should never have scaled.'

SOURCE 







White House planning executive order that aims to boost pipeline construction, lower energy prices

The White House is planning to roll out an executive order next week that aims to cut regulations, spur interstate pipeline construction and lower energy costs, according to two senior administration officials.

The effort was spurred by the blockage of the construction of the 125-mile Constitution Pipeline from Pennsylvania to New York. A protracted legal battle over the project has been underway since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, gave a greenlight in 2014 and 2016, because the state of New York has refused to issue a water permit.

According to four current and former administration officials, the order directs the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency to clarify Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, the law that gives states authority over permits where water quality is concerned.

Backlash from states and governors is expected, especially in New York, where regulators warned of further legal action if FERC throws out its water safety review in the Constitution case.

And Wall Street likely won’t see this as a big breakthrough.

“We don’t think this manifestly changes the state of play,” said ClearView energy analyst Christine Tezak. “An executive order can’t change the statutory discretion of a state to approve, deny or waive, so a state could still say no.”

But officials vow the administration’s broader goal is to lower energy prices by accelerating the transport of natural gas and to reaffirm U.S. energy “dominance,” a word that appeared multiple times in an early draft of the order.

Energy executives are optimistic about the prospects for more pipeline construction.

Dennis Xander, chief executive of West Virginia-based Denex Petroleum, said the state is at risk of a glut if it can’t ship more gas to New England or the Gulf states.

“We now have more capacity than we do gas for the first time in several years,” Xander told CNBC. But in central West Virginia where Denex operates, “There’s no pipeline to get the gas transported.”

Lower energy prices are of high interest to President Donald Trump, who has tweeted criticism of OPEC and its impact on higher prices at least 12 times.

The executive order is currently slated to be signed on Wednesday, with Texas as one suggested location for the event. Administration officials caution the plans could change.

SOURCE 






Population Bombed! Book Shortlisted For Prestigious Prize

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is delighted to announce that our book Population Bombed! by Canadian authors Pierre Desrochers and Joanna Szurmak has been shortlisted for the prestigious Donner Book Prize.

The Donner Prize annually rewards excellence and innovation in public policy writing by Canadian authors. In bestowing this award, the Donner Canadian Foundation seeks to broaden policy debates, and make an original and meaningful contribution to policy discourse, all of which will contribute to an even stronger and more inclusive Canadian democracy.

The 2018/2019 shortlist titles were chosen from a field of 70 submissions. The winner receives $50,000 while each other nominated title receives $7,500.

The winner of this year’s Donner Prize will be announced at an awards ceremony at the historic Carlu in Toronto on Wednesday 1 May 2019.

Many scholars, activists and policy-makers have linked population growth to environmental degradation, including catastrophic climate change. The authors argue that significant improvements in human well-being in recent years, longer lifespans, improved health, abundant resources and a general improvement in the environment, counter this claim.

Desrochers and Szurmak provide a useful and provocative contribution to the policy debate by challenging the models and assumptions upon which the new population control narrative is built, and argue that population growth alongside economic development represent the only practical way forward.

Pierre Desrochers is an Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Toronto. Joanna Szurmak is a doctoral student at York University’s Department of Science and Technology.

SOURCE 







More California dreaming: New governor to Blame Illegal Immigration On Global Warming

The Left have an infinite ability to make stories up. They need to. Reality is just too pesky for them

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is going all in on opposing President Trump – and the majority of the American people – on the problem of illegal migration as the caravans from Central America fire up.

Now he’s heading off to El Salvador to “examine the root causes of migration,” as Big Daddy holding out the bag of goodies to would-be illegal immigrants in their home countries.

To him, they’re his constituents. So he’s got to find some justification for this trip and you can bet he will. My bet’s on him using the trip as a soapbox to make claims about global warming causing it.

In his first weeks in office, Governor Newsom signed AB 72, legislation to fast-track state aid to asylum seekers who are being abandoned at bus stations and on the side of the road by the federal government.

It was the first bill he signed into law. AB 72 established a Rapid Response Relief Fund of $5 million in immigration assistance, which helped support the opening of a migrant support shelter in San Diego.

Have pork, will travel.

But his claimed mission is worth looking at, too – to examine the “root causes of illegal migration” not to stop it, but as his pork demonstrates, to encourage more of it.

RealClearPolitics ran a long, very long, article from the New Yorker about how global warming is the real reason illegal migrants are heading in their caravans, not to the next convenient country, but to the United States, that country more than 1,000 miles away that is largely English-speaking and has a modern economy, with modern conventions such as flush toilets and washing machines.

Which, though the idea is a rapidly discrediting superstition from the left, is a wonderfully convenient excuse for justifying illegal migration. See, global warming is caused by gringos, so gringos did it. Get ready for the illegal migrants with their hands out as a result.

The New Yorker piece is very very long, (and pretty interesting as a descriptive piece), so I won’t quote it, but suffice to say, the author of it failed to make her point.

I will sum up what its writer found so as to make her argument that global warming causes illegal immigration:

Guatemala’s western highlands are in a drought. That drought is creating food shortages. The Guatemalans are clueless about how to adapt to any drought-like conditions.

That means they need U.S. NGO aid workers to teach them about crop rotation, saving seeds in their own seed banks, and minimizing the need for water through shade planting. Guatemalans can’t figure that out on their own.

Aid from American NGO workers is the only thing that can keep people fed. And not just any aid, only American aid (Guatemala is apparently excused from the need to provide aid, despite the record remittances in the hard currency it receives).

Mean President Trump is cutting off aid. Yet he’s the one who caused this whole debacle because he doesn’t buy into the idea of global warming.

The writer keeps trying to circle around and claims that global warming is the cause of the Guatemalan drought as if the region had never seen one earlier, but it’s a tenuous and unpersuasive argument, never proved.

The writer can describe problems, but can’t analyze or consider multiple scenarios, and she wrecks her piece by trying to shoehorn it all into a “narrative’ about global warming with insufficient evidence.

Rest assured, she didn’t wreck her piece from the perspective of the agenda she was promoting.

That influential ”narrative” is going to get into the Democratic party line as justification for cartel-led and gang-led illegal immigration, which of course strengthens cartels and gangs at U.S. taxpayer expense.

Global warming means it’s all O.K.., and never mind that detail about Guatemala’s failure to take care of its own people during what in reality is a temporary weather condition for farmers whose capacity to adapt is basically by fleeing north.

Rest assured, Newsom will be up on this by the time he gets out of El Salvador. He’s got to claim he did something other than shovel pork. He’s going there to blame Trump for everything, and global warming is a big low hanging fruit for him.

SOURCE 






Australia: Federal government gives green light to new coalmine

The federal environment minister has given the green light to the controversial Adani Carmichael mine’s groundwater plan, taking it a step closer to construction.

But left leaning lobby group GetUp’s climate campaigner Sam Regester is already warning the decision will cost the Government seats.

“Make no mistake, they will feel the backlash,” he said. “This will cost them seats. The Coalition can expect to lose a swath of seats around Australia for their capitulation to a single coal company at the expense of the community.

“We’re talking about a company who has shown a complete inability to follow the law and Scott Morrison has rushed through a dangerous approval maybe just hours before his Government goes into caretaker mode.”

He said GetUp now plans to make an extra 100,000 calls into Health Minister Greg Hunt’s electorate of Flinders and 80,000 calls into Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg’s electorate of Kooyong.

Environment Minister Melissa Price confirmed today she had signed off on the final plan that Adani needs from the Federal Government for its Carmichael mine. Further approvals are needed from the Queensland Government.

She said science agencies CSIRO and Geoscience Australia had confirmed the company’s revised plans met strict scientific requirements.

“Following this independent assessment and the Department of Environment and Energy’s recommendation for approval, I have accepted the scientific advice and therefore approved the groundwater management plans for the Carmichael coal mine and rail Infrastructure project under Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999,” she said in a statement.

The mine still needs approval from the Queensland Government for its groundwaters plans and its black-throated finch management plan.

“To date, only 16 of 25 environmental plans have been finalised or approved by the commonwealth and Queensland governments with a further nine to be finalised,” Ms Price said. “It must meet further stringent conditions of approval from the commonwealth before it can begin producing coal.”

She said the company had accepted a number of actions including better monitoring of the Doongmabulla Springs, tighter corrective action triggers if there are any groundwater impacts and more scientific modelling within two years of the start of mining.

The federal government is not providing any financial support to the mine or to its rail project, she said.

Ms Price’s approval comes as environmental groups warned of legal challenges if the minister was pushed into signing off on the project.

Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner Christian Slattery said Australians were right to be deeply sceptical about the process that led to this decision.

Queensland coalition MPs have been agitating for the minister to make her decision before Prime Minister Scott Morrison goes to the polls, expected on May 18.

Mr Morrison told reporters on Tuesday the decision would be made by “ministers listening to scientists, not senators listening to themselves”.

Resources Minister Matt Canavan earlier attended a shed meeting in central Queensland on Tuesday with Dawson MP George Christensen to reiterate the government’s support for coal mining.

“This isn’t just about one project or one mine — the Labor party wants to get rid of all coal mines and all coal mining jobs,” Senator Canavan said in a statement afterwards.

“The Liberal-Nationals coalition government backs Queensland resources workers and Queensland’s coal mining communities.”

Adani’s proposed Carmichael coal mine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin is a contentious project that has sparked mass protests around Australia.

In contrast to Queensland electorates — where many are keen for the jobs the mine is hoped to create — many residents in city areas oppose the mine because of potential impacts to climate change and the Great Barrier Reef, as well as concerns over groundwater use and threatened species.

The Coalition is not the only party split over Adani’s plan, with reports Labor is also divided over the coal mine.

Labor leader Bill Shorten is reportedly sceptical about the mine but has not said he would block it from going ahead.

Environmental groups have previously slammed the mine’s plan, which they say is not properly assessed and puts water resources at risk.

SOURCE  

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

*****************************************






9 April, 2019  

Why naive environmentalism is like religious fundamentalism

Excerpts below are from the chapter “Why I Am Not An Environmentalist” in economist Steven Landsburg’s book “Armchair Economics: Economics and Everyday Life,” where he explains why naive environmentalism is like religious fundamentalism:

The naive environmentalism of my daughter’s preschool is a force-fed potpourri of myth, superstition, and ritual that has much in common with the least reputable varieties of religious Fundamentalism.

"Like other coercive ideologies, environmentalism targets children specifically. After my daughter progressed from preschool to kindergarten, her teachers taught her to conserve resources by rinsing out her paper cup instead of discarding it. I explained to her that time is also a valuable resource, and it might be worth sacrificing some cups to save some time. Her teachers taught her that mass transportation is good because it saves energy. I explained to her that it might be worth sacrificing some energy in exchange for the comfort of a private car. Her teachers taught her to recycle paper so that wilderness is not converted to landfill space. I explained to her that it might be worth sacrificing some wilderness in exchange for the luxury of not having to sort your trash. In each case, her five-year-old mind had no difficulty grasping the point. I fear that after a few more years of indoctrination, she will be as uncomprehending as her teachers."

In a letter to his daughter Cayley’s teacher, Landsburg wrote:

"Just as Cayley’s teachers in Colorado were honestly oblivious to the fact that there is diversity in religion, it may be that her teachers here have been honestly oblivious that there is diversity in politics.

Let me then make that diversity clear. We are not environmentalists. We ardently oppose environmentalists. We consider environmentalism a form of mass hysteria akin to Islamic fundamentalism or the War on Drugs. We do not recycle. We teach our daughter not to recycle. We teach her that people who try to convince her to recycle, or who try to force her to recycle, are intruding on her rights.

The entire program of environmentalism is as foreign to us as the doctrine of Christianity (Note: Landsburg is Jewish). We face no current threat of having Christianity imposed on us by petty tyrants; the same can not be said of environmentalism. My county government never tried to send me a New Testament, but it did send me a recycling bin.”

In a footnote at the end of the chapter:

"My friend Alan Stockman has made the point that there seems to be general agreement that it is better to transfer income from the relatively rich to the relatively poor than vice versa. It seems odd then to ask present-day Americans to make sacrifices [e.g. recycling, etc.] for the benefit of future generations who will almost surely be richer than we are."

SOURCE 






Polar Bear Numbers Could Have Quadrupled

Researcher says attempts to silence her have failed

Polar bear numbers could easily exceed 40,000, up from a low point of 10,000 or fewer in the 1960s.

In The Polar Bear Catastrophe that Never Happened, a book published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Dr Susan Crockford uses the latest data as well as revisiting some of the absurd values used in official estimates, and concludes that polar bears are actually thriving:

My scientific estimates make perfect sense and they tally with what the Inuit and other Arctic residents are seeing on the ground. Almost everywhere polar bears come into contact with people, they are much more common than they used to be. It’s a wonderful conservation success story.”

Crockford also describes how, despite the good news, polar bear specialists have consistently tried to low-ball polar bear population figures.

They have also engaged in a relentless smear campaign in an attempt to silence her in order to protect the story of a polar bear catastrophe, and the funding that comes with it.

A few unscrupulous people have been trying to destroy my reputation”, she says. “But the facts are against them, and they have failed”.

SOURCE 






Sidelined because she rejects radical green agendas?

Fish & Wildlife Service director nominee joins hundreds of others in confirmation limbo

Paul Driessen

Aurelia Skipwith has a BS in biology from Howard University, a Master’s in molecular genetics from Purdue and a law degree from Kentucky. She has worked as a molecular analyst and sustainable agriculture partnership manager. She was also co-founder and general counsel for AVC Global, a Washington, DC-based agricultural supply chain development company that helps small farmers link up with multinational buyers and with agronomy, business, financial and other service providers.

For two years, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Interior Department, where she performed her duties so well that last October President Trump nominated her to become the next Director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) at Interior. She is an ideal candidate for the post.

She’s also only the third woman ever nominated for this position – and the first African American. Her impeccable scientific, legal, agricultural and conservationist background would ensure fairness, balance, integrity, solid science and multidisciplinary thinking in FWS decision making.

And yet, Ms. Skipwith lingers in confirmation limbo, along with hundreds of others whose nominations have been stalled for many months to well over a year. Too many Democrat senators appear determined to prevent the president from having people onboard who would implement his policies.

In fact, the US Senate has already been forced to hold cloture votes – ending drawn-out debates – on 128 Trump nominees! In glaring contrast, the Senate had a grand total of only 24 such cloture votes for all six previous presidents combined: Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush II and Obama! That’s 32 times more nominees by this president sidelined by Congress than during all ten previous presidential terms.

Why is Ms. Skipwith being treated this way? It appears to be simple ideological politics. Senate Democrats seem to be acquiescing to the demands of Deep Green environmentalists and Deep State career bureaucrats who hate having their views, policies and agendas challenged.

Her molecular analysis and sustainable agriculture work were with Monsanto, the ultimate Evil Corporation to many of her opponents, because it manufactures both Roundup weedkiller and genetically engineered (GE) crops like Bt corn and Roundup-Ready soybeans. As Deputy Assistant Secretary, Ms. Skipwith supported reversing Obama era bans on planting such crops and using advanced-technology neonicotinoid pesticides in wildlife refuges administered by Fish & Wildlife.

The 2014 bans resulted from collusive sue-and-settle lawsuits between environmentalist groups and Obama DOI officials. They were reversed in August 2018, following a careful review process. As I have noted in many articles (here, here and here, for example), GE crops, glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup) and neonics are safe for humans and the environment. They also enable farmers to produce more food from less land, using less water and fewer pesticides, and with greater resistance to droughts, floods, insects and climate change, than is possible with conventional or organic crops.

Genetically engineered crops promote sustainable agriculture and help the world feed billions who otherwise face prolonged malnutrition and starvation. And yet, radical greens oppose them. They even attack Golden Rice, which prevents blindness and death in malnourished children and parents, by incorporating genes that produce Vitamin A precursors, vastly expanding nutritional values in rice.

Americans alone have consumed more than four trillion servings of foods with at least one GE ingredient – without a single documented example of harm to a person or the environment.

Regarding glyphosate, only one agency, the International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC), says the chemical is “probably carcinogenic” to humans – and its analysis is tainted by fraud and blatant conflicts of interest. Studies by the European Food Safety Authority, Food and Agriculture Organization, Germany’s Institute for Risk Assessment, Australia’s Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, and other respected organizations worldwide have concluded that glyphosate is safe and non-carcinogenic.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists conducted a “comprehensive systematic review of studies submitted to the agency and available in the open literature,” and concluded that the chemical “is not likely to be carcinogenic in humans.” Health Canada conducted a similarly extensive review of global studies, found no likely cancer risk, and noted that “no pesticide regulatory authority in the world” believes glyphosate is a cancer risk to humans “at the levels at which humans are currently exposed.”

As cancer researcher Arthur Lambert noted recently, “exposure to carcinogens influences the risk of developing cancer, which is a function of many factors, including the dose and duration of the exposure” – to glyphosate for example. But other factors also play integral roles, including inherited genes and genetic mutations, how well one’s immune system can find and eliminate mutated cells before they develop into cancer, personal lifestyle choices, and exposure to additional carcinogens over the years. Separating all those factors is virtually impossible.

Risks associated with glyphosate fall “somewhere between the small hazard that comes from eating a considerable amount of bacon (for colorectal cancer) and consuming very hot tea (for esophageal cancer),” Lambert notes. In fact, IARC lumps bacon, sunlight and plutonium together in its “definitely carcinogenic” category and lists as “possible” carcinogens pickled vegetables, caffeic acid found in many fruits and vegetables, and even drinking hot beverages or working the night shift.

If glyphosate poses few risks of cancer in humans, its threats to ducks, geese, turkeys and other animals in wildlife refuges are likely infinitesimal. The same is true for GE crops and neonicotinoid pesticides.

Most neonics are used as seed coatings, which get absorbed into plant tissues as crops grow. They protect plants against insect damage by targeting only pests that actually feed on the crops – and are largely gone by the time mature plants flower, which means they are barely detectable in pollen and don’t harm bees.

As to claims that neonics harm bees and thus should be banned from wildlife refuges, a 2015 international study of wild bees found that most wild bees never even come into contact with crops or the neonics that supposedly threaten them. The same study also determined that the 2% of wild bees that do visit crops – and so would be most exposed to these pesticides – are among the healthiest bee species on Earth.

The eight senators who recently expressed concern that chlorpyrifos and other pesticides threaten multiple protected species should applaud Interior’s reversal of bans on modern agricultural technologies (which reduce the use of such pesticides). Ducks Unlimited and the National Wild Turkey Federation certainly did.

The bans “were clearly not based on science,” they said, adding that the reversal restored GE crop use as an “essential tool” for waterfowl and wildlife management in national wildlife refuges. Many refuges were established along migratory bird flyways to provide food for waterfowl. But some can provide sufficient food only through cooperative agreements that let local farmers plant crops on refuge lands in exchange for leaving some of their crops unharvested, to supplement natural food on the refuge.

Genetically modified crops maximize crop yields, the FWS has explained, and “a blanket denial” of their use limits the latitude that refuge managers need to fulfill the purposes of each refuge. The ban on neonics was equally problematical because they are often used with GE crops and Roundup.

Aurelia Skipwith’s actions reflect the best in science-based (government decision making. Her broad expertise enables her to separate fact from fiction, and reality from ideological agendas. She is the right person for this job – and indeed may turn out to be one of the best FWS directors ever.

Now that Mitch McConnell has reformed Senate rules to end Democrat obstruction, responsible senators should confirm her forthwith – along with the rest of President Trump’s nominees.

Via email






Nearly Half of N.H. Voters Just Say No To Paying For Green New Deal

Presidential hopefuls get big cheers from New Hampshire crowds when they tout their support for the Green New Deal. But when it comes actually paying for it, Granite Staters have a different message:

Forget it.

An exclusive New Hampshire Journal poll asked local voters how much more per month they are willing to pay in their utility bills “to achieve the goals of the Green New Deal.” The top answer: None.

Nearly half — 46 percent– said they aren’t willing to pay any more on behalf of the highly-publicized climate change initiative. And of those who are, fewer than half are willing to pay any more than just $10 per month.

The Green New Deal is being offered as a plan to address concerns over climate change. How much more per month would you be willing to pay in your heating or electric bill to achieve the goals of the Green New Deal?

You would not be willing to pay any more per month                46.2

You would be willing to pay up to $10 more per month             28.7

You would be willing to pay up to $50 more per month               8.6

You would be willing to pay up to $100 more per month             4.7

You would be willing to pay over $100 more per month               3.3

Not sure                                                                                                                8.5

That $10 figure stands in stark contrast to the expected costs of converting to a carbon-free energy grid, which the most conservative estimates project will cost thousands of dollars per household.  Robert Pollin at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, for example, says the cost would be “manageable” at $600 billion a year for 30 years, which works out to about $4,500 in yearly costs to every American household.

The percentage of Granite Staters willing to pay even $100 or more per month in higher energy bills?

Three percent.

This hasn’t stopped almost all of the top-tier Democratic 2020 presidential candidates from endorsing the Green New Deal, including the six sitting U.S. Senators in the race. All of them are co-sponsors of the Green New Deal resolution — the same resolution just voted down 57-0 on the Senate floor last week.

“Politicians promoting policies that raise [energy] rates think they’ve got the people on their side, but they’re just hearing from a small segment of voters,” Marc Brown of the New England Ratepayers Association told NHJournal. “This poll proves what we’ve been saying all along: They need to think about the ratepayers.”

But Democratic presidential candidates are thinking about primary voters, not ratepayers. And among New Hampshire Democrats, 71.5 percent said they were willing to spend more on behalf of the Green New Deal, though only a third are willing to spend more than $10 per month. And younger voters (18-24), a key demographic in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, are also far more enthusiastic about bearing the costs. More than 80 percent say they’re willing to pay.

And it’s not just in New Hampshire. A November 2018 national survey released by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found similar results. In that poll, 43 percent of respondents were unwilling to pay even a single dollar in higher energy costs to fight climate change.

The question is how will that translate in a general election against President Trump?

Not well, apparently. Among Granite State Republicans, 68 percent oppose any increase in their utility bills, as do 46 percent of undeclared voters. And while a mere 10 percent of Democrats are willing to pay $100 or more on the Green New Deal, the percentage among both Republicans and independents is zero.

“The Green New Deal is just a way to energize the Democrat base,” says New Hampshire GOP strategist Mike Dennehy. “These poll numbers illustrate that the Republican base, and pocketbook independents, will get equally as fired up in opposition. You can count on this being a top issue in the 2020 general election – up and down the ballot.  Democrats will push Republican candidates on their support of Trump and Republicans will push Democrats on their support of the job-killing Green New Deal.”

The poll of registered voters was conducted by Praecones Analytica between March 26-28 and has a weighted margin of error of +/- 4.86 percent.

SOURCE 






Australia: Coal mine protesters have stormed the stage while Prime Minister Scott Morrison addressed the Valley Chamber of Commerce in Brisbane today, before another group stood up chanting as he tried to continue

The usual Leftist authoritarianism.  They are Stalin's kin

TWO Adani protesters have stormed the stage while Prime Minister Scott Morrison addressed the Valley Chamber of Commerce in Brisbane today.

Mr Morrison began his speech asking “how good is Trevor Evans?” when a protester ran onto the stage holding a “stop Adani” poster.

Security removed the woman and the Prime Minister tried to continue his speech but was interrupted by a second protester also storming the stage.

Mr Morrison laughed off the incident, asking if there were any contestants for round three.

A third protester stood up in the crowd saying the Prime Minister was forgetting about climate change.

Mr Morrison said he “would get to climate change” before the man was escorted out by security.

A fourth group stood up, this time chanting, before also being escorted out.

The protests followed the entire lockdown of the building after Adani protesters gathered outside the building, chanting against the Government.

It comes after the PM blasted vegan activists as “green-collared criminals” for targeting farmers and causing traffic chaos today.

A farm in Queensland’s Darling Downs was one of several properties targeted, while in Melbourne nearly 40 activists were arrested.

PRIME Minister Scott Morrison has reignited his election campaign in southeast Queensland today, saying Opposition Leader Bill Shorten “doesn’t get how Australians like to live” and has slammed Labor’s plans to increase electric vehicles.

Visiting GCI Group, a laser cutting service at Yatala, Mr Morrison said Shorten was taking away the choices of the nation’s people.

“Bill Shorten is not going to give people a choice in the future — electric vehicles currently make 0.2 per cent of the vehicle market in Australia and he wants to take it to 50 per cent but it’s not just that, it’s also the carbon emissions per kilometre that he’s imposing on the economy,” he said.

“What Bill Shorten wants to corral people into as part of his plan is out of the sort of lifestyle that are supported by the vehicles that people are currently buying.

“So I think it just shows he doesn’t get how Australians like to live. We’re leaving the choice in the hands of Australians — Bill Shorten wants to take that choice away.”

Regarding Adani, the Prime Minister said the Government would be taking advice from scientists.

“We’re taking the advice from scientists like we have on all the approvals of both the state and commonwealth … we’re following the normal administrative process on that … I don’t think there is anything particularly unique about these remaining matters — they’re quite minor matters,” he said.

“In the scheme of the broader approvals that have already been provided, and like in all the other cases, we will be relying on the scientific evidence that is provided to the Government when making that decision.”

Mr Morrison made no confirmation of the election date and simply said it would be in May.

SOURCE  

***************************************

For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

*****************************************







8 April, 2019  

Judge blocks offshore drilling

By Craig Rucker

Good grief! Yet another bold initiative by the President to strengthen American energy security is thwarted by a liberal judge legislating from the bench.

This happened last Friday when U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason (an Obama appointee) slapped down President Trump’s move to open up the Chukchi Sea in the Artic, as well as other places in the Atlantic, for oil and gas drilling.

The Greens, naturally, were ecstatic:

“President Trump’s lawlessness is catching up with him,” Earthjustice attorney Erik Grafe said.  “The judge’s ruling today re-affirms that we are a nation of laws and shows that the president cannot just trample on the constitution at the expense of our oceans, wildlife, and climate.”

Lawlessness? Really? This from Green groups which have never had a qualm blocking roads to stop logging trucks, trespassing on private grounds to drop banners from corporate office buildings, or sometimes engaging in acts of “eco-terrorism” to prove a point? Give me a break.

It was Obama who issued a ban on Arctic and Atlantic drilling under the authority of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA). He did this via “executive order.”

What the green gaggle led by Earth Justice argued before the court was that the OCSLA only allows Presidents to withdraw areas from offshore oil leasing and development, it does not grant Presidents (especially a President like Trump) the authority to reinstate that development – now or at any point in the future. Only Congress, they say, can do that.

The judge dutifully swallowed their reasoning hook, line and sinker.

Fortunately the Trump administration is appealing this decision. We wish them Godspeed. The judge’s ruling flies in the face of reason – especially when it is commonplace that executive orders issued by one President are easily rescinded whenever a new resident of the Oval office takes charge. That is the way it has been done in the past, and the way it should continue in the future.

What the Greens are obviously trying to do is to place executive actions concerning the Arctic, and even their grander ones, like the Paris Accord, beyond the reach of any future president. The Paris accord, for example, allows a country to petition to withdraw, which Trump did – but that takes several years to be approved by the UN. This way the Greens have an opportunity to gather their forces and try and elect another president, more to their liking – one that will get back onboard with the program. It’s a sham.

The Left is trying to lock in their extremist policies and forever prevent the electorate from rolling them back. In this, they must not prevail. America’s regulatory process must never be run like the “Hotel California,” a place where “you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”

SOURCE 





Judge tosses kids’ lawsuit against Trump climate policies

Rejecting a claim by Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council and attorneys representing two Pennsylvania school boys that people have a constitutionally guaranteed due process right to a “life-sustaining climate,” a federal Judge has dismissed a bizarre legal case challenging the Trump administration’s climate policies.

In his Fen. 19 decision, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Diamond said the plaintiffs lacked standing. And in dismissing the case, Clean Air Council v. United States, Judge Diamond granted the request by President Trump, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, and other administration officials.

The case dates to November 2017 when the two boys, aged 7 and 11 at the time, attributed their respective ailments, severe allergies and asthma, to Trump administration policies rolling back Obama-era climate initiatives. Judge Diamond showed little patience with plaintiffs willing to clog up an already overburdened court system with an issue that was best dealt with outside the judicial sphere.

“A Policy Debate Best Left to the Political Process”

“Plaintiffs’ disagreement with the defendants is a policy debate best left to the political process,” Diamond wrote. “Because I have neither the authority nor the inclination to assume control of the Executive Branch, I will grant defendants’ motion.” Diamond scoffed at what he interpreted as a request by the plaintiffs that he “supervise any action that the President and his appointees take that might touch on ‘the environment.’”

Judge Diamond was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2004.

Joseph Otis Minott, the Clean Air Council’s executive director and chief counsel, was defiant in defeat, claiming in a statement that Trump administration policies “are increasing U.S. contribution to climate change … and violating our constitutional rights.

Diamond Rebukes Judge in Controversial Oregon Ruling

As reported by Environment & Climate News (March 25), Judge Diamond did more than just dismiss Minott’s claims in the Pennsylvania case. He took the extraordinary step of rebuking U.S. District Court of Oregon Judge Ann Aiken for her ruling in Juliana v. United States, which involved 21 children suing the federal government over climate change. When Aiken ordered the lawsuit to trial in 2016, she said “the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society.” As pointed out by Climate Liability News (Feb. 20), Aiken’s ruling that the young plaintiffs had a Constitutional right to a livable climate was the first such ruling by a U.S. judge.

Pointing out that Aiken’s ruling is at odds with previous court decisions, Diamond wrote that “the Julianna Court certainly contravened or ignored longstanding precedent.” He added that guaranteeing a stable climate would be “apparently without limit.”

Diamond also took issue with the notion that the judiciary has a role in climate policy and criticized Aiken’s public trust claims in Juliana, saying it was an incorrect expansion of that doctrine beyond the traditional concept governing navigable waters.

“Plaintiffs seek to create an entirely new doctrine – investing the Federal Government with an affirmative duty to protect all land and resources within the United States,” Diamond wrote. “The Julianna Court alone has recognized this new doctrine. Again, the Court’s reasoning is less than persuasive.”

“Noble Lie on Steroids”

Christopher Horner, an attorney and senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, is pleased that Judge Diamond singled out Judge Aiken’s Oregon ruling.

“The federal court in Pennsylvania threw the suit out and in the process was fairly direct in criticizing the Oregon judge’s activism in supporting the demand for a climate plan ‘without apparent limit,’” which if you know anything about the issue is the most alarming aspect – not even the most extreme treaties purport a detectable impact on climate even if you accept their fairly well-debunked assumptions,” Horner told Environment & Climate News. “Such a ruling would offer the ruling class a bottomless well of authority usurpation of liberty and suffering in the name of something it actually would not affect. It is the Noble Lie on steroids, possibly the most Noble Lie ever perpetrated.”

“Even if you accept arguendo the alarmists’ model assumptions, the U.S. disappearing would make no difference, with our sacrifice swamped by increases in the developing world,” he added. “Take into account their alarmist scenarios are proved wrong, and this is just a political prescription, not anything to do with climate. Climate is an excuse to abandon our democratic process of separation of powers, and not a very good one.”

In both the Pennsylvania and Oregon cases, children were recruited as plaintiffs to serve the agenda of climate alarmists. Seeing this for the exploitation that it clearly is, Judge Diamond took the trouble to lambaste Judge Aiken’s judicial recklessness in allowing the political ploy to serve as the basis of a far-reaching court decision.

SOURCE 







2020 climate madness looms

The year 2020 is shaping up to be one of madness when it comes to the climate change debate. Several huge milestones are in the cards and these cards are on the table.

One is the US Presidential election, where the entire world wants to see if President Trump can pull off another skeptical miracle (or curse, depending on who you ask). The official date for the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is the day after the election, so that too may hang in the balance.

In UN-world there are two monster milestones in 2020. By far the biggest is that the mythical $100 billion a year is supposed to start flowing from America and the rest of the supposedly guilty developed countries, to the developing countries, who claim to be suffering increasingly bad weather because of our prosperity.

In addition, under the Paris Agreement pretty much all of the countries in the world are supposed to raise the level of ambition in their national climate action plans. Note that for the developing countries these action plans are contingent on getting the $100 billion a year, thus there is a close connection.

So if Trump wins and the big bucks don’t show the whole house of green cards just might collapse. This is going to make for a very tense (and loud) year on the climate change front.

Things are already heating up here in 2019. Topping the list is the truly extreme Green New Deal proposal. Most of the Democrat presidential candidates have endorsed the GND, which guarantees it will be a major nomination issue. If a Green New Dealer gets the nomination it will also be a huge election issue, maybe even the deciding one.

The Republican Senate artlessly failed to debate the explosive GND, while the wily Democrat House has silently buried it under eleven different Committees. But while Congress may never vote on the GND, it is not about to go away, quite the opposite. The Presidential race guarantees it a large life, at least until the Democrat National Convention.

While so far avoiding the GND, the Democrats running the U.S. House have promised to introduce a never ending series of separate and distinct climate activist bills. The goal of this piecework strategy is to make climate change a big 2020 election issue, no matter who their candidate is.

On the UN side the Secretary General Antonio Guterres is hosting a special September meeting of national governments, specifically designed to elicit increased ambitions in their new 2020 climate action plans. It is billed as the “plans not speeches” meeting.

Unlike the usual UN talkathon, in this case the proposals to speak are apparently being screened for punch. The Secretary General’s invitation is reported as including this unusually tough talk:

“This summit will be action-oriented. The deliverables and initiatives that will be showcased need to be implementable, scalable and replicable and have the potential to get us in line with the commitments of the Paris Agreement.”

In a parallel article in Britain’s ever-green Guardian newspaper, Guterres says: “I am calling on all leaders to come to New York in September with concrete, realistic plans to enhance their nationally determined contributions by 2020.” Ominously, there is also a special track on the “mobilization of youth“.

At this point it is far from clear that any major country is prepared to up their ambition, which might make the meeting a bust. The US is certainly out, even though the meeting is at UN HQ in New York. A lot of the green majors are facing the rapid emergence of skeptical conservative opposition parties, so they are running scared. Germany is a good example. Some, like Brazil, have even been taken over by skeptics, in Trump-like fashion.

So all things considered, 2020 may be the year of the climate crescendo. The volume is certainly picking up here in 2019. Why not, given that in some ways the world order is on the line. It is certainly about time we had a serious debate over climate change policy.

Let the big fight begin.

SOURCE 






New York Yankees Align with Paris Climate Agreement, Sign UN Sports for Climate Action Framework

The New York Yankees baseball organization has aligned itself with the Paris Agreement by signing on to the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework.

According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) website, the pinstripes from New York became the first major North American sports team to sign on to the Framework that was launched by UN Climate Change and the sports sector at COP24 on Dec. 11, 2018 “to gather sports organizations, teams, athletes, and fans in a concerted effort to raise awareness and action to meet the goals of the Paris [Climate Change] Agreement.”

The goal of the Framework is to “drive emission reductions of sports operations and tap the popularity and passion of sport to engage millions of fans in the effort.”

March 21, 2019 marked the 25th anniversary of the UNFCC, and UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa had the following to say about the Yankees joining the cause:

“I applaud the New York Yankees, this legendary club with its legions of passionate fans, for taking this important step, signing on to the Sports for Climate Action Framework. We need leading organizations like the Yankees to stand up for ambitious action on climate change for the good of the planet and present and future generations.”

The Yankees join International Olympic Committee, FIFA, the French Tennis Federation-Roland Garros, Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, Rugby League World Cup 2021, Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, UEFA, World Surf League, Formula E and other signatories sin committing to support the following principles laid out by the UNFCCC: “Undertake systematic efforts to promote greater environmental responsibility; Reduce overall climate impact; Educate for climate action; Promote sustainable and responsible consumption; [and] Advocate for climate action through communication.”

SOURCE 




   

Senate energy committee approves Trump’s pick to lead interior

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted to move David Bernhardt’s nomination to lead the Interior Department in front of the full Senate Thursday morning.

The committee approved Bernhardt’s nomination in a 14 to 6 vote despite concerns by some Democrats. Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine joined the committee’s Republicans to advance Bernhardt’s nomination.

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon called for the committee to delay Bernhardt’s vote Wednesday over allegations that Bernhardt, currently the acting Interior secretary, interfered with an environmental assessment of proposed changes to federal and state water policy. The Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General is reviewing the allegations.

The Interior Department’s chief ethics official Scott de la Vega has cleared Bernhardt of any misconduct related to the environmental assessment. Bernhardt testified in front of the committee March 28 that he delayed publishing the report to put it through a legal review.

Allegations of misconduct and conflicts of interest have hounded Bernhardt’s nomination process.

“I think it’s very clear you have well-funded groups that are working hard, working energetically against his nomination,” GOP Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who chairs the committee, said ahead of the vote, according to Reuters.

The Western Values Project, a group campaigning against Bernhardt’s nomination, called the committee vote to advance the “conflict-ridden” Bernhardt nomination a “mistake.”

“It’s no surprise that a group of Senators who owe so much to special interest lobbyists would support this choice for Interior Secretary,” Western Values Project Director Chris Saeger said in a statement. “For the last two years, conflict-ridden David Bernhardt has tipped the scales in favor of former clients, likely violating his ethics pledge and responsibilities to the American people.”

SOURCE 

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

*****************************************






7 April, 2019  

Humans Have Caused the Most Dramatic Climate Change in 3 Million Years

The stuff below is more a game than science.  The parameters put into the model were not based on independent statistics. They were simply chosen to give the results wanted.  Let them play their games.  They are no evidence of anything

The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today is likely higher than it has been anytime in the past 3 million years. This rise in the level of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, could bring temperatures not seen over that entire timespan, according to new research.

The study researchers used computer modeling to examine the changes in climate during the Quaternary period, which started around 2.59 million years ago and continues into today. Over that period, Earth has undergone a number of changes, but none so rapid as those seen today, said study author Matteo Willeit, a postdoctoral climate researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. [Photographic Proof of Climate Change: Time-Lapse Images of Retreating Glaciers]

"To get a climate warmer than the present, you basically have to go back to a different geological period," Willeit told Live Science.

3 million years of climate

The Quaternary period began with a period of glaciation, when ice sheets stole down from Greenland to cover much of North America and northern Europe. At first, these glaciers advanced and retreated on a 41,000-year cycle, driven by changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun, Willeit said.

But between 1.25 million and 0.7 million years ago, these glacial and interglacial cycles stretched out, re-occurring every 100,000 years or so, a phenomenon called the mid-Pleistocene transition because of the epoch in which it occurred. The question, Willeit said, is what caused the transition, given that the pattern of variations in Earth's orbit hadn't changed.

Willeit and his team used an advanced computer simulation of the Quaternary to try to answer that question. Models are only as good as the parameters included, and this one included a lot: atmospheric conditions, ocean conditions, vegetation, global carbon, dust and ice sheets. The researchers included what is known about the parameters and then tweaked them to see what conditions could create the mid-Pleistocene transition.

How things have changed

The team found that for 41,000-year glacial cycles to change to 100,000-year cycles, two things had to happen: Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had to decline, and glaciers had to scour away a layer of sediment called the regolith.

Carbon dioxide may have declined for different reasons, Willeit said, such as a decrease in the greenhouse gas spewing from volcanoes, or changes in the weathering rate of rocks, which would lead to more carbon becoming locked up in sediments carried to the bottom of the sea. Less carbon in the atmosphere meant less heat being trapped, so the climate would have cooled to the point where large ice sheets could form more easily.

Geologic processes provided the crucial second ingredient for longer glacial cycles. When continents are ice-free for long periods of time, they acquire a top layer of ground-up, unconsolidated rock called regolith. Earth's moon is a good place to see an example today: The moon's thick dust layer is a regolith.

Ice that forms on top of this regolith tends to be less stable than ice that forms on firm bedrock, Willeit said (imagine the difference in stability between a surface made of ball bearings versus that of a flat table top). Similarly, regolith-based ice sheets flow faster and stay thinner than ice does. When changes in the Earth's orbit alter the amount of heat that hits the Earth's surface, the ice sheets are particularly prone to melting.

But glaciers also bulldoze regolith away, pushing the dusty stuff to their glacial edges. This glacial scouring re-exposes the bedrock; after a few glacial cycles in the early Quaternary, the bedrock would have been exposed, giving newly forming ice sheets a firmer place to anchor, Willeit said. These resilient ice sheets, plus a cooler climate, resulted in the longer glacial cycles seen after about a million years ago. Interglacial periods still occurred because of orbital changes, but they became shorter.

SOURCE 






Schumer: ‘If There Were Ever Evidence of Global Warming or of Climate Change This Would Be It’

Chucky doesn't believe in statistics.  But Leftists don't believe in history generally, for that matter

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor on Tuesday that the natural disasters the United States has experienced over the last two years—including a major hurricane in Puerto Rico—are evidence that “global warming” is in fact taking place.

"Over the last 2 years, the American people have endured staggering natural disasters that have devastated communities across the country,” Schumer said.

“These Americans need help. They need help now,” he said.

“I would parenthetically add, if there were ever evidence of global warming or of climate change, this would be it--despite the fact that just about every Republican has his head or her head in the sand and won’t admit it.”

Schumer made the remarks while criticizing President Donald Trump’s opposition to providing additional disaster relief to Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico was hit by Hurricane Maria in September 2017. “Maria was a very severe Cape Verde Hurricane that ravaged the island of Dominca at category 5 (on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) intensity, and later devastated Puerto Rico as a high-end category 4 hurricane,” says a report on the storm published by the National Weather Service.

“It also inflicted serious damage on some of the other islands of the northeastern Caribbean Sea,” says the NWS report. “Maria is the third costliest hurricane in United States history.”

Here is the excerpt from Schumer’s speech where he discusses the disaster assistance and the evidence for global warming:

“Mr. President, the Senate failed to pass emergency relief funding yesterday to help the American families recovering from natural disasters. It failed for one reason--the Republicans removed critical aid for Puerto Rico and other territories from the House bill after President Trump told them to do it. Under this administration and with Leader McConnell's blessing, even disaster relief has now become political.

“I don't need to litigate why we are here. Over the last 2 years, the American people have endured staggering natural disasters that have devastated communities across the country. These Americans need help. They need help now. I would parenthetically add, if there were ever evidence of global warming or of climate change, this would be it despite the fact that just about every Republican has his head or her head in the sand and will not admit it.

“Regardless of what you think the causes were, Americans have always stood together when American citizens have been hit by disaster. We band together and say we are going to help one another--all American citizens, all. Yet one part of America is not being treated like the others, and why not? It is because President Trump, for reasons that defy decency, harbors an apparent contempt for the people of Puerto Rico. He tweeted again last night and erroneously claimed that $91 billion has been afforded the people of Puerto Rico. He ridiculed the leadership that has desperately tried to rebuild the island in the wake of these megastorms.

“Let's get the facts straight. The Republicans know the storms that hit Puerto Rico over a year ago were not ordinary storms; they know these were historic catastrophes. We are talking about the deadliest disasters to hit American soil in over a century. We are talking about the worst power outage in American history. We are talking about 3,000 lives lost. Yet here we are, 18 months later, and the island hasn't recovered.

“It is surreal that a disaster so awful has been met with a Presidential response that is so tepid and so heartless. It is surreal that our Republican colleagues go along with this and say we are not going to help Puerto Rico in the way that is needed. Billions in funding for recovery and mitigation efforts right now remain locked in the Treasury. Congress already appropriated $20 billion that the administration has not allocated. All we want to do is make sure the money is allocated. That is one of the things we want to do.

“Are our Republican colleagues opposed to that? That is what it sounds like. Some of them say it is political. What is political is President Trump's saying no aid for Puerto Rico and having the Republicans jump in line, even those with many Puerto Ricans in their States. Make no mistake, we have reached this impasse because the President has said himself he opposes help for Puerto Rico, and the Republicans follow along.

“Some of my colleagues from the other side came up with another shibboleth; that we opposed the House bill because it didn't provide funding for the Midwest. First of all, the House bill was aimed at disasters in 2018, not in 2019. Second, Senator Leahy offered an amendment that would have added funding for the Middle West and funding for Puerto Rico. What did the Republicans do? They blocked it anyway.

“So this undoes their fantasy that the Democrats are opposed to aid for the Middle West. Senator Leahy and I will be offering an amendment that will give aid to the Midwest and to Puerto Rico. Let's see where our Republican colleagues stand. Will they block that too?

“Yesterday's vote boiled down to a simple question: Do the Republicans believe the people of Puerto Rico deserve relief for their natural disasters as do all Americans? Do they believe the families of Puerto Rico--whatever you think of this elected official in Puerto Rico--deserve to be helped just like the families of the Midwest and California?”

SOURCE 







Now paper bags are bad

NEW YORK – Two city council members have announced plans for legislation to place a fee on paper shopping bags.

The proposal follows the state banning most single-use plastic bags beginning next March.

Under the new law, each municipality has the option of imposing a 5-cent fee on paper bags.

The goal of the fee is to encouraging people to shift to re-usable bags.

SOURCE 






Fake pollution research

Duke University will pay $112 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit after federal prosecutors said a research technician's fake data landed millions of dollars in federal grants, the school and the government said Monday.

The private university in Durham submitted claims for dozens of research grants that contained falsified or fabricated information that unjustly drained taxpayer money from the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies, the U.S. Justice Department said. The school said it is repaying grant money and related penalties.

"Taxpayers expect and deserve that federal grant dollars will be used efficiently and honestly," local U.S. Attorney Matthew G.T. Martin said in a statement. "May this serve as a lesson that the use of false or fabricated data in grant applications or reports is completely unacceptable."

The lawsuit was first filed in 2015 by whistleblower and former Duke employee Joseph Thomas. The Justice Department took it over afterward. The suit claims the faked research was conducted by former research technician Erin Potts-Kant, who was supervised by pulmonary medicine researcher William Michael Foster. Foster's lab experimented with mice, seeking to determine the effects of inhaling diesel exhaust, among other tests. Several research papers by Foster's team were later retracted.

"We expect Duke researchers to adhere always to the highest standards of integrity, and virtually all of them do that with great dedication," university President Vincent Price said in a statement. "When individuals fail to uphold those standards, and those who are aware of possible wrongdoing fail to report it, as happened in this case, we must accept responsibility, acknowledge that our processes for identifying and preventing misconduct did not work, and take steps to improve."

The settlement was announced on the same day that U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles had scheduled a hearing on why the deal supposedly struck in November hadn't been finalized by the Justice Department.

The government alleged that between 2006 and 2018 Duke knowingly submitted faked data to federal agencies in 30 grants. The university had warning signs that some of the research was fraudulent but didn't act until discovering in 2013 that Potts-Kant had siphoned off money for spending on clothes and other items, the lawsuit said.

Duke University said the technician pleaded guilty to two counts of forgery in state court and paid the school restitution. Foster retired in 2015, university spokesman Michael Schoenfeld said.

Thomas, the whistleblower, will get $33.75 million from the settlement, the government said.

SOURCE 







A New Climate For Climate?

How the Green New Deal jolted Washington

When a group of more than 20 protesters showed up in the halls of the U.S. Senate on a recent February day, they would have been forgiven for expecting a chilly reception. For the past seven months, sit-ins at a range of offices—from California Governor Jerry Brown’s to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s—had followed a similar pattern: show up, sing songs, get led away in handcuffs for disrupting the peace. But on that particular Wednesday, things were different.

Instead of being dismissed or arrested, this band of environmental activists from a group known as the Sunrise Movement was warmly welcomed. Democratic Senators’ aides applauded their songs, led them to back offices for meetings and cheered their efforts. “It starts with what you’re doing, from the bottom on up,” Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders told them. “I just want to thank you.” In the weeks that followed, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, after years of near radio silence on climate change, gave a series of speeches on the chamber floor. “For the first time in a long time, the Senate is finally debating the issue of climate change, and if you ask me, it’s about time,” he said. “Climate change is an urgent crisis and an existential threat.”

It’s not just Democrats who suddenly want to focus on climate change. President Trump seized the opportunity to double down on his denial of climate science, while other Republicans began recalibrating their messaging. Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, an ardent defender of the President who introduced a bill in 2017 to eliminate the EPA, responded to Trump by tweeting, “Climate change is real.” In December, John Cornyn of Texas, who until recently served in GOP Senate leadership, tweeted positively about a tax on carbon emissions, and a month later, Republican Representative Francis Rooney of Florida and Democratic colleagues joined to introduce a carbon-tax measure in the House.

A February NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey found that two-thirds of Republicans believe their party is “outside the mainstream” on the issue.

Into this new political reality came the Green New Deal—equal parts policy proposal and battle cry. The resolution, introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez of New York and Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, calls for the U.S. to launch a broad “mobilization” to decarbonize the economy while tackling a slew of other social ills. The response was mixed. People loved it. People loathed it. Others were confused by it. But in D.C., where climate has long been relegated to third-tier status, lawmakers could no longer avoid the issue.

Within weeks of the proposal’s release, Democrats competed to burnish their green credentials. Nearly every Democratic candidate for the 2020 presidential nomination has endorsed the Green New Deal. Washington Governor Jay Inslee entered the race on a climate-themed campaign— something unthinkable just a few years ago, when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump didn’t field a single question about climate change in their presidential debates.

Some Republicans scrambled to counter what they saw as a liberal threat: if they didn’t come up with a viable climate position, at least one they could point to rhetorically, they risked further ceding the issue to the Democrats, whose proposal they decry as socialist overreach. Behind the scenes, Republicans gathered in working groups trying to grasp for a solution. Major corporations— including in the oil-and-gas industry— pulled out their checkbooks to support conservative climate measures.

Even before Ocasio-cortez released her Green New Deal resolution, critics had begun to scrutinize the program, using every detail as a chance to condemn it. A congressional newcomer, Ocasio-Cortez has developed a reputation for taking critics and their talking points head-on, but in a recent interview with TIME she rejected the idea that she should have to defend the particulars.

“It’s a statement. It’s a vision document. And people want to pick it apart to death,” she says, agreeing with those who liken her proposal to the “bold persistent experimentation” that President Franklin Roosevelt advocated to end the Great Depression. “I hope that we start to get to more of an experimental spirit in government,” she says.

Thomas Friedman first coined the term Green New Deal in a 2007 New York Times column and described the program as government “seeding basic research, providing loan guarantees where needed and setting standards, taxes and incentives.” Van Jones, the activist and political commentator, published The Green Collar Economy in 2008, about solving inequality and climate change at the same time. Chapter 4, titled “The Green New Deal,” outlined his vision for a program that would “birth a just and green economy.”

Around the same time, Inslee, then a Congressman, wrote Apollo’s Fire, highlighting stories of Americans’ benefiting from clean energy and calling for a moon-shot-like program to invest in a green economy. These ideas were so popular that Senators Barack Obama and John Mccain pushed for green jobs in their 2008 presidential campaigns, and a handful of states have adopted some Green New Deal policies in recent years.

In California’s agricultural region, for example, former Fresno mayor Ashley Swearengin, a Republican, initiated a comprehensive plan to establish new transit options and redevelop the local economy while reducing greenhouse- gas emissions by 40%. The state as a whole has a plan to achieve 100% carbon- free electricity, a vision that’s gaining adherents in cities big and small and in a range of states from New Mexico to New York. “It’s not radical. By no stretch of imagination,” says Kevin de León, a Democrat who spearheaded many of California’s climate initiatives as president pro tempore of the state senate. California’s GDP is larger than that of all but four countries and its economy continues to thrive, he says, dismissing the critique that environmental reform would kill economic growth.

Still, the Green New Deal faces pushback not just from the political right but also from labor—a longtime stalwart of the Democratic Party. In early March, the AFL-CIO published a stinging critique of the proposal, calling it unrealistic and a threat to “members’ jobs and their families’ standard of living.” The oil-and-gas industry in particular supports millions of jobs, and while the text of the Green New Deal calls for a “just transition” to other industries, it offers few details. Republicans latched on to a talking point suggesting that the proposal would turn the U.S. into another Venezuela, pointing to the resolution’s inclusion of a job guarantee and universal health care, goals that many Democrats agree have no place in a climate package.

But if this ambitious climate plan seemed likely to wrench lawmakers further apart, it may actually do the opposite. In an era of festering dysfunction in Congress, all the green talk has actually sprouted green shoots, encouraging a national discussion around climate and, improbably, creating an opportunity to push real legislation. “If you care about moving the solution up the agenda, you have to salute what’s been accomplished here,” says Eric Pooley, a senior vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund, which has not endorsed the Green New Deal. “The fact that there are different points of view on different policy instruments is healthy.”

A carbon tax—once anathema to the right—is an unlikely beneficiary of this environmental glasnost, gaining support on both sides of the aisle. “If your goal is to reduce carbon emissions, a carbon tax will do that,” says Congressman John Delaney, a Maryland Democrat who is running for President and has introduced carbon- tax legislation. “It has an opportunity to get pretty broad support, including bipartisan support.”

Carlos Curbelo, a former GOP Florida Congressman who has led efforts for a carbon tax, said the Green New Deal offers a useful political foil. “It’s going to give Republicans and conservatives something that they can clearly oppose, which is always appreciated by the right,” he says. At the same time, he adds, Republicans are aware that public opinion is shifting. “It’s not going to be enough for a lot of members to say the Green New Deal is a massive socialist program. The next question is, What’s your solution?”

SOURCE 

***************************************

For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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5 April, 2019  

Brainless Beto: Only 10 Years Left to Act on Climate Change

Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas), a 2020 presidential candidate, predicted that the U.S. has 10 years left to act on climate change.

"At this point there can be no shadow of a doubt that our own excesses and emissions and inaction politically and as a country and a democracy, where each of us comprise the government, have led to the warming we've seen so far -- one degree Celsius just since 1980," O'Rourke said during the "We the People Membership Forum" in Washington on Monday. "I direct you to Valencia from Florida, whose question I just listened to backstage -- how does this First World country create second-class citizens who face Third World conditions?"

To support his position on climate change, O'Rourke referred to the "58 inches of rain that fell from the sky" in Houston. He called on lawmakers to start "confronting climate change before it is too late, within the 10 years we have left to us to act."

O'Rourke said he would join the Paris climate agreement that President Trump withdrew from in 2017.

"As ambitious as those are, [they] are not ambitious enough," O'Rourke said of the agreement.

O'Rourke promised that he would sign an executive order on the first day of his presidency requiring all cabinet secretaries to hold town hall meetings with the public each month "to listen to you and be accountable to you."

SOURCE 






Plastic Bag Bans Won't Help the Environment, But They'll Cause More Foodborne Illnesses

New York lawmakers have followed California’s lead and decided to ban grocery stores from giving customers plastic bags. They hope shoppers will use their own cloth bags instead. This ban on plastic bags will harm shoppers in multiple ways.

As Daniel Frank sarcastically notes, “Reusable tote bags” can “cause food poisoning but at least they’re worse for the environment than plastic bags.” He cites Jon Passantino of BuzzFeed News, who observes, “Those cotton tote bags that are so trendy right now have to be used *131 times* before it has a smaller climate impact than a plastic bag used only once.” Yet, there are progressives who want to ban plastic grocery bags in favor of reusable cloth bags.

Plastic bags are less than one percent of all litter. Moreover, alternatives like cloth and paper bags are in many cases worse for the environment than plastic bags, and far worse for public health. That was illustrated by a 2011 legal settlement between plastic bag makers and an importer of reusable bags, ChicoBag. The plastic bag makers sued ChicoBag for its use of false claims about the recycling rate and environmental impacts of plastic grocery bags in its promotional materials. (Those false claims are also the basis for municipal bans and taxes on plastic bags.)

Plastic bags are “less than 0.5% of the litter stream,” according to the head of the National Black Chamber of Commerce.

Under that settlement, ChicoBag was required to discontinue its use of its counterfeit EPA website and make corrections to its deceptive marketing claims, which had included sharing falsified government documents with schoolchildren. It was also required to disclose to consumers on its website that reusable bags, in fact, need to be washed.

Reusable bags “are a breeding ground for bacteria and pose public health risks — food poisoning, skin infections such as bacterial boils, allergic reactions, triggering of asthma attacks, and ear infections,” noted a 2009 report.  Harmful bacteria like E. coli, salmonella, and fecal coliform thrive in reusable bags unless they are washed after each use, according to an August 2011 peer-reviewed study, “Assessment of the Potential for Cross-contamination of Food Products by Reusable Shopping Bags.”

Among the inaccurate claims that ChicoBag could no longer make after the settlement is one that contrasted the environmental impact of plastic versus reusable bags. Contrary to ChicoBag’s previous claims, a study done for the U.K. Environmental Agency showed it would take 7.5 years of using the same cloth bag (393 uses, assuming one grocery trip per week) to make it a better option than a plastic bag reused three times. See “Life Cycle Assessment of Supermarket Carrier Bags,” Executive Summary, 2nd page.

As an earlier report on the subject noted (see p. 60):

[A]ny decision to ban traditional polyethylene plastic grocery bags in favor of bags made from alternative materials (compostable plastic or recycled paper) will be counterproductive and result in a significant increase in environmental impacts across a number of categories from global warming effects to the use of precious potable water resources. … [T]he standard polyethylene grocery bag has significantly lower environmental impacts than a 30% recycled content paper bag and a compostable plastic bag.

As the UK Environmental Agency pointed out in July 2011, a

cotton bag has a greater [harmful environmental] impact than the conventional [plastic] bag in seven of the nine impact categories even when used 173 times. … The impact was considerably larger in categories such as acidification and aquatic & terrestrial ecotoxicity due to the energy used to produce cotton yarn and the fertilisers used during the growth of the cotton (see p. 60).

Similarly,

Starch-polyester blend bags have a higher global warming potential and abiotic depletion than conventional polymer bags, due both to the increased weight of material in a bag and higher material production impacts (see Executive Summary).

As Environmental Protection noted in 2010:

Reusable grocery bags can serve as a breeding ground for dangerous food-borne bacteria and pose a serious risk to public health, according to a joint food safety research report issued by researchers at the University of Arizona and Loma Linda University. The study — which randomly tested reusable grocery bags carried by shoppers in the Los Angeles area, San Francisco, and Tucson, Ariz. — also found consumers were almost completely unaware of the need to regularly wash their bags.

“Our findings suggest a serious threat to public health, especially from coliform bacteria including E. coli, which were detected in half the bags sampled,” said Charles Gerba, Ph.D., a University of Arizona environmental microbiology professor and co-author of the study. “Furthermore, consumers are alarmingly unaware of these risks and the critical need to sanitize their bags after every use.” The bacteria levels found in reusable bags were significant enough to cause a wide range of serious health problems and even lead to death — a particular danger for young children, who are especially vulnerable to food-borne illnesses, he said.

The study also found that awareness of potential risks was very low. A full 97 percent of those interviewed have never washed or bleached their reusable bags, said Gerba, who added that thorough washing kills nearly all bacteria that accumulate in reusable bags.

Plastic bags are “less than 0.5% of the litter stream,” according to the head of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. That low percentage is confirmed by EPA data. (See, e.g., EPA, Municipal Solid Waste in the United States: 2009 Facts and Figures, p. 53, showing that the entire category of plastic sacks, wraps, and bags—including trash bags as well as grocery bags—together account for only a little over one percent of all municipal solid waste, and only a small fraction of overall plastics.)

SOURCE 






California Snow Pack Now At 4th Highest Ever Recorded

California’s snowpack is officially 162% higher than average, the fourth-highest ever recorded, after state officials performed the annual measurement this week in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

“Department of Water Resources officials announced a measurement of 106.5 inches of snow at Phillips Station, good for a snow-water equivalent of 51 inches,” the Sacramento Bee reports. Phillips Station itself was actually at 200 percent of normal.

The California winter and early spring have been cold and wet, as the state — particularly in Northern California — has been hit by a series of “atmospheric rivers” carrying moisture from the Pacific. San Francisco endured one rain storm after another, and the mountains received record-breaking amounts of snow in short periods of time. Los Angeles enduredits coldest February in 60 years, when the temperature never reached 70 degrees Fahrenheit for the first time ever.

The deep snowpack is welcome news for Californians — especially for farmers, who suffered through the state’s record-breaking drought from 2012 to 2018. Much of the state’s water supply comes from the Sierra snowpack, which melts throughout the spring and summer. In addition, heavy snows have been a boon to the state’s ski resorts.

However, the huge snowpack also poses a challenge, especially the risk of flooding. State officials opened the new spillway this week at the Oroville Dam — the nation’s highest — to prevent flooding later in the spring as runoff begins to fill the lake.

Despite the heavy precipitation, state and local authorities continue to plan for the next drought. Whether through climate change or a reversion to the historic norm after the unusually wet 19th and 20th centuries, California is likely to be drier in future — and will almost certainly face greater demands on scarce water resources, regardless.

SOURCE 






New Report: Global Warming And ‘Extreme Weather’ Are Not Accelerating

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) is misleading the public by suggesting that global warming and its impacts are accelerating. In fact, since 2016 global average temperature has continued to decline.

That’s according to Norwegian Professor Ole Humlum whose annual review of the world’s climate is published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Last week, the WMO issued its own review of the climate, which insinuated that global warming was worsening.

However, Professor Humlum points out that the data tells a very different story:

“Reading the WMO report, you would think that global warming was getting worse. But in fact, it is carefully worded to give a false impression. The data are far more suggestive of an improvement than deterioration.”

And the lack of anything to be alarmed about is clear across a range of measures, says Professor Humlum:

“After the warm year of 2016, temperatures last year continued to fall back to levels of the so-called warming “pause” of 2000-2015. There is no sign of any acceleration in global temperature, hurricanes or sea-level rise. These empirical observations show no sign of acceleration whatsoever.”

Professor Humlum’s key findings:

In 2018, the average global surface temperature continued a gradual descent towards the level characterizing the years before the strong 2015–16 El Niño episode.

Since 2004, when the Argo floats came into operation, the global oceans above 1900m depth have on average warmed somewhat. The maximum warming (between the surface and 120 m depth) mainly affects oceans near the equator, where the incoming solar radiation is at a maximum. In contrast, net cooling has been pronounced for the North Atlantic since 2004.

Data from tide gauges all over the world suggest an average global sea-level rise of 1– 1.5 mm/year, while the satellite record suggests a rise of about 3.2 mm/year. The large difference between the two data sets still has no broadly accepted explanation.

The Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent has undergone important local and regional variations from year to year. The overall global tendency since 1972, however, is for overall stable snow extent.

Tropical storm and hurricane accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) values since 1970 have displayed large variations from year to year, but no overall trend towards either lower or higher activity. The same applies to the number of hurricane landfalls in the continental United States, for which the record begins in 1851.

SOURCE 






Another New Study Shows Early 21st-Century Global Warming Hiatus Was Real

A new study by Williams et al appearing in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics shows that the global warming hiatus of the early 21st century was in fact real.

A number of scientists from the alarmist camp like to insist that there had never been such a hiatus. The latest paper contradicts that claim.

The new study states that many published analyses show that lightning activity is responsive to temperature on time scales ranging from the diurnal to the decadal and that the hiatus in global warming earlier this century can be seen in several global datasets.

Scientists found that the statistically flat behavior of the global lightning record from the NASA Lightning Imaging Sensor over the same decadal period is consistent with this hiatus in global warming.

What follows is the paper’s abstract:

"Multiple records of global temperature contain periods of decadal length with flat or declining temperature trend, often termed a ‘hiatus’. Towards assessing the physical reality of two such periods (1940–1972 and 1998–2014), lightning data are examined.

Lightning activity is of particular interest because on many different time scales it has been shown to be non-linearly dependent on temperature. During the earlier hiatus, declining trends in regional thunder days have been documented.

During the more recent hiatus, lightning observations from the Lightning Imaging Sensor in space show no trend in flash rate.

Surface-based, radiosonde-based and satellite-based estimates of global temperature have all been examined to support the veracity of the hiatus in global warming over the time interval of the satellite-based lightning record.

Future measurements are needed to capture the total global lightning activity on a continuous basis.”

So much for settled science.

SOURCE 

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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4 April, 2019  

April 2019 And It’s Snowing In Saudi Arabia!

As Spring is sprung in the northern hemisphere the otherwise arid, hot climes of Saudi Arabia are experiencing a wild week of snow, hail and dream-like fog and ice accumulation.

Locals were quick to post on Youtube video of the unusual conditions:

Most of the snow fell near Tabuk in the Hijazi Mountains.

Usually, April sees an average daily mean temperature of 32 degrees C (90F). No announcements have been made as to whether the record low temperature of 11 C (52F) has been broken, though it seems a distinct possibility after watching the video evidence.

None of the locals dared to build any snowmen. The last time Saudis took part in such “western activities” after a freak snowfall in January 2015, they were condemned by a cleric who called it sinful and “anti-Islamic.” He issued a fatwa (religious ruling) forbidding the activity – though clearly his opinion is not shared by everyone in the country.

The climate of Saudi Arabia is marked by high temperatures during the day and low temperatures at night. The country follows the pattern of the desert climate, with the exception of the southwest, which features a semi-arid climate.

This reminds me of how genius climate scientists claimed back in 2000 that ‘Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past’ – ‘Children just aren’t going to know what snow is’ – UK Independent.

SOURCE 






The Key Global Energy Trend Isn’t GND, It’s LNG

Renewables get the press, but natural gas is growing much faster.
While the Green New Deal continues to dominate energy discussions in the United States, the rest of the world continues to rely on coal, oil, and natural gas. And of those three, according to a report released Tuesday by the International Energy Agency, natural-gas consumption grew faster last year than any other form of energy, including renewables. That jump in global gas use reflects the soaring growth in U.S. production and exports of that same fuel.

Much of the media attention to the new IEA report focused on the increase in global carbon dioxide emissions, which rose by 1.7 percent last year. The IEA said the increase was due to “higher energy demand propelled by a global economy that expanded by 3.7 percent in 2018.” The report also noted the continuing growth in renewables, which increased by 4 percent.

Renewables such as wind and solar get lots of positive press. But last year renewables were eclipsed by the growth in global gas use, which jumped by 4.6 percent. At that rate, global gas demand could double within the next 16 years or so. The good news about the growth in global gas demand is that it is helping displace coal and liquid fuels for electricity generation — a change that, in turn, is helping reduce air pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions. During combustion, gas emits almost zero sulfur dioxide, and it produces about half as much carbon dioxide as coal and about 30 percent less than diesel fuel or fuel oil.

One of the main drivers of the surge in global gas use is the shale revolution. States such as Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Louisiana are all producing record quantities of natural gas. Indeed, the growth in domestic gas production has been nothing short of astonishing. In 2005, U.S. gas production was about 47 billion cubic feet per day. This year, U.S. gas production will average about 90 billion cubic feet per day. That’s an increase of 91 percent in just 14 years.

To put that in perspective, consider this: Since 2005, just the increase in U.S. natural gas production is equal to two times Iran’s natural-gas production, or four times Saudi Arabia’s.

The surge in shale-gas production has transformed both the domestic and the international gas businesses. Domestically, coal-fired power plants are being rapidly replaced by gas-fired ones. Between 2000 and 2017, the amount of U.S. electricity generated by gas-fired power plants more than doubled, while the amount produced from coal fell by nearly 40 percent.

The shale revolution has also made the U.S. a pivotal player in the global liquefied-natural-gas (LNG) business. At the end of 2018, the U.S. was exporting about 4 billion cubic feet of LNG per day. Only Australia and Qatar currently have more LNG export capacity than the U.S., and if all the planned LNG facilities are approved, the U.S. will soon be the world’s biggest LNG exporter. By mid-2020, the Energy Information Administration expects U.S. LNG export capacity will reach 10.6 billion cubic feet per day. Thus, within a year or so, U.S. LNG exports could be nearly equivalent to the entire gas output of Norway, Europe’s biggest single gas producer.

In 2018, the U.S. exported LNG to 30 different countries, including Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, both of which are major oil producers. It’s an open secret in Houston that Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil producer, is trying to secure a long-term LNG contract with U.S. suppliers. Doing so would allow the Saudis to reduce the amount of oil they are using to generate electricity and replace it with lower-cost LNG from the U.S.

To be sure, Tuesday’s IEA report included other important facts, including the news that global nuclear production grew by 3.3 percent last year due to new reactors starting up in China and the restart of four reactors in Japan. But the key takeaway from the report is that countries all over the world are continuing to pursue economic growth and are using the lowest-cost fuels they can find to fuel that growth. Renewable energy may get the headlines, but the IEA report clearly shows that natural gas — and in particular, low-cost natural gas from the U.S. — is playing an increasingly important role in fueling that growth.

SOURCE 







Coffee cup ban: British firm's sales fall by £250k

An independent coffee chain said it has seen sales fall by £250,000 since it banned single use cups last summer. Boston Tea Party (BTP) has called for major national and international brands to follow suit.

Owner Sam Roberts said it had factored the loss in takings into its plans and that too many operators were "putting their profits before the planet".

Rebecca Burgess, chief executive of plastic pollution campaign group City to Sea, praised BTP's "bravery".

The chain, which has 22 branches around England and is based in Bristol, started the ban in June 2018.

Customers must bring a reusable cup, drink in or pay a deposit on a cup they can return to any branch.

How has it affected the business?

Boston Tea Party usually sells £1m in takeaway coffees per year but it is down 25%.

Mr Roberts says thankfully the business is supported by a strong food offer and most customers are supportive of its stance on single use cups. But he agrees a smaller coffee shop would struggle to finance a ban.

He said: "We have lost around 25% of our takeaway coffee sales but we modelled that into our costs as passing trade who don't want to get involved in the cup loan scheme.

"We felt this was a financial loss we had to take and we want this to be a call to action to other companies.

"Those using a 25p off a reusable cup scheme - we know first-hand this has a very low penetration and when we launched that scheme ourselves, only 5% of customers took it up.

"There's too many operators not dealing with the problem and putting their profits before the planet.

"At the moment bigger businesses are deploying a smoke and mirrors strategy and not resolving problems while seeming like they are doing something about it.

"We are 100% committed and there's no going back."

Mr Roberts said the firm had stopped 125,000 cups going to landfill, sold 40,000 reusable coffee cups and raised £12,000 for local charities with the money saved on buying disposable cups - roughly 10 pence for every cup.

SOURCE 






Bjorn Lomborg: 95% Fewer Climate-Related Deaths Over Last 100 Years

Bjorn Lomborg, author of Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming, joined FNC's Tucker Carlson Monday night to talk about how many people really die from climate-related disasters in 2019 compared to how many did in 1919.

TUCKER CARLSON: I keep hearing from watching television in this country that many people are dying of climate change in the United States. Is it a leading cause of death here?

BJORN LOMBERG: No, by no means and, look, we actually have pretty good data for how many people die from weather-related disasters, so climate-related disasters, and the truth is over the last 100 years it's dropped dramatically. Every year in the 1920s, we estimate about half a million people died around the world. Now, we quadrupled the population and, yet, the number has dropped like a stone. It's 95% reduced. We are now down to about 20,000 people that die every year. This is not because of global warming. This is simply because getting richer means you stop being in trouble when the weather is bad.

TUCKER CARLSON: So if the problem as measured by death rates is getting better, the threat is in decline, why the focus on it? Why not a focus on cancer or diabetes or Alzheimer's or suicide or drug ODs? These are all rising.

BJORN LOMBERG: Yes, absolutely. If you ask people around the world, the U.N. did that a couple of years ago. They asked 10 million people, what do you want us to focus on, they told us not surprisingly if you are really poor you worry about healthcare, food, and education. Those were the top things that came out. At the very end, number 16 of 16 priorities, came global warming. Not surprising, if you are poor. But if you are rich and well-meaning, this is one of the things that you can start worrying about. And, look, global warming is a real problem but it's not anywhere the size of what most people let you believe.

TUCKER CARLSON: So, maybe it's an easy problem for the richest in our society to focus on because it doesn't really require anything of them. They can still fly private and have four houses and be deeply concerned about this problem. Maybe that's why they have chosen it.

BJORN LOMBERG: Well, I think it certainly gives a lot of people a sense of, 'I'm really trying to do something good. Oh, I have cut down. I'm no longer eating meat,' or something like that. The reality, of course, is if you really wanted to cut carbon emissions dramatically as many people talk about, you would have to experience a cost that would be much, much higher. If you take, for instance, the Green New Deal, Bloomberg estimates, and this is just one of many estimates that it would cost every year about $2.1 trillion, that's two-thirds of the U.S. budget. So, no, we can't afford that even if you did, the impact would be fairly small in 100 years. It would be a very small and inefficient way of helping people very little.

TUCKER CARLSON: Okay. So assuming this is about helping people and I don't believe that it's clearly about grabbing power. Let's pretend it's about helping people. In the name of helping them, you would probably wind up killing more than you would save because poverty does kill people. We know that.

BJORN LOMBERG: Exactly. What you have to be very careful about is to say, how do you go and help people, for instance in Bangladesh and other places? Well, a lot of people will say we need to cut carbon emissions so that they will have less of a problem in 100 years. Of course, the reality is most people in Bangladesh want to get out of poverty. We should help them by having more free trade, having more opportunity, having more technology. Those are the things that will make them much richer so that when 2100 comes around they will not only be better able to tackle global warming, but also all the other challenges: Alzheimer's, cancer, all the other problems you were talking about.

TUCKER CARLSON: So you're a man that talks about science, who is fluent in the terms of science. How do you feel when you start hearing politicians discuss scientific issues with theological terms. Talking about the morality of your society, and making claims to their own virtue? Does that make you uncomfortable?

BJORN LOMBERG: Well, I'm an economist, actually, so I look at all what the scientists are telling us. They are telling us global warming is a problem, but it's also a moderate one. They tell us by the end of the century, global warming will cost somewhere between 2% and 4% global G.D.P.

Remember, by then, we will be about 10 times richer per person. So, about 1,000% richer and then we have to pay 2% to 4%. That's a problem. Not the end of the world. When politicians go out and tell us we have got to go morally do something that's really nice, cutting off meat, or not driving your car, or something, in order to pacify this problem, they are simply talking against the better opportunity of actually dealing with this problem. Because that's not going to happen. You can't tell people to do this.

What you need to do is focus on technology. Well, Americans and everyone, have had many problems in the past. We have not solved those problems by telling people, could you please do with less? What we have done is through technology, enabled people to do more with less. Actually enabled people to be better off with technology. This is all about innovation. We need to innovate the price of green energy down below fossil fuels. And then, of course, everyone, not just rich and well-meaning Americans and Europeans, but the Chinese and Indians will want to switch.

SOURCE 






Why Canadian ‘climate porn’ is ineffective

If you’re gullible enough to believe it was pure coincidence that a doomsday report by federal climate scientists on global warming was released on the same day Prime Minister Justin Trudeau imposed his carbon tax on four provinces, I have a proposition for you.

I would like to sell you some oceanfront property in Alberta caused by rising ocean levels due to global warming.

The report breathlessly warns Canada is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world.

But that’s hardly surprising since Canada is a big, northern country and it’s long been known warming is occurring faster at the North Pole and in the Arctic than anywhere else on Earth.

The report says the adverse impacts on Canada are “effectively irreversible” and will be felt for hundreds of years, even if Canada and the rest of the world succeeds in lowering industrial greenhouse gas emissions to avoid even worse warming.

Trudeau and Co. obviously wanted the release of this report on the same day (Monday) it imposed their new federal carbon tax on Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, in order to portray everyone who opposes the tax as “climate deniers.”

Except that effort was inadvertently bushwhacked on Tuesday when federal environment commissioner Julie Gelfand, in her final report, said the Trudeau government isn’t doing enough to combat climate change and isn’t on track to meet Trudeau’s 2030 target of reducing Canada’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions to 30% below 2005 levels.

This consistent with decades of failures by Liberal and Conservative governments to meet every emission target they’ve ever set.

Last year, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted humanity had just 12 years to avert catastrophic warming, while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pegged it at two years to avert “runaway climate change.”

This is nothing new.

It’s called “climate porn”, a phrase coined in 2006 by the United Kingdom’s Institute for Public Policy and Research, a progressive think tank, to describe the alarmist rhetoric that permeates public discussion of climate change, following an extensive review of government and environmental websites and media coverage.

In their paper, “Warm Words: How are we telling the climate change story and can we tell it better?” authors Gill Ereaut and Nat Segnit concluded:

“Climate change is most commonly constructed through the alarmist repertoire – as awesome, terrible, immense and beyond human control … It is typified by an inflated or extreme lexicon, incorporating an urgent tone and cinematic codes.

“It employs a quasi-religious register of death and doom, and it uses language of acceleration and irreversibility.

“The difficulty with it is that the scale of the problem as it is shown excludes the possibility of real action … by the reader or viewer. It contains an implicit counsel of despair – ‘the problem is just too big for us to take on’.”

It’s also counter-productive because people simply don’t believe Trudeau government rhetoric that while climate change poses an imminent, existential threat to humanity, it can be solved by a carbon tax that will make 80% of us richer.

I mean, seriously. Who are these people kidding?

SOURCE 

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

*****************************************







3 April, 2019  

This Veteran, Who Supplied Water to Firefighters, Went to Prison for Digging Ponds

An elderly veteran who ran a business supplying water to fight forest fires was prosecuted by the federal government and sent to prison for digging ponds on his own property, one of his lawyers says.

Joe Robertson, a Navy veteran from Montana, was 78 when he was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $130,000 in restitution through deductions from his Social Security checks.

His crime?

Robertson, whose business supplied water trucks to Montana firefighters, dug a series of small ponds close to his home in 2013 and 2014. The site was a wooded area near a channel, a foot wide and a foot deep, with two to three garden hoses’ worth of flow, according to court documents.

The U.S. government prosecuted Robertson for digging in proximity to “navigable waters” without a permit, a violation of the Clean Water Act administered by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers.

Tony Francois, a senior attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit, public interest law firm specializing in property rights, described the events leading up to Robertson’s prosecution during a panel discussion Monday at The Heritage Foundation.

Also on the panel was Kevin Pierce, vice president of Hawkes Co., a Minnesota-based family business that harvests peat for golf course greens. Daren Bakst, Heritage’s senior research fellow for agriculture policy, was moderator of the event, called “Horror Stories of EPA and Corps Overreach under the Clean Water Act.”

Pacific Legal Foundation filed a petition on behalf of Robertson, asking the Supreme Court to review his case, which turns on the definition of “navigable waters.”

The Navy veteran argued that he didn’t violate the Clean Water Act because
digging the ponds did not discharge any soil to navigable waters, since the trickle in the channel didn’t constitute navigable waters.

The largest navigable body of water anywhere near the Robertson home is more than 40 miles away, Francois said.

Because Robertson lived in a wooded area that is “increasingly fire prone,” he was “concerned about the safety and vulnerability of his property,” Francois said. He built the ponds “with a view toward being well-prepared should a fire strike.”

The Supreme Court is expected to decide in April whether it will hear Robertson’s appeal.

Robertson, sentenced in 2016, completed his 18 months behind bars in late 2017. He was still on parole for the next 20 months when he died March 18 at age 80 of natural causes, according to his widow.

Pacific Legal Foundation filed papers this week to substitute Robertson’s widow, Carri Robertson, as the petitioner in the appeal to the Supreme Court.

Another case Francois cited concerns a proposed road in Marquette County, Michigan. The project, known as CR-595, would shorten the travel time between a nickel mine and a refinery 22 miles away.

The only route now available to the mine, called Eagle Mine, is three times as long, Francois said. The nickel mine, currently the only one in the U.S., is expected to bring about $4 billion in economic activity to the county, according to Pacific Legal Foundation.

The Marquette County Road Commission’s CR-595 proposal called for  a direct road from the mine to a refinery.

“The new route would bypass the city of Marquette altogether, eliminate nearly 30 miles of travel per trip, a million and a half miles annually, as well as save 500,000 gallons of fuel per year,” Francois said.

Since the proposed route goes through wetlands, however, the road commission sought a wetlands permit under the Clean Water Act. The state approved the permit, but the EPA rejected it.

“The final version [of the commission’s planned route] proposed to protect 63 acres of wetlands for every acre the road project would disturb,” Francois said. “But the EPA continued to object to CR 595 because in their view the commission still had not provided adequate plans to minimize impacts, and that its 63-1 mitigation ratio was not a comprehensive mitigation plan that would sufficiently compensate for unavoidable impacts.”

The EPA vetoed the commission’s plan and the Supreme Court declined a petition from Pacific Legal Foundation to review that decision.

Pacific Legal Foundation also represented Hawkes Co. in a 2016 case before the high court. In a 8-0 decision, the justices ruled that landowners have a right to challenge wetland determinations made by federal agencies.

Pierce, the Hawkes Co. official, described a difficult and arduous process to prevail over opposition from the Army Corps of Engineers to secure a permit allowing the company to expand on a 200-acre peat mining site. The company began the application process in 2006.

“I really don’t like how it worked. No. 1, there was a lot of fabrication from the Corps people, Pierce said at the Heritage event, adding:

They actually went to the landowner that we had the option to buy the land with. They sent two people up from St. Paul to his house for two and half hours for a meeting to try to convince him to sell the real estate to someone else, while we got $200,000 already invested in a permit application.

And they gave names and numbers of people who would buy it for preservation to sell it out from under us. Well knowing that we had options to buy and contracts with that landowner, which then forced us to have to buy the land seven years before we got our permit and had to follow through on it.

When I confronted them about it, they literally lied to me and said, ‘We didn’t know you had a permit or an option to buy.’ But then later in the conversation, they say, ‘Well, we thought it ran out.’

Congress initially passed the Clean Water Act in 1948, but lawmakers greatly altered and expanded it into the current form with amendments in 1972.

The law “establishes the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States and regulating quality standards for surface waters,” according to the EPA’s website.

Under the 1972 amendments, it is illegal to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters without a permit from the EPA. The Corps oversees the permitting process and shares enforcement authority with the EPA.

In 2015, the Obama administration implemented its Clean Water Rule, widely known as the Waters of the United States rule or WOTUS rule, which expanded the regulatory reach of the EPA and the Corps over bodies of water throughout the country.

The Trump administration has taken steps to withdraw the Obama administration’s rule and replace it with a new one that limits the regulatory reach of federal agencies.

Although Heritage’s Bakst said he approves of the Trump administration’s efforts, he has argued that it ultimately falls to Congress to clarify what waterways are subject to EPA regulations.

The Daily Signal sought comment for this report from both the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers.

“We cannot comment on ongoing litigation even as it pertains to actions of the previous administration,” EPA spokesman James Hewitt said in an email. “However, EPA is moving forward with a replacement WOTUS rule to ensure farmers and ranchers have more certainty when it comes to federal jurisdiction over waters.”

A Corps spokesman said in an email that it would not comment on the Robertson case since it is still active and has nothing to add to the Hawkes case beyond what is already “a matter of public record.”

SOURCE 






Green New Deal presents opportunities for Republicans to protect jobs from disastrous economic suicide pact

New York Democrat Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal (GND) scheme, which includes phasing out coal, oil, natural gas, most vehicles, and cows, failed miserably when put to a vote in the U.S. Senate. Incredibly, not even one of the twelve Democrat Senate sponsors of the GND resolution voted to advance it. Perhaps that is because not only is the GND bad policy, but it is also bad politics. Now, Republicans should capitalize on this ridiculous proposal.

The GND would be both costly and disruptive. It is estimated that the GND would cost over $90 trillion, and its supporters have not suggested any real plan to pay for it other than to print more money. In addition to quadrupling the national debt, the GND would displace millions of workers as it killed off entire industries. To switch careers many of these people would need to be retrained. Undoubtedly, some number of displaced workers would be unable to find suitable work in their area forcing them to either move or live at taxpayers’ expense.

Of course, once they are aware of the problems that the GND would create, many voters are likely to reject it. To get a glimpse of just how disruptive the GND would be in key states, consider the following. In Florida, a swing state, where President Trump won by fewer than 113,000 votes:

Over 280,000 jobs are supported by the oil and gas industry.
The cattle industry and its associated industries support over 110,000

In Iowa, a swing state, where Trump won by a little over 147,000 votes:

Over 60,000 jobs are supported by the oil and gas industry.
The beef industry supports over 30,000
In Michigan, where Trump won by fewer than 11,000 votes:

Over 180,000 jobs are supported by the oil and gas industry.
Over 170,000 people work in the automotive industry.
Over 20,000 people work in the dairy industry.
In Minnesota, where Hillary Clinton won by fewer than 45,000 votes:

Over 120,000 jobs are supported by the oil and gas industry.
The beef industry is responsible for over 40,000
Over 20,000 people work in the dairy industry.
In Ohio, a swing state, where Trump won by over 446,000 votes:

Over 250,000 jobs are supported by the oil and gas industry.
Over 90,000 people work in the automotive industry.
Over 30,000 people work in the dairy industry.
In Pennsylvania, where Trump won by a little over 44,000 votes:

Over 190,000 jobs are supported by the oil and gas industry.
Over 40,000 people work in the dairy industry.
In Wisconsin, where Trump won by fewer than 23,000 votes:

Over 100,000 jobs are supported by the oil and gas industry.
Over 40,000 people work in the dairy industry.

The beef industry provides over 30,000

Of course, the real number of people who would suffer under the GND is unclear, but it would probably stretch far beyond the ranks of workers in targeted industries. Depending upon displaced workers’ ability to procure sufficient income, their families, friends, and neighbors could also be negatively impacted. While the GND called for paying people who do not wish to work, it is unclear what they would be paid; and it is likely that government checks would be for significantly less than what many skilled workers in the energy and manufacturing industries earn.

Far-left Democrats have foolishly given Republicans an opportunity to win over new voters, and Republicans should make the most of it. In fact, it would be political malpractice if they did not warn workers that their jobs — and the jobs of their friends and family — may disappear if Democrats are able to seize full control of the government.

SOURCE 






Yes, Babies Are a Better Solution to Climate Change Than the Green New Deal

Sen. Mike Lee   

One doesn’t bring posters of tauntauns, Aquaman, and President Ronald Reagan riding a velociraptor while firing a submachine gun to the Senate floor without expecting a little bit of controversy.

If you are going to poke fun at the prevailing pieties of progressivism on a national stage, a little pushback should be expected.

But what was surprising about the reaction to my speech on the Green New Deal is which chart garnered the most vehement anger. It wasn’t Reagan riding a dinosaur or Utah Gov. Gary Herbert battling tornado-propelled sharks or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asserting that the resolution’s own supporters don’t know what’s in it.

No, the most controversial poster of the 14-minute speech turned out to be a simple image of six smiling babies.

Why such an aggrieved reaction to such a heart-warming image? I’ll let Emily, a 28-year-old woman who talked to FiveThirtyEight from Spokane, Washington, explain.

"We have physical proof that we cause a lot of harm to the planet, and I think the statistics show an imperative to reduce the footprint of our population, which has grown so fast. I think that having children can be immoral for a lot of reasons"

Emily is not alone in suggesting that having children is immoral. An author of the Green New Deal [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.] recently said on Instagram, “Our planet is going to hit disaster if we don’t turn this ship around, and so it’s basically like, there’s a scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult. And it does lead, I think, young people to have a legitimate question, you know, ‘Is it OK to still have children?’”

Emily and the authors of the Green New Deal are not the first people to believe that bringing children into this world is a morally questionable act. Quite the opposite. The belief that the human population must be limited and controlled by government is a founding principle of the environmental movement.

As far back as 1798, when scholar Thomas Malthus published “An Essay on the Principle of Population,” utopian-seeking elites have made the case that human population growth must be controlled in order to ensure a sustainable society. These well-intentioned beliefs led to policy changes like the Corn Laws, which raised taxes on grain imports to the United Kingdom.

Opposed by classical economists like David Ricardo, who warned that such laws would make food more expensive, the Corn Laws were eventually repealed after they worsened the Great Famine in Ireland, when over 1 million people died of hunger.

Fast forward to 1968 when American biologist Paul Ehrlich published “The Population Bomb,” a book arguing that the government must take urgent action to limit population growth or humanity would face imminent ecological disaster. Ehrlich’s gloom-and-doom prophecies were quite popular with a segment of the American public as the book went on to be a best-seller.

But many economists pushed back—including University of Maryland professor Julian Simon who believed that humanity, if left free to innovate, could find new ways to make limited resources provide for an ever-expanding world population.

Simon and Ehrlich even made a bet testing their beliefs in 1980, picking five commodities to track over a 10-year period. In 1990, Ehrlich was forced to admit he lost, mailing a check to Simon in the amount that the commodities had fallen in price over that 10-year span.

Since that time, the earth has added billions more people, all while global poverty continues to fall.

What Malthus, Ehrlich, Emily, and the authors of the Green New Deal keep failing to understand is that human consumption and production patterns are not static.

Since the beginning of our species, humans have constantly been innovating and changing the world around them. In fact, it is our ability to function as a collective learning brain that sets us apart from every other animal on earth.

And, as Harvard University Department of Human Evolutionary Biology Chairman Joseph Henrich explains in his book “The Secret of Our Success,” the size of our population does matter:

The most obvious way the size of a group can matter is that more minds can generate more lucky errors, novel recombinations, chance insights, and intentional improvements. … So, bigger groups have the potential for more rapid cumulative cultural evolution.

Now the size of a population is not the only thing that matters. A society must also have in place institutions, cultural norms, and a legal framework that encourages experimentation, innovation, and creativity.

And here is where the failure of the Green New Deal as a serious response to climate change is the clearest. Instead of fostering an open-ended approach to addressing climate change, it demands top-down policy programs that forbid certain avenues of exploration, like nuclear energy, while also tacking on irrelevant policy goals, like universal health care, that have nothing to do with the issue the authors of the plan claim is so urgent.

Climates change. It’s what they do. There is even evidence that humans have been affecting the climate since at least the Neolithic era. And these changes to the climate have always presented a challenge to humanity. Today is no different.

We have always survived, and even thrived, in new environments. Just look at California. Left in its natural state, the Los Angeles river basin can support maybe 100,000 people. Today, thanks to a creative web of dams, aqueducts, canals, and pipelines, there is enough water for over 10 million people to live there.

This is the creative, practical, life-affirming path that will help us solve the climate change challenge. Instead of looking to limit and even shrink humanity’s footprint on the world, we should be looking to improve and expand it.

And yes, this means more babies.

SOURCE 






Fisherman’s Group Suing Over Climate Change Refuses Questions On Its Greenness

The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association (PCFFA), which is currently suing dozens of energy producers for damages resulting from climate change, has refused to answer multiple inquiries from the Washington Free Beacon about the number of fishing boats in the association that have gone green or to detail other “green” changes members of the group may have made.

The majority of the nuisance lawsuits currently being brought against major oil companies have been from governments—usually coastal, but not always—like Rhode Island, Baltimore, and California cities like San Francisco and Oakland.

That is one of the main reasons the announcement by the PCFFA last November of the suit was seen as breaking new ground.

“The fishermen’s lawsuit appears to be the first time food producers have sued the fossil fuel industry for allegedly harming the environment,” a contemporary report from NPR noted.

At the same time, however, several academic and media reports over the last decade illustrate the interdependency of the fishing industry and fossil fuel usage.

During price spikes for gas and diesel fuels in 2013, a report from the U.K. Daily Mail drove home that point, saying, “The cost of fish and chips could rise by up to 50 percent because of rising fuel costs, a government body warned today.”

“The Sea Fish Industry Authority (Seafish) said rises in the price of diesel used to power fishing vessels would have a ‘significant effect’ on the cost of fish over the next 12 to 18 months as trawlermen struggle to break even,” the article added.

An academic investigation into seafood production by British and Canadian researchers in January of 2014 noted in an online summary that, “similar to most contemporary food systems, many ?sheries and aquaculture resource supply chains are heavily dependent on fossil fuels.”

Elements of the complaint filed by PCFFA seem to clearly indicate that climate change has two components: the production of fossil fuels, and then the secondary consumption.

“The mechanism by which human activity causes the oceans to warm is well established: ocean warming, like atmospheric warming, is overwhelmingly caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions,” part of the complaint reads.

“As human reliance on fossil fuels for industrial and mechanical processes has increased, so too have greenhouse gas emissions, especially of CO2,” another section reads.

The Free Beacon asked the PCFFA “how many fishing operations may have retrofitted their fleet in direct response to the threats of climate change” and to detail any other efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions by their members. Although provided with several days to respond, no comment was returned.

Noah Oppenheim, executive director of PCFFA, is formerly a staffer for Democrat Representative Jared Huffman, who has asked the California attorney general to investigate Exxon “for their longstanding, and potentially illegal, cover-up of the dangers of climate change.”

SOURCE 






Australian Left looks to Norway to drive electric car sales

Bill Shorten wants Australia to match the electric vehicle penetration of Norway, where taxpayers fork out a $3400 annual subsidy for every EV on the road, but has refused to say when Labor would introduce tough new ­vehicle standards to drive his transport revolution.

The Opposition Leader, who has set a target of 50 per cent of new car sales to be electric by 2030, yesterday declared Labor would transform the nation’s car market to drive the uptake of more fuel-­efficient vehicles in the same way the market for rooftop solar had changed over the past decade.

Delivering on the pledge will mean pushing electric car sales from the current 2500 a year to about 600,000 within a decade.

Mr Shorten unveiled a $100 million commitment towards the rollout of 200 fast-charging stations across the country, a 50 per cent electric target for government vehicle purchases, and new tax incentives for fleet buyers to purchase EVs rather than internal combustion engines.

“What we’re going to do is create a market, a market for vehicles which are more fuel efficient, which are more friendly to the ­environment,” Mr Shorten said. “It’ll take time. But remember back in 2007, only about 7000 households had solar rooftop.”

Mr Shorten has promised a new vehicle emissions standard of 105gCO2 per kilometre to help meet his promised 45 per cent carbon emissions cut, but Labor is putting off providing further details until after the election.

Four of the five top-selling vehicles in Australia last year — the Toyota Hilux (186-277gCO2/km), Ford Ranger (169-265gCO2/km), Mazda 3 (129-153gCO2/km) and Hyundai i30 (119-176gCO2/km) — all produce emissions well above Labor’s threshold. Only the Toyota Corolla (96-159gCO2/km) comes close to Labor’s 105gCO2/km limit.

The Australian Automobile Association, which represents eight million drivers through state motoring organisations, said voters deserved more detail on the plan before they cast their ballots.

“A poorly designed standard will drive up the cost of cars, the cost of petrol, and significantly curtail the availability of popular vehicle makes and classes, which is why the AAA expects both sides of politics to clearly articulate their vehicle emissions targets and timelines ahead of the election,” AAA chief executive Michael Bradley said.

Carmakers also warned car buyers would be hit hard if the new standard was rushed in too soon. “The 105g/km target would be extremely difficult by 2030,” Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries CEO Tony Weber said. “If you push too hard, you are unlikely to get there without restricting consumer choice.”

The Labor policy points to Norway — where EVs already make up half of new car sales — as an example for Australia to follow, citing a PwC study showing “if Australia achieved an EV take-up rate similar to that of Norway by 2030 it would inject $2.9 billion into the economy and lift net ­employment by 13,400”.

However, Labor has stopped well short of providing Norway-like incentives to encourage EV sales.

The same PwC study, undertaken for the Electric Vehicle Council, sets out the subsidies offered by Norwegian taxpayers to boost EV uptake, noting “indirect incentives are estimated at approximately $3400 per year for a battery electric vehicle owner”.

Scott Morrison, who has pledged an EV strategy under a re-elected Coalition government, demanded to know how Labor would meet its ambitious target and said EV drivers already enjoyed a significant benefit by avoiding the 41c-a-litre fuel excise.

SOURCE  

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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2 April, 2019  

Climate change denial is becoming explicitly racist and more sexist (?)

Male white nationalists are climate deniers as a tribal requirement says Michael Barnard below.  We have met Michael before.  He argues that only superior people can understand Warmism and that the rest of us should just bow down before them and believe.  He sounds a thoroughly unpleasant person so it is no surprise to find him trying to show that climate skeptics are thoroughly unpleasant people. He is just engaging in that good ol' Leftist projection.

Funnily enough, he is largely right in what he says.  He sets out findings about something that we all know -- that Warmism is almost entirely a Leftist delusion.  Most conservatives are either openly or covertly climate skeptics.  So showing that any particular conservative -- extreme or moderate --  is a climate skeptic is rather old hat. 

And it is also no mystery that conservatives are dubious about illegal immigration and tend to regard feminists as unbalanced.  To Leftists like Michael, those two orientations make conservatives racist and sexist but that is just the usual unfounded abuse that one expects from Leftists.

"White supremacist" is also a term that Leftists enjoy using.  They fling it about with gay abandon, very rarely doing anything to substantiate it.  I have been called a white supremacist when I am in fact a Northeast Asian supremacist.  I believe that the 21st century will be the century of the N.E. Asians -- China, Japan and Korea.

And Barnard's opening salvo about "conspiracy theorists" is amusing.  He appears to include most or all of conservatives in that. Many of the examples of climate skepticism that he gives seem simply to be conservatives. There are some conservative conspiracy theorists but to equate conservatism generally with conspiracy theory is egregious. But I can return the compliment.  I think all American Leftists are Communists!  How's that for over-simplification?

And his claim that conservatives are "maladjusted" is also amusing.  He produces not a skerrrick of evidence for the claim -- except perhaps in that he again plays fast and loose with categories.  Perhaps he is claiming that all Right or Center views are maladjusted.

The claim that conservatives are maladjusted goes back at least to 1950 and has a huge literature in support of it.  I spent 1970 to 1990 looking closely at that "evidence". And in the main part of my 200+ published academic journal articles I showed that not a single one of the studies held water.  They were parodies of science -- not quite as fast and loose with the facts and categories as Barnard but close.

So Barnard below makes large psychological claims but is not a psychologist -- and it shows


Over the past few years, it’s become clear that maladjusted conspiracy theorists were very likely to be climate change deniers. Just when those who thought they were normal people but merely skeptical were beginning to think that maybe that was just a blip, strong evidence has emerged from multiple peer-reviewed and published studies that if you scratch a white, male, far-right nationalist, you’ll find a denier of climate science as well.

That conservative white males in the USA are more likely to deny anthropogenic global warming is well documented, as is the increase in that denial over the past decade. A study published in the journal Global Environmental Change found:

conservative white males are significantly more likely than are other Americans to endorse denialist views on all five items, and that these differences are even greater for those conservative white males who self-report understanding global warming very well.

The US study was replicated in Norway and found that in that country there was evidence that climate change denial was merging with right-wing nationalism and become a focal point of agreement in those groups.

63 per cent of conservative males in Norway do not believe in anthropogenic climate change, as opposed to 36 per cent among the rest of the population who deny climate change and global warming. […] Interpreting xenoscepticism as a rough proxy for right leaning views, climate change denial in Norway seems to merge with broader patterns of right-wing nationalism.

A German study found solid evidence of climate change skepticism being prevalent in far-right communication and that it often overrode values related to preservation of nature.

We thus contribute to the growing body of knowledge on climate-change communication and, more specifically, on the link between ideology and climate-change skepticism.

Results courtesy Pew Research

Pew Research has done extensive polling on opinions related to climate change in the USA and documented the clear split between Republicans and Democrats on the issue of global warming.

While the Republicans have not in the past been readily described as a right-wing nationalist party, the most recent administration has certainly pandered to that subset of populace and Trump’s remarks after the Charlottesville white supremacist march of 2017 and the death of Heather Heyer were widely interpreted as supporting the white nationalists.

Similarly, Pew has documented the gender split in climate change skepticism, with men in multiple countries much less likely to accept the science.

It’s also worth looking at the gender split in voting for radical right-wing parties. Research has shown time and again that most right-wing nationalists are men.

One of the most consistent findings in the research on radical right voting has been the gender-specific profile of the radical right electorate. […] women tend to be significantly underrepresented among radical right voters compared with men

So we have multiple lines of evidence which support the idea that white, right-wing, nationalist males are likely to not accept the incredibly well-supported science of anthropogenic global warming and climate change. As with conspiracy ideation, white racism’s lack of rational and empirical support is a strong indicator of other failings.

With this data and evidence of climate-change denial policies explicit in nationalist parties, Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden is establishing a research project to assess this.

in Denmark and Norway, in Britain with UKIP, and Front National in France. But also, in Sweden, with the Sweden Democrats’ suspicion towards SMHI (Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute), their dismissal of the Paris Agreement and of climate laws, and in their appraisal of climate change denier Václav Klaus as a freedom-fighting hero. […] a unique international collaborative platform for research into climate change denial,Centre for Studies of Climate Change Denialism (CEFORCED), will be established, which will connect around 40 of the world’s foremost scientific experts

There will be more and more published data on this in the coming years. For lay people, it’s sufficient to know that one of the groups where global warming denial is strongest is male white supremacists. That should give pause to others considering skepticism to be a reasonable position.

That is in some ways a positive, as a limited study found 17% of former climate change deniers had changed to acceptance of the science in part due to the credibility of the people around them. When your fellow ‘skeptics’ are tiki-torch Nazis, it’s probably hard to accept that they are rational about everything else except that.

SOURCE 






Life after climate change: lessons from Cape Town

What complete BS this is!  The FT should know better.  The Capetown water shortage had NOTHING to do with climate change.  It came about because the population doubled while the "Rainbow" government did nothing to expand the water infrastructure.  They are still running on the dams etc left behind by the Apartheid government

In the flat where I stayed in Cape Town last month, the bathtub felt like a relic of a lost civilisation. It may never be used again. Beside it was a shower containing an egg timer. The two-minute wash has been standard here since the recent three-year drought. In the city’s public bathrooms, a dribble comes out of the tap. Posters everywhere warn against wasting water.

This is what adapting to climate change looks like. Last year, Cape Town nearly became the first big city on earth to run dry. Daily water rations dropped to 50 litres per person per day, with the spectre of 25 litres if supplies ran out on “ Day Zero”.

The drought broke just in time, but the city’s planners now expect permanent water scarcity. Rationing, which initially felt like wartime austerity, has become normal.

We have collectively decided not to stop climate change — carbon dioxide emissions hit a record in 2018 — so the future will be about mitigating its effects. Every region faces its own threat, whether from heat, flooding, drought or hurricanes. Whatever the problem, Cape Town’s glimpse of the future offers lessons for everyone:

* An existential climate crisis creates almost instant consensus on action. I didn’t hear anyone in Cape Town dismiss climate change as an elite hobby, or argue against rationing. On the contrary, water was an almost automatic topic of conversation with people of all classes, well ahead of May’s South African elections. The only arguments were about how to access (and ration) water.

* Climate change is a class issue. For people who live in shanty towns outside Cape Town without running water, it’s always Day Zero. Yet a crisis was proclaimed only when rich Capetonians and companies were affected too.

The city’s new scarcity has caused some accidental redistribution: the rich pay rising water tariffs, and their swimming pools and baths have become less useful. But they can also afford to install storage tanks and private boreholes (which, essentially, means privatising ground-water). Meanwhile, the higher costs of living in an adapting city may push out the middle classes.

* Climate change reorders the economy. The Cape’s poor farmworkers will be hurt by reduced irrigation, writes the FT’s Southern Africa correspondent, Joseph Cotterill. (The great majority of global water use goes on agriculture.)

But adaptation also creates jobs — for technicians who can fix leaky taps and water pipes, and for the medieval-style water-carriers who have emerged around Newlands Spring in Cape Town. There’ll be corporate contracts galore as South Africa renovates its water infrastructure.

* Regional and national governments will clash over who should pay for climate change. All the proposed fixes — desalination plants, dams, plugging leaks — cost money. No national government wants to finance one city’s special needs, even leaving aside the complication that the ANC rules South Africa while its rival, the Democratic Alliance, rules Cape Town.

Such stand-offs will mushroom worldwide. Picture Miami asking Washington DC for money after the next hurricane. What almost ­certainly won’t be on offer is international help, given rising nationalism.

SOURCE 





Federal Judge Strikes Down Trump’s Deal To Build a Life-Saving Road

A federal judge on Friday vacated a land swap agreement between an Alaskan village and the Interior Department because the federal government violated procedural law when making the deal.

U.S. District Court of Alaska Judge Sharon Gleason nullified a January 2018 deal that traded roughly 500 acres of federally protected wilderness to the community of King Cove, Alaska, in exchange for one acre to the Department of the Interior. At the time, Alaskan lawmakers and King Cove residents celebrated the agreement as the end of a four-decade battle.

“This is a disappointing case and a disappointing ruling,” GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said in a statement.

Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke signed off on the agreement, trading away some the 315,000-acre Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in order for King Cove to finish construction on a road between the community and Cold Bay, roughly 30 miles away by land.

Gleason sided with several environmental groups that sued the federal government over the deal, alleging that Zinke “not only failed to provide the required level of detailed justification for reversing decades of prior findings, he provided no justification at all,” according to the judge’s decision, reported by the Anchorage Daily News. Gleason agreed with the environmentalists, ruling that Zinke had violated the Administrative Procedures Act when signing the deal with King Cove.

A community of fewer than 1,000 people, King Cove is situated on a remote peninsula in southern Alaska. Residents have limited access to medical care — a small clinic covers the most basic medical needs — and must travel more than 600 miles by air to Anchorage to see a physician for surgeries and other operations.

Alaska officials have been arguing for decades that a land route between King Cove and Cold Bay, where the area’s only all-weather airport is located, is a medical necessity. Air taxis between Cold Bay and King Cove’s gravel airstrip and fishing boats can usually transport residents, but in medical emergencies, those options are only reliable about two-thirds of the year.

The rest of the time, the area’s weather is too severe for small planes and boats to safely navigate. At least 18 people have died in King Cove waiting for medevac by the Coast Guard or in crashes trying to travel to Cold Bay because no reliable land route connects the two communities.

“There have been nearly 100 medevacs in King Cove — many carried out by the Coast Guard — since 2014 alone. There is no question that the people who live there need a single-lane, gravel, non-commercial road to protect their health and safety,” Murkowski said. “I will never stop until this road is a reality and the nearly 1,000 residents of this isolated community have a lifeline for emergency medical care.”

SOURCE 






Indignant Climate Alarmists Terrified Of ANY Scientific Debate

Before even thinking about squandering one hundred trillion dollars on an insane economy-collapsing Green New Deal premised upon an end-of-world climate catastrophe, let’s take a very hard look at the so-called “settled science” nonsense.

The Trump White House plans to convene a National Security Council review panel headed by Princeton emeritus professor of physics Dr. Will Happer to do exactly that.

One of the loudest, shrillest, most unsettled voices of protest against science scrutiny is emanating from Dr. Michael Mann, the author of a cobbled-together and thoroughly debunked “hockey stick” graph first used by the IPCC and Al Gore to gin up the climate Armageddon alarm.

A March 20 article co-authored by Mann and Bob Ward in The Guardian equated the planned NSC panel to Stalinist repression.

Accordingly, a great place to begin this investigation is to revisit scandalous Climategate email exchanges between members of Mann’s hockey team along with readily available public records I have previously written about in numerous Forbes and Newsmax articles.

Tom Crowley, a close Mann colleague, wrote, “I am not convinced that the ‘truth’ is always worth reaching if it is at the cost of damaged personal relationships.”

Yet friendship aside, Mann’s hockey ‘schtick’ graph co-author Raymond Bradley clearly drew the line regarding another research paper jointly published by Mann and colleague Phil Jones at the University of East Anglia.

Bradley wrote, “I’m sure you agree–the Mann/Jones GRL [Geophysical Research Letters] paper was truly pathetic and should never have been published. I don’t want to be associated with that 2000 year [climate] reconstruction.”

Nevertheless, Michael Mann sanctimoniously attacked Will Happer’s scientific credentials to chair the NSC’s panel because “[he] has not published any research on climate change in a reputable science journal.”

By “reputable,” Mann is obviously referring to publishers that exclusively post research papers endorsed by the Climate Crisis Cartel and its IPCC sponsors.

An email from Jones to Kevin Trenberth, a lead author of the 2001 and 2007 IPCC reports, said, “Kevin, Seems that this potential Nature [journal] paper may be worth citing, if it does say that GW [global warming] is having an effect on TC [tropical cyclone] activity.”

Jones wanted to make sure that people who supported this connection be represented in IPCC reviews, “Getting people we know and trust [into IPCC] is vital – hence my comment about the tornadoes group.”

Top cyclone expert Christopher Landsea demanded that the IPCC refute Trenberth’s scientifically unsupportable but highly publicized claim of a global warming-hurricane link following a deadly 2004 Florida storm season. Receiving no response, Landsea resigned as an invited 2007 IPCC report author.

A July 2004 communication from Phil Jones to Michael Mann marked “Highly Confidential” discussed keeping two papers published in Climate Research from being in that next IPCC report.

Jones wrote: Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is.”

Jonathan Overpeck, a coordinating lead IPCC report author, suggested, “The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s included and what is left out.”

Trenberth’s associate Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research warned in another email to Mann, “Mike, the Figure you sent is very deceptive . . . there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC . . . ”

Wigley and Trenberth suggested in another email to Mann, “If you think that [Yale professor James] Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official [American Geophysical Union] channels to get him ousted [as editor-in-chief of the Geophysical Research Letters journal].”

Writing to Phil Jones, Peter Thorne of the U.K. Met Office advised caution, saying, “Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous.”

Thorne prudently observed in a separate email, “I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.”

Another scientist worries, ” . . . clearly, some tuning or very good luck [is] involved. I doubt the modeling world will be able to get away with this much longer.”

Still, another observed, “It is inconceivable that policymakers will be willing to make billion-and trillion-dollar decisions for adaptation to the projected regional climate change based on models that do not even describe and simulate the processes that are the building blocks of climate variability.”

One researcher foresaw some very troubling consequences, “What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multi-decadal natural fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably . . . ”

Oh, Mann!

I understand your angst about where your rebounding hockey puck may wind up.

SOURCE 







Al Gore to head Climate Change Week in Australia in June

What a nauseous prospect!  Why does anyone need "training" in global warming?  It is obviously not a scientific conference where evidence is discussed.  It seems to be a propaganda course.  That does need training because it is an education in falsehoods

An Inconvenient Truth presenter and former US vice-president Al Gore will run a three-day climate change training session in Brisbane during Queensland's first Climate Change Week.

Governments from around the Asia-Pacific region will travel to Brisbane for the week starting June 2 for discussion on climate change. World Environment Day is marked on June 5.

Political, business and community groups will also meet to debate issues to develop a strategy to minimise the effects of a changing climate.

After he left politics, Mr Gore developed an international reputation when his grassroots campaign to educate people about climate change became a 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

He was a joint-winner of a Nobel prize the following year.

An Inconvenient Sequel came in 2017, while Mr Gore runs and lectures at The Climate Reality Project.

In Brisbane, Mr Gore and The Climate Reality will host climate-change training for between 800-1000 business and community leaders.

Professor Don Henry, chair of The Climate Reality in Australia and the Pacific, said this was the first time Mr Gore would train others on climate issues in Queensland.

“It is a good opportunity for people from all walks of life to be better informed and act on the solutions needed to tackle climate change,” Professor Henry said.

“With the Great Barrier Reef threatened by climate change and action needed across the Asia Pacific region, the training will be of global significance.”

The Queensland government is developing a green paper on climate-change strategies, which it planned to release in either June or July, the state's new chief scientist Professor Paul Bertsch told Brisbane Times in February.

The Queensland government has set an ambitious target of meeting 50 per cent of its energy needs from renewable energy by 2030 and have zero net emissions by 2050.

“Climate change is the greatest challenge facing our planet today and it is critical that we unite to take urgent action,” Queensland Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch said.

Ms Enoch in February said Queensland "was on track" to provide 20 per cent of its electricity needs by renewable energy by 2020, in response to criticism by Queensland Climate Advisory Council senior scientist, Professor Ian Lowe.

The Queensland government is one of 220 members of The Climate Group's Under2 Coalition, a  group of "smaller than national governments" committed to keep the change in the world's temperature to below 2 degrees.

Ms Enoch said the Great Barrier Reef was still threatened by the warming climate.

“During Climate Week Queensland, we will bring together sub-national governments from across Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

“In addition, we will host a First Nations Summit to ensure that these communities, many of which are also experiencing the impacts of climate change, are part of these important discussions.”

Climate Week Queensland will include business forums and a public program of arts, music, and panel discussions involving students.

Ms Enoch said that as part of the Minister’s Climate Challenge, students would be invited to identify a local climate problem and brainstorm an idea to solve it.

“The students who put forward the most innovative ideas will have the opportunity to be mentored by and have their solutions judged by world-class business leaders during Climate Week Queensland.”

SOURCE  

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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1 April, 2019

Extreme weather news may not change climate change skeptics’ minds

The article below treats it as a puzzle that recent weather events do not have everyone believing in global warming.  It's not exactly a mystery. Even Warmist reporting often admits that we have had bad events before and that there is no way to tie weather events to global warming.  The IPCC itself says that.  It's just self-deluded fanatics writing below.  I reproduce only the first part


The year 2018 brought particularly devastating natural disasters, including hurricanes, droughts, floods and fires – just the kinds of extreme weather events scientists predict will be exacerbated by climate change.

Amid this destruction, some people see an opportunity to finally quash climate change skepticism. After all, it seems hard to deny the realities of climate change – and object to policies fighting it – while its effects visibly wreck communities, maybe even your own.

News outlets have hesitated to connect natural disasters and climate change, though these connections are increasing, thanks to calls from experts combined with more precise data about the effects of climate change. Media voices like The Guardian advocate for more coverage of the weather events “when people can see and feel climate change.” Harvard’s Nieman Foundation dubbed 2019 “The Year of the Climate Reporter.” Even conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh worried that media predictions about Hurricane Florence were attempts to “heighten belief in climate change.”

But a recent study from Ohio State University communications scholars found that news stories connecting climate change to natural disasters actually backfire among skeptics. As someone who also studies scientific communication, I find these results fascinating. It’s easy to assume that presenting factual information will automatically change people’s minds, but messages can have complex, frustrating persuasive effects.

Investigating how skeptics hear the news

Social scientists have an unclear understanding of how climate change news affects public opinion, as not enough research has specifically explored that question. To explore the question, researchers from Ohio State recruited 1,504 volunteers. They divided them into groups who read news stories about natural disasters – fires, hurricanes or blizzards – that either emphasized or omitted the role of climate change.

Cleverly, the researchers recruited participants from geographic areas most likely to experience the disasters they read about; for instance, participants in hurricane-prone areas read the news articles about hurricanes. Further, the researchers ran the study in fall 2017, during hurricane and wildfire season, when these sorts of disasters are presumably top of mind.

After reading, participants answered 11 questions meant to measure their resistance to the article, including “Sometimes I wanted to ‘argue back’ against what I read” and “I found myself looking for flaws in the way information was presented.”

It turned out that climate change skeptics – whether politically conservative or liberal – showed more resistance to the stories that mentioned climate change. Climate change themes also made skeptics more likely to downplay the severity of the disasters. At the same time, the same articles made people who accept climate change perceive the hazards as more severe.

The study findings suggest that reporting the relationship between climate change and hazardous weather may actually increase the skepticism of skeptics, even in the face of blatant contrary evidence. Psychologists call this the boomerang effect, because the message ultimately sends people in the opposite direction.

SOURCE 






Sea Rise - Oct. 6, 1871 New York Daily Tribune







Schumer: ‘The Terrible Kinds of Disaster--Flooding, Tornadoes, and Wildfires--We Have Had Will Continue’

Chuckie is right.  Extreme weather events will certainly continue.  America has always had them and always will

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.) warned on the Senate floor on Wednesday after the chamber voted on the Green New Deal that manmade climate change was real and that “flooding, tornadoes, and wildfires” would continue.

“Temperatures will still go up. The oceans will still rise,” Schumer said. “The terrible kinds of disaster--flooding, tornadoes, and wildfires--that we have had will continue.”

Earlier in the day, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell offered a motion to bring Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal up for a vote, which would require getting 60 senators to agree to cloture. Fifty-seven members—including 54 Republicans and 3 Democrats—voted to block the vote on the Green New Deal.

Rather than vote in favor of having a vote on the Green New Deal, 43 members—all Democrats—voted “present.”

Schumer then gave a speech saying that “McConnell’s stunt” had “boomeranged on him.” He also applauded McConnell for telling reporters later that he believed that manmade climate change was in fact taking place.

Here is an excerpt of what Schumer said:

“McConnell's stunt, again, boomeranged on him and his colleagues, and they finally had to discuss this issue rather than do what they have liked to do for the last 5 years and sweep it under the rug.

Yesterday, the day before, today, and continuing in the future, we ask our Republican colleagues three simple questions to which they owe an answer to their constituents. First, do you believe climate change is real? Second, do you believe climate change is caused by human activity? And third, do you believe Congress has to act immediately to deal with this problem?

We are finally getting some answers, thanks to McConnell's trick that he eventually played on himself. No less than Leader McConnell was asked by the press yesterday afternoon at his Ohio Clock press camp if he believes in climate change, and he said he believes it is real and he believes it is caused by human activity. Well, there is one more step if you believe all that: What is your answer--not what you are against but what you are for?

I want to commend Senators Roberts, Alexander, and Murkowski. They came to the floor and stated unequivocally and clearly that climate change is real and caused by humans. Make no mistake, in this glacial atmosphere controlled by the Republicans, when it comes to climate change, this is real progress, but, of course, it is not close to enough.

As to the third question, Leader McConnell offered no solution. All we got was a sham vote that he voted against. So I ask Leader McConnell: What is your plan? Some Republicans now seem to admit the challenges of climate change. OK, that is good. Now, what is your solution?

Turning the Senate floor into a campaign ad studio is not a solution to climate change, nor is it very effective even for their own purposes. Several Senators seemed to suggest that this problem can simply be solved by funding for more research. I support funding for research. It should be part of any climate plan. Yet I say to my friends--particularly, those from coal States--that is not going to solve the problem. Dealing with coal sequestration and coal technology will, at best, solve 1 percent of the problem. So I say to my friends:

What about the other 99 percent, because 1 percent isn't enough? Temperatures will still go up. The oceans will still rise. The terrible kinds of disaster--flooding, tornadoes, and wildfires--that we have had will continue. To simply say that you are doing some research into how to deal with coal is not close to solving the problem. …

I am glad that finally, though--this is the good news here--some of my colleagues are starting to see the light and admit that it is real and admit that it is caused by human activity. Now, they need to put their money where their mouth is and work with us to take action that matches the scale of the problem.

SOURCE 






Democrats Taking a Nonsensical Approach to Climate Change

They don't act as if they believe in it
    
Imagine there’s a movie about a meteor heading toward earth. It will be here in 12 years. Following Hollywood convention, once you got past the part where the maverick scientist or precocious kid discovering it struggles to convince the world about the threat, you’d expect the president or the military to leap into action.

Congress is usually left out of such plots, but it’s not a stretch to imagine that Congress would race to authorize a plan to send astronauts into space to prevent Armageddon or a planetary deep impact. (If you don’t believe me, I refer you to the movies “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact.”)

The initial rollout of the Green New Deal, a sweeping proposal to overhaul the U.S. economy and, taken seriously, society itself, was supposed to follow a script like this. The United Nations opened the bidding by announcing last year that we had 12 years to keep the pace of climate change from accelerating too fast to contain the damage. Like a high school game of telephone, this quickly became a blanket statement that we have “12 years to save the planet.”

Climate change is a real concern, but if we did absolutely nothing to stop it, the planet would still be here in a dozen years. So would the human race and many other living things. In fact, if America did virtually everything the Green New Dealers propose, global emissions of greenhouse gases wouldn’t change that much unless China, India, Russia and all the African nations followed suit.

There are people who nonetheless believe that climate change is a world-threatening calamity and that exaggeration is a necessary tool to galvanize public opinion. If you Google the phrase “12 years to save the planet,” you’ll find people who think it’s literally true.

The problem is that we’ve heard these things before. In 1989, a U.N. official predicted “entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.” In 2008, Al Gore warned that the northern polar ice cap could be gone in five years.

Melting polar ice is something to worry about, but it’s not gone.

The reasons this is a political problem for climate-change warriors should be obvious. First, they are their own worst enemy when it comes to maintaining credibility. By working on the theory that they have to scare the bejeebus out of the public, they made it easy for people to dismiss them when their Chicken Little prophecies didn’t materialize.

Another problem, which compounds the first, is that they get greedy. Working on the premise that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste, progressives have a long record of trying to throw other items on their wish list into the anti-climate change shopping cart. The Green New Deal, as presented by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, includes high-quality health care for everyone, guaranteed jobs, paid vacations, a living wage and retirement security.

Indeed, it’s worth remembering that environmentalists targeted the fossil fuel industry for early retirement long before concerns about global warming were on the agenda. The anti-oil campaign began with the Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969, back when concerns about another ice age were still taken seriously.

You can believe that climate change is a real problem and also be forgiven for thinking progressives are trying to pull a fast one. This is especially so when you consider that proponents of the GND also favor phasing out nuclear power, which could provide vastly more electricity than wind or solar (and more efficiently).

Which gets me back to where I started. Imagine there was a movie about an incoming meteor that could only be stopped with a nuclear warhead, and the heroes insisted that nuclear weapons are just too icky to use, even to save the planet. Audiences would scratch their heads.

They might also think they missed a crucial plot point if the protagonists proposed a sweeping government effort to stop the meteor and then, when given the opportunity to vote for it, voted “present” in protest. That’s similar to what happened this week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell brought the Green New Deal to the floor for a vote, and Democrats refused to vote for it. Instead, they harangued McConnell for pulling a stunt.

They were right. It was a stunt. But sometimes it takes a stunt to expose an even bigger one

SOURCE 






As Green New Deal ‘Withers,’ NYTimes Runs OpEd: People ‘Actually Like’ It

The Green New Deal plan got zero votes in the Senate this week. Z-E-R-O.  Yet progressives continue to claim people “like” the plan, with the help of the liberal media.

According to USA Today, a handful of Democrats joined the Republicans in voting against it in the procedural vote — killing it “for now.”

In spite of the plan’s failure to even get a single Democratic senator officially on board, The New York Times ran an op-ed that day promoting it.

The op-ed from left-wing Data for Progress co-founder Sean McElwee claimed, “People Actually Like the Green New Deal. The group is one of the progressive activist groups promoting such a plan and put out its own GND blueprint in 2018.

The subhead continued, “Mitch McConnell’s show vote in the Senate on Tuesday rejected the plan, but Republicans may come to regret their mockery.”

McElwee claimed that although his group is “a liberal organization that is supportive of the Green New Deal, we don’t let that cloud our polling.”

He claimed their polls showed that the plan wasn’t “toxic” and touted: “Forty-six percent of likely voters supported the policy and 34 percent opposed it. (The rest were unsure.)”

That isn’t even a majority! And tucked later into his op-ed it became clear that some of the most essential elements of a Green New Deal such as getting rid of all fossil fuels are actually unpopular.

The disliked elements he acknowledged included a “full shift to electric cars” and “phasing out of all power plants.”

It’s ridiculous for a headline to claim “People Actually Like” the plan with caveats like that.

He also whined that Fox News and the “Republican propaganda machine has already reshaped the narrative” against the Green New Deal, but insisted such a plan is “the future of the Democratic Party.”

His group, Data for Progress, is a project of the left-wing Tides Advocacy (formerly The Advocacy Fund).

According to a piece McElwee and long-time progressive activist Mark Egerman co-wrote for Dissent Magazine, they could envision a “point at which” left-wing billionaire George Soros “would be to the right of the center of the Democratic Party.”

They were criticizing the “power of monied interests” to the left and continued, “For now though, the main threat money poses to the left is largely through the Kochs and corporate PACs, rather than the insufficient liberalism of major donors.”

SOURCE 

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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Calibrated in whole degrees. Larger graph here. It shows that we actually live in an era of remarkable temperature stability.

Climate scientist Lennart Bengtsson said. “The warming we have had the last 100 years is so small that if we didn’t have meteorologists and climatologists to measure it we wouldn’t have noticed it at all.”

This site is in favour of things that ARE good for the environment. That the usual Greenie causes are good for the environment is however disputed. Greenie policies can in fact be actively bad for the environment -- as with biofuels, for instance

This Blog by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.), writing from Brisbane, Australia.



I am the most complete atheist you can imagine. I don't believe in Karl Marx, Jesus Christ or global warming. And I also don't believe in the unhealthiness of salt, sugar and fat. How skeptical can you get? If sugar is bad we are all dead

And when it comes to "climate change", I know where the skeletons are buried

There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters too sensitive or delicate to be challenged, no sacred truths.


Context for the minute average temperature change recorded in the graph above: At any given time surface air temperatures around the world range over about 100°C. Even in the same place they can vary by nearly that much seasonally and as much as 30°C or more in a day. A minute rise in average temperature in that context is trivial if it is not meaningless altogether. Scientists are Warmists for the money it brings in, not because of the facts

"Thinking" molecules?? Terrestrial temperatures have gone up by less than one degree over the last 150 years and CO2 has gone up long term too. But that proves nothing. It is not a proven causal relationship. One of the first things you learn in statistics is that correlation is not causation. And there is none of the smooth relationship that you would expect of a causal relationship. Both temperatures and CO2 went up in fits and starts but they were not the same fits and starts. The precise effects on temperature that CO2 levels are supposed to produce were not produced. CO2 molecules don't have a little brain in them that says "I will stop reflecting heat down for a few years and then start up again". Their action (if any) is entirely passive. Theoretically, the effect of added CO2 in the atmosphere should be instant. It allegedly works by bouncing electromagnetic radiation around and electromagnetic radiation moves at the speed of light. But there has been no instant effect. Temperature can stay plateaued for many years (e.g. 1945 to 1975) while CO2 levels climb. So there is clearly no causal link between the two. One could argue that there are one or two things -- mainly volcanoes and the Ninos -- that upset the relationship but there are not exceptions ALL the time. Most of the time a precise 1 to 1 connection should be visible. It isn't, far from it. You should be able to read one from the other. You can't.

Antarctica is GAINING mass

Warmists depend heavily on ice cores for their figures about the atmosphere of the past. But measuring the deep past through ice cores is a very shaky enterprise, which almost certainly takes insufficient account of compression effects. The apparently stable CO2 level of 280ppm during the Holocene could in fact be entirely an artifact of compression at the deeper levels of the ice cores. . Perhaps the gas content of an ice layer approaches a low asymptote under pressure. Dr Zbigniew Jaworowski's criticisms of the assumed reliability of ice core measurements are of course well known. And he studied them for over 30 years.

The world's first "Green" party was the Nazi party -- and Greenies are just as Fascist today in their endeavours to dictate to us all and in their attempts to suppress dissent from their claims.

Was Pope Urban VIII the first Warmist? Below we see him refusing to look through Galileo's telescope. People tend to refuse to consider evidence— if what they might discover contradicts what they believe.



Warmism is a powerful religion that aims to control most of our lives. It is nearly as powerful as the Catholic Church once was

Believing in global warming has become a sign of virtue. Strange in a skeptical era. There is clearly a need for faith

Climate change is the religion of people who think they're too smart for religion



Some advice from the Buddha that the Green/Left would do well to think about: "Three things cannot be long hidden: The Sun, The Moon and The Truth"

Leftists have faith that warming will come back some day. And they mock Christians for believing in the second coming of Christ! They obviously need religion

Global warming has in fact been a religious doctrine for over a century. Even Charles Taze Russell, the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses, believed in it

A rosary for the church of global warming (Formerly the Catholic church): "Hail warming, full of grace, blessed art thou among climates and blessed is the fruit of thy womb panic"

Pope Francis is to the Catholic church what Obama is to America -- a mistake, a fool and a wrecker

Global warming is the predominant Leftist lie of the 21st century. No other lie is so influential. The runner up lie is: "Islam is a religion of peace". Both are rankly absurd.

"When it comes to alarmism, we’re all deniers; when it comes to climate change, none of us are" -- Dick Lindzen

The EPA does everything it can get away with to shaft America and Americans

Cromwell's famous plea: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken" was ignored by those to whom it was addressed -- to their great woe. Warmists too will not consider that they may be wrong ..... "Bowels" was a metaphor for compassion in those days

The plight of the bumblebee -- an egregious example of crooked "science"

Inorganic Origin of Petroleum: "The theory of Inorganic Origin of Petroleum (synonyms: abiogenic, abiotic, abyssal, endogenous, juvenile, mineral, primordial) states that petroleum and natural gas was formed by non-biological processes deep in the Earth, crust and mantle. This contradicts the traditional view that the oil would be a "fossil fuel" produced by remnants of ancient organisms. Oil is a hydrocarbon mixture in which a major constituent is methane CH4 (a molecule composed of one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). Occurrence of methane is common in Earth's interior and in space. The inorganic theory contrasts with the ideas that posit exhaustion of oil (Peak Oil), which assumes that the oil would be formed from biological processes and thus would occur only in small quantities and sets, tending to exhaust. Some oil drilling now goes 7 miles down, miles below any fossil layers

As the Italian chemist Primo Levi reflected in Auschwitz, carbon is ‘the only element that can bind itself in long stable chains without a great expense of energy, and for life on Earth (the only one we know so far) precisely long chains are required. Therefore carbon is the key element of living substance.’ The chemistry of carbon (2) gives it a unique versatility, not just in the artificial world, but also, and above all, in the animal, vegetable and – speak it loud! – human kingdoms.

David Archibald: "The more carbon dioxide we can put into the atmosphere, the better life on Earth will be for human beings and all other living things."

Fossil fuels are 100% organic, are made with solar energy, and when burned produce mostly CO2 and H2O, the 2 most important foods for life.

Warmists claim that the "hiatus" in global warming that began around 1998 was caused by the oceans suddenly gobbling up all the heat coming from above. Changes in the heat content of the oceans are barely measurable but the ARGO bathythermographs seem to show the oceans warming not from above but from below


WISDOM:

“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered, than answers that can’t be questioned.” — Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman, Physicist

“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” — Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman

UNRELIABLE SCIENCE:

(1). “The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness… “The apparent endemicity of bad research behaviour is alarming. In their quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world. Or they retrofit hypotheses to fit their data. Journal editors deserve their fair share of criticism too. We aid and abet the worst behaviours. Our acquiescence to the impact factor fuels an unhealthy competition to win a place in a select few journals. Our love of ‘significance’ pollutes the literature with many a statistical fairy-tale…Journals are not the only miscreants. Universities are in a perpetual struggle for money and talent…” (Dr. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief, The Lancet, in The Lancet, 11 April, 2015, Vol 385, “Offline: What is medicine’s 5 sigma?”)

(2). “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” (Dr. Marcia Angell, NY Review of Books, January 15, 2009, “Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption)

Consensus: As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.'

Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough - Michael Crichton

Bertrand Russell knew about consensus: "The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”

"The growth of knowledge depends entirely on disagreement" -- Karl Popper

"I always think it's a sign of victory when they move on to the ad hominem -- Christopher Hitchens

"The desire to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it" -- H L Mencken

'Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action' -- Goethe

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” -- Voltaire

Lord Salisbury: "No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe soldiers, nothing is safe."

Calvin Coolidge said, "If you see 10 troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you." He could have been talking about Warmists.

Some advice from long ago for Warmists: "If ifs and ans were pots and pans,there'd be no room for tinkers". It's a nursery rhyme harking back to Middle English times when "an" could mean "if". Tinkers were semi-skilled itinerant workers who fixed holes and handles in pots and pans -- which were valuable household items for most of our history. Warmists are very big on "ifs", mays", "might" etc. But all sorts of things "may" happen, including global cooling

There goes another beautiful theory about to be murdered by a brutal gang of facts. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld, French writer and moralist (1613-1680)

"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate" -- William of Occam

Was Paracelsus a 16th century libertarian? His motto was: "Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest" which means "Let no man belong to another who can belong to himself." He was certainly a rebel in his rejection of authority and his reliance on observable facts and is as such one of the founders of modern medicine

"In science, refuting an accepted belief is celebrated as an advance in knowledge; in religion it is condemned as heresy". (Bob Parks, Physics, U of Maryland). No prizes for guessing how global warming skepticism is normally responded to.

"Almost all professors of the arts and sciences are egregiously conceited, and derive their happiness from their conceit" -- Erasmus

"The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin." -- Thomas H. Huxley

Time was, people warning the world "Repent - the end is nigh!" were snickered at as fruitcakes. Now they own the media and run the schools.

"One of the sources of the Fascist movement is the desire to avoid a too-rational and too-comfortable world" -- George Orwell, 1943 in Can Socialists Be Happy?

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts -- Bertrand Russell

“Affordable energy in ample quantities is the lifeblood of the industrial societies and a prerequisite for the economic development of the others.” -- John P. Holdren, Science Adviser to President Obama. Published in Science 9 February 2001

The closer science looks at the real world processes involved in climate regulation the more absurd the IPCC's computer driven fairy tale appears. Instead of blithely modeling climate based on hunches and suppositions, climate scientists would be better off abandoning their ivory towers and actually measuring what happens in the real world.' -- Doug L Hoffman

Something no Warmist could take on board: "Knuth once warned a correspondent, "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Prof. Donald Knuth, whom some regard as the world's smartest man

"To be green is to be irrational, misanthropic and morally defective. They are the barbarians at the gate we have to stand against" -- Rich Kozlovich

“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.“ – Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

Leftists generally and Warmists in particular very commonly ascribe disagreement with their ideas to their opponent being "in the pay" of someone else, usually "Big Oil", without troubling themselves to provide any proof of that assertion. They are so certain that they are right that that seems to be the only reasonable explanation for opposition to them. They thus reveal themselves as the ultimate bigots -- people with fixed and rigid ideas.


ABOUT:

This is one of TWO skeptical blogs that I update daily. During my research career as a social scientist, I was appalled at how much writing in my field was scientifically lacking -- and I often said so in detail in the many academic journal articles I had published in that field. I eventually gave up social science research, however, because no data ever seemed to change the views of its practitioners. I hoped that such obtuseness was confined to the social scientists but now that I have shifted my attention to health related science and climate related science, I find the same impermeability to facts and logic. Hence this blog and my FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blog. I may add that I did not come to either health or environmental research entirely without credentials. I had several academic papers published in both fields during my social science research career

Update: After 8 years of confronting the frankly childish standard of reasoning that pervades the medical journals, I have given up. I have put the blog into hibernation. In extreme cases I may put up here some of the more egregious examples of medical "wisdom" that I encounter. Greenies and food freaks seem to be largely coterminous. My regular bacon & egg breakfasts would certainly offend both -- if only because of the resultant methane output

Since my academic background is in the social sciences, it is reasonable to ask what a social scientist is doing talking about global warming. My view is that my expertise is the most relevant of all. It seems clear to me from what you will see on this blog that belief in global warming is very poorly explained by history, chemistry, physics or statistics.

Warmism is prophecy, not science. Science cannot foretell the future. Science can make very accurate predictions based on known regularities in nature (e.g. predicting the orbits of the inner planets) but Warmism is the exact opposite of that. It predicts a DEPARTURE from the known regularities of nature. If we go by the regularities of nature, we are on the brink of an ice age.

And from a philosophy of science viewpoint, far from being "the science", Warmism is not even an attempt at a factual statement, let alone being science. It is not a meaningful statement about the world. Why? Because it is unfalsifiable -- making it a religious, not a scientific statement. To be a scientific statement, there would have to be some conceivable event that disproved it -- but there appears to be none. ANY event is hailed by Warmists as proving their contentions. Only if Warmists were able to specify some fact or event that would disprove their theory would it have any claim to being a scientific statement. So the explanation for Warmist beliefs has to be primarily a psychological and political one -- which makes it my field

And, after all, Al Gore's academic qualifications are in social science also -- albeit very pissant qualifications.

A "geriatric" revolt: The scientists who reject Warmism tend to be OLD! Your present blogger is one of those. There are tremendous pressures to conformity in academe and the generally Leftist orientation of academe tends to pressure everyone within it to agree to ideas that suit the Left. And Warmism is certainly one of those ideas. So old guys are the only ones who can AFFORD to declare the Warmists to be unclothed. They either have their careers well-established (with tenure) or have reached financial independence (retirement) and so can afford to call it like they see it. In general, seniors in society today are not remotely as helpful to younger people as they once were. But their opposition to the Warmist hysteria will one day show that seniors are not completely irrelevant after all. Experience does count (we have seen many such hysterias in the past and we have a broader base of knowledge to call on) and our independence is certainly an enormous strength. Some of us are already dead. (Reid Bryson and John Daly are particularly mourned) and some of us are very senior indeed (e.g. Bill Gray and Vince Gray) but the revolt we have fostered is ever growing so we have not labored in vain.

A Warmist backs down: "No one knows exactly how far rising carbon concentrations affect temperatures" -- Stefan Rahmstorf, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Jimmy Carter Classic Quote from 1977: "Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.


SOME POINTS TO PONDER:

Today’s environmental movement is the current manifestation of the totalitarian impulse. It is ironic that the same people who condemn the black or brown shirts of the pre WW2 period are blind to the current manifestation simply because the shirts are green.

Climate is just the sum of weather. So if you cannot forecast the weather a month in advance, you will not be able to forecast the climate 50 years in advance. And official meteorologists such as Britain's Met Office and Australia's BOM, are very poor forecasters of weather. The Met office has in fact given up on making seasonal forecasts because they have so often got such forecasts embarrassingly wrong. Their global-warming-powered "models" just did not deliver

The frequency of hurricanes has markedly DECLINED in recent years

Here's how that "97% consensus" figure was arrived at

97% of scientists want to get another research grant

Another 97%: Following the death of an older brother in a car crash in 1994, Bashar Al Assad became heir apparent; and after his father died in June 2000, he took office as President of Syria with a startling 97 per cent of the vote.

Hearing a Government Funded Scientist say let me tell you the truth, is like hearing a Used Car Salesman saying let me tell you the truth.

A strange Green/Left conceit: They seem to think (e.g. here) that no-one should spend money opposing them and that conservative donors must not support the election campaigns of Congressmen they agree with

David Brower, founder Sierra Club: “Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license"

To Greenies, Genghis Khan was a good guy, believe it or not. They love that he killed so many people.

Greenie antisemitism

After three exceptionally cold winters in the Northern hemisphere, the Warmists are chanting: "Warming causes cold". Even if we give that a pass for logic, it still inspires the question: "Well, what are we worried about"? Cold is not going to melt the icecaps is it?"

It's a central (but unproven) assumption of the Warmist "models" that clouds cause warming. Odd that it seems to cool the temperature down when clouds appear overhead!

To make out that the essentially trivial warming of the last 150 years poses some sort of threat, Warmists postulate positive feedbacks that might cut in to make the warming accelerate in the near future. Amid their theories about feedbacks, however, they ignore the one feedback that is no theory: The reaction of plants to CO2. Plants gobble up CO2 and the more CO2 there is the more plants will flourish and hence gobble up yet more CO2. And the increasing crop yields of recent years show that plantlife is already flourishing more. The recent rise in CO2 will therefore soon be gobbled up and will no longer be around to bother anyone. Plants provide a huge NEGATIVE feedback in response to increases in atmospheric CO2

Every green plant around us is made out of carbon dioxide that the plant has grabbed out of the atmosphere. That the plant can get its carbon from such a trace gas is one of the miracles of life. It admittedly uses the huge power of the sun to accomplish such a vast filtrative task but the fact that a dumb plant can harness the power of the sun so effectively is also a wonder. We live on a rather improbable planet. If a science fiction writer elsewhere in the universe described a world like ours he might well be ridiculed for making up such an implausible tale.

Greenies are the sand in the gears of modern civilization -- and they intend to be.

The Greenie message is entirely emotional and devoid of all logic. They say that polar ice will melt and cause a big sea-level rise. Yet 91% of the world's glacial ice is in Antarctica, where the average temperature is around minus 40 degrees Celsius. The melting point of ice is zero degrees. So for the ice to melt on any scale the Antarctic temperature would need to rise by around 40 degrees, which NOBODY is predicting. The median Greenie prediction is about 4 degrees. So where is the huge sea level rise going to come from? Mars? And the North polar area is mostly sea ice and melting sea ice does not raise the sea level at all. Yet Warmists constantly hail any sign of Arctic melting. That the melting of floating ice does not raise the water level is known as Archimedes' principle. Archimedes demonstrated it around 2,500 years ago. That Warmists have not yet caught up with that must be just about the most inspissated ignorance imaginable. The whole Warmist scare defies the most basic physics. Yet at the opening of 2011 we find the following unashamed lying by James Hansen: "We will lose all the ice in the polar ice cap in a couple of decades". Sadly, what the Vulgate says in John 1:5 is still only very partially true: "Lux in tenebris lucet". There is still much darkness in the minds of men.

The repeated refusal of Warmist "scientists" to make their raw data available to critics is such a breach of scientific protocol that it amounts to a confession in itself. Note, for instance Phil Jones' Feb 21, 2005 response to Warwick Hughes' request for his raw climate data: "We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?" Looking for things that might be wrong with a given conclusion is of course central to science. But Warmism cannot survive such scrutiny. So even after "Climategate", the secrecy goes on.

Most Greenie causes are at best distractions from real environmental concerns (such as land degradation) and are more motivated by a hatred of people than by any care for the environment

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

‘Global warming’ has become the grand political narrative of the age, replacing Marxism as a dominant force for controlling liberty and human choices. -- Prof. P. Stott

Comparing climate alarmist Hansen to Cassandra is WRONG. Cassandra's (Greek mythology) dire prophecies were never believed but were always right. Hansen's dire prophecies are usually believed but are always wrong (Prof. Laurence Gould, U of Hartford, CT)

The modern environmental movement arose out of the wreckage of the New Left. They call themselves Green because they're too yellow to admit they're really Reds. So Lenin's birthday was chosen to be the date of Earth Day. Even a moderate politician like Al Gore has been clear as to what is needed. In "Earth in the Balance", he wrote that saving the planet would require a "wrenching transformation of society".

For centuries there was a scientific consensus which said that fire was explained by the release of an invisible element called phlogiston. That theory is universally ridiculed today. Global warming is the new phlogiston. Though, now that we know how deliberate the hoax has been, it might be more accurate to call global warming the New Piltdown Man. The Piltdown hoax took 40 years to unwind. I wonder....

Motives: Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Policies: The only underlying theme that makes sense of all Greenie policies is hatred of people. Hatred of other people has been a Greenie theme from way back. In a report titled "The First Global Revolution" (1991, p. 104) published by the "Club of Rome", a Greenie panic outfit, we find the following statement: "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.... All these dangers are caused by human intervention... The real enemy, then, is humanity itself." See here for many more examples of prominent Greenies saying how much and how furiously they hate you.

After fighting a 70 year war to destroy red communism we face another life-or-death struggle in the 21st century against green communism.

The conventional wisdom of the day is often spectacularly wrong. The most popular and successful opera of all time is undoubtedly "Carmen" by Georges Bizet. Yet it was much criticized when first performed and the unfortunate Bizet died believing that it was a flop. Similarly, when the most iconic piece of 20th century music was first performed in 1913-- Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" -- half the audience walked out. Those of us who defy the conventional wisdom about climate are actually better off than that. Unlike Bizet and Stravinsky in 1913, we KNOW that we will eventually be vindicated -- because all that supports Warmism is a crumbling edifice of guesswork ("models").

Al Gore won a political prize for an alleged work of science. That rather speaks for itself, doesn't it?

Jim Hansen and his twin

Getting rich and famous through alarmism: Al Gore is well-known but note also James Hansen. He has for decades been a senior, presumably well-paid, employee at NASA. In 2001 he was the recipient of a $250,000 Heinz Award. In 2007 Time magazine designated him a Hero of the Environment. That same year he pocketed one-third of a $1 million Dan David Prize. In 2008, the American Association for the Advancement of Science presented him with its Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award. In 2010 he landed a $100,000 Sophie Prize. He pulled in a total of $1.2 million in 2010. Not bad for a government bureaucrat.

See the original global Warmist in action here: "The icecaps are melting and all world is drowning to wash away the sin"

I am not a global warming skeptic nor am I a global warming denier. I am a global warming atheist. I don't believe one bit of it. That the earth's climate changes is undeniable. Only ignoramuses believe that climate stability is normal. But I see NO evidence to say that mankind has had anything to do with any of the changes observed -- and much evidence against that claim.

Seeing that we are all made of carbon, the time will come when people will look back on the carbon phobia of the early 21st century as too incredible to be believed

Meanwhile, however, let me venture a tentative prophecy. Prophecies are almost always wrong but here goes: Given the common hatred of carbon (Warmists) and salt (Food freaks) and given the fact that we are all made of carbon, salt, water and calcium (with a few additives), I am going to prophecy that at some time in the future a hatred of nitrogen will emerge. Why? Because most of the air that we breathe is nitrogen. We live at the bottom of a nitrogen sea. Logical to hate nitrogen? NO. But probable: Maybe. The Green/Left is mad enough. After all, nitrogen is a CHEMICAL -- and we can't have that!

UPDATE to the above: It seems that I am a true prophet

The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) must have foreseen Global Warmism. He said: "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

The Holy Grail for most scientists is not truth but research grants. And the global warming scare has produced a huge downpour of money for research. Any mystery why so many scientists claim some belief in global warming?

For many people, global warming seems to have taken the place of "The Jews" -- a convenient but false explanation for any disliked event. Prof. Brignell has some examples.

Global warming skeptics are real party-poopers. It's so wonderful to believe that you have a mission to save the world.

There is an "ascetic instinct" (or perhaps a "survivalist instinct") in many people that causes them to delight in going without material comforts. Monasteries and nunneries were once full of such people -- with the Byzantine stylites perhaps the most striking example. Many Greenies (other than Al Gore and his Hollywood pals) have that instinct too but in the absence of strong orthodox religious committments they have to convince themselves that the world NEEDS them to live in an ascetic way. So their personal emotional needs lead them to press on us all a delusional belief that the planet needs "saving".

The claim that oil is a fossil fuel is another great myth and folly of the age. They are now finding oil at around seven MILES beneath the sea bed -- which is incomparably further down than any known fossil. The abiotic oil theory is not as yet well enough developed to generate useful predictions but that is also true of fossil fuel theory

Help keep the planet Green! Maximize your CO2 and CH4 output!

Global Warming=More Life; Global Cooling=More Death.

The inconvenient truth about biological effects of "Ocean Acidification"

Medieval Warm Period: Recent climatological data assembled from around the world using different proxies attest to the presence of both the MWP and the LIA in the following locations: the Sargasso Sea, West Africa, Kenya, Peru, Japan, Tasmania, South Africa, Idaho, Argentina, and California. These events were clearly world-wide and in most locations the peak temperatures during the MWP were higher than current temperatures.

Both radioactive and stable carbon isotopes show that the real atmospheric CO2 residence time (lifetime) is only about 5 years, and that the amount of fossil-fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is maximum 4%.

Cook the crook who cooks the books

The great and fraudulent scare about lead


How 'GREEN' is the FOOTPRINT of a WIND TURBINE? 45 tons of rebar and 630 cubic yards of concrete

Green/Left denial of the facts explained: "Rejection lies in this, that when the light came into the world men preferred darkness to light; preferred it, because their doings were evil. Anyone who acts shamefully hates the light, will not come into the light, for fear that his doings will be found out. Whereas the man whose life is true comes to the light" John 3:19-21 (Knox)

Against the long history of huge temperature variation in the earth's climate (ice ages etc.), the .6 of one degree average rise reported by the U.N. "experts" for the entire 20th century (a rise so small that you would not be able to detect such a difference personally without instruments) shows, if anything, that the 20th century was a time of exceptional temperature stability.

Recent NASA figures tell us that there was NO warming trend in the USA during the 20th century. If global warming is occurring, how come it forgot the USA?

Warmists say that the revised NASA figures do not matter because they cover only the USA -- and the rest of the world is warming nicely. But it is not. There has NEVER been any evidence that the Southern hemisphere is warming. See here. So the warming pattern sure is looking moth-eaten.

The latest scare is the possible effect of extra CO2 on the world’s oceans, because more CO2 lowers the pH of seawater. While it is claimed that this makes the water more acidic, this is misleading. Since seawater has a pH around 8.1, it will take an awful lot of CO2 it to even make the water neutral (pH=7), let alone acidic (pH less than 7).

In fact, ocean acidification is a scientific impossibility. Henry's Law mandates that warming oceans will outgas CO2 to the atmosphere (as the UN's own documents predict it will), making the oceans less acid. Also, more CO2 would increase calcification rates. No comprehensive, reliable measurement of worldwide oceanic acid/base balance has ever been carried out: therefore, there is no observational basis for the computer models' guess that acidification of 0.1 pH units has occurred in recent decades.

The chaos theory people have told us for years that the air movement from a single butterfly's wing in Brazil can cause an unforeseen change in our weather here. Now we are told that climate experts can "model" the input of zillions of such incalculable variables over periods of decades to accurately forecast global warming 50 years hence. Give us all a break!

If you doubt the arrogance [of the global warming crowd, you haven't seen that Newsweek cover story that declared the global warming debate over. Consider: If Newton's laws of motion could, after 200 years of unfailing experimental and experiential confirmation, be overthrown, it requires religious fervor to believe that global warming -- infinitely more untested, complex and speculative -- is a closed issue

Scientists have politics too -- sometimes extreme politics. Read this: "This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism... I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child." -- Albert Einstein

The "precautionary principle" is a favourite Greenie idea -- but isn't that what George Bush was doing when he invaded Iraq? Wasn't that a precaution against Saddam getting or having any WMDs? So Greenies all agree with the Iraq intervention? If not, why not?

A classic example of how the sensationalist media distort science to create climate panic is here.

There is a very readable summary of the "Hockey Stick" fraud here

The Lockwood & Froehlich paper was designed to rebut Durkin's "Great Global Warming Swindle" film. It is a rather confused paper -- acknowledging yet failing to account fully for the damping effect of the oceans, for instance -- but it is nonetheless valuable to climate atheists. The concession from a Greenie source that fluctuations in the output of the sun have driven climate change for all but the last 20 years (See the first sentence of the paper) really is invaluable. And the basic fact presented in the paper -- that solar output has in general been on the downturn in recent years -- is also amusing to see. Surely even a crazed Greenie mind must see that the sun's influence has not stopped and that reduced solar output will soon start COOLING the earth! Unprecedented July 2007 cold weather throughout the Southern hemisphere might even have been the first sign that the cooling is happening. And the fact that warming plateaued in 1998 is also a good sign that we are moving into a cooling phase. As is so often the case, the Greenies have got the danger exactly backwards. See my post of 7.14.07 and very detailed critiques here and here and here for more on the Lockwood paper and its weaknesses.

As the Greenies are now learning, even strong statistical correlations may disappear if a longer time series is used. A remarkable example from Sociology: "The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre’s yield of cotton. He calculated the correla­tion coefficient between the two series at –0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic condi­tions and lynchings in Raper’s data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his anal­ysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic condi­tions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added." So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. In the Greenie case, the correlation between CO2 rise and global temperature rise stopped in 1998 -- but that could have been foreseen if measurements taken in the first half of the 20th century had been considered.

Relying on the popular wisdom can even hurt you personally: "The scientific consensus of a quarter-century ago turned into the arthritic nightmare of today."

Greenie-approved sources of electricity (windmills and solar cells) require heavy government subsidies to be competitive with normal electricity generators so a Dutch word for Greenie power seems graphic to me: "subsidieslurpers" (subsidy gobblers)

Many newspaper articles are reproduced in full on this blog despite copyright claims attached to them. I believe that such reproductions here are protected by the "fair use" provisions of copyright law. Fair use is a legal doctrine that recognises that the monopoly rights protected by copyright laws are not absolute. The doctrine holds that, when someone uses a creative work in way that does not hurt the market for the original work and advances a public purpose - such as education or scholarship - it might be considered "fair" and not infringing.





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