GREENIE WATCH -- by Dr. John Ray

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 permanent 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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31 March, 2019

Air pollution can send you mad! Linked to psychotic episodes in teens

Groan!   Why does JAMA keep publishing these crap studies? Weak effects, dodgy statistics and failure to control for the most likely confounder. That summary of their work will probably grieve the authors but the fact remains that their study proves nothing. I suppose both the authors and the editors feel that their study is within convention but I am not interested in convention. I am interested in reliable evidence

So: they analysed their data using quartiles. That might sound very technical so let me spell it out: They threw away much of the information they had before they even started to analyse it! How does that sound? Unfortunately use of quartiles is quite a common procedure in medical research. Authors resort to it because using all the data would show no effect.

In this case they found the effect they expected only in the top quartile. It did not exist in the data as a whole. Expressing the relationship between illness and pollution as a Pearsonian correlation coefficient would almost certainly make that brutally clear. In their conclusions the authors did describe their findings accurately but the casual reader would almost certainly conclude that there was a overall correlation between psychiatric illness and air pollution. There was not.

And if there were, we would not know how to interpret it. Why? Because there was no control for income. Probably the most consistent finding in the whole of the epidemiological literature is that the poor have worse health. So you must control for income or your findings could be due to the target group on balance having worse health. Otherwise the lesser health you have found in that group could be simply a poverty effect. And there are reasons to think that was so in this case. The "teenagers living in areas of high pollution" could be living there because they were poorer. Well off people can usually avoid "living in areas of high pollution"

And given the weak effects reported, it's not only possible but probable that income was the sole influence at work in the data. Control for income would have knocked the effects down to negligibility

I know why they did not control for income: It is a more difficult datum to collect. But I usually controlled for it in my survey research career so it can be done if you want your findings to be taken seriously.

Sigh! Why do I so often have to spend an hour pointing all that stuff out? It's just Greenie cussedness. If they think a thing is so, they will twist the statistics to fit

Journal abstract appended

The first research ever to investigate the link between psychotic experiences and poor air quality found teenagers living in areas of high pollution suffered more than those in cleaner environments.

The researchers, from King's College London, used data from 2,232 children born in England and Wales.

They found that, overall, approximately a third of adolescents reported hearing or seeing something that wasn’t there, or feeling paranoid on at least one occasion between the ages of 12 and 18.

Such episodes, while not necessarily serious in themselves, can be a gateway to graver mental conditions such as schizophrenia.

The mental health data was compared against with hourly estimates of air pollution at their home addresses and two other locations where they spent a lot of time at the age of 17 such as a school.

"This study found that psychotic experiences were significantly more common among teens exposed to higher levels of air pollution," lead author Dr Joanne Newbury said.

"For example, teenagers exposed to the highest levels of nitrogen oxides had a 72 per cent greater odds for psychotic experiences compared to those with lower exposure.”

Adolescents exposed to the highest level of nitrogen dioxide had 71 per cent greater odds of having a psychotic experience, the study also found.

Meanwhile, those exposed to the highest levels of particulate matter, which can include carbon, liquids, metals and dust, had 45 per cent greater odds.

Previous research has shown a link between urban living and adolescent psychotic experiences, but the researchers said this is the first evidence of an association with air pollution levels.

Other studies have recently shown an association between dementia and air pollution levels, as well as strokes.

Some theories suggest that small particles from air pollution can enter the brain and cause inflammation or cause chemicals to enter the body, the researchers said.

The King's researchers said noise pollution may also play a role.

The paper is published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

SOURCE

Association of Air Pollution Exposure With Psychotic Experiences During Adolescence

Joanne B. Newbury et al.

Abstract

Importance: Urbanicity is a well-established risk factor for clinical (eg, schizophrenia) and subclinical (eg, hearing voices and paranoia) expressions of psychosis. To our knowledge, no studies have examined the association of air pollution with adolescent psychotic experiences, despite air pollution being a major environmental problem in cities.

Objectives: To examine the association between exposure to air pollution and adolescent psychotic experiences and test whether exposure mediates the association between urban residency and adolescent psychotic experiences.

Design, Setting, and Participants: The Environmental-Risk Longitudinal Twin Study is a population-based cohort study of 2232 children born during the period from January 1, 1994, through December 4, 1995, in England and Wales and followed up from birth through 18 years of age. The cohort represents the geographic and socioeconomic composition of UK households. Of the original cohort, 2066 (92.6%) participated in assessments at 18 years of age, of whom 2063 (99.9%) provided data on psychotic experiences. Generation of the pollution data was completed on October 4, 2017, and data were analyzed from May 4 to November 21, 2018.

Exposures: High-resolution annualized estimates of exposure to 4 air pollutants—nitrogen dioxide (NO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and particulate matter with aerodynamic diameters of less than 2.5 (PM2.5) and less than 10 ?m (PM10)—were modeled for 2012 and linked to the home addresses of the sample plus 2 commonly visited locations when the participants were 18 years old.

Main Outcomes and Measures: At 18 years of age, participants were privately interviewed regarding adolescent psychotic experiences. Urbanicity was estimated using 2011 census data.

Results: Among the 2063 participants who provided data on psychotic experiences, sex was evenly distributed (52.5% female). Six hundred twenty-three participants (30.2%) had at least 1 psychotic experience from 12 to 18 years of age. Psychotic experiences were significantly more common among adolescents with the highest (top quartile) level of annual exposure to NO2 (odds ratio [OR], 1.71; 95% CI, 1.28-2.28), NOx (OR, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.30-2.29), and PM2.5 (OR, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.11-1.90). Together NO2 and NOx statistically explained 60% of the association between urbanicity and adolescent psychotic experiences. No evidence of confounding by family socioeconomic status, family psychiatric history, maternal psychosis, childhood psychotic symptoms, adolescent smoking and substance dependence, or neighborhood socioeconomic status, crime, and social conditions occurred.

Conclusions and Relevance: In this study, air pollution exposure—particularly NO2 and NOx—was associated with increased odds of adolescent psychotic experiences, which partly explained the association between urban residency and adolescent psychotic experiences. Biological (eg, neuroinflammation) and psychosocial (eg, stress) mechanisms are plausible.

JAMA Psychiatry. Published online March 27, 2019. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.0056

The "New Energy Economy": An Exercise in Magical Thinking

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

A movement has been growing for decades to replace hydrocarbons, which collectively supply 84% of the world’s energy. It began with the fear that we were running out of oil. That fear has since migrated to the belief that, because of climate change and other environmental concerns, society can no longer tolerate burning oil, natural gas, and coal—all of which have turned out to be abundant.

So far, wind, solar, and batteries—the favored alternatives to hydrocarbons—provide about 2% of the world’s energy and 3% of America’s. Nonetheless, a bold new claim has gained popularity: that we’re on the cusp of a tech-driven energy revolution that not only can, but inevitably will, rapidly replace all hydrocarbons.

This “new energy economy” rests on the belief—a centerpiece of the Green New Deal and other similar proposals both here and in Europe—that the technologies of wind and solar power and battery storage are undergoing the kind of disruption experienced in computing and communications, dramatically lowering costs and increasing efficiency. But this core analogy glosses over profound differences, grounded in physics, between systems that produce energy and those that produce information.

In the world of people, cars, planes, and factories, increases in consumption, speed, or carrying capacity cause hardware to expand, not shrink. The energy needed to move a ton of people, heat a ton of steel or silicon, or grow a ton of food is determined by properties of nature whose boundaries are set by laws of gravity, inertia, friction, mass, and thermodynamics—not clever software.

This paper highlights the physics of energy to illustrate why there is no possibility that the world is undergoing—or can undergo—a near-term transition to a “new energy economy.”

Among the reasons:

Scientists have yet to discover, and entrepreneurs have yet to invent, anything as remarkable as hydrocarbons in terms of the combination of low-cost, high-energy density, stability, safety, and portability. In practical terms, this means that spending $1 million on utility-scale wind turbines, or solar panels will each, over 30 years of operation, produce about 50 million kilowatt-hours (kWh)—while an equivalent $1 million spent on a shale rig produces enough natural gas over 30 years to generate over 300 million kWh.

Solar technologies have improved greatly and will continue to become cheaper and more efficient. But the era of 10-fold gains is over. The physics boundary for silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells, the Shockley-Queisser Limit, is a maximum conversion of 34% of photons into electrons; the best commercial PV technology today exceeds 26%.

Wind power technology has also improved greatly, but here, too, no 10-fold gains are left. The physics boundary for a wind turbine, the Betz Limit, is a maximum capture of 60% of kinetic energy in moving air; commercial turbines today exceed 40%.
The annual output of Tesla’s Gigafactory, the world’s largest battery factory, could store three minutes’ worth of annual U.S. electricity demand. It would require 1,000 years of production to make enough batteries for two days’ worth of U.S. electricity demand. Meanwhile, 50–100 pounds of materials are mined, moved, and processed for every pound of battery produced.

SOURCE

House Dems Unveil Bill Blocking Trump’s Pullout from Paris Climate Deal

How pointless can you get? Do they seriously think Trump will sign this?

House Democrats proposed a bill Wednesday that would prevent President Trump from pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement, as he announced he would in July 2017.

The Climate Action Now Act would require the president to propose a plan for keeping the U.S. in accord with the Paris deal’s emission-reduction goals, which were agreed to by President Obama in 2015. It would also prohibit the administration from using federal funds to pull out of the deal, as Trump has promised to do in November 2020, the moment it becomes legally possible.

The Paris deal requires the U.S. to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 17 percent by 2020 and 26 to 28 percent by 2025, as defined by 2005 pollution levels.

Introducing the Climate Action Now Act, Speaker Nancy Pelosi called climate change the “existential threat of our generation, of our time, a crisis manifested in natural disasters of epic proportions.”

“This is about jobs,” Pelosi said. “It’s about good-paying green jobs. It’s about public health, clean air, and clean water for our children. It’s about defending our national security.”

Representative Kathy Castor of Florida, chairwoman of the House Select Committee on Climate Crisis, sponsored the five-page proposal.

SOURCE

Latest ecological fake news scare: Like the ‘honeybee armageddon’ narrative, pesticide-driven ‘insect-pocalypse’ claim is collapsing

Jon Entine

It was only a few years ago that headlines in Europe and North America were screaming about the coming “bee armageddon”. Honeybees were going extinct, we were told, and because these vital pollinators are vital to our food supply, we were on the verge of global starvation. And pesticides were mostly to blame for the crisis.

The problem with that thesis was that honeybee populations aren’t declining, let alone headed for extinction. As I’ll explain below, the media have finally updated their doomsday reporting (years behind the Genetic Literacy Project, which has been documenting the faux crisis for years).

However, no sooner does one apocalypse slip from the headlines than another springs up to take its place. Recently, news and advocacy groups sites have been afire with dire warnings that man’s days on earth are (once again) numbered, this time due to the accelerating extinction of all of the world’s insects.

The Guardian in the UK escalated the concern to worldwide panic with a February article warning, Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature’. Within days, numerous media and environmental advocacy outlets jumped on the story, all of them. What was the source? One study, which more accurately was a selective “review” of other studies, conducted by two scientists, one from Australia and one from China. It was remarkable for a number of reasons, not the because of the decidedly un-academic, almost hysteria-like tone, of its authors.

If insect species losses cannot be halted, this will have catastrophic consequences for both the planet’s ecosystems and for the survival of mankind,” explained the study’s lead author, Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, of the University of Sydney, Australia. The rate of loss – 2.5 percent a year according to his calculations – is very rapid, he said. “In 10 years you will have a quarter less, in 50 years only half left and in 100 years you will have none.

Not everyone saw catastrophe ahead. While most journalists and websites were content with promoting sensationalist quotes and running with superficial rewrites of the media kits promoting the study, many scientists took a more skeptical and academically responsible view. As several pointed out on Twitter, even a cursory glance at the study’s methodology raised serious questions. The authors’ describe their search process of the scientific literature:

We aimed at compiling all long-term insect surveys conducted over the past 40 years that are available through global peer-reviewed literature databases. To that effect we performed a search on the online Web of Science database using the keywords [insect*] AND [declin*] AND [survey], which resulted in a total of 653 publications.

Reflect on this for a moment. The researchers ostensible purpose was to survey the scientific literature on the state of insect populations around the world. But the words they used as search terms suggest a distinct bias in how they framed the question. The authors limited their review from the get-go to only those papers that reported a decline. Any paper that found stability or even increases in insect populations was likely to be eliminated by this Boolean search.

Where are the insects?

But that is only the beginning of the concerns raised about this paper. As others have pointed out, although the authors claimed to do a “worldwide” assessment, the data they used was almost exclusively gathered from North America (primarily the US) and Europe.

The only data from Asia, apart from Japan, were studies of managed honeybees and not the general insect population. The same holds for Australia. And there is no data at all from equatorial Africa and almost none from the vast continent of (insect-filled!) South America. Assessing trends in worldwide insect species while largely ignoring the Amazon and other equatorial regions simply doesn’t make sense. It’s estimated that some 30 million insect species inhabit the tropical forests of the world, compared to 91,000 in, say, the US, where a disproportionate number of these studies originate.

But it’s not just what’s missing. Focusing on northern latitudes is likely to skew results in other ways as well. Insect populations at northern and southern latitudes are subject to dramatic changes due to fluctuations in weather from year to year (even short of gradual overall warming due to climate change). Species on the edge of their range may spread northward during warmer years and snap back again due to a particularly cold winter. This hardly represents meaningful species loss, however.

Which brings us to the many unknowns concerning this paper. A review such as this is critically dependent on the judgement by the authors, not only on which studies to include (in this case, as we’ve seen, only studies headlining a “decline”) but also on how to interpret and analyze those studies. And here again, there is reason to question.

Study doesn’t focus on pesticides but authors do in their public comments

While the paper examines many reasons for insect declines, Sanchez-Bayo tellingly has largely emphasized the role of pesticides in his media interviews. The stepping far outside his area of expertise, and discoursing on issues not covered in the study, he repeatedly has called for a switch from conventional to organic farming. He is apparently ignorant of the fact that organic farmers use large amounts of “natural” pesticides, some of which are highly toxic to insects.

Much more HERE (See the original for links, graphics etc.)


Although hyped, Climate change turned out to be a non-issue in an Australian State election

It was utter bunkum; but typical self-delusion by those ideological crusaders determined to do whatever it takes ‘to save the planet’ – at whatever the cost. ‘Climate change is now a more pressing matter for NSW voters than hospitals, schools and public transport’ asserted the green-left Sydney Morning Herald in the run-up to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s outstanding victory. And to reinforce the message against carbon emissions, it added that among the top environment concerns was coal. Other media within this inner-city bubble of group-think unreality included SBS which warned pre-election that ‘Climate change will be a vote changer’, while the ABC inevitably listed environment on top, claiming that ‘Voters in dozens of seats appear to be signalling to parties that without a clear plan to address climate change they will be punished at the polling booth’.

But climate change played no role in determining the outcome. The Greens, the Coalition and Labor all of which had climate policies that, to differing degrees, imposed heavy cost burdens on the economy and energy consumers involving job losses in industry, all lost some ground. The Coalition, especially the Nationals, should heed the lesson that the only big election winners were the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party that won three lower house seats despite the New Zealand gun massacre news. And, contrary to the warnings from the left media, the SFF election policy took strong objection to the major parties’ anti-emissions rhetoric. ‘Environment laws should not be aimed at appeasing minority city-based extreme green viewpoints… Affordable and reliable energy is the key to success… Government should not divert large sums of public money into intermittent energy sources; with the increasing saturation of renewable energy comes greater risks to energy reliability that is best provided by large coal-fired generators. We believe that it is logical to construct two new baseload High Efficiency Low Emission (HELE) coal-fired power stations in the Hunter Valley’.

If the Nationals were unhappy before the election with the Liberals’ ‘Labor-lite’ emissions limitation policies (the NSW Liberal target is zero net emissions by 2050 as against Labor’s 100 per cent by then and 50 per cent by 2030) it is unlikely they will wear them after losing seats to the SFF. And the federal Nationals have every reason to be worried about the threat to their regional seats of the SFF energy policy. The outcome of the coming federal election may depend on whether the Nats’ concerns and pressure for reliable affordable energy (including coal) will have a greater impact on Morrison than the fears of Josh Frydenberg that Kooyong could turn into another climate-dominated Wentworth unless due obeisance is made to the emissions gods. And, unlike the USA, that the government will stick with the Paris Agreement targets, despite their having inconsequential effects on the world’s greenhouse gasses.

But despite the clear evidence that the only impact of emissions policy in last weekend’s NSW election was a positive one for the SFF, Morrison is reluctant to embrace HELE coal-fired generation that, contrary to anti-coal propaganda, is booming overseas. According to the authoritative S&P Platts report, China is adding 1,171 coal-fired power stations to its existing 2,363, Japan is adding 45 to its 90, South Korea another 26 to its 58, the Philippines 60 to its 19, India 446 more to its 589, South Africa 24 to its 79, Turkey 93 to its 56 and even the EU (with some prominent anti-emissions members), is adding 27 to its 468. Most will be potential customers for Australian coal, which is already our major export.

But the sovereign risk of potentially antagonistic political decisions means that despite their economic viability overseas, there has been no investment in even one HELE generator here. So Australian energy gets increasingly expensive and unreliable to the benefit of our overseas competitors.

Berejiklian promised after last weekend’s impressive victory to help Morrison in May’s federal election. Her greatest contribution would be for her government to shut-up about climate change – and ensure that cabinet members like her factional friend Energy Minister Don Harwin, cease publicly undermining federal Liberal colleagues on emissions policy. Energy in NSW might be a more appropriate portfolio for a Nat.

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 March, 2019

Fastest-Thinning Greenland Glacier Threw NASA Scientists for a Loop. It's Actually Growing

Due to "temporary" factors, of course. How do we know that its previous thinning was not also due to "temporary" factors? The fact that they didn't predict the cooling means that they don't understand or know all the temperature factors at work. They are just guessing and being wise after the event. The previous thinning could have been due to subsurface vulcanism. if not, why not?

Greenland's fastest-flowing and fastest-thinning glacier recently threw a real brain bender at scientists, who realized that instead of shrinking, the glacier is actually growing thicker, they reported in a new study.

The glacier — known as Jakobshavn, which sits on Greenland's west coast — is still contributing to sea level rise, but it's losing less ice than expected. Instead of thinning and retreating inland, its ice is thickening and advancing toward the ocean, the researchers found.

After much sleuthing, a team of scientists from the United States and the Netherlands found that the glacier is likely growing due to colder ocean currents. In 2016, a current that passes by Jakobshavn Glacier was cooler than usual, making waters near the glacier the coldest they'd been since the mid-1980s.

This cooler current came from the North Atlantic Ocean, more than 600 miles (966 kilometers) south of the glacier, according to data from NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) mission and other observations.

The finding took the scientists completely by surprise. "At first, we didn't believe it," study lead researcher Ala Khazendar, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. "We had pretty much assumed that Jakobshavn would just keep going on as it had over the last 20 years." But the cold water isn't a one-off. Data from OMG shows that the water has been cold now for three years in a row.

It appears that the cold water is the result of a climate pattern known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which makes the northern Atlantic Ocean slowly switch between warm and cold water about once every 20 years, the researchers said. The cold phase just recently started, and has cooled the Atlantic Ocean in general, they said. In addition, some extra cooling of the waters around Greenland's southwest coast helped keep the glacier chilly.

But this crisp change won't last forever. Once the NAO climate pattern flips back, the Jakobshavn will likely start melting faster and thinning again, the researchers said.

"Jakobshavn is getting a temporary break from this climate pattern," Josh Willis, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the principal investigator of OMG, said in the statement. "But in the long run, the oceans are warming. And seeing the oceans have such a huge impact on the glaciers is bad news for Greenland's ice sheet."

Scientists have watched Jakobshavn with concern for decades. After losing its ice shelf in the early 2000s (an ice shelf forces a glacier to flow more slowly into the ocean, like dirt clogging a drain), Jakobshavn began losing ice at an alarming rate. Between 2003 and 2016, its thickness (from top to bottom) dwindled by 500 feet (152 meters).

But in 2016, the waters flowing from Greenland's southern tip to its western side cooled by more than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius). Meanwhile, the NAO climate pattern caused the Atlantic Ocean near Greenland to cool by about 0.5 F (1 C) between 2013 and 2016. By the summer of 2016, these cooler waters reached the glacier, and they are likely the reason that Jakobshavn slowed its rate of ice loss to the ocean, the researchers said. [Image: Greenland's Dramatic Landscape]

In all, Jakobshavn grew about 100 feet (30 m) taller between 2016 and 2017, the researchers found. But, as mentioned, the glacier is still contributing to ocean level rise worldwide, as it's still losing more ice to the ocean than it is gaining from snow accumulation, the researchers said.

The findings shed light on how much ocean temperatures can affect glacier growth, said Tom Wagner, a NASA Headquarters program scientist for the cryosphere, the frozen part of Earth.

"The OMG mission deployed new technologies that allowed us to observe a natural experiment, much as we would do in a laboratory, where variations in ocean temperatures were used to control the flow of a glacier," Wagner, who was not involved in the study, said in the statement. "Their findings — especially about how quickly the ice responds — will be important to projecting sea level rise in both the near and distant future."

SOURCE

Snow Lizards, Seahorses, and Reagan on a Dinosaur: Sen. Lee Mocks Green New Deal

Armed with images of a gun-toting, dinosaur-mounted Ronald Reagan, a snow lizard and giant seahorse, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) had some fun at the expense of Democratic colleagues on Tuesday, but made clear that it was their “Green New Deal,” not climate change, that was the butt of his jokes.

Lee’s speech and accompanying visuals came before the Senate voted against advancing a resolution “recognizing the duty of the federal government to create a Green New Deal.”

In what Democrats condemned as a “stunt,” every Republican voted against the resolution, put forward by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a bid to force Democrats to take a public stand on an initiative which he called “a radical, top-down, socialist makeover of the entire U.S. economy.”

The Republicans were joined by three Democrats – Sens. Doug Jones (Ala.), Joe Manchin (W.V.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) – and independent Angus King (Me.), while the remainder of the Democrats, including the declared 2020 presidential candidates, voted “present.”

The vote count was 0 yeas, 57 nays, and 43 voting present.

“The GOP’s climate delaying is costing us lives + destroying communities,” Green New Deal champion Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) tweeted afterwards. She also said she and others had encouraged Senate Democrats to vote “present,” adding that McConnell had tried to rush the initiative “straight to the floor without a hearing.”

Lee opened his speech – social media opinions on which ranged from “bizarre” to “masterful” – by saying he was going to “consider the Green New Deal with the seriousness it deserves.”

The image of Reagan on a “velociraptor holding up a tattered American flag,” he said, was meant to depict a “climactic battle of the Cold War,” although in real life, “the Cold War, as we all know, was won without firing a shot.”

“This image has as much to do with overcoming communism in the 20th century as the Green New Deal has to do with overcoming climate change in the 21st.”

Lee later presented images of a Tauntaun snow lizard of Star Wars fame – a suggested carbon-neutral mode of winter transport for citizens of Alaska “in a future without air travel” – and an animated Aquaman riding a giant seahorse as the corresponding option for citizens of Hawaii.

He went on to talk about the elimination of America’s cows – considered a problem because they emit methane, a greenhouse gas.

A Green New Deal “frequently asked questions” document from Ocasio-Cortez’ office earlier this year called for the building of “high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.”

It also referred to bovine flatulence: “We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.”

Eliminating air travel and cows were not included in the actual Green New Deal resolution subsequently introduced by Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) – which in replicated form was what was voted on in the Senate on Tuesday.

Instead, the resolution calls for investment in “high-speed rail” as part of that envisaged transportation overhaul – with no reference to air travel – and refers to efforts “to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible.”

Lee said the initiative’s authors hearing his speech will protest that the goals of eliminating air travel and cows are not actually part of the GND but “merely were included in supporting documents accidentally sent out by the office of the lead sponsor in the House of Representatives.”

“This only makes my point: The supporters of the Green New Deal want Americans to trust them to reorganize our entire society, our entire economy, to restructure our very way of life – when they couldn’t even figure out how to send out the right press release.”

The GND was not an agenda of solutions, he charged, but “a token of elite tribal identity, and endorsing it a public act of piety for the chic and ‘woke.’”

The solution to climate change, he said, was not the Green New Deal – but “babies.”

“Climate change is an engineering problem—not social engineering, but the real kind. It’s a challenge of creativity, ingenuity and, most of all, technological innovation.”

Lee quoted Tyler Cowen, economics professor at George Mason University, as having written recently: “By having more children, you’re making your nation more populous, thus boosting its capacity to solve climate change.”

“The solution to climate change,” Lee concluded, “is not this unserious resolution we’re considering this week in the Senate, but rather the serious business of human flourishing. The solution to so many of our problems, at all times and in all places, is to fall in love, get married, and have some kids.”

Reacting to Lee’s speech, Markey tweeted later, “When the Midwest is flooded and people have died because of climate-related extreme weather, it is shameful to joke about climate change. This is exactly Democrats’ point – Republicans only want to make a mockery of the climate crisis. We will not let them.”

SOURCE

‘White People’ blamed for causing Cyclone Idai in Africa

One can't blame Mr Mngxitama for his views. He is just repeating what Warmists say

“White people” are being blamed for causing “climate change” which is claimed to have led to a deadly hurricane in Africa, according to the activist group Black First Land First (BLF).

BLF blamed Tropical Cyclone Idai on “white people” and is demanding that the African Union seek reparations the West for the hurricane.

BLF president Andile Mngxitama declared that the cyclone that hit Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, was “not a natural disaster but a direct consequence of the white, Western system of ecological assault for profits.”

This (cyclone) is mass murder which could be prevented if the West abandoned its ways,” Mngxitama stated. “It’s no longer speculation – even the white man’s own science corroborates what we blacks know: Africa is paying a heavy price for the actions of the white world,” he added with a reference to “climate change” science allegedly causing increase in extreme weather

SOURCE

Interesting Stats on Electric Cars

The electrical energy to keep the batteries charged has to come from the grid and that means more power generation and a huge increase in the distribution infrastructure. Whether generated from coal, gas, oil, wind or sun, installed generation capacity is limited.

If electric cars do not use gasoline, they will not participate in paying a gasoline tax on every gallon that is sold for automobiles, which was enacted some years ago to help to maintain our roads and bridges. They will use the roads, but will not pay for their maintenance!

In case you were thinking of buying a hybrid or an electric car:

Ever since the advent of electric cars, the REAL cost per mile of those things has never been discussed. All you ever heard was the mpg in terms of gasoline, with nary a mention of the cost of electricity to run it.

If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, you had to face certain realities. For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp services. The average house is equipped with 100 amp service. On our small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than three houses with a single Tesla, each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded.

This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles. Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So as our genius elected officials promote this nonsense, not only are we being urged to buy these things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive, new windmills and solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery system.

Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors and he writes, "For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine ." Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh batteries is approximately 270 miles.

It will take you 4.5 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip, your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.

According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kWh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned, so I looked up what I pay for electricity.   I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kWh. 16 kWh x $1.16 per kWh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg.   $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile.

Update: the $1.16 above may be wrong. 11.6c is more likely

The gasoline-powered car costs about $20,000 while the Volt costs $46,000-plus. So the American Government wants loyal Americans not to do the math, but simply pay three times as much for a car, that costs more than seven times as much to run, and takes three times longer to drive across the country.

Various sources

The Greens' extraordinary plan to BAN coal in Australia - calling it 'the new asbestos - despite exports earning $66BILLION every year

They kmow there is no hope of this being enacted. It is just an attempt to make themselves look good and wise

The Greens have unveiled their radical plan to ban coal despite it bringing Australia more than $66billion every year.

The party on Thursday released a new climate plan, which sets 2030 as the target year for the nation to be running on 100 per cent renewable energy.

The policy - which comes with a call to arms from Swedish school student Greta Thunberg - shows how the Greens would push a Labor government if elected in May.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale described coal as 'the new asbestos', saying the party wants to shut down every coal power plant in New South Wales, The Daily Telegraph reported.

'We once used asbestos in our buildings because we thought it was safe. But we now know better, so we have banned it. Now it is coal's turn,' the Greens' policy stated.

The party wants to put an end to thermal coal burning by setting a yearly limit on coal exports from 2020 and reducing it every year until it hits zero in 2030.

At the same time, the party is pushing for the nation to be running on 100 per cent renewable energy by the time the coal industry ceases trading.

The plan would include a $65billion carbon tax, and an immediate ban on new coal mines, fracking and conventional onshore and offshore gas and oilfields.

Industry experts said the economy will suffer under the plan.

Coal was the highest earning export commodity in Australia last year, accounting for $66million in revenue, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures.

Last financial year, coals exports brought the NSW economy about $17billion, with thermal coal exports reaching 164.6million tonnes.

NSW Mining CEO Stephen Galilee told Daily Mail Australia the overall economic cost of banning coal would send the state into a deep economic recession.

'The Greens policy would cost NSW its most valuable export industry and over $17billion in export income, as well as over $2billion a year in mining royalties, which help pay for schools and hospitals.

'Over 20,000 NSW coal miners would lose their jobs, devastating mining families and communities, and over 130,000 more jobs across NSW would also be potentially affected,' Mr Galilee said.

The CEO said more than 7,000 businesses currently part of the mining supply chain would also be hit, threatening even more jobs.

'Electricity supply to families and businesses across NSW would also be at risk of price rises and blackouts which would affect a range of energy-intensive industries including manufacturing, transport and construction,' he said.

Mr Di Natale has denied his party's plan to shut down all coal-fired power stations and phase out thermal coal exports will cost Australians jobs.

The Greens want a $1billion transition plan for workers affected by banning coal, which Mr Di Natale believes will create more than 170,000 new jobs.

'We will lose no jobs because under our plan we will have a national authority, a publicly-owned authority, with express intent to manage this transition,' he told ABC Radio National on Thursday.

'The reality is this is happening already, people are going to lose their jobs because the economics are making it so.'

Mr Di Natale said unlike the major parties, the Greens planned to create a jobs boom in the renewable energy export industry.

As part of the plan, the Greens want the nation to stop using gas - despite experts saying the energy source is an essential part of future energy sources.

Phasing out petrol cars and moving to electric vehicles was another key objective mentioned in the Greens idealistic plan.

Luxury fossil fuel cars would be hit with a 17 per cent tax to help pay for scrapping registration fees, import tariffs, GST and stamp duty on electric vehicles.

The Greens have also proposed establishing a new public energy retailer and re-regulating electricity prices to address price gouging following the coal ban.

Mr Di Natale said the mining and burning of coal remained the single biggest cause of climate change in Australia and around the world.

'You need the Greens in the Senate to push Labor to make sure we do what needs to be done,' he said.

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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28 March, 2019

Obama’s First ‘Green New Deal’ Flopped Too

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal has been widely ridiculed for its massive disruption to the economy and a price tag of tens of trillions of dollars.

Now some Democrats are countering that this isn't the first Green New Deal in America. They point to President Barack Obama's fiscal stimulus plan of 2009-2010 as an example of how spreading around tax dollars for green energy programs can be good for the environment and the economy.

Think again. That isn't at all what happened during the Obama "Green New Deal." By every objective criteria confirmed by every independent investigation, the avalanche of green dollars in Obama's first term was a colossal waste of money. The House Oversight Committee' exhaustive investigation of the $14 billion renewable energy loan guarantee program exposed widespread "dysfunction, negligence and mismanagement by DOE officials." The report concluded the Obama administration routinely "turned a blind eye" to the mismanagement.

In all, Obama (and George W. Bush before him) spent some $100 billion on giveaways to wind and solar power producers, electric cars and for weatherizing homes and buildings. It was arguably one of the largest corporate welfare experiments in American history, enriching an industry and its investors. Most of this money went for research to speed up commercial applications of green energy or was pipelined directly into bank accounts of individual companies.

The most infamous of these was, of course, Solyndra, the solar energy company that received $530 million of taxpayer handouts and was touted many times by Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden, as the next big thing in green energy. It never produced any energy to speak of before it went bankrupt.

That was the similar fate for dozens of other companies including the Department of Energy's half-billion dollar bet on the showcase electric car company Fisker — which also went belly up.

The New Green Deal calls for the government to retrofit all of the homes and businesses in America so they are energy efficient. The Obama administration launched a $5 billion program for this purpose and DOE Secretary Steven Chu referred to this program as "one of our signature programs."

The House investigators found a "stunning lack of oversight of this program" with "no one checking the quality of the work performed, allowing poor workmanship to go undetected and undeterred. Many DOE contractors did not do the work promised by DOE and many of them actually damaged homes." The inspector general for the DOE fumed that the weaknesses of the program "pose health and safety risks to residents."

Anyone want these people coming into your home?

What about the grandiose promise of retraining Americans who lose their jobs due to the Green New Deal? Under the Obama administration, the feds allocated $500 million for "green" worker training. This was supposed to train 124,893 people, but in 2012 the Labor Department Inspector General found the program only trained 52,762 (42 percent of the target), and only 8,035 actually got jobs (10 percent of the target). No wonder coal miners, truck drivers and oil and gas employees aren't thrilled about losing their jobs.

There was much more green fraud and waste uncovered, but the bottom line was this: After more than $100 billion spent on the first Green New Deal, by 2016 only about 1 percent American energy was coming from solar energy. Less than 2 percent of cars on the road were electric vehicles — even with the government offering thousands of dollars of cash rebates to buy the vehicles.

Meanwhile, the clean energy source that the government ignored, natural gas, exploded from 25 percent of electricity production to almost 40 percent. No one in Washington saw the shale revolution coming. The Obama administration was openly hostile to fracking. There was no "natural gas new deal" and, in fact, this industry received hardly a penny of federal subsidy. There were no mandates at the state level requiring people to use natural gas. Fracking and horizontal drilling were developed out in the hinterlands of Oklahoma, North Dakota and Texas, not in a Department of Energy lab inside the Washington Beltway.

Yes, Obama gave us a test run on the Green New Deal. The return on investment was miserable. Many people got rich on the government largesse and the taxpayers got fleeced. Incredibly, Democrats never called for a Mueller-type investigation into the grifters who pulled off this heist of tens of billions of dollars from the government.

The sane conclusion would be: Never again. But failed lessons of government as venture capitalists have been ignored and covered up.

Instead, AOC, the environmental groups and at least four major Democratic presidential candidates want to try it all again. But this time with trillions of dollars.

SOURCE

Students Love The “Green New Deal” Until They Hear What’s In It

We’ve told CHQ readers about the deleterious effects of the “Green New Deal," a Socialist plan aimed at taking hold of American economic life under the guise of drastically reducing carbon emissions in the next ten years.

One of the principle reasons Democrats have launched the “Green New Deal” is because they think climate change hysteria among young people has reached critical mass politically and it is time to capture those votes.

“Climate change is the biggest threat to my future. And just because I can’t vote right now, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a voice. I’m speaking from the perspective of someone who is scared and afraid for their future," Lily Gardner, a 15-year-old student from Eastern Kentucky, told Refinery29 of why she joined a protest outside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office. "It’s not a question of who knows more or who has been in the business for longer, it’s the question of who is going to be disproportionately impacted by climate change. When people don’t take me seriously, they are not taking my future seriously.”

The “Green New Deal” has already received the endorsements of Democrat presidential candidates, like Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, so our friends at Campus Reform, the group that exposes the liberal bias and abuse against conservatives on America’s colleges and universities decided to go to a college campus and ask students what they think of the “Green New Deal.”

Wanting to know if the same people who support the New Green Deal would still support it after hearing what was actually in it, Campus Reform's Cabot Phillips headed to the University of Miami to find out.

Some of the college students made clear, like the high school student quoted above, that they perceive global warming as an apocalyptic concern. "I think if we didn't do that, then we're going to be killing ourselves, basically," said one student. "So, we need to take care of ourselves."

"Anything that would reduce our dependence on fossil fuels is really important," agreed another. "I definitely support this movement," said one student generally.

“I like that it’s progressive, that it’s gonna push the world forward,” another student said, while another added, “just from knowing who’s endorsed it and some other little things, it sounds great.”

"I view it favorably. I think that we need to cut our reliance on fossil fuels," said another.

However, when asked by Phillips about the Green New Deal's ultimate goals of eliminating all use of fossil fuels, including natural gas, in the next decade and other radical elements, the students' enthusiasm about the plan quickly dwindled.

“That’s a reach” was the consensus opinion.

Some of the strongest negative responses came to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's since-deleted FAQ that included the plan to give every American "economic security" even if they are "unable or unwilling to work."

Upon hearing that the students quickly changed to saying, “if you’re not willing to contribute to society other people should not pay for you” and “people definitely need to get a job and need to work.”

As the Daily Wire’s Emily Zanotti explained, the "Green New Deal" veers away from the "green," and into, well, the red. Included in the "supplemental" part of the proposed legislation are a handful of fully-socialist programs including:

Job training and education for all

"Direct investments in frontline and deindustrialized communities" that would inevitably feel the pain of eliminating industries such as coal and natural gas

A full complement of union jobs (the "Green New Deal" proposes no jobs that are not unionized, provide a "fair wage," or involve hiring foreign workers)

A guaranteed job with "family-sustaining wages" for all Americans, particularly for those "unable" and, more importantly, "unwilling" to work

"Safe, affordable, and adequate housing" for every American

And to top it off, "high-quality health care, housing, economic security, and clean air, clean water, healthy food, and nature to all"

Talk radio Superstar Rush Limbaugh has regularly visited the subject of children being scared to death over bogus claims of climate change Armageddon and it is worth reviewing some of his comments in light of the Campus Reform video.

In the segment “Global Warming Hoaxers to Traumatized Kids: Cure Climate Anxiety with Activism” from May 6, 2014 Rush explained how children have been scared into “climate change” activism:

RUSH: Let us review how the left has attempted to corral people to agree with them and sweep them up into this political movement that’s called climate change. It used to be called global warming, and then when the warming stopped they had to change the term. The main technique that they’ve used is fear combined with guilt, and it has worked well. They have approached people, not directly, but in the form of just everyday news stories, blog posts, movies, cartoon shows, television shows. (Emphasis ours)

The idea is that humanity’s destroying the planet, and not just any humanity, but highly advanced, economically highly advanced humanity is destroying the planet, primarily the United States. Capitalism, where people’s progress, economic progress, is destructive to the planet. This has been the message. We’re destroying it, greenhouse gases, with the giant cars and trucks that we drive and all the airplanes that we’re flying and all the miles we’re flying and all the fossil fuels that we’re burning. We’ve got 10 years or 20 years or 30 years or 50 years or a hundred years, depending on the report, to fix it or we’re all gonna die. (Emphasis ours)

And then the polar bears are dying, and they put up fraudulent pictures of polar bears on little ice floes, three square feet, claiming that’s all that’s left for Little Timmy the polar bear. And of course giant, total, fraudulent lies, all designed to impose guilt and fear, even among kids. I mean, Ted Turner was one of the early entrances into this with his cartoon series on Saturday morning called Captain Planet. It was about a guy saving the world from evil corporate CEOs who were destroying it simply by running their businesses. Capitalists, Republicans, conservatives didn’t care what they destroyed, didn’t care who they destroyed. All they wanted was to get rich and make everybody else poorer.

The problem for Democrats is now obvious: Having created their army of brainwashed little climate change monsters, the have to keep moving Left to satisfy their appetite for bigger government, more regulations and more laws and more limits on what we can do, more restrictions on what we can think and say and become, and the “Green New Deal” is just the start.

SOURCE

California’s Anti-Green Land-Use Policies Increase Global Warming

Much of California enjoys year-round pleasant weather, without the harsh winters of the midwest and northeast, and without the heat and humidity of the deep south. One result is that California homes use less heat and air conditioning than homes in other parts of the country.

Harvard economist Edward Glaeser says that a household in San Francisco has a carbon footprint 60 percent smaller than a similar household in Memphis.

Meanwhile, California has the nation’s most restrictive land-use policies, which prevent new housing from being built, keep housing prices high, and prevent people from moving to California.

In 2016, California had the second highest out-migration among the states (second to New Jersey). The most common destinations of California out-migrants were Texas, Nevada, and Washington. The state with the highest net in-migration was Florida.

While at first glance California’s stringent land-use policies that keep people from moving to the state might appear environmentally friendly, the opposite is true. People have to live somewhere, and when California’s land-use policies keep them from moving to California, they end up living in states that give them a much higher carbon footprint.

Every retiree who ends up in Florida instead of California raises the nation’s carbon footprint. Every worker who ends up in Texas, Nevada, or Washington, rather than in California, raises the nation’s carbon footprint.

If Californians were really serious about mitigating global warming, their policies would be designed to encourage people to move to their state, where people’s carbon footprints are naturally lower because of the favorable climate. Instead, California has an anti-green environmental agenda that pushes people to live in places with higher carbon footprints.

Californians often act as if their state is environmentally friendly, but its land-use policies that push people into states where people have higher carbon footprints add more to global carbon emissions than the policies of any other state.

SOURCE

Do water bottles cause cancer? Chemistry expert fact-checks the thriving myth

Tom Brokaw said he does not drink out of plastic water bottles anymore after a 'leading cancer researcher' suggested they are linked to cancer.

The 79-year-old news anchor, who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2013, stoked the years-old bottle-cancer debate on Tuesday in a video for cancer site SurvivorNet, in which he also revealed he uses medical marijuana.

'I said, "how come, John, we've not been able to get a grip on this and we're out hunting?"' Brokaw recalls.

'He picked up a water bottle and he said, "I'm not sure these are not involved in some way. We're working on it." That was a revelation to me quite honestly. I don't drink out of them anymore. It was this leading cancer researcher saying, "I don't have it nailed down but it worries me."'

Joe Schwarcz, PhD, a leading chemist and director of the Office for Science and Society at McGill University, told DailyMail.com this thriving myth is problematic.

'It's a true statement: yes, we don't know that it [water bottles] isn't involved. We also don't know that cosmic radiation isn't involved,' Dr Schwarcz said.

'You can never prove that something can't happen. But... there's a lot of confusion about the material those water bottles are made of.'

Regardless of the material, he says: 'Only the dose makes the poison. Just because something is deemed to be a carcinogen doesn't mean it causes cancer in humans.'

The main concern, he says, is over Bisphenol A (BPA), a recognized carcinogen that was once used in baby bottles before they were pulled from the market. Now, BPA, though occasionally used in water cooler carboys, is not used to make the water bottles we drink out of.

Today, the water bottles we buy in stores are made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is regarded as safe for one-time use.

Another plasticizer recognized as a carcinogen is diethylhexylphthalate (DEHP), which is used in bottle caps, but it cannot 'leach' chemicals into water to any significant degree.

According to Dr Schwarcz, any phthalates (plasticizers) used in the production of bottled water are trace amounts in larger molecules that cannot leach into the water.

'Hazard does not equal risk,' Dr Schwarcz said.

'The International Agency for Research on Cancer, the IARC, lists known cancer-causing agents, including BPA, but also bacon, that have been shown to be a hazard.

'That means some dose causes cancer. But that's a completely different thing to saying that exposure causes cancer. 'In science, we are interested in exposure. Numbers matter.

'Does he [Tom Brokaw] eat bacon? One could make a far, far stronger case for not eating bacon than not drinking out of water bottles.'

Dr Schwarcz does not, in fact, drink out of plastic water bottles - not for health reasons but environmental ones. 'It's an environmental disaster to produce these,' he said. 'Every week there's enough discarded to encircle the globe twice. That's a tremendous amount of plastic that ends up in the great Pacific garbage patch, which breaks down and is ingested by wildlife. And the plastic is made from oil, which is a non-renewable resource. There's just no reason for the existence of these water bottles.'

But if cancer is your concern, he says, don't waste your energy worrying - as many have done over the past decade.

The debate was given a boost in 2007, when breast cancer survivor Sheryl Crow made the same suggestion in an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, saying she was concerned that dangerous chemicals leach from water bottles into the water, particularly after they are left in the heat.

It's not only celebrities.

Last year, researchers at the State University of New York at Fredonia found significant levels of microplastics in bottled water from various brands.

But another study last year, by researchers at North-West University in South Africa, found high levels of microplastics in tap water, too.

The issue is, Dr Schwarcz says, you would be hard-pressed to cut all carcinogens out of your life, including microplastics which have seeped into all areas of consumption.

'Cancer is a devastating illness which is multi-faceted,' Dr Schwarcz said.

'There are numerous things in the environment that can cause cancer, like chemicals from cooking meat, or arsenic powder, which naturally occurs naturally. We live in a slog of cancer-causing compounds. Some are natural some not.'

SOURCE

The Greatest Generation VS the Greenest Generation

Viv Forbes writes from Australia

My grandfather was part of the Great Generation. Toughened by wars and depression they were patriotic nation builders.

Their monuments are long-term productive assets like the Mount Isa and Broken Hill mines, smelters and refineries, the Wollongong Steelworks, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the transcontinental railway, the overland telegraph line, the Yallourn coal mines and Power stations, the Renison and Mt Lyell mines and railways, the Kalgoorlie Goldfields, the Weipa and Gladstone bauxite industries, Pilbara Iron, the Perth-Kalgoorlie pipeline, the Kidman Cattle Empire, the world’s biggest merino flock, QANTAS, the Holden car, Southern Cross windmills, the Sunshine Harvester and a network of roads, railways, towns, power lines, ports and airports.

The pioneers survived floods, droughts, bushfires and plagues of mice, rabbits, locusts and prickly pear to develop an agricultural industry that provides food and fibre for millions of consumers. They were frugal and inventive. They built everything themselves with corrugated iron, shingles, guttering, poles, posts, nails, rivets, solder and wire – houses, humpies, haysheds, milking barns, sheep yards, shearing sheds, water tanks, grain stores, dairies, meat houses, dog kennels, chook sheds and the dunny up the back. They created parks and planted orchards and forests for timber and paper.

They welcomed boat-loads of hard working migrants from many countries to farms and factories and celebrated the arrival of “clean coal energy by wire” to every home.

The Great Generation made sure their kids behaved at school and did their home-work. Mostly kids were “seen but not heard”. The kids walked, rode bikes or horses to school, and parents reinforced school discipline. That generation loved and trusted the ABC which provided unbiased news and weather forecasts and wholesome entertainment.

Our lives are now controlled by the Green Generation, who follow a Globalist agenda. This generation has devalued science, engineering and trade skills and pollute education curricula with the mantras of the green religion. They encourage the climate alarm, anti-enterprise, anti-family bias evident on the staff-controlled, taxpayer-funded ABC. And now they mobilise noisy truant kids for political rallies.

Too many of the Green Generation specialise in obstruction, destruction and delay, while themselves consuming the assets of the past. They cheer the demolition of coal-fired power plants and use green law-fare to stop or delay almost everything else. Among their battle trophies are South Australian and Victorian coal mines and power stations, most new industry proposals in Tasmania, much offshore oil exploration, new dam proposals in every state, and every new proposal for coal development, gas exploration or fracking. They hope to hang the scalps of Adani Coal, Rocky Point Coal, Wandoan Coal and all Galilee Basin developments on their trophy wall. Australia has a huge uranium resources but nuclear power is banned.

Nowhere is the contrast between the generations more stark than in the Snowy Mountains.

The Great Generation planned, financed and built the Snowy Hydro-electric Scheme (without UN direction or advice). This nation-building project captures Snowy water, uses it to generate reliable electricity, and diverts the water to irrigate towns, orchards and crops on the dry western plains.

The Green Generation supports Snowy Hydro 2, a hollow-shelled project that steals electricity from the grid and water from Snowy 1 to pump water uphill and then recovers part of that electricity by letting the water run back down again (when their intermittent green energy fails). It will be a big, power-consuming, expensive battery.

The sad history of Whyalla is instructive. The Great Generation built an iron mine, a steel works and a great shipbuilding enterprise there. Most of it is idle now. This generation of techno-phobes looks like trying to build foreign nuclear-powered submarines there but with diesel-electric engines (presumably running on bio-fuel.) The British navy that ruled the world ran on coal for the war-ships and bread, salt beef, lard, limes and rum for the sailors. Today’s green dreamers hope to feed the multi-sexual crew on nuts and raisins and use the alcohol to power the motors.

The Great Generation created our present world and left many useful assets as their monuments.

The Green Generation is destroying our future. The way things are heading, the lasting monuments to the Green Generation will be the skeletons of abandoned solar “farms” overgrown by lantana scrub, the concrete foundations of bankrupt wind “farms”, and spider-webs of useless sagging transmission lines and towers.

These memorials will serve to remind the next generation of the long, costly and futile war on hydro-carbon energy and the many failed climate forecasts.

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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27 March, 2019

The Green Pope is wilting

By Elizabeth Yore, an international child protection attorney. She tries to pick up after pedophile priests

From the outset, the Heartland Institute spotted the potted papal plant in the climate change hoax of the Francis papacy. As the world was mesmerized with the merciful and humble green Pope, Heartland recognized a flawed and unreliable model, devoid of science, reason, and flush with politics.

In April of 2015, the Heartland Delegation went to Rome to attempt a dialogue with the Pope about his dangerous and incomprehensible partnership with the UN sustainable development climate change globalists. Yet, the dialoguer in chief was not interested in dialoguing with the scientific experts from Heartland. Rather, he chose his poison by dialoguing with the radical environmental socialists, assorted globalists, and Soros acolytes, like Ban Ki Moon, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, to name just a few.

Call it climate gentrification. It was bound to happen. Bergoglio’s ceremonial term as Vicar of the Sustainable Development Goals appears to be ending, but not for lack of trying; Francis desperately sought to be the modern, hip, relevant, and the moral climate change protagonist. He even launched a new sin- an ecological sin!

Francis certainly gave it the old papal try. He surrounded himself with the foremost Soros greenie globalist, UN Sustainable Development chief, Jeffrey Sachs. At latest count, Sachs has spoken at least 25 times at the Vatican as a honored expert and guest during the Francis papacy. This population control globalist even drafted papal documents, causing Vaticanistas to speculate that Sachs might receive a green zucchetto from the Pope.

During the last 6 years, the incessant papal eco conferences, resembled a Socialist Who’s Who featuring the hideous likes of Bernie Sanders, Joseph Stiglitz, Bolivian President Evo Morales, Gov. Jerry Brown, Naomi Klein, Population Bomb’s Paul Ehrlich. Francis threw his papal weight behind the Paris Climate Change Treaty, lobbied for support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, penned an Apostolic Eco Exhortation on the climate, and even demanded ecological conversion from the faithful. Whatever that is.

Francis rolled out his Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences as the green platform to wage his climate change one world religion. Even the President of the Pontifical Academy, Bishop Sanchez Sorondo, elevated “climate change to Church magisterium,” deserving of a papal imprimatur and Vatican endorsement of the globalists’ precious Paris Climate Treaty. Francis joined the globalist tyrannical chorus of the “science is settled.” His global warming architect, Argentine Bishop Sanchez Sorondo mocked the global warming doubters saying that “we need to rely on coal and oil is like saying that the earth is not round. It is an absurdity dictated by the need to make money.” Sorondo also repeated the lame globalist slam that the deniers are funded by the oil industry.

Despite plummeting popularity, Francis continues his eco jig with his global partners. This past month, Jeffrey Sachs (the green gift that keeps giving) was featured prominently at yet another Vatican conference on March 4-5, 2019! This latest Vatican/Sachs’ eco conference was immediately followed by the March 8, 2019 Eco Wingding with all the global heads of religions, entitled, (you guessed it) “Religions and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Listening to the Cry of the Earth and of the Poor.”

Shockingly, the Pope does not mention Jesus Christ in his latest rambling and incoherent talk to the religious leaders. True to form, Francis engaged in his personal rewriting of Catholicism, with green tropes like, “The key principle of all religions is the love of neighbor and the care of creation.” Francis makes it up as he goes along. Never mind that care of creation isn’t found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, nor in the 10 Commandments. Francis, the Vicar of SDGs is tasked with forming a new one world religion based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, driven by the evil of climate change. Gaia has now replaced Jesus Christ. Sins are now calculated by carbon footprints.

‘Bless me Father, I forgot to recycle and I turned on the air conditioner.

For your penance, your carbon tax will be doubled. Now, go green and go in peace.’

Francis deftly rode the climate wave for 6 years. Reveling in the media fawning, magazine covers, and globalist adulation, the climate change movement found its long lost moral voice in, none other than, the Vicar of Christ. How masterful and cunning of them to secure such a powerful advocate. As if on cue, Francis obediently moved the needle to ensure the Paris Climate Treaty was signed and SDGs overwhelmingly passed at the UN within just two years of his elevation to the papacy.

Yet, as they say, the climate suddenly changed.

Along came Donald Trump, who put the brakes on the global dealmaking of Obama and Francis, followed quickly by a tsunami (extreme weather event-noted) of clergy sex scandals raining down on Francis.

Francis is clearly annoyed that the world’s Catholics are more concerned about zero tolerance of clergy abuse, than a zero carbon foot print. The shocking scandal of the papal rehabilitation of the notorious serial predator Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who Francis sent on multiple diplomatic junkets, shocked the world. The Vatican’s continual stonewalling on the McCarrick fiasco further enrages Catholics. Additionally, Francis faced cascading personal scandals of his own with papal cover ups of sexual predator priests and bishops in Chile, Argentina, Italy, and in America.

His popularity is cooling faster than the polar ice cap while the Catholic faithful are steaming over his cavalier attitude and laissez faire environment toward sexual predators priests and bishops.

Suddenly, the green Pope has blood red on his hands.

An important moral lesson is unfolding in this papacy.

Mega stardom and popularity are unsustainable. Ask Michael Jackson, Bill Cosby, Jimmy Savile, and Harvey Weinstein. Popularity, like pollution, obscures reality, smothers humanity, and poisons the environment.

Francis desperately wants to change the subject from the scandal of clergy sex abuse to sustainable development. It won’t happen.

Instead of “Listening to the Cry of the Earth and of the Poor,” he should have listened to the cry of those children abused by clergy.

SOURCE

USA launches test reactor project

The US Department of Energy has launched its Versatile Fast Neutron Source project to provide fast neutron testing capability to aid US development of advanced nuclear reactor technology. The Versatile Test Reactor (VTR), as it is also known, could be completed by 2026.

The DOE said fast neutron testing capability would help the country meet its goal for advanced nuclear reactor technology development. These facilities are currently available in only a few locations worldwide and the USA has not operated one in over 20 years. This means US developers have not had the ability to carry out accelerated irradiation testing needed for the development of non-light water advanced reactor concepts. The VTR would provide a reactor-based source of the fast neutrons needed to test advanced reactor technology, fuels and related materials.

The Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act, which became law last September, directed the DOE to develop a reactor-based fast neutron source for the testing of advanced reactor fuels and materials, and to execute a programme for enhancing the capability to develop new reactor technologies through high-performance computer modelling and simulation techniques. The launch of the VTR was announced on 28 February by US Energy Secretary Rick Perry, during a joint press conference with International Atomic Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol.

Perry said the VTR was a key step to implementing President Donald Trump's direction to "revitalise and expand" the US nuclear industry.

"This cutting edge Advanced Reactor will give American companies the ability they currently lack to conduct advanced technology and fuels tests without having to go to our competitors in Russia and China," he said.

The VTR will eliminate a "research gap" and "drastically" speed up the time taken to test, develop and qualify advanced reactor technologies, as well as being pivotal in creating new fuels, materials, instrumentation and sensors, the DOE said.

"Having this domestic capability is critical to our national security and our ability to re-establish ourselves as a global leader in advanced reactor technologies," Ed McGinnis, principal deputy assistant secretary of the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, said.

DOE's Idaho National Laboratory has previously selected GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy's (GEH) PRISM technology to support the VTR programme, and has subcontracted GEH to work with Bechtel to advance the design and cost estimates for a VTR based on the integral sodium-cooled fast reactor. DOE said on 1 March that it will now move forward with its conceptual design of the reactor, which could be completed "as early as 2026".

SOURCE

It’s Not about the Climate—It Never Was

By David Legates

Generally, I conclude most of my climate change presentations with the phrase, “It’s not about the climate; it never was.” Here, I would like to start with that statement. In this brief article, I will discuss why carbon dioxide isn’t the dangerous gas it is made out to be, why climate change is not an ‘existential’ threat to the planet, and why the Green New Deal is not a solution to climate change.

Let me begin with a series of questions.

Is our climate changing? The answer is clearly “YES” because climate has always changed. We often define ‘climate’ as ‘average weather’ and averages are not supposed to change. If they do, the cause must be unnatural. Treating the climate as a statistical average further implies that it should be static; in fact, the Earth’s climate is dynamic, variable, and ever-changing.

Is global warming real; or, more specifically, has the surface air temperature risen about 0.6°C (1.08?F) since the late 1800s? The answer also is “YES,” and on that there is little debate.

Do humans affect the Earth’s climate? Again, the answer is “YES” with little debate. We can point to the urban heat island—for example, the Washington metropolitan area is warmer than the surrounding countryside due to the urban city and this has been widely studied. Because of impervious surfaces and the increased water demand of urbanized areas, floods and drought frequencies and intensities also are affected.

Does carbon dioxide absorb energy? Yes, certainly. The Earth’s surface is warmer than it would be in the absence of an atmosphere—by about 30°C (54?F). But remember, the most important greenhouse gas is not carbon dioxide; it is water vapor. Water cycles fast through the atmosphere, absorbing energy as it evaporates and releasing that energy as it condenses. The current amount of water in the global atmosphere will fall as precipitation in just the next ten days. Its mobility and efficiency in absorbing heat energy makes water fundamental in explaining the climate of the Earth.

If the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles, what will the effect be on global air temperature? This is where the debate begins.

We seek to determine something called the equilibrium climate sensitivity—that is, the eventual rise in air temperature due to a doubling of carbon dioxide. Over the last twenty years, our estimates of the equilibrium climate sensitivity have decreased substantially, based on measurements of the climate system.

In the early 2000s, estimates were that a doubling of carbon dioxide would result in between a 3 and 6°C (5.4 and 10.8?F) warming. Since 2010, however, most estimates have placed the equilibrium climate sensitivity at less than 3°C (5.4?F), and over the last five years, several independent assessments have placed the sensitivity at about 1?C (1.8?F).

This implies that the effect of a doubling of carbon dioxide has much less impact than the models suggest—their sensitivity has remained above 3°C (5.4?F) over the last two decades—which helps to explain why their estimates of warming are much higher.

How do we know that carbon dioxide is a minor player in climate change? Both theory and models tell us that the biggest effect of carbon dioxide on air temperatures should lie in the upper tropical troposphere. The troposphere is the layer of the atmosphere where all weather resides. Over the last forty years, the warming of this layer has been small, whereas the models indicate the warming should have been much greater. This further underscores that climate models grossly overstate the climate warming.

Moreover, theory also indicates that daily maximum air temperatures should rise if carbon dioxide is the main driver of climate change. In fact, daily maxima have not changed substantially over the last eighty years, and before that, maximum air temperatures were much higher during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Minimum daily air temperatures have increased, but that is associated with the warming of urban areas. Averaging these two extremes to get a daily average and then reporting that “this year is the warmest in recorded history” is highly misleading since most stations have a short record length and the warming is not due to carbon dioxide.

Will this warming necessarily lead to more climate extremes—floods, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, sea level rise, etc.? I can write in great detail showing the data and explaining why these events are not increasing in frequency or intensity and why, under a warmer world, the physics indicate that they should not. Changing land use and increased demand for water are more significant than carbon dioxide in changing the impact of climate on our lives. Coverage of extreme weather gives the false impression that violent weather is becoming more frequent and intense when the data say otherwise.

Is a warmer climate and more carbon dioxide a net benefit to life on the planet? The answer to this question is a resounding “YES.” More people die from exposure to cold than heat. A longer growing season is more beneficial to feeding a growing population. Further, since carbon dioxide is plant food, under higher carbon dioxide concentrations, virtually all plants grow faster and are more efficient in using water.

So, what is the climatic benefit of spending trillions of dollars and fundamentally changing our economy and way of life? The Green New Deal is not about ‘stabilizing’ the Earth’s climate. Carbon dioxide is a small player in climate change.

The United Nations has become the modern-day Robin Hood—creating wealth redistribution on a global scale. Industrialization has made developed nations ‘rich’, and by using fossil fuels, they are supposedly destroying our climate, for which the developed world must pay. Rich nations, therefore, must give much of their wealth to the poorer nations. Climate change has become the cause célèbre to move nations to action.

The Green New Deal is not about stopping climate change. Climate always changes and always will. The United States has cut back on greenhouse gas emissions by about 13% since 2005 to virtually no effect on the Earth’s climate. The net effect of reducing the United States’ carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050 would be negligible.

Even reduction by 100% would have little effect on the climate, but the policies proposed by the Green New Deal would make Karl Marx proud. But realize this; any draconian changes such as these would necessarily change our fundamental way of life. And that, not addressing the ills of climate change, is what the Green New Deal is all about.

SOURCE

Dr. Happer will set them free

It was easy enough to predict that Trump would appoint Dr. William Happer to set up a Presidential Committee on Climate Science.

Two years have passed and have been lost. The first years of the Trump administration were hobbled by poor Cabinet picks, a proportion of whom conspired against him and others who were just hopeless. Scott Pruitt at the EPA should have got on with Dr Happer's appointment straight away but instead spent $3.5 million on his own security detail. In the meantime, the climate juggernaut rolled on, producing 1,500 pages of alarmist nonsense in an official government report.

You can tell how important Dr Happer is by the forces that have been marshaled against him. The three major lefty media organizations — CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times — all came out to say Dr. Happer's efforts would be wasted. The Democrats are alarmed, calling Dr Happer's proposed panel "dangerous."

The deep resources of the Deep State were mobilized to send a letter to the president signed by some people who once had a connection with the military, such as John Kerry. The 58 signatories to that letter have self-identified as foot soldiers for one-world government and impoverishing the U.S. They are also so delusional that they can believe in global warming even as record cold temperatures are freezing a large part of the lower 48 states.

Calling those 58 signatories delusional is giving them the benefit of the doubt. In one of his speeches in Washington, Obama was going on how dreadful global warming is when the audience started tittering. That reaction indicates what Washington insiders really think of the issue. But leaders of Obama's ilk can't afford to have people laughing out loud at their gravest causes. So the next time he mentioned global warming was at a Coast Guard graduation ceremony. Cadets couldn't laugh at Obama's inanities without their careers ending.

Brazil had an election last year, and the corrupt and incompetent socialists were thrown out and replaced by people who seem to understand how the world works. The first words out of the mouth of Brazil's new foreign minister were that climate change is a Marxist plot. Why would he say that? Actually, he is only repeating what the Marxists doing the plotting have been saying:

Senator Tim Worth, 1992: "We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."

Mikhail Gorbachev, former chief communist on the planet, 1996: "The threat of environmental crisis will be the international disaster key to unlock the New World Order."

Richard Benedick, U.S. State Department, 1992: "A global warming treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the greenhouse effect."

That's just a sample. There are plenty more such statements. Why did the Marxists latch onto global warming as an issue in the early 1990s? The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 meant that suddenly, the left side of politics had no basis for existence. Socialism was discredited by its failure, and so there was no need to rule the world, interfere in people's lives, and take income from workers and give it to bludgers. So the threat of global warming was conjured up on no evidence — thus that last statement that a global warming treaty didn't need to be based in scientific fact. Science fiction will do the trick.

Some of the Washington insiders, such as those who tittered at Obama, are indifferent to the hoax that is draining the country. They know that it is a hoax, but it is not their problem. There are people who believe in global warming even as record cold temperatures are set in the U.S., year after year. These people are too stupid to be helped. They are Lenin's useful idiots for the Marxist plotters. And then there are the likes of the 58 former military men and women who signed that letter. They know that their status as retired military means that their letter to the president was delivered wrapped in the flag. In their hearts of hearts, they might as individuals believe in global warming — which would mean they are incredibly stupid. But, if they have any doubt of the veracity of global warming, then that means they are conspiring against the nation. That is a very bad thing, indeed. It is a binary choice with the gang of 58: evil or stupid.

How will Dr. Happer and his panel set the world free? At the moment, the Marxist plotters bang on about the 97% scientific consensus on global warming. They have created a sealed edifice of lies and have maintained it assiduously. After Dr. Happer's report is released, the mantra of "Are you denying the science?" will be turned on its head.

Global warming has been a state-sponsored religion, with its priesthood funded from the public purse to the tune of $2.5 billion a year in the U.S. alone. The priests of that cult will be plucked off the public teat, and the memory of what they preached will fade. That frabjous day can't come soon enough.

SOURCE

Jury-Rigging The Round Up Carcinogen Case?

Written by Dr Klaus L E Kaiser

That chemical has now been around for approximately 50 years and is likely the world’s most widely used herbicide. As such, it has been instrumental in increasing the agricultural yields of grains and perhaps is responsible for many plentiful harvests of corn, wheat, soybeans, canola and other grains around the entire world.

Glyphosate – Science

I do remember participating in an international scientific committee on Great Lakes Water Quality issues, some 40 years ago, reviewing glyphosate together with colleagues. At that time, the available relevant scientific literature was still scant compared to today and we did not find any cause for great concern.

These days, in 2019, the literature is vastly more extensive. A search on Google Scholar (accessible to anyone but meant to be a search facility for scientific papers on a subject) will return on a search for “glyphosate” some280,000 articles, a search for “Roundup” (the trade name for glyphosate containing herbicidal formulations) approximately 150,000 articles.

The knowledge base on glyphosate also includes detailed reviews by high-level scientific expert panels in several countries and on a variety of potential concerns. To my knowledge, none ever found reasons to ban this herbicide’s use.

One of such concerns was the question of glyphosate possibly causing some relatively rare but recognized forms of cancer, such as “non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma” (NHL). In that context, a review paper by J Acquavella et al. for the International Agency for Research on Cancer (published in 2016) found, quote “Only the Agricultural Health (cohort) Study met our a priori quality standards and this study found no evidence of an association between glyphosate and NHL; [emphasis added].”

Fast Forward To 2019

As widely reported in the news, for example on CTV News, a jury in California has found “Roundup weed killer is major factor in man’s cancer.” Specifically, the news report by S Thanawala says, inter alia, “Roundup weed killer was a substantial factor in a California man’s cancer, a jury determined Tuesday [March 19, 2019] in the first phase of a trial that attorneys said could help determine the fate of hundreds of similar lawsuits” and “A San Francisco jury in August awarded another man $289 million after determining Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; [emphasis added].” In fact, there are hundreds of similar court cases pending on the same or other effects that may or may not have any evidence on the potential or suspected danger of this or many other “chemicals.”

My Concern

What concerns me as a scientist is that a few (six to be exact) jurors with little or no scientific expertise can decide on the guilt or innocence of a compound that has brought untold benefits to mankind and that their decision could cause dramatic reverberations around the globe.

Regardless, Civil Courts ought not to be the venue for deciding questions of science, anywhere.

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 March, 2019

Climate change: Water shortages in England 'within 25 years'

Dropping a retired diplomat into the job of heading an environment agency was bound to have amusing results. And so it has. Sir James knows not even the basics of science. The idea of England running out of water, for a start, could pass as a joke. Visitors to England get the impression that it never stops raining there.

Greenies have however been doing their usual tricks in obstructing water infrastructure improvements such as dam building. So reticulating the water to Britain's immigrant-swollen population could be problematical. But that is on the head of the Greenies, nobody else.

And global warming has absolutely nothing to do with it. A warmer world would evaporate more water off the oceans and that would come down as INCREASED rainfall. Sir James must not have done even High School physics to be unaware of that

Within 25 years England will not have enough water to meet demand, the head of the Environment Agency is warning.

The impact of climate change, combined with population growth, means the country is facing an "existential threat", Sir James Bevan told the Waterwise Conference in London.

He wants to see wasting water become "as socially unacceptable as blowing smoke in the face of a baby".

"We all need to use less water and use it more efficiently," he said.

Sir James Bevan was appointed chief executive of the Environment Agency - the public body responsible for protecting the environment and wildlife in England - in 2015 after a career as a diplomat.

He told his audience that, in around 20 to 25 years, England would reach the "jaws of death - the point at which, unless we take action to change things, we will not have enough water to supply our needs".

SOURCE

Populist Party That Ran Against Climate Hysteria Wins Largest Bloc In Dutch Election

A new populist Eurosceptic party has achieved the remarkable feat of going from zero seats to becoming the largest single party in the Dutch Senate in a single election, as a young politician likened to a “Dutch Donald Trump” beat seasoned professionals in Wednesday’s poll.

Thierry Baudet’s Forum for Democracy party, which has gained attention for its Euroscepticism, campaigned against open borders politics and against what he calls “climate-change hysteria,” winning 86 seats across the Dutch regions.

The victory put his party ahead of even the ruling mainstream conservative People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), which achieved 80 seats.

The Forum was founded in 2016, and this is the first regional election the party has contested.

Remarkably, in some Dutch regions Forum was so unexpectedly successful it won the right to appoint more elected members than they actually have registered candidates living in those areas.

The regional seats translate through the Dutch constitutional system into seats in the appointed upper house Senate. The party will have 13 seats, making them the largest group — and robbing the governing VVD of their majority.

Speaking to Dutch media, leader Thierry Baudet said he was willing to support the establishment parties in government but would demand a “change of course” in certain policy areas, specifically mass migration and government spending on climate change policies.

Showing the party’s newfound power, Baudet even demanded the resignation of several key cabinet ministers, including those responsible for home affairs and immigration, in return for support.

Unlike other countries where establishment parties have totally ruled out working with populist insurgents, even when they hold seats key to establishing a working government, the Netherlands’ centrist-right Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Thursday he would be willing to consider working with Forum to keep the government in power.

Wednesday’s election came just two days after what is now understood to have been a terror attack in the Dutch city of Utrecht, which some media commentators both inside the Netherlands and without have said may have influenced the way people chose to vote.

Baudet himself was criticized after the attack for continuing his election campaigning, while others called off rallies.

Speaking on the campaign trail, Baudet attacked the governing parties for their role in contributing to the circumstances surrounding the attack, including “naive and lax” policies on open borders and criminal justice.

Arguing that despite decades of warnings about the impact of mass migration, “nothing has changed on this road we are following, with hundreds of thousands of people still coming here,” Baudet warned Dutch voters. “If we don’t choose a different course on Wednesday, [events like this week’s shooting] will happen much more often.”

Criticizing the Prime Minister, he said: “We are being destroyed by the people who are supposed to be protecting us… Successive Rutte governments have left our borders wide open, letting in hundreds of thousands of people with cultures completely different to ours.”

Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad reports several news sources have likened the “television genius” Baudet to U.S. President Donald Trump, who connected directly with voters through social media, bypassing the legacy mainstream media.

The unexpected degree of success for Forum reflects and reinforces a broader trend across Europe which sees populist parties giving an authentic voice to concerns held by voters at the expense of traditional, established parties.

This trend is broadly anticipated to continue in the European Union’s parliament elections, with as many as one in four voters across the continent expected to vote populist.

SOURCE

The Consequences Of Andrew Cuomo’s Climate Agenda Hit Close To Home. His Home

The unintended consequences of Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s global warming crusade are hitting close to home — literally.

Utility Consolidated Edison put a moratorium on new natural gas hookups across parts of Westchester County, which includes Mount Kisco where Cuomo’s residence is located, according to The New York Times.

Con Edison’s decision is no surprise to energy experts critical of Cuomo’s blocking of major gas pipelines and the banning of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in New York.

“Governor Cuomo has been mandating the Green New Deal Dream in New York, and now it’s turning into a nightmare for people forced to pay twice as much for oil heat instead of natural gas,” Daniel Kish, a distinguished senior fellow at the free-market Institute for Energy Research, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Local officials and businesses worry the utility’s decision will derail major development projects that will rely on natural gas for heating. It also means homes looking to get off relatively expensive heating oil will have to wait.

“It’s just a question of how people are going to be able to heat their homes and cook their food with the energy that’s available right now,” Con Edison spokesman Michael Clendenin told The Times Thursday.

The natural gas moratorium was announced in January and went into effect March 15, sparking a rush to get applications for natural gas hookups filed before it was too late.

Cuomo banned fracking in 2014 after years of study and delay. Cuomo said the risks to New York’s groundwater and public health were too great, despite Pennsylvania moving ahead with extracting oil and gas from shale.

In the years since, Cuomo’s administration has blocked major natural gas pipeline projects. At the same time, however, natural gas was becoming an increasingly important part of New York’s electricity and heating mix.

Cuomo’s policies have made environmental activists happy, and he’s not done yet. Cuomo’s in the midst of pushing his own “Green New Deal” plan to push more solar and wind power onto the grid.

Cuomo’s goal is 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2040. Current state law mandates 50 percent renewable electricity — hydropower, solar and wind — by 2030. About 28 percent of the state’s electricity comes from renewables, mostly hydroelectric dams.

However, most of New York’s electricity comes from natural gas and nuclear power. Also, millions of households rely on natural gas for heating during winter.

Pipelines are needed to get natural gas to customers, energy companies say, and there currently aren’t enough to reliably meet demand, especially during harsh winters.

Con Edison said Cuomo’s policies have chilled construction of new pipelines in the region. Two counties in Massachusetts have also had moratoriums on natural gas hookups since 2014 due to a lack of pipelines.

“The market changed,” Clendenin told The Times. “Investors were no longer willing to take the risk.”

The pipeline bottleneck in New York has also put pressure on New England states that heavily rely on natural gas. Harsh winter conditions in recent years have brought the region’s grid to the brink, including during winter 2017/2018.

“The Northeastern States are cutting their own throats and their leaders are doing it with a green knife,” Kish said.

In response to Con Edison’s moratorium, New York state offered roughly $250 million in incentives to reduce energy use and install green energy heating equipment. Public utility regulators are also looking into Con Edison’s decision and could overturn the moratorium.

However, Cuomo’s office blamed Con Edison’s poor planning for the natural gas shortfall.

SOURCE

ABC's ‘World News Tonight’ Covers Superbloom, Ignores End of California Drought

California’s “Mediterranean climate” gets attention when it can be used to leverage panic over climate change and when people’s lives and properties are at risk. But the broadcast networks have proved that when it cycles back around thanks to a wet winter, they won’t always report it.

If a wildflower superbloom hadn’t sprouted in California and drawn thousands of visitors, it’s doubtful any of the three evening news shows would have actually announced California was finally out of its long drought. None of the three did a standalone drought story, and ABC failed to report the end of the drought in spite of covering the wildflower bloom.

USA Today reported on March 15, that the entire, enormous state of California is now officially out of drought for the first time since 2011. That was the word from the U.S. Drought Monitor on March 14. But on the six nights after the Drought Monitor announced that good news for California, ABC's World News Tonight skipped the drought altogether — even when it covered the “superbloom mania” on March 18.

CBS Evening News took until March 19, to mention the state was drought-free, saying in its tease: “The drought is over and the desert comes alive.”

CBS correspondent Jamie Yuccas opened the story saying, “Seven years, California is drought-free and the earth is celebrating,” before going on to report record crowds and Instagrammers getting too close to the flowers for their pictures.

NBC Nightly News was the earliest evening newscast to announce the end of the drought.

Sunday anchor Kate Snow said, “A sign of spring now with truly stunning pictures from southern California. It’s called the superbloom, following weeks of rain, California has finally emerged from its drought and wildflowers have begun to blossom. These poppies are drawing crowds of thousands of people.”

The end of the drought is good news for California, at least for now.

“If we have a few more years of this, then maybe our groundwater conditions will be in much better shape and we might be in a better shape to deal with another potential drought, which will come, Stanford University’s director of urban water policy Newsha Ajami told USA Today. “California has a Mediterranean climate so we do experience a lot of ups and downs in our weather conditions.”

In 2017, when winter storms also helped California pull out of the most severe drought category — “exceptional drought” — the broadcast networks barely acknowledged the change. Only NBC’s Today mentioned it between Jan. 24, and Jan. 31, of that year.

The liberal media claimed for many years that droughts like the recent, protracted drought in California was due to man-made climate change. They also portrayed it as unusual, labeling it “historic” in more than 60 percent of their California drought stories in early 2014. But according to some experts, they were wrong about claiming it was “historic” and unprecedented that year.

NOAA scientist Martin Hoerling disputed the assessment in a 2014 New York Times op-ed, saying California’s drought “resembles the droughts that afflicted the state in 1976 and 1977. Those years were at least as dry as the last two years have been.”

Although he accepted that global warming occurred, he argued in that op-ed that “scientific evidence does not support an argument that the drought there is appreciably linked to human-induced climate change.”

ABC, CBS and NBC also connected “hundred-year forest fires” and “periods of severe drought” to climate change in many morning and evening shows in the spring of 2014, without questioning that supposed link. Some other media even claimed it would go on getting worse for a very, long time. Wired magazine warned in May 2016, “California’s Drought is Probably Forever.”

SOURCE

Most 2020 Dems Blow Off Carbon Offsets: ‘No One Is Ready To Walk The Walk’

They are not even pretending to believe in oncoming castastrophe

Sen. Bernard Sanders suffered criticism last year after he flew on a greenhouse-gas-spewing private jet to campaign during the midterm elections. …

On Thursday, Mr. Sanders said he’ll keep going, pledging to offset his carbon emissions for his 2020 presidential campaign. […]

But the other 2020 Democratic hopefuls, who like Mr. Sanders call global warming an existential crisis, have been slower to put their money where their mouth is.

After inquiries from The Washington Times, only one — the campaign of South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg — said it would consider proactive steps to make up for the dirty business, carbon-speaking, of a campaign.

“He’s pledged not to take contributions from the fossil fuel industry, and we’re looking into ways to reduce the carbon footprint,” said Buttigieg spokeswoman Lis Smith.

Every other campaign contacted by The Times ignored the inquiries, making it anyone’s guess how seriously they will take their emissions.

Even Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who is making climate change the centerpiece of his campaign, wouldn’t say whether he will offset his carbon.

Carbon offsets are projects such as planting trees to suck carbon from the atmosphere, converting dirty power sources to cleaner ones, or capturing methane emissions from landfills.

Companies seek payments from those spewing carbon, promising to use the money to fund offset projects.

Native Energy, the company Mr. Sanders uses, says it can offset the half-ton of carbon emissions from 1,000 miles of short-haul airplane travel for $8.55.

Offsets were the rage a decade ago, with several high-profile presidential campaigns promising to pay for their emissions during the 2008 race, including Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.

Combined, federal campaigns in 2008 paid major offset providers, including Native Energy and Climate Trust, a total of $230,917, according to federal records.

In the 2012 presidential cycle, when there was no Democratic presidential primary race, expenditures on carbon offsets ran slightly more than $2,000.

The payments to major offset companies increased in the 2016 cycle but at $14,347 remained dramatically below the 2008 level.

After being spotted flying a private jet to campaign events in 2016, Mrs. Clinton promised to offset her emissions, but no record of payments can be found. Her campaign repeatedly ignored questions about the failure in 2016.

Ironically, the Clinton Global Initiative has funded a carbon offset operation.

Only Mr. Sanders and fellow Vermonter Rep. Peter Welch consistently make large expenditures on carbon offsets.

The lack of personal action has not stopped other candidates from complaining about the looming catastrophe.

“Climate change is the most serious threat to humanity today, and we need immediate and bold action to address it,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

Beto O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman, said Americans have a “final chance” to act or face a climate apocalypse in 12 years.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts proposed rebuilding all of the country’s infrastructure in a way that deals with climate change.

“The urgency of the moment on climate change cannot be overstated. It’s upon us and we need to make a change and make change fast. And that means in part rebuilding our power grids, our entire infrastructure system. We need to harden against the coming storms. Underpasses and overpasses and bridges. We need a 21st-century infrastructure that accounts for coming changes in climate, and we need it fast,” she told National Public Radio.

Mr. Inslee called for an “all-out national climate mobilization” to defeat climate change.

“Sounds like most Democratic candidates want to talk the talk of the Green New Deal, but no one is ready to walk the walk,” said Michael McKenna, an energy lobbyist and Republican Party strategist.

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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25 March, 2019

Climate change's fingerprints are on U.S. Midwest floods: scientists

It's just speculation. There is no way you can show a causal link. A good comment received from Patrick Moore:

"I am so sick of what are supposed to be sane people claiming that climate change has "fingerprints". That is in Sherlock Holmes and FBI cases, not in rainfall and hurricanes. Fingerprints are real things that one can observe with their eyes. What do the "fingerprints of climate change" look like? Are they "invisible"? If so how did the "scientists" see them?

Also "I don't think it's a starring role, but it's a strong supporting role," is a completely ridiculous metaphor for a grown scientist to be mouthing about a weather event."

Scientists speak in numbers that can be checked. How do you check "supporting role"?

And a good comment from Tony Heller:

"The reason the atmosphere is saturated, is because of the cold air – which can hold less moisture. This is something most science students learn in high school, but apparently our top PhD climate scientists are unaware of it.

Sea surface temperatures are also mostly below normal west of the US. The claims by the climate scientists have no basis in reality, which is standard practice for their profession"

Climate change played a hand in the deadly floods in the U.S. upper Midwest that have damaged crops and drowned livestock, scientists said on Thursday, while a Trump administration official said more homework was needed before making that link.

The "bomb cyclone" that dumped rain on Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri and killed at least four people now threatens a wider region downstream of swollen rivers and smashed levees.

Manmade greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, warming the oceans and making the air above them more humid, scientists said. When a storm picks up and eventually spits out that moisture, it can be devastating for people caught below.

"The atmosphere is pretty close to fully saturated, it's got all the water it can take," said Michael Wehner, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Big storms like the bomb cyclone and Hurricane Harvey, which smacked Houston in 2017 with record downpours, are where the impact of climate change can most clearly be seen, he said, adding that climate change's fingerprints were all over the recent storm.

"I don't think it's a starring role, but it's a strong supporting role," said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, a federally-funded office, of climate change's role in the Midwest floods.

He said the bomb cyclone was carrying vast amounts of moisture from the Pacific up to 1,500 miles (2,400 km) away.

Wehner said the flooding was consistent with projections in a government report issued last November, the National Climate Assessment Volume II, that said climate change would boost costs in industries from farming to fisheries and energy production by increasing the frequency of powerful storms.

That report, mandated by Congress, was compiled by 13 federal departments and agencies, but was called inaccurate by the White House.

President Donald Trump has cast doubt on mainstream climate change science and announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris agreement, an international accord to fight climate change, saying it is too costly.

The White House National Security Council has also been considering the formation of a panel to assess science used in military and intelligence reports, which have angered Trump by concluding climate change poses a national security threat.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the link between climate change and the storm.

'FOOL'S ERRAND'

Deke Arndt, chief of climate monitoring at the National Centers for Environmental Information, an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said that the type of heavy precipitation that immediately led to the upper Midwest floods is generally increasing over time.

But trying to link the role of climate change to an individual event is a "fool's errand" akin to trying to determine the cause of a car crash while the wheels are still spinning, he told reporters on a conference call.

More research needs to be done to find a definitive answer on climate's link to the floods, Arndt said.

NOAA officials said on the call they expect the floods to continue through May and get more dire as snow melts and water continues to flow downstream.

Donald Wuebbles, a professor of atmospheric sciences at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, agreed that climate change likely made the Midwest floods worse.

But he said that investments in levees and other infrastructure to deal with changes have not kept up, making communities more vulnerable.

"People have developed infrastructure for the way the climate was in the past, and haven't really been able to evolve to the climate of now and the future," said Wuebbles.

SOURCE

Time running out to prevent the Green New Deal

One of the centerpieces of the Trump administration’s deregulation agenda is the rescission of the Clean Power Plan that was put into place by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2015 under former President Barack Obama. Comprising in part the new and existing power plant rules by the EPA, the Obama plan was to reduce carbon emissions by retrofitting existing coal power plants and making the costs of building new ones so onerous that nobody would dream of it.

By and large, the Obama policy was a “success,” if by success we mean that existing coal plants were taken off-line and replaced with natural gas, and the new plants being built run on natural gas.

In 2007, coal-generated electricity made up 49 percent of the total U.S. grid, while natural gas was just 21 percent, according to the Energy Information Administration.

In 2018, after Obama, now natural gas makes up 35 percent of the grid, and coal is down to 27 percent.

What made this overreach possibility — a de facto ban on new coal power plants and a major incentive to convert existing ones to natural gas — was the 2009 carbon endangerment finding by the EPA, defining carbon dioxide as a harmful pollutant under the terms of the Clean Air Act.

To address this war on coal, the EPA has now come back with a plan to modify the standards under the new power plant rule, while still imposing emissions reductions, doing so in a manner that is actually technically feasible and achievable. Instead of limiting new larger power plants to 1,400 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour, which the agency said was too onerous to be met, it will make it 1,900 pounds.

As for existing plants, the EPA proposes for states to decide for themselves how to reduce carbon emissions. If states fail to produce a plan, then the EPA will give them one.

Both of these proposals would certainly be a step in the right direction and afford more latitude to meet emission reduction targets but they still accept the central premise that carbon dioxide is a harmful pollutant and must be addressed under the Clean Air Act. They leave the carbon endangerment finding in place, creating an opening for future administrations to come back and just do the same thing again — or worse, implement something like the Green New Deal, which ambitiously contemplates getting to net zero carbon emissions within 10 years.

This minimal progress being made is not unexpected. It is a lot harder to rescind regulations and have courts sustain that rescission than it is to water them down a bit via a modification. In 1983, the Supreme Court unanimously decided in Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association v. State Farm Mutual that in rescinding a regulation, the agency must provide a reasoned analysis, “for the change beyond that which may be required when an agency does not act in the first instance.”

This leaves every rescission subject to judicial review, where you have to prove not only that rescinding the regulation in question is rational based on the statutory scheme, but prove that enacting it was irrational to begin with. The problem in this case is that the Supreme Court already decided in Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007 that carbon dioxide could be regulated under the terms of the Clean Air Act even though the law never contemplated doing so.

In other words, it was “reasonable” based on the 2007 Supreme Court ruling to implement the carbon endangerment finding and so too were the Obama rules that sought to reduce carbon emissions within the statutory scheme. If the Trump administration simply rescinded the regulations, it would likely face an uphill battle in court, since ultimately the question would boil down to persuading the Supreme Court to second-guess itself in the 2007 ruling or not.

If the courts were to block an attempt to rescind the regulations, it could be argued the Trump administration had squandered an opportunity to clarify them instead into something that would at least allow for new coal plants to be built and save a dying industry.

On the other hand, it is a good question whether it would be worth the risk of losing to rescind the regulations in this case. Justice Anthony Kennedy was the swing vote in the majority opinion in the 2007 case, a 5 to 4 decision, and is no longer on the Supreme Court. This might be the best, last opportunity to revisit the carbon endangerment finding.

Other avenues of potential remedy appear to be cut off at the moment. Congress could have addressed this issue in 2017 and 2018 when Republicans controlled majorities in both chambers of Congress, and clarified the terms of the Clean Air Act either by reforming the statute or by defunding implementation of the Obama era regulations but that was not even attempted — it would have likely stalled in the Senate failing to get to 60 votes and the GOP Senate had already foreclosed the possibility of eliminating the filibuster — and so President Trump is left with what he can do under limited discretion the agencies have to modify the existing regulations.

Unfortunately, what that means is that to prevent something like the Green New Deal from being implemented via regulation, Republicans will have to win every election from now on. In the least, the GOP would need to win back the House in 2020 and hold the Senate and White House. To prevent the Green New Deal, the Clean Air Act needs to be reformed to rule out carbon emissions regulations or else the Supreme Court needs to go back on its 2007 decision.

What it really comes down to is even with these new regulations, will investors want to risk building a new coal power plant, knowing that it’s just one election away from being shut down again? The coal industry may need more permanent protections via law. The regulations keep changing.

Also, the President’s Commission on Climate Security is an important step to addressing whether such onerous regulations are even necessary, as it will take a second-look at the science behind man-made climate change. But it is Congress that really needs to act.

Arguably, under the existing statutory and regulatory scheme and judicial precedent, Democrats already have everything they need to one day implement the Green New Deal via regulation, effectively banning carbon emissions by making carbon capture requirements so onerous nobody can comply with them. Do we really want to sit around and wait and see if they are successful in jamming it through the regulatory process and the courts — and consigning the U.S. to economic oblivion?

SOURCE

The ‘Green New Deal’ Is Breaking the Left Apart

Since the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, working-class union members have been the backbone of the Democratic Party. The left claimed to advocate workers’ rights and was seen, rightly or wrongly, as the party who fought for the little guy.

Well if it wasn’t clear before, it’s clear now—times have changed.

The election of Donald Trump to the presidency, aided by tens of thousands of Obama voters in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, was the first sign of a political realignment.

Now, the “Green New Deal” is highlighting these cleavages in stark terms, with the nation’s largest union organization forcefully coming out against it.

Last week, the AFL-CIO sent a letter to the bill’s lead sponsors—Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.—expressing its opposition to the proposal on behalf of the 13 million workers the union represents.

“The Green New Deal resolution is far too short on specific solutions that speak to the jobs of our members and the critical sections of our economy. It is not rooted in an engineering-based approach and makes promises that are not achievable or realistic,” wrote the AFL-CIO’s energy committee.

“We will not accept proposals that could cause immediate harm to millions of our members and their families. We will not stand by and allow threats to our members’ jobs and their families’ standard of living go unanswered.”

The AFL-CIO is absolutely right. The $93 trillion Green New Deal would bankrupt this country while throwing millions of Americans out of work. Unemployment and deficits would skyrocket, and energy shortages would plague our electric grid. These socialist policies would wreak havoc on our freedom and way of life, as they have done throughout history.

Proponents of the Green New Deal argue that all of these jobs will be replaced by “green” energy jobs, but it is unreasonable to expect these magical “green” jobs to even come close to replacing the millions of quality jobs we have in the energy industry right now.

This letter will not soon be forgotten. It represents a major shot across the bow of the far left by the working class of the traditional left. It’s made even more significant by the fact that Ocasio-Cortez has made a concerted effort to woo the labor movement.

Included in the Green New Deal resolution is a pledge to create “high-quality union jobs that pay prevailing wages.” Ocasio-Cortez also called for “strengthening and protecting the right of all workers to organize, unionize, and collectively bargain.” In other words, she took great pains to pre-emptively appeal to labor unions.

But the AFL-CIO correctly realized that her pledge is nothing more than hollow words. You cannot throw millions of people out of work and expect new jobs to fall from the sky.

That the AFL-CIO would attack her signature policy proposal with such critical language signals just how deeply workers feel threatened by it. And it is more evidence that big labor’s influence on the left is waning.

Major Democratic figures are lining up behind the Green New Deal, even as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and billionaire Michael Bloomberg express unease about it. It’s clear where the left is moving—and who’s being left out.

The union’s 13 million members are a vital grassroots asset for the left. In previous years, locking down this support would have been near the top of any Democrat’s priority list. Democrats still need their support. The question is whether they care enough about retaining that support to pull back from Ocasio-Cortez’s climate extremism.

If they choose the path of the Green New Deal, they will likely be rudely awakened to find that their once-reliable base has left them behind for a president who speaks to their needs.

Time will tell if major Democratic figures buckle on their support of the Green New Deal, but one thing is clear—we are living in fluid, ever-changing political times.

SOURCE

Bill Expanding Electric Vehicle Tax Credits Would Mean $99 Million Less for Colorado’s General Fund

Legislation expanding Colorado’s tax incentives for electric vehicles could mean over $99 million less in revenue for the state’s general fund at a time when Democratic lawmakers are looking for ways to raise tax revenue.

The current electric vehicle tax credits offered for purchase or lease of electric or hybrid vehicles is scheduled to be reduced, then phased out by 2022. House Bill 1159 would increase the tax credits offered for 2021, the last year the credits are offered under current law, and extend the credits through 2025.

But the tax credits offered in HB 1159 would mean the state’s general fund loses out on $99.2 million in revenue, according to the estimate in the bill’s fiscal note.

The fiscal note, prepared by the nonpartisan Legislative Council Staff, estimates the credits offered through the bill will average more than $4,500 in 2021 and 2022 and more than $2,800 in 2023 through 2025.

The Independence Institute called the legislation "fiscally irresponsible" in a blog post, considering that Democrats in the state are looking for ways to raise tax revenue to fund several policy proposals.

Colorado Democrats have proposed overhauling oil and gas regulations in the state, a move that opponents say would hurt one of the state’s top industries and a key source of tax revenue.

Governor Jared Polis signed an executive order in January mandating that more electric vehicles be made available in the state.

Steve Pociask, president and CEO of the American Consumer Institute, questioned the effectiveness of electric vehicles in an email.

"When compared to conventional vehicles, the empirical evidence shows the reduction in electric vehicle greenhouse gas emissions to be greatly overstated," he said. "In addition, these vehicles are more costly to purchase than conventional vehicles, and they produce other sources of pollution, such as increased toxicity to humans, as well as terrestrial and freshwater life, due to the mining and production of nickel, graphite and cobalt used in batteries."

The bill passed the House Finance Committee last week and was referred to the Appropriations Committee.

SOURCE

Climategate +10 Years: Global Warming Scare On Life Support

The global warming hysteria was reaching a crescendo in the lead up to the climate confab in Copenhagen in 2009 when a civic-minded person released the Climategate emails, deflating the whole thing. Those emails were concocted from the fevered imaginations of the scientists involved.

Nigh on 10 years have passed since then and we are currently experiencing another peak in the hysteria that seems to be coordinated worldwide. But why? Why now?

The global warming scientists have plenty of time on their hands and plenty of money. Idle curiosity would have got some to have a stab at figuring out what is going to happen to climate.

Do they see an imminent cooling and they have to get legislation in place before that is apparent?

The passage of those ten years has given us another lot of data points on global warming. There are now 40 years of satellite measurements of atmospheric temperature and this is how that plots up for the Lower 48 States:

What the graph shows is the departure from the average for the 30 years from 1981 to 2010. The last data point is February 2019 with a result of -0.03 degrees C.

So we have had 40 years of global warming and the temperature has remained flat. In fact, it is slightly cooler than the long term average.

Is it possible to believe in global warming when the atmosphere has cooled? No, not rationally. Is it possible for global warming to be real if the atmosphere has cooled? Again no.

Now let’s look at carbon dioxide, which was supposed to be driving global warming, if it’s even happening.

A lab high up on Mauna Loa in Hawaii has been measuring the atmospheric concentration since 1958. As it is the annual change in concentration that is supposed to be driving global warming, let’s see how that plots up:

What it shows is that the driving effect has been in a wide band from 1979 when the satellites to measure temperature went up but the trend is flat. Think about that – No trend since 1979 in CO2 levels. Level just fluctuate up and down in rough balance. If CO2 increase was ever going to happen it would have happened by now.

The opposite of global warming is global cooling. What are the chances of that? Pretty good in fact.

Only one graph is needed to show the potential for that – the aa Index which is a measure of the Sun’s magnetic field strength. Records of that have been kept since 1868:

The second half of the 20th century had a solar magnetic field strength that was 50% higher than that of the last 60 years of the Little Ice Age. That ended in 2006.

We are now back to the solar activity levels of the 19th century and that will bring the sort of climate our forbears had then.

And so it has come to pass. January-February had record cold over North America. Seemingly the polar vortex was everywhere because Japan also had record cold.

Waiting for global warming to happen is like Waiting for Godot. It is never going to happen and the wait is getting beyond tedious.

In the meantime, there is no evidence for global warming and the opposite is happening, as shown by the record cold we have just experienced.

It is time to stop giving global warmers the benefit of doubt – they are loons. That includes Rick Perry [Energy Secretary].

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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24 March, 2019

Should there be wind farms in Adirondack park

John Droz has been putting up a big defense against a proposal to put wind turbines up in Adirondack park. A paleoclimatologist has criticized Droz's arguments. The criticisms are however puerile --- pathetically unscientific. They reveal how desperate warmists are that they have to resort to such non-sequiturs. John Droz provides a link to his rebuttal at the foot of his comments below

Here’s a brief chronological history:

1) The Adirondack Park (in upstate NY) is the largest park on the continental US (6 million acres). It is an extraordinary place that has unparalleled natural beauty. I’ve been a lifetime resident of the Park, so I have plenty of first-hand experiences with most of it. As an environmentalist, I’m a Park protector.

2) The Park is overseen by a powerful NYS agency, called the Adirondack Park Agency (APA). They establish a wide assortment of zoning rules, etc. that cover the entire Park. In general these are beneficial. For example, to date, industrial wind energy and solar are both prohibited. Excellent!

3) Political activists are pushing the APA to change their renewable energy restrictions. Their ultimate goal is to get industrial wind energy into the Park. As a feeler, in November the APA proposed this Renewable Energy Policy.

4) I then immediately sent the APA a 12-point objection to their proposal. (I have yet to hear any response back from them.)

5) In addition, to make citizens aware of this profoundly anti-environmental plan, I wrote a layman overview of the situation, which was published in some Adirondack newspapers.

6) After that was seen, I was asked by the editor of the well-respected bi-monthly Adirondack Explorer magazine to submit commentary for a feature they have, where major issues are debated. I submitted the con-piece about the APA’s proposed renewable energy policy. It came out a few weeks ago.

7) A NYS paleoclimatologist, Dr. Curt Stager, took issue with my Adirondack Explorer commentary, and last week got a lengthy op-ed published (attacking my competence, etc.).

8) I just finished a response to Curt’s polemic— and submitted it for publication, today. I’m sharing a slightly longer version with you, as I thought you might like to see a rather impassioned exchange between scientists about some of the key Global Warming issues.

There are multiple things to learn from this exchange. Although this is a moderate amount of reading, it’s an interesting, informative discussion of the Global Warming matter — making some points rarely seen.

Global Warming is THE issue of our times. After reading this you’ll have a much better understanding of this whole matter, and what’s really going on.

The rebuttal

Oil leases broke the law by not assessing climate impact, judge rules

The ruling temporarily blocks drilling on about 300,000 acres of land in Wyoming until the Trump administration does its climate homework. All oil and gas drilling on federal lands — of which the Wyoming land is but a tiny part — accounts for something in the neighborhood of 10% of total U.S. carbon output. That is to say Contreras, an Obama judge, blocked drilling on account of emissions roughly equivalent to a few cow farts. This isn't about, as Contreras opined, "the national, cumulative nature of climate change." It's about judicial overreach, trampling the law, and obstructing Trump

A federal judge ruled that the Interior Department violated federal law by failing to take into account the climate impact of its oil and gas leasing in the West.

The decision late Tuesday by US District Judge Rudolph Contreras of Washington could have sweeping implications for President Trump’s plan to boost fossil fuel production across the country. Contreras concluded that the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management "did not sufficiently consider climate change" when making decisions to auction off federal land in Wyoming to oil and gas drilling in 2015 and 2016, under the Obama administration. The judge temporarily blocked drilling on roughly 300,000 acres of land in the state.

The initial ruling in the case brought by two advocacy groups, WildEarth Guardians and Physicians for Social Responsibility, has implications for oil and gas drilling on federal land throughout the West. In the decision, Contreras — a Barack Obama appointee — faulted the agency’s environmental assessment as inadequate because it did not detail how individual drilling projects contributed to the nation’s overall carbon output. Since greenhouse gas emissions are driving climate change, the judge wrote, these analyses did not provide policy makers and the public with a sufficient understanding of drilling’s impact, as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

"Given the national, cumulative nature of climate change, considering each individual drilling project in a vacuum deprives the agency and the public of the context necessary to evaluate oil and gas drilling on federal land before irretrievably committing to that drilling," he wrote.

Contreras did not void the leases outright, but instead ordered BLM to redo its analysis of hundreds of projects in Wyoming.

Western Energy Alliance president Kathleen Sgamma, whose group is one of the defendants in the case, said in a phone interview that she was confident the ruling could be overturned on appeal. She noted that the Obama and Trump administrations had conducted similar climate analyses in their leasing documents and that it was impossible to predict the cumulative impact of these auctions because just under half of all federal land leased for drilling is eventually developed.

"This judge has ignored decades of legal precedent in this ruling," she said. "The judge is basically asking BLM to take a wild guess on how many wells will be developed on leases, prematurely."

Jeremy Nichols, who directs WildEarth Guardians’ climate and energy program, said in a phone interview that the decision would force the administration to reveal how its policies are helping to fuel climate change. He said his group would now take steps to try to block federal oil and gas lease auctions scheduled for next week, which encompass 560,000 acres of western land.

"It calls into question the legality of the Trump administration’s entire oil and gas program," Nichols said. "This forces them to pull their head out of the sand and look at the bigger picture."

Federal oil, gas, and coal leasing — both on land and offshore — accounts for a quarter of America’s total carbon output, according to a report issued last year by Interior’s US Geological Survey. Oil and gas drilling accounts for about 40 percent, or 500 million metric tons, of that total.

Even if Contreras’s decision stands, however, it may not block the administration’s energy agenda altogether. While BLM would be required to disclose the overall climate impact of its leasing decisions, it could potentially still go ahead and open those lands up for development.

While the Interior Department began to take into account the climate impacts of federal oil, gas, and coal leasing toward the end of Obama’s second term, Trump administration officials jettisoned those plans right after Donald Trump took office. Interior lifted a moratorium on federal coal leasing in 2017 and is working to overhaul a 2016 guidance that requires federal agencies to assess the global climate impact of their policies.

Trump and several of his top deputies have dismissed recent federal findings that the United States and other countries must curb their carbon output in the next decade or face potentially disastrous consequences from climate change.

SOURCE

Media FOIA Requests to EPA Spiked After Trump Election, Data Reveal

The number of Freedom of Information Act requests the Environmental Protection Agency received from mainstream outlets such as the New York Times and Washington Post spiked immediately after Republican President Donald Trump took office, according to a Free Beacon analysis of FOIA requests by the media from 2013 to the present.

The figures, obtained through the government's FOIA online database, reveal a clear increase in requests for information from the agency once Trump was elected president.

The New York Times, for example, made just 13 FOIA requests during the four years of Obama's second term, sending 3 in 2013, 1 in 2014, 7 in 2015, and 2 in 2016. The number of FOIA requests the Times sent for Obama's entire second term was nearly quadrupled in the first year of Trump's presidency alone, when the Times sent 59 FOIA requests to the EPA.

Reporters at the Times have made 100 FOIA requests since Trump took office just over two years ago, a 669 percent increase of the number of FOIA requests it made during the four years of Obama's second term.

Reporters at the Washington Post sent just a single FOIA request to the EPA during Obama's entire second term, and have sent 43 FOIA requests to the agency since Trump took office.

The sharp increase in FOIA requests to the EPA was also apparent at Politico (15 requests in Obama's second term, 198 since Trump took office), The Hill (20 requests in Obama's second term, 67 since Trump took office), CNN (25 requests in Obama's second term, 47 since Trump took office), Buzzfeed (18 requests in Obama's second term, 38 since Trump took office), and ABC News (4 requests in Obama's second term, 32 since Trump took office).

The other outlets included in the analysis of mainstream media were the Associated Press, Bloomberg, CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, NBC News, MSNBC, Reuters, Daily Beast, The Guardian, and the Wall Street Journal.

Among them, only Bloomberg sent a consistent amount of FOIA requests in the final years of the Obama administration, when the EPA released major proposals such as the Clean Power Plan and its new Waters of the United States rule.

EPA administrators have attracted attention during both administrations. Toward the end of the tenure of Obama's first EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, it was revealed that she had been conducting official business using the alias "Richard Windsor." She denied that it was part of an effort to evade federal record keeping laws.

Under the watch of Jackson's replacement Gina McCarthy, it was revealed that an agency employee was habitually watching porn on his government computer. The porn-watcher remained on the payroll for months.

Trump's first appointed EPA administrator Scott Pruitt resigned last summer after a series of revelations regarding his misuse of agency funds.

SOURCE

Is Recycling Really Saving The Planet Or Is It Just A Scam?

It looks like your crazy retired hippie neighbor who rummages through your waste bin every day will soon be out of business. No longer will he be able to sell several bags of Coca-Cola cans for top penny because the aluminum recyclables market is shrinking in size and profitability. Well, at least you won’t have to watch somebody go through your trash anymore as you stand on your front porch drinking coffee.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the price of used aluminum has cratered 30% over the last 12 months because the demand has dissipated. Despite social pressures, metal producers, aluminum rollers, automobile and airplane manufacturers, and others are scrapping used cans from their business models. As a result, used soda pop cans are piling up in scrap yards.

Liberty Nation Reports:

This is part of a much broader downturn in the recycling industry, including paper and plastic, driven by Chinese tariffs and heightened standards in recyclables’ purity. For years, Beijing had been the epicenter of this market, thanks to an immense infrastructure and greater capacity to process recycled goods. There is now a crusade among developed markets to find new buyers of aluminum, paper, and plastic.

But this is evidence of one inconvenient truth for the green puritans: Recycling is a waste.

Recycling Is Garbage

The argument for recycling is not grounded in fact, science, or economics. If we had an honest discussion, it would conclude with abandoning the blue bins and tossing out our garbage instead. The true cost of this initiative exceeds its benefit since it does not return a financial profit – aluminum used to, but now we’ve learned otherwise.

The environmental practice uses three times more resources than disposing of waste in a landfill. The cost to recycle is around $150 per ton, compared to $28 to throw trash in a landfill. Curbside recycling costs 55% more than other methods, and the environmental impact is greater because there are more trucks on the road. Recycling two popular products – newspapers and glass bottles – is more harmful to the environment; newspapers need to be deinked with chemicals and states ship their glass bottles to other jurisdictions.

Ultimately, we’re using more energy to recycle than it would take to start from scratch, and all these efforts are in vain since most of the stuff in blue bins still ends up in a landfill anyway.

The predictable counterargument to this is that we’re running out of landfill space, alluding to media footage of trucks filled with garbage with nowhere to go. It is true that the number of landfills is decreasing, mainly due to NIMBYism and political pressure from supposed tree huggers, but the size of existing and proposed landfills is increasing.

Today, there are approximately 2,000 landfills in 48 states that manage more than half of all solid waste in the nation, and about a third are privately owned. Landfills are marketed as hazardous wastelands that pose threats to the environment and dangers to public health. This isn’t remotely true because developers have transformed your grandfather’s landfills into state-of-the-art facilities, comprising plastic liners, redundant clay, and collection systems. Moreover, modern-day landfills are turning into energy hubs as they produce pipeline-quality natural gas and methane gas.

Overall, it is estimated that holding all the country’s garbage for the next 100-plus years would require a landfill of 10 miles in length and 255 feet in height.

Power Of Prices

One of the recycling elite’s chief arguments is the scarcity of natural resources. However, a lot of conventional wisdom on what is scarce is arbitrary. The best way to determine if a natural resource is threatened is by using the pricing system.

If the price of a resource is gradually increasing (without inflation), then the natural source is becoming scarcer. On the other hand, if the price is plunging, there is an abundance of this good. What have we learned over the last century? The average price of raw materials has tumbled 75%.

The same economic reasoning can be applied to landfills. If what they say is true, and we are running short of landfill space, then the cost of dumping our trash would skyrocket. But it hasn’t. Do you know what has? Recycling, which is why more municipalities are dumping their programs or raising fees.

Going Through The Motions

In Aldous Huxley’s seminal Brave New World, children are brainwashed by the government from the time they can understand speech. Using a form of hypnopaedia – learning while asleep – the powerful bureaucrats incorporate a whisper box into their plans, repeating slogans and messages pertaining to conformity and sex. This information is eventually ingrained into their minds and memories.

Similarly, millennials were indoctrinated in elementary school with bad information relating to waste and recycling, as well as the annoying jingle from public service announcements. As these millennials enter adulthood, recycling has become a religion for their households, and anyone in the neighborhood who refuses to conform is a planet-hater and worse than Adolf Hitler.

Remember, kids: Recycle. Reduce. Reuse. And close the loop! Recycle. Reduce. Reuse. And close the loop!

At this point, we’re going through the motions. It is something we have always done. Recycling allows folks to act like they’re in an episode of Care Bears: It gives us the impression we’re saving the planet, and it makes us feel superior to those who don’t recycle. It’s like Starbucks customers who think they’re better than Dunkin’ Donuts patrons.

Recycling doesn’t save resources, doesn’t help the environment, and doesn’t help us save money. It is based on a trash heap of lies.

SOURCE

What Americans can learn from Venezuela

Venezuela is teetering on the brink of collapse. The nation’s political system is shattered, as tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets, urging President Nicolás Maduro to resign. And it makes sense why: their economy is in utter shambles.

In 2018, inflation exceeded 177,000 percent, decimating the country’s currency, the bolivar. A cup of coffee, valued at $0.50, now sells for over 800 bolivars. Over 10 percent of Venezuelan children are suffering from moderate to severe malnutrition. The situation is so dire that Venezuelans have taken to eating rats, dogs, and zoo animals to stop from starving.

This tragedy is occurring even though Venezuela is one of the most resource-rich nations in the world. The country has an estimated $14.3 trillion worth of natural resources. It has enormous oil and natural gas reserves and is the world’s third largest producer of coal. How, then, has Venezuela managed to turn such an abundance of riches into extensive crippling poverty? To any student of history, the answer is clear: socialism.

Indeed, Venezuela’s energy crisis is a textbook example of what happens when the government attempts to run sectors of the economy. Following his election in 1998, former President Hugo Chavez socialized the country’s various industries, transforming its multi-faceted economy into a glorified, state-led gas station. By 2014, Venezuela had become an economic one trick pony, with the sale of oil accounting for 95 percent of the country’s export profit. But those profits were not being given back to the people. True to form, Venezuela’s socialist government squandered $1.3 trillion in oil revenue through mismanagement, waste, excess, and outright corruption.

Venezuela’s ongoing crisis is a scathing indictment of socialism’s tendency toward misuse and disarray, especially when it comes to the economy’s energy sector. Properly managed, natural resources can be an incredible asset for any country, but in the government’s hands, they fuel economic destruction. And while recent events have highlighted the tragic failure of socialistic authoritarianism in Venezuela, we mustn’t be so naïve to assume that America is immune to such mismanagement.

American leftists are already dismissing the Venezuela experiment as “not real socialism” and pushing the narrative that “true socialism” would work in the United States. But these individuals fail to recognize that socialism’s problems aren’t quarantined to South American countries. They are endemic of a system that prioritizes government control over free markets.

Perhaps, then, we just need an example that hits a little closer to home.

In the 1970s, the United States faced an energy crisis of its own. Through most of the decade, the oil cartel OAPEC instituted an embargo against the U.S., leading to massive oil shortages and price increases of up to 350 percent. Panicked, the Carter Administration turned to big government as the solution to the country’s energy sector vulnerability. In 1978, the legislature passed the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA), a law whose unintended consequences are being felt now more than ever.

The original intent of PURPA was to encourage the increased production of renewable energy. It did so by establishing the government as an effective monopoly over the production and sale of renewable energy projects. These government-mandated projects set price controls for public consumption at “reasonable rates for the public interest,” and forced electric companies to purchase renewable energy at specified costs from the PURPA facilities.

Much like the results of Venezuela’s effort to nationalize its energy sector, the effects of PURPA on the United States have been quite devastating. What the government once deemed a “reasonable rate” for the cost of energy production currently exceeds the market rate by 300 to 400 percent. Not only does that lead to higher prices for consumers, but it also disincentivizes renewable energy production completely. According to the testimony of a utility representative, “utilities with large amounts of [PURPA-required] power on their system often must curtail or even shut down less expensive, more economic generation or be in violation of PURPA.”

The United States is not immune to government inefficiency and failure. Whether it be in Venezuela or the U.S., people suffer when top-down, government mandates are imposed on entire sectors of an economy. Big government is inherently unstable and only functions as long as the economy has wealth to burn. Once the coffers run empty, the system falls apart.

Thankfully, America has not reached the point of no return. But as the left’s slow march toward socialism begins to pick up steam, the risks of economic catastrophe only intensify. America, much like Venezuela, simply can’t afford socialism. And as a growing tide of young liberals seeks to embrace big government as the solution to societal ills, we must take this lesson to heart.

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

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

22 March, 2019

The Green New Fascist Deal

The Nazis were the originators of the cult of sustainable development that is now so widespread these days

By Mark Musser

The “Green New Deal” is a fascist utopian plan written by environmentalist lawyers that is purportedly designed to tackle the global warming apocalypse which capitalism, particularly of the American kind drunk on fossil fuels, has precipitated through economic recklessness and colonial racism. CO2, a trace gas measured in parts per million, is the primary culprit of a semi-apocalyptic global warming crisis that can only be averted through an all-wise cadre of Democratic green lawyers. That such utopianism, political legalism, and apocalypticism is presented as hard science demonstrates the general madness of the present time that is largely rooted in the Social Darwinian scientism of the 1800s, wherein German zoologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was peddling a racist political biology together with strong ecological values that he characterized as Monism -- which speaks of a monistic oneness or holism with nature along totalitarian lines that modern science was supposedly offering the constituents of the Second Reich. While Haeckel coined the term “ecology” in 1866, he mixed racial eugenics with his environmentalism. Today, environmentalism proffers anti-humanism, population control, ecological totalitarianism, and indigenous multicultural tribal racism that “The New Green Deal” is chock full of.

Austrian Nazi forester Guenther Schwab (1904-2006) was one of the most successful original popularizers of apocalyptic environmentalism in the 1950s and 60s, which included the CO2 global warming scare. Thanks to the great success of Schwab’s writings, real green Nazis like Werner Haverbeck, August Haussleiter, and Werner Vogel, among others, helped him lay the foundations for the German Green Party in the late 1970s. Yet, it was German researcher Hermann Flohn (1912-97) who took the global warming theory that had been bandied around by earlier European researchers and gave it teeth to increasingly bite its way into the main storyline of the West as the 20th century drew to a close. Flohn is considered to be one of the most critically important climate scientists of the 20th century, whose research merited a number of prestigious awards.

Flohn’s very German odyssey actually began in 1941, when he published an article on global warming titled, “The Activity of Man as a Climate Factor” during the dizzying heights of Nazi rule. The Dust Bowl years of the 1930s on the American plains was an exceptionally warm period that prompted environmental discussion among many Nazis at the time, who deemed such an ecological disaster as a symptom of diseased industrial capitalism which had ruined the soil. While Flohn was not a Nazi Party member, he received his doctorate in 1934 and began work for the German Meteorological Service at a time when National Socialism was attempting to bring into line German universities within its ideological purview. Later, Flohn became the Luftwaffe’s chief meteorologist under green Nazi Hermann Goering’s watch. The great irony is that the global warming of the 1930s came to an abrupt halt (which lasted until 1975) just in time for the 1941 invasion of Russia when the Wehrmacht essentially froze to death just outside the gates of Moscow.

During the war, it stands to good reason that Flohn’s high atmospheric weather research would have not only placed him in close proximity with high-altitude Nazi human experiments, but probably also would have put him in regular contact with Werner von Braun and his SS rocket boys. After the war, Flohn continued to ratchet up the CO2 global warming scare as more dangerous than even nuclear energy. Such connections seem to suggest that the global warming apocalypse may have been originally introduced in a targeted way into American research labs through Operation Paperclip, when SS Nazi and German scientists were imported into the United States to help Uncle Sam build rockets to compete in the Cold War. The SS was the greenest arm of the swastika.

Even as early as 1935, Nazi Germany was the greenest regime on the planet. Their ecological projects worked hand in hand with their wild Social Darwinian biological programs connected to eugenics and scientific racial hygiene. Cleaning up the blood also included cleaning up the environment. Indeed, Nazi biologist Ernst Lehman defined fascism accordingly, “We recognize that separating humanity from nature, from the whole of life, leads to humankind’s own destruction and to the death of nations. Only through a re-integration of humanity into the whole of nature can our people be made stronger. That is the fundamental point of the biological tasks of our age. Humankind alone is no longer the focus of thought, but rather life as a whole... This striving toward connectedness with the totality of life, with nature itself, a nature into which we are born, this is the deepest meaning and the true essence of National Socialist thought.”

Out of such a Nazi holistic nature-based worldview came a number of environmental laws that preceded their more overt racial laws. In 1933, the Nazis passed a strict animal rights law. In 1934 they passed a hunting law. Along similar lines, the Nazis also introduced sustainable forestry practices, and essentially became the very originators of what is today called sustainable development that included a great concern for recycling. Even the Four-Year Nazi war plan was to be guided by sustainable development concerns. In 1935, the Nazis passed the totalitarian Reich Nature Protection Act which opened the door to ecological regulation over private property.

That same year, American deep ecologist Aldo Leopold visited Nazi Germany to witness their strong emphasis upon green programs they had just put in place. While Leopold had some criticism of the Nazi efforts, he was very complimentary as he said they were not just talking about environmental problems, but actually doing something. Leopold also dragged home the “Never cry wolf” cult to America as Nazi Germany was the first country in the world to protect wolves. In other words, the western bridge between postmodern socialism/fascism and environmentalism originally rooted in the early German green movement of the 1800s was built by National Socialism in the 1930s, long before Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

With no small irony, the present strong relationship that currently exists between modern environmentalism and left-wing labor unions was essentially born in Nazi Germany. In June of 1933, green Nazis Rudolf Hess and Walther Schoenichen absorbed many of the environmental groups of the Weimar Republic under Werner Haverbeck’s Folk-Race National Character and Landscape Bund that was a subdivision of the German Labor Front. The German Labor Front thus adopted the greens into their political organization. Nazi architect Albert Speer was proud of his environmental accomplishments as the green builder of the Third Reich who was also another leader of the German Labor Front.

After the war, while biding his time in Spandau prison, Hess often discussed the problems of the free market economy with Speer. Speer had worked under Hess as they were both essentially in charge of Nazi public works projects. Speer noted that Hess loved to critique American capitalism which he called liberal democracy as a form of sickness, “Again and again he comes to me with examples of overconsumption in the United States. He happily notes reports of misguided investments in the market economy, collects examples of land speculation, criminality, bad posture in children and health damage caused by canned foods.”

Hess even came up with a cockamamie sustainable development plan he shared with his fellow Nazi prisoners in 1951. Since highway lamps were being placed above roadways, Hess thought it would be unnecessary for cars to turn their headlights on at the same time. Energy could thus be saved by turning off the headlights when highway lamps were burning. Speer remarked, “This would save current he maintains, and the erection and maintenance of the floodlights could easily be financed out of the money thus saved. I object that the car’s generators would be running anyhow, to supply the current to the spark plugs. He dismisses that; the generator could shut off automatically as soon as the battery was charged. Thus, energy would be stored, fuel saved, and this saving could be spent on financing the illumination of highways.” Such a madness certainly presages the anti-car renewable energy sentiments that have become one of the trademarks of the modern green movement -- that is also playing no small role in the Green New Deal as well. In short, to characterize the Green New Deal as fascist is no metaphor.

SOURCE

Associated Press spouts pure Climate Propaganda

Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein has made another attempt to convince the public of global warming, but his latest analysis has climate scientists once again refuting his claims.

On Tuesday, Borenstein and Nicky Forster cited AP analysis that found hot temperature records in the U.S. were being broken twice as often as cold temperature records. He concluded that this is “a clear sign of human-caused climate change.”

Borenstein and Forster wrote:

“The AP looked at 424 weather stations throughout the Lower 48 states that had consistent temperature records since 1920 and counted how many times daily hot temperature records were tied or broken and how many daily cold records were set. In a stable climate, the numbers should be roughly equal. Since 1999, the ratio has been two warm records set or broken for every cold one. In 16 of the last 20 years, there have been more daily high-temperature records than low.”

The AP Piece went on to cite various climate scientists:

“The AP shared the data analysis with several climate and data scientists, who all said the conclusion was correct, consistent with scientific peer-reviewed literature and showed a clear sign of human-caused climate change. They pointed out that trends over decades are more robust than over single years.”

The AP piece concluded:

“The analysis stopped with data through 2018. However, the first two months of 2019 are showing twice as many cold records than hot ones.”

But the scientists he cited don’t speak for all climate scientists. Some, in fact, are dismissing his “clear sign” analysis. Climatologist John Christy told me that Borenstein framed the data wrongly:

“The occurrence of both record highs and record lows is declining. Record-low events are simply declining more rapidly than record highs. The drop in record lows is associated with development around the weather stations, which causes low temperatures to increase more than highs for a variety of reasons.”

Most climate change activists cite the greenhouse gas theory—that man-made gases are causing changes to the Earth’s temperature. Christy noted that this theory predicts an increase in frequency of record-breaking temperatures. Yet the exact opposite is happening in the U.S.—the frequency of those temps is declining.

The cause? Christy says it’s likely “urbanization and natural variability.”

He added: “I’ve actually done this same analysis for the 682 [U.S. Historical Climatology Network] stations with at least 105 years of record since 1895. It is clear that the occurrence of both record high and record lows has declined since 1895, thanks to many records set from the 1920s to 1954.”

He continued:

“The AP … is spinning the story by only noting that record lows are fewer than highs now—but the real story is that in the U.S., both extremes are falling. This is consistent with the decline in number of days greater than 100 [degrees] Fahrenheit (or 105 Fahrenheit or 95 Fahrenheit, etc.). The differential decline in record temps is inconsistent with [greenhouse gas] theory, which predicts an increase in record highs and higher TMax in general.”

Climatologist Roger Pielke Sr. expressed skepticism of the AP analysis as well:

“Without assessing the role of increased urbanization and other land-use changes … changes in atmospheric aerosols overhead, microclimate around observing site, changes in heights of observations, and concurrent trends in surface air humidity, it is not robust to attribute any changes in extreme temperatures to just human-added atmospheric CO2.”

He added: “We have published on each of these subjects but work remains mostly ignored.”

Borenstein’s claims are also countered in the peer-review scientific literature. A 2018 analysis found that multiple recent studies and long-term data refuted claims that there had been an increase in heat waves. In addition, a 2013 paper published in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology found that U.S. extreme heat waves have decreased since the 1930s.

It’s also important to note that recent temperatures are not at all unusual, with 2018 continuing a several-year cooling trend. The media-hyped “hottest year” claims do not hold up to scrutiny. Princeton physicist Will Happer ridiculed such claims and explained that “alleged record warmings are tenths of a degree or less, comparable to the statistical error.”

Borenstein, the chief climate reporter for the Associated Press, has a long history of promoting dubious climate claims and essentially lobbying the public to “believe” that man-made climate change is a dire emergency and that government “solutions” are needed.

Americans who rely on the Associated Press for climate news and information are being misinformed. The AP is serving up nothing short of rank climate propaganda.

SOURCE

Coal's decline could mean more power shortages

As the need for electricity to power the nation’s digital economy grows, coal is no longer playing a primary role, and that’s problematic, because it undergirds the electric grid and is the most reliable source of energy.

Without coal plants that supply base-load power on demand, large parts of the United States, from the mountain states to the mid-Atlantic and southeast, will become more vulnerable to power shortages and increases in electricity costs. With the loss of more than 600 coal units in less than 10 years, coal’s share of the nation’s electricity generating capacity has dropped from almost half in 2007 to 30 percent today, and it’s expected to fall even further.

Rapid decline in the number of coal plants and commensurate growth in natural gas and wind and solar power will result in a loss of fuel diversity. A study by IHS Markit warns that the U.S. is “moving away from the cost-effective mix of fuels and technologies and toward a less reliable, less resilient, and less efficient diversity” energy portfolio and, if nothing is done about it, the cost of electricity would increase by $114 billion per year, the average retail price of electricity would increase by 27 percent, and a loss of reliability could increase electricity outages, resulting in added costs of $75 billion per outage hour.

A sense of urgency is evident in a recent appeal by senior executives at four large utilities for changes in the electricity system that would enable some coal and nuclear power plants to continue operating. Wholesale electricity markets, the utility executives said, need to place a value on the production of large quantities of electricity by coal and nuclear plants around the clock, safely and reliably, when needed. Coal and nuclear plants contribute the fuel and technology diversity that is one of the bedrock characteristics of a reliable and resilient electric sector, the executives said.

With coal, that is just the beginning. Coal has shown the ability to provide additional power during national emergencies. When polar vortexes pushed the grid to its limit during periods of bitter cold, coal plants played a key role in providing resiliency. In contrast, wind and solar power were of no use in meeting demand where it was needed the most. On the peak day of winter demand during the polar vortex in 2018, almost half of the natural gas capacity in the PJM Interconnection covering the midwest and mid-Atlantic could not supply power from natural gas, with 30 percent offline and 20 percent burning oil instead of gas.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory determined that during last year’s unusually cold weather (called a “bomb cyclone”) PJM would have experienced “interconnect-wide blackouts” if coal plants had not been available to meet the increased need for electricity.

This year, at the start of a three-day stretch of sub-zero temperatures, wind turbines from Minnesota to Iowa were providing about half of the region’s power. But when an emergency was declared, just half of the wind generation forecasted to supply power to the grid actually could. When temperatures fell below negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit, wind farms automatically started shutting down. Extreme cold can damage different parts of the turbine.

Coal, long viewed through the lens of carbonization, has shown the value of its reliability. Sound policies would help preserve the coal fleet. Federal tax subsidies for renewables and state renewable portfolio standards give other electricity sources a significant advantage over coal. In wholesale markets, subsidies for other electricity sources suppress energy prices and make coal-fuel generation less competitive.

Nevertheless, coal’s benefits are reaching electricity consumers and have fewer negative consequences than most other forms of energy. On average, developing new generating capacity with natural gas or renewables is more expensive than continuing to use existing coal generation. A study by IHS Markit shows that the levelized cost of existing coal generation is $40 per megawatt hour, much less than the levelized cost of a new combined cycle natural gas plant at $68 per MWh or new renewables at $82 per MWh.

Unfortunately, in most markets around the country, electricity is still tilted in favor of natural gas and renewables. Policymakers, in other words, need to take another look at coal.

SOURCE

America wins with new international cargo ship fuel regulation

An international regulation coming out of the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) would both significantly lower pollution levels being generated by the container shipping industry while also benefitting the U.S. oil refining industry and those who work in it.

It is no secret that America’s dismantling of our industrial sector has often times been little more than a transfer of environmental risk from the United States overseas. Foreign countries, like China, with little to no environmental regulations have attracted manufacturers who can no longer afford to compete in the highly regulated U.S., costing our nation jobs and economic wealth. Even with President Trump pushing hard for a better trade deal with China, the trade deficit climbed 17 percent from 2017 to $323 billion last year.

One obvious result of being reliant on overseas markets for the production of goods is that most of those goods are delivered across vast oceans through container and cargo ships. However, it is often lost that there is an enormous environmental cost to these container ships themselves which burn a high sulfur content fuel consisting of an oil refinery sludge known as bunker oil.

Why does this matter?

It is estimated that just sixteen of the largest container ships create more sulfur dioxide air pollution than the 80 million cars that exist in the world — all the while following current International Marine Organization rules. To put the enormity of this into perspective, the three largest shipping alliances in the world have a total of more than 750 container ships under flag, each spewing sulfur dioxide equivalents of a million or more cars into the air.

There is no secret that exporting U.S. factories overseas to China has effectively increased the environmental costs of production for every day goods, but it is stunning that simply transporting those goods around the world is so toxic.

At a time when the Democrat Party agenda has been focused upon ending the internal combustion engine, domestic airline travel and carbon-based electricity generation here in America shifting even more production to heavy polluter countries, it is incredible that a simple regulation on sulfur content in container ship fuel known as IMO 2020 could have such a major positive impact on the world’s air quality.

And here is the amazing part, the engines in the cargo ships are already able to accommodate the upgraded quality fuel, so there are limited conversion costs. While the estimated fuel costs for the container ships will increase by 30 percent, that increase will actually help price in a small part of the environmental costs of overseas manufacturing, putting domestic manufacturers on a slightly more level playing fieldEven better is that international oil industry experts like Torbjorn Tornqvist, CEO at trading house Gunvor have been quoted by Reuters saying, “The big winner in the IMO is actually the United States. They have the most advanced refining system in the world and will take advantage of importing more heavy crude oil and they will export light crude oil that will get a bigger premium.”

That’s right, America’s energy dominance actually is positioning our nation to be economic winners as this regulation goes into effect.

Already a refinery in Louisiana is being expanded to meet the anticipated need to handle the demand, and it can be expected that IMO 2020 will provide a boon for the domestic refining industry and the thousands of jobs it creates.

Not surprisingly, President Trump led U.S. policies that have moved America toward energy dominance have unforeseen dividends as the world moves toward cleaner burning fuel blends. The resulting investments by U.S. companies to meet the needs of increased domestic energy production will now pay massive dividends in newly created good paying, blue collar jobs as the U.S. becomes one of the major refiners in the world for the new, lower sulfur blend of container ship fuels.

Given the current wave of green socialism that would shut down the United States’ clean, efficient manufacturing economy and transfer the pollution risk to nation’s with abysmal environmental records, it would be wise for our nation’s policy makers to instead embrace the January 1, 2020 IMO fuel regulation by urging that they not be delayed.

The IMO 2020 regulations are a common-sense solution, rather than a pie in the sky socialist dream, which make major strides in cleaning up the world’s air quality without destroying the U.S. economic system that has lifted more people out of poverty worldwide than any other nation in history. And that is a win-win for the world and America.

SOURCE

Conn. made the right call keeping Millstone nuclear power plant open

Two New England states, two Democratic governors, two very different outcomes for the climate.

In the early 2010s, Vermont governor Peter Shumlin prodded the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant into an early retirement. All the right people had urged him to do so: Bernie Sanders wanted the plant on the Connecticut River gone. The Conservation Law Foundation said it was “worth more dead than alive.” Ben — yes, part of the eponymous ice cream duo — wanted to shut the plant; Jerry, too.

The consequence of listening to such experts was an increase in greenhouse gas emissions from New England, and a hole in the region’s energy grid that will haunt it for decades. Vermont’s greenhouse gas emissions have gone up more than the nation’s as a whole, putting the lie to its green self-image.

Fast forward to Friday, when the governor of Connecticut, Ned Lamont, announced an agreement to save the largest nuclear power source in New England, the two Millstone reactors in Waterford, Conn.

“The loss of Millstone would have been catastrophic for our state and our region,” said Lamont in a statement announcing the deal. “The shutdown of the plant would have exposed the New England region to a nearly 25 percent increase in carbon emissions, increased risk of rolling blackouts, billions of dollars in power replacement costs, and the loss of more than 1,500 well-paying jobs.”

The six New England states share a power grid, and Connecticut’s leadership means the region will not lose its single largest source of carbon-free electricity.

The intervention — like a similar deal in New York — was necessary because even existing nuclear power plants are not price competitive with natural gas generators. But that’s only true because of a flaw in the design of the deregulated electricity markets that were introduced in the 1990s, and which didn’t put an adequate price on carbon emissions.

Markets can’t have the last word. If climate change is viewed as an existential threat, then keeping clean power sources from disappearing, even through out-of-market intervention, ought to be common sense. But even ostensibly climate-focused groups in New England keep up a pro forma opposition to nuclear power, as if to honor their roots, or say it’s okay to shut plants as long as they are replaced with renewable power.

But “replacing” nuclear with renewables doesn’t make any sense as a climate policy. To the extent the New England states can add wind and solar power, they should — but it should replace conventional coal and natural-gas fired plants. The region needs to add clean power, but it also needs to keep the zero-carbon sources that it already has in order to avoid treading water.

The fact that Vermont Yankee is gone means that, for decades to come, New England will be those 620 megawatts farther away from a decarbonized power grid than it would have been with the plant online. The impending closure of Pilgrim Nuclear Station in Plymouth will deal a similar setback. Allowing Millstone to retire would have set that goal back even more, and leave Seabrook in New Hampshire as the last nuclear power generator in New England.

Last year, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that every pathway to avoiding the worst impacts of climate change involved at least some nuclear energy, which provides an always-on complement to intermittent renewable power and requires less land. Most scenarios involve adding more. Taking the UN’s warnings seriously should also mean taking seriously the solutions it says are needed, no matter how unpopular, and it’s a breakthrough that one New England state has.

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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21 March, 2019

New Zealand Assailant: 'Eco-Fascist' Not 'Right Wing'

Some useful comments in the article below but let me expand them.

Brenton Tarrant displays a mix of ideas in his manifesto, though, as we shall see, it is a rather familiar mix. His overriding idea is a dislike of Islam in general and Jihadis in particular. His massacre was a clear answer to the Jihadis. He says: If the Jihadis can slaughter Western men women and children indiscriminately, I am justified in slaughtering Muslim men women and children indiscriminately. It is Old Testament justice.

And it is that hostility to Islam that the Left identify as "right wing". And conservatives do indeed voice strong reservations about Islam. But conservatives are not alone in that. There can surely be few people in the Western world who are happy about the constant assaults on Western people by Jihadis.

The only people who seem to like the Jihadis are the Left. They do their best to protect Muslims from any retribution or any check at all. But their reason for that is clear. The Leftist's whole aim in life is to disrupt the existing society (to "fundamentally transform" it, in the words of Barack Obama and Bernard Sanders). So the disruptions caused by Muslims makes Muslims "fellow travellers" to the Left who must not be denounced.

So his dislike of Islam does identity Tarrant as non-Left in that regard but that does not make him conservative. His dislike is simply an extreme version of a normal reaction.

So what of his other views? What of his admiration of Communist China and Bernard Sanders? What of his describing himself as both a Fascist and an eco-fascist? What about his belief in global warming and other Greenie themes? Except for his ideas about Muslims he would make a pretty good Greenie and a pretty good socialist.

And liking both China and Fascism are not at all inconsistent. Although China is still ruled by the Communist Party, the Dengist reforms have given it a classical Fascist economy. Business is allowed to get on with business but the State keeps a watchful eye overall.

What makes Tarrant's hostility to Islam particularly strong is his racial awareness. He sees himself as part of the white race and deplores attacks on it. So how common is that? Mention of race has been so thoroughly suppressed in our society that there could well be a large reservoir of racial sentiment just below the surface. We don't know -- though Leftists regularly assert it.

There is no doubt, however, that seeing himself as part of an identity group -- whites -- was the key to Tarrant's behaviour. And the chief promoters of whites as an identity group are of course the Left. The Left are entranced by group identities and the big gorilla looming above all other groups is white males. Only a few extreme-Left whites take any notice of that but there was one white male who did -- Brenton Tarrant. There had to be one. He had been exposed to a lot of Leftist thought and suddenly it occurred to him when hearing talk about whites: "Hey! That's me!"

And according to the Left, whites are all powerful masters of the universe who control everyone else. And Tarrant liked that identity. So identify he did. And when he saw that there was an evil force -- Islam -- trying to tear down white civilization, he took up arms in its defence, as group members tend to do. And it is not pychopathic to take up arms in defence of your group. "Greater love hath no man ..." Tarrant was sucked in by Leftist identity talk and it all developed from there. Had he been a conservative, he would have rejected identity talk in favour of the centrality of the individual.

But where have we heard all that before? Where have we previously encountered a combination of socialism, environmentalism and racial loyalty? Yes. It was our evil twins, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Both were good socialists, good Greenies and strong racial loyalists. In short, Tarrant has reinvented historical Nazism in his own mind. He is a perfectly consistent Nazi in the historical sense of that term. And, like the Nazis of history, Tarrant attacked those he saw as his racial enenmies.

But he is NOT "Right wing" any more than Nazism ("National Socialism") was. Far from it. And his ideas are not "mixed up". They once dominated two of the biggest and most sophisticated nations in Europe, so they have their own consistency.

And it follows fairly strongly from that that Tarrant is not a psychopath/sociopath. I can see no evidence that Tarrant was a sociopath. I have done research into psychopathy/sociopathy and have a couple of articles on it in the academic journal so I know a bit about it but nothing stands out to me in Tarrant's manifesto that points clearly in that direction. Narcissism, yes. Psychopathy, No. He in fact displays a sense of humor fairly often, which is rare among psychopaths.

So Tarrant is not mad and belongs firmly on the Green/Left

Footnote: For Hitler's Greenie credentials see here For Mussolini's Greenie credentials see here

The brutal terrorist attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, today, were, according to police, perpetrated by a sociopathic Australian. Three others were arrested in connection with the attacks. The assailant killed 50 people and wounded nearly that many more. He live-streamed part of the attack to Facebook, and posted it to other social media outlets — significantly enhancing the profile of this attack. He abandoned his assault and fled only when another man picked up a shotgun the shooter had dropped and fought back.

The primary suspect declared in a lengthy manifesto that he was inspired, in part, by racist fascists who perpetrated attacks in the United States, Canada, and Europe. For that reason, and because he mentioned President Donald Trump as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose” (though condemning some of his policies), the Leftmedia and others, including the Australian prime minister, are parroting the charge that he is a “far-right extremist.” But that’s just not the case.

Of course, after other Islamist terrorist attacks — including Paris, Orlando, San Bernardino, and most notably, the 9/11 attack — these same Leftmedia outlets lectured, ad nauseam, that Islam is the Religion of Peace™, and that we shouldn’t stereotype Muslims by associating all of them with a few extremists.

Fact is, there are brutal Islamic attacks against Christians in the Middle East and Africa daily, with virtually no media notice. But indeed, we should not embrace the stereotype that all Muslims support such violence.

That notwithstanding, we fully expect the Leftmedia’s reporting on this incident, and hate-profiteering by the Southern Poverty Law Center, to focus on the rise of “right wing” hatred in the age of Trump, casting that stereotypical shadow over all those who support Trump. But as we’ve said before, there’s nothing uniquely “right wing” about racism or nationalism.

For the record, the ideological spectrum is better understood as circular, not as linear. And in that sphere, fascism occupies the space between Left and Right. Anyone who asserts that fascism is uniquely “right wing” is either grossly misinformed or intellectually disingenuous. The New Zealand assailant was not what the Leftmedia commonly calls “right wing” — those advocating Liberty, individual rights, and limited government. Far from it.

The New York Times declared, “Writing that he had purposely used guns to stir discord in the United States over the Second Amendment’s provision on the right to bear arms, he also declared himself a fascist. ‘For once, the person that will be called a fascist, is an actual fascist,’ he wrote.”

But the assailant, who spent time in North Korea and Pakistan, specifically declared himself an “Eco-Fascist,” who advocated “Green Nationalism” and supported the socialist views of Bernie Sanders. He railed against humans for destroying the environment and causing global warming, and he advocated government control to stop it. He wrote, “The nation with the closest political and social values to my own is the People’s Republic of China.” That would be Communist China.

Right winger? Hardly.

For his part, President Trump said, “I spoke with Prime Minister Ardern of New Zealand to express the sorrow of our entire nation following the monstrous terror attacks at two mosques. These sacred places of worship were turned into scenes of evil killing. … It’s a horrible, horrible thing.”

A final note: Attacks on houses of worship are, tragically, nothing new. The Associated Press compiled a list of 18 such attacks just over the last decade. Churches, mosques, synagogues — nothing is safe. Such violent hatred is pure evil. Indeed, the assailant bore symbols of Satanism among his belongings. Responsible people should rise above that evil with our run-of-the-mill political disagreements.

SOURCE

Unprecedented snowfall in Himalayas due to global warming

What else? Just use the all-purpose explanation. Always works. Saves thought

The unprecedented snowfall and prolonged cold weather in the Himalayan region this winter was caused by global warming, a weather scientist in Almora said Monday.

The trend will continue in the coming years as global weather patterns are changing rapidly, said Dr Sandeepan Mukherjee, a weather scientist at GB Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment and Sustainable Development based at Kosi in Almora.

"The erratic patterns of western disturbances, that cause rain and snowfall in winter months in the northern part of the globe, have become so due to the changing patterns of weather caused by global warming," he said.

"It seems these erratic patterns will continue in the coming years with increase in global warming," he added.

The first spell of rain and snowfall this winter was received in the Himalayan region on December 12 and the last was received as late as on March 13, residents of Munsiyari in Pithoragarh district said.

"There were 24 spells of snowfall in Munsiyari between December 12 and March 13 this year which broke the record of 1972 when there were 15 snowfalls," Puran Pandey, a local said.

According to Mukherjee global warming is not only causing erratic patterns in western disturbances, but also causing uneven trends in south western monsoon that is responsible for monsoon rain in India.

SOURCE

The BBC’s age of denial

Paul Homewood

I doubt if a day goes past now without a blast of global warming propaganda from the BBC.

Isabel Hardman has a new five-part series on Radio 4, called the Age of Denial. Although it covers all forms of denial, it is clearly aimed at climate sceptics, as this opening episode makes obvious:

Hardman interviews Kari Marie Norgaard, a social scientist from Oregon, who has written a book about climate change denial.

You can listen to the first five minutes, but to give the gist, Norgaard visited a small town in western Norway in the winter of 2000/01 to do research for a book she was writing. She found that the winter that year was a mild one, with the snow arriving late.

But what really stunned Norgaard was that none of the locals wanted to talk about ‘climate change’, which she was convinced was to blame.

Hardman and Norgaard then discuss various reasons why this should be so, which amounts to no more than a load of psychobabble.

For some reason, it did not occur to either of them to ask what the locals knew already: that it was just the sort of weather event that they, or their forefathers, had seen in the past.

Indeed, when we check the actual data at Bergen, the longest-running site in the region, we find that those winter temperatures in 2000/01, far from being unusual, were the norm in the 1930s and 40s, and not infrequent at other times either:

In the remainder of the episode, Hardman discusses various theories from other psychoanalysts. But it is all just a spurious intellectual attempt to create a condition called ‘Denialism’. No doubt so that climate sceptics can be conveniently labelled and then ignored.

In reality, you don’t need to be a psychologist to understand why so many people are suspicious of what they are told about climate change. The answer lies in the fact that they see no evidence on the ground to support the barrage of apocalyptic warnings showered on them.

People who live near the coast can see with their own eyes that they are not about to be inundated by the sea. Temperature rise has been so small in the last century that most people would not even be aware of it if not told. As for extreme weather, older people know that there have always been floods, droughts, heatwaves and storms. Sadly it is the younger generation, who have no such experience, who are vulnerable to propaganda.

In short, people are far more knowledgeable than the sneering Isabel Hardman gives them credit for. And they know when they are being sold a pup.

Moreover, these ordinary people have far more pressing concerns in their daily lives than to be paranoid about climate change. Perhaps if Hardman came out of her metropolitan BBC bubble and talked to ordinary people, she might find this out for herself.

Rather than trying to package sceptics as people with psychological problems, she might ask why others have become totally paranoid about climate change. When I see school kids questioning the point of going to school when ‘their future could be ruined by climate change’, I truly despair.

What on earth are we doing to these youngsters? Do we really want them growing up so indoctrinated and unable to use their own faculties that they cannot even check the facts for themselves? Do we really want them to grow up so neurotic that they are scared of the weather?

Are we happy to see them marching around like a bunch of zombies, full of meaningless slogans about topics that they don’t have the slightest understanding about?

SOURCE

Greenpeace founder erased from history -- just like Orwell's 1984

Greenpeace are actually lying about this. Denying straight out that Patrick Moore was ever even a member. Truth is optional to the Green/Left

Google, with the help of Greenpeace, is revising Greenpeace's history to erase Dr. Moore from his role in co-founding the environmental group. But Greenpeace's own website has previously featured Moore as one of its "founders."

President Donald Trump touted Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore’s statements earlier this week that “the whole climate crisis is not only Fake News, it’s Fake Science.” Moore made his comments while appearing on Fox & Friends

But now, Google, with the help of Greenpeace, is revising Greenpeace’s history to erase Dr. Moore from his role in co-founding the environmental group.

Moore on March 16: “Oh my! Google has removed my photo and name from the ‘Founders of @Greenpeace’. It was still there 2 days ago but now I am erased. Tech Tyranny!!”

As we were

SOURCE

Australia: The Liberal Party candidate in the prized seat of Curtin spurns climate warming consensus

Celia Hammond, has declared her belief that humanity’s contribution to global warming has likely been “very minimal”.

Ms Hammond, who was preselected last week to contest the safe seat, acknowledged that climate change was a major concern among voters in Curtin, but said the issue must be addressed in ways that did not harm the economy.

She rejected scientific opinion that the burning of fossil fuels was the main factor behind global warming.

“I believe man has contributed in some way to climate change — the exact extent is probably very minimal,” she said.

When asked whether her belief was backed by scientific evidence, she said: “I don’t believe it goes against the science. There is a lot of science and a lot of contradictory science.

“But I am always open to evidence-based approaches and I’m always happy to actually, if need be, change course, to change direction.”

The consensus within the scientific community is that human activity is the primary cause of global warming and that continuing greenhouse gas emissions will increase the severity of climate change.

Ms Hammond, 50, rejected suggestions by some of her political opponents that she is too socially conservative to represent Curtin, which had the strongest vote in Western Australia in favour of same-sex marriage.

“I’m not ultraconservative,” she said. “There are people who are less conservative than me and there are people who are more conservative than me.”

She refused to reveal how she voted in the same-sex marriage survey in 2017. “I voted as a private citizen, the law has since been changed and I’ve been to a same-sex wedding of people that I love very much,” she said. “I’ve got my own personal values and I don’t impose them on anybody.”

Ms Hammond’s main rival in Curtin, independent Louise Stewart, claimed last week that the Liberal Party’s choice of a “conservative” candidate was a huge boost for her campaign.

Ms Hammond is widely respected for her success in running the University of Notre Dame for more than a decade and she impressed Liberal preselection delegates, who gave her 62 per cent of the first-preference votes cast.

It emerged before the preselection ballot that Ms Hammond had spoken out against “militant feminism”, casual sex and contraception. She stood by the comments yesterday.

“The reason I don’t call myself a feminist is that there is within the feminist movement now a very large militant feminist voice which is essentially saying unless you believe X, Y, Z you’re not pro-women,” she said.

“And the whole thing for me about feminism is that women should be able to make up their own minds and live their own lives and not be told.”

Ms Hammond revealed she would work closely with longstanding Curtin MP Julie Bishop in the lead-up to the federal election. “Julie has given her full support,” she said.

“I met with Julie before I put my application in. She wished me well, she was delighted there was a field of people running, and she rang me within moments of it being announced that I’d been preselected to congratulate me to say we’d be working together.”

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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20 March, 2019

Those evil banks that finance pipelines

At a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, Congress freshman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) once again managed to turn herself into the center of attention by focusing on the ludicrous by castigating Wells Fargo for doing its primary job of lending. During a four-hour grilling of Wells Fargo’s CEO, Tim Sloan, the New York Democrat slammed Wells Fargo for lending to private prisons and a pipeline.

SOURCE

Texas Power Prices Surge 700% on a Chilly Morning in Dallas

Windmills useless

A chilly morning in Dallas combined with calm winds and idle power plants sent wholesale electricity prices in Texas to the highest level in more than a year.

Spot electricity at a northern hub in Texas surged about 700 percent to average $383.71 a megawatt-hour for the hour ended 8 a.m. local time, the most since January 2018, according to Genscape. It came as Dallas temperatures dipped to 42 degrees Fahrenheit (6 Celsius) early Monday. At the same time, power plants representing about 37 percent of the state’s generating capacity were shut for spring maintenance, according to Jeffrey Thibodeau, Genscape’s regional director for Texas.

Wind was little help, as with output from turbine farms fell to about 1.6 gigawatts for that period, compared with around 10 gigawatts most days last week, Thibodeau said.

SOURCE

The End of the World ... Because Leftists Say So

Kids are always pawns for leftist indoctrination, this time walking out over climate.

“Climate change could trigger a civilization breakdown…”
“The planet will face a disaster if people don’t turn this ship around…”

“Even with drastic, draconian, eugenic policies of population reduction — which are completely immoral — we wouldn’t save ourselves. We have to change the way we live…”

“Climate change may wipe out humanity.”

Media around the globe reported these breathless, panicked statements from young adults and students called to walk out of class this past Friday. Any excuse to dodge class will do, but these students aimed to warn of the predicted apocalypse caused by the sin of fossil fuels and combustible engines — a fear driven by the belief that man-made global warming will soon, even within two decades according to some, end civilization as we know it.

The media originally heralded that more than one million students would skip class Friday. Reports of the actual walkouts are vague on the numbers of participants, however, citing thousands across the U.S. These students lent their presence to the Global Climate Strike inspired by a Swedish 16-year-old, Greta Thunberg, who spoke at the United Nations in December 2018 and was joined by Al Gore and his Climate Vanity Reality Project, in decrying the soon-to-be-heard death rattle of Mother Earth.

What exactly are these town criers declaring as truth?

First, all these “progressive” advocacy groups are parroting the mathematic equation that people plus fossil fuels equal the end of all life on this planet. The fact that solar cycles and sunspots are known to be the largest contributors to the earth’s temperature — with measurable data demonstrating that temperature changes coincide more with solar changes and not CO2 concentration — doesn’t fit the talking points of those desperately wanting to implement the ecofascist Green New Deal.

Second, the renewed belief in population control is critical — remember all Democrat roads lead back to the need for free birth control and abortion on demand. The evil Neanderthals-of-now are capable of downloading any smart-phone app but are somehow incapable of raising children that could possibly be good stewards of creation and its resources. The Left essentially acknowledges how stupid they believe humanity to be, hence, the “need” for socialism to confiscate all wealth, redistribute it, declare that which is and isn’t permitted for the good of the State, and ensure that the unwashed masses are controlled by “reproductive health services” and live as some universal population of the monitored and contained.

Not only has this doctrine of doom generated a militant group of environmentalists armed with radical legislative proposals that will cheer scarcity and state-sponsored oppression in some unproven theory with no sustainable energy and grazing, rather than consuming meat, but it’s yielded a movement devoted to remaining childless.

Blythe Pepino attended an Extinction Rebellion lecture a few years back and began her own advocacy group, BirthStrike, to voluntarily fight “climate breakdown and civilization collapse.” Her gospel is “about saying: ‘It is OK to make this choice, but it’s not OK to have to make this choice.’ We should never be in a situation where we are genuinely scared to bring life into the world.”

So, back to the math of these progressive prognosticators of peril, having no children is virtuous and clearly superior in the effort to save the planet — a space rock that, by the way, has already gone through catastrophic eras of epic change. But don’t confuse them with facts.

Applying the phrase of former Vice President Spiro Agnew, who had an intense conflict with the media of his day, to these deceived young adults who are foregoing a life of opportunity and authentic progress due to conjured up fear, these “nattering nabobs of negativism” have fallen victim to the tactic of their own movement. Don’t forget political theorist Saul Alinsky.

Of the 13 rules Alinsky authored and indoctrinated, number nine captures this entire philosophical approach to life rooted in fear: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” In plain talk, living life flooded with worst-case scenarios as your belief of the future fueled by an imagination running wild full of consequences of doom, death, and destruction, leads adherents to adopt a life of desperation.

Not only are the youth and students who’ve been indoctrinated by these leftists of the faculty lounges of America preaching the apocalypse of our very existence, but they’ve fallen victim to their own contrived reality to the extent that they will make themselves extinct unless they successfully convert the masses to their idiocy. Remember, the Left must always have a permanent underclass dependent upon some greater power — which cannot possibly be God working through His created humanity to be self-reliant and free — that they will identify as the government run by their hardcore militants.

Yes, we must be good stewards of our world, its natural resources, our families, communities and our very own personhood. But, no, the end of the world won’t be due to cow farts or air travel.

SOURCE

Green/Left agenda stalls in the House

Ambitious proposals to end climate change and provide healthcare for everyone, seen as socialist by Republicans, have failed to win the support of even half of the House Democratic caucus, effectively dooming any chance of floor consideration.

Support appears to have plateaued for both the Green New Deal resolution as well as the Medicare for All national health insurance proposal.

The Green New Deal, introduced Feb. 7 by rising freshman star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., calls for a complete overhaul of the nation’s housing, transportation, businesses, and agriculture to end carbon emissions and to stave off climate change.

But of the 235 Democrats in the House, Ocasio-Cortez's bill has the backing of just 90 of her colleagues, and picked up just one new co-sponsor since Feb. 25. That's a little more than a third of the Democrats and far fewer than the 218 needed to pass it without any GOP support.

The Medicare for All bill, introduced by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., isn’t faring much better.

The bill had 106 co-sponsors when it was introduced on Feb. 27. Two weeks later, no other Democrat has co-sponsored the plan to eliminate all private health insurance and turn the nation’s entire healthcare system over to the government.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., a progressive, has criticized both proposals and isn’t taking them seriously, even though several Senate Democrats running for president back the measures.

Pelosi can afford to keep the legislation from ever reaching the floor since the two proposals have won over far fewer than half of the rank and file.

“The new green deal, is it?” Pelosi said when reporters asked about it last week, keeping with her habit of misstating the name of the proposal. She called it the “green dream” in February.

Pelosi told reporters she is “more excited” about a newly created climate change panel chaired by Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., which won’t write legislation but will hold hearings and providing recommendations to other committees that will write bills addressing climate change.

Those proposals, Pelosi said, could incorporate elements of the Green New Deal.

Ocasio-Cortez, who recently told her vast following on social media that the threat of climate change should prompt people to reconsider having children, declined a seat on the special climate change panel.

House Democrats, wary her superstar power, have mostly refrained from directly criticizing the Green New Deal, which was initially introduced with a supporting document that called for making plane travel unnecessary and eliminating methane-emitting cows.

But most Democrats aren’t lining up to put their names on the document. “I appreciate the aspiration, but I won’t be signing on,” Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, told the Washington Examiner.

Democrats are also careful not to criticize Medicare for All. “We get, as a party, that we want to go to a place where everyone has full coverage,” said Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich.

But Stevens, who like other centrist Democrats has not signed on to the Medicare for All bill, believe it is more realistic to pass legislation to reform the struggling Affordable Care Act, which Pelosi passed a decade ago and keeps private health insurance intact.

Meanwhile, Republicans have cited both bills as evidence that Democrats are veering toward socialism.

"Our nation has watched the Democratic Party take a sharp and abrupt left turn toward socialism,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said this week. “A flawed ideology that has been rejected time and again across the world is now driving the marquee policy proposals of the new House Democrat majority.”

McConnell will force Democrats to go on the record at the end of March when he calls up the Green New Deal for a vote. Democrats are trying to turn the tables on the GOP, accusing them of ignoring a looming climate crisis.

“We Democrats are ready to work,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor last week. “Will Leader McConnell bring his own members clean energy legislation to the floor?”

SOURCE

Australia: Fears Labor's plan to slash carbon emissions could cost 336,000 jobs and cause an 8 per cent plunge in wages

Labor's plan to halve carbon emissions within the next decade could cost 336,000 jobs and cause an eight per cent plunge in lost wages by 2030.

BAEconomics has modelled the climate change policies of both major parties and the effects they could have on the broader economy.

The Canberra-based economics consultancy predicts policies aimed at cutting emissions will result in higher electricity prices, and increased production costs in the mining, transport and manufacturing sectors.

The group's managing director Brian Fisher, who has been an economist since 1976, said tackling climate change involved hip-pocket pain and slower economic growth.

'The reason I've done this work was because a lot of people were running around, particularly from universities, saying, "We can achieve all of these reductions in emissions at no cost to the economy",' he told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday.

'It's just very frustrating for an economist to hear that sort of thing because it's frankly very dishonest.'

BAEconomics analysed Labor's plan to slash carbon emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 and see 50 per cent of Australia's energy come from renewable sources by that time.

It concluded that under Labor, average full-time salaries in 2030 would stand at $97,000 instead of $106,000.

Full-time workers would be earning more than eight per cent less than they otherwise would have under Labor's climate change policies.

By comparison, the Coalition's less ambitious plans to reduce the effects of global warming would see average wages hit $104,000 by 2030, which would be two per cent less than they would otherwise have been.

The policies of the Liberal and National parties, to reduce carbon emission by 28 per cent by 2030, would also see 78,000 jobs lost during the next decade. That is four times less than the projected 336,000 jobs lost by 2030 under Labor's climate change policies.

'There's always some cost associated with this sort of transformation,' Dr Fisher said. 'As a consequence of that, you grow more slowly than you otherwise would have done and therefore you generate less jobs and your wage rates are going to grow more slowly.'

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 March, 2019

Arctic temperatures soaring and "locked in"

Two days ago I reproduced a new UN Environment report on the Arctic which not only claimed that the Arctic temperatures would soar but also that they were "locked in". I dismissed it as attributing to climate factors effects which were much more likely caused by subsurface vulcanism.

That old warrior of global warming, Ezekiel Hausfather, has also however rubbished the report -- rather swingeingly. Apparently it was some sort of cut & paste job that got lots of things wrong. Zeke takes his numbers seriously and insists that a whole range of future temperatures is possible and that NOTHING is "locked in". He explains below:

A new UN Environment report on the Arctic was released last week, which covered a broad range of changes to the region’s climate, environment, wildlife and epidemiology.

The accompanying press release focused on the report’s section about climate change. It warned that, “even if the Paris Agreement goals are met, Arctic winter temperatures will increase 3-5C by 2050 compared to 1986-2005 levels” and will warm 5-9C by 2080.

The report was covered by a number of news outlets, including the Guardian, Wired, Hill, CBC and others. Media coverage focused on the idea – promoted in the press release – that large amounts of Arctic warming is “locked in”, “inevitable” or “unavoidable”.

However, an investigation by Carbon Brief has found that the section of the report on climate change erroneously conflates the Paris Agreement target – which is to limit warming to “well below” 2C by the end of the century relative to pre-industrial levels – with a scenario that has much more modest emission reductions which result in around 3C of global warming.

In climate-model runs using a scenario limiting global warming to below 2C, the Arctic still warms faster than the rest of the world. But future Arctic winter warming will be around 0.5-5C by the 2080s compared to 1986-2005 levels, much lower than the 5-9C values stated in the report.

This means that much of the future warming in the Arctic will depend on our emissions over the 21st century, rather than being “locked in”, as the report claims.

Erroneous paragraph

The UN Environment report is titled, “Global linkages: A graphic look at the changing Arctic”. It provides a brief, accessible and infographic-heavy look at a number of different areas in which the Arctic has changed in recent decades and may change in the future.

The section of the report covering Arctic temperatures – which is only two pages long – does not present any new research. Rather, it summarises the findings of a number of recent, more technical studies. The future temperature projections, which were the focus of the press release and associated media coverage, are contained in a single paragraph of the report:

“Warmer temperatures in the Arctic resulted in a record low in the winter sea ice extent between 2015–2018 (Overland et al., 2018). Indeed, under a medium- or high-emission scenario, projected temperature changes for the Arctic will follow a winter warming trend at least double the rate for the northern hemisphere (AMAP 2017a). This means that even if countries manage to cut GHG emissions to the targets outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, winter temperatures in the Arctic will still be 3 to 5C higher by 2050 and 5 to 9C higher by 2080, relative to 1986–2005 levels. In fact, even if we stopped all emissions overnight, winter temperatures in the Arctic will still increase by 4 to 5C compared to the late twentieth century. This increase is locked into the climate system by GHGs already emitted and ocean heat storage (AMAP 2017a).”

However, this paragraph contains a number of unclear statements and errors that undercut the message that large amounts of future Arctic warming are “locked into the climate system”.

While the first two sentences are accurate, problems begin in the third when the report argues that meeting Paris Agreement targets would still result in winter Arctic warming of 3-5C by 2050 and 5-9C by 2080, relative to 1986-2005 levels.

The reference for these numbers is the 2017 Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) report. The 2017 AMAP report states:

“Over the Arctic Ocean, which is ice-free in early winter in some models and covered by thin sea ice during late winter, the warming is 3–5C by mid-century and 5–9C by late century under RCP4.5.”

The UN Environment report drops the reference to the Arctic Ocean, referring to these warming projections as ”winter temperatures in the Arctic” – a much larger area of the Earth than just the region over the Arctic Ocean. The actual warming in RCP4.5 for the full Arctic (between 60N and 90N) in the 2017 AMAP report is a bit lower: around 3.8-7.8C in the 2080s. There is another minor issue where the new report gives specific years (2050 and 2080), while the 2017 AMAP report actually uses the periods from 2050-2059 and 2080-2089.

The major problem with the paragraph comes when it associates the 2017 AMAP warming numbers – which refer to the RCP4.5 scenario – with “the targets outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change”.

In the Paris Agreement, countries set a target to limit warming “well below” 2C, with an aspirational target of limiting warming below 1.5C. However, the 2017 AMAP report only considers two future emissions scenarios: a very-high-emission RCP8.5 scenario, where the world experiences more than 4C warming; and a medium-emission RCP4.5 scenario, where the world experiences around 3C warming compared to pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.

If countries were to meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting warming to “well below” 2C, global emissions would actually follow a RCP2.6 scenario (or cut emissions even more quickly to limit warming to 1.5C). While RCP2.6 still sees some additional Arctic warming, it is much smaller than the numbers contained in the report.

The figure below shows the winter warming in the Arctic from all of the CMIP5 climate models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fifth assessment report for the RCP2.6 scenario. The black lines show the average of all the models, the dark area shows the range in which two-thirds of the models fall (the one-sigma range), and the light area shows the range covering 95% of the model runs (the two-sigma range).

RCP2.6 climate-model runs from CMIP5 for the region between 60N and 90N for the winter months (December, January and February) for the 32 different climate models providing RCP2.6 runs (with one run used per model). Model data obtained from KNMI Climate Explorer.

In a scenario where the Paris Agreement target is met, the actual winter warming projected for the Arctic is 0.8-4.5C in the 2050s and 0.5-5C in the 2080s relative to 1986–2005 levels (following the approach used in 2017 AMAP report of giving one-sigma ranges). The multi-model mean shows 2.8C warming in both the 2050s and 2080s, as falling global emissions limit further warming after the middle of the century.

The statement in the report that “even if we stopped all emissions overnight, winter temperatures in the Arctic will still increase by 4C to 5C compared to the late twentieth century” is puzzling, as it does not appear anywhere in the 2017 AMAP report that it cites.

Confusingly, the UN Environment report is claiming that cutting emissions to zero immediately would lead to more warming than occurs in climate models running the RCP2.6 scenario – a scenario which only has emissions reaching zero by around 2080. Carbon Brief reached out to a number of climate scientists, all of whom expressed puzzlement as to what might provide the basis of this claim. Carbon Brief asked UN Environment and the report’s authors for a response, but did not receive one before publication. (This article will be updated to include any response.)

According to an analysis featured in the recent IPCC special report on 1.5C, reducing all human emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols to zero immediately would result in a modest short-term bump in global temperatures of around 0.15C as Earth-cooling aerosols disappear, followed by a decline. Around 20 years after emissions went to zero, global temperatures would fall back down below today’s levels and then cool by around 0.25C by 2100. While reducing aerosols might have a larger warming impact in the Arctic than other regions, an additional long-term warming of 4C to 5C seems rather unlikely.

Not ‘locked in’

Why might the report conflate a 3C global-warming scenario (RCP4.5) with the Paris Agreement target (RCP2.6)? The actual commitments made by countries in the Paris Agreement – the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – fall well short of what would be needed to meet the Paris target. If countries only take these actions – and do not ratchet up their commitments after the Paris commitment period ends in 2030 – studies suggest that the world would be on track for a bit more than 3C warming, though how much depends largely on assumptions around emissions between 2030 and 2100.

However, even if the report meant to say “the warming implied by existing Paris commitments” rather than the “Paris targets”, the press release and subsequent media coverage are still misleading. Unless the authors are arguing that the world as a whole is already locked into 3C warming – and there are plenty of scenarios that would keep global warming below 2C, or even down to 1.5C warming – the amount of future warming that will occur in the Arctic during the 21st century will depend in large part on our future emissions.

The figure below shows the winter Arctic warming relative to 1986-2005 from the average of all the IPCC CMIP5 climate models for each future RCP emission scenario. There is a wide range of potential future warming, from as little as 2.7C in 2100 in RCP2.6 to as much as 12C in RCP8.5. Which of these future warming scenarios will occur depends largely on our greenhouse gas emissions over the rest of the 21st century.

CMIP5 Multimodel mean for each RCP scenario for the region between 60N and 90N for the winter months (December, January and February). Model data obtained from KNMI Climate Explorer

If the world actually meets the Paris target of limiting warming below 2C, the future Arctic winter warming will be around 0.5-5C, much lower than the 5-9C values stated in the report.

There is still a wide range of possible outcomes for the region. As a result, any claim that massive amounts of future warming for the region are “locked in” is misleading.

SOURCE

Comment: Interesting that under the most realistic temperature projection (green line in the second graph) temperatures will rise a bit to mid century and then level out! Not too scary.

Climate Hysteria Run Amok: California’s ‘Permanent’ Drought Not So Permanent

For the first time since 2011, the state shows no areas suffering from prolonged drought and illustrates almost entirely normal conditions, according to a map released Thursday by the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Former Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order in 2017 that lifted the drought emergency in most of the state, leaving some breathing a sigh of relief.

But he cautioned Californians to keep saving water as some parts of the state was still suffering from extreme drought. Now, two years later, that deficit seems to have been erased, thanks to an exceptionally wet winter.

“The reservoirs are full, lakes are full, the streams are flowing, there’s tons of snow,” said Jessica Blunden, a climate scientist with the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “All the drought is officially gone.”

The Drought Monitor, which collects data from scientists from the National Drought Mitigation Center, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and dozens of weather agencies, last showed a drought map that was clear in December 2011.

In updating the map, scientists consult with hydrologists, water managers, meteorologists, and other experts to determine the amount of water in the state’s reservoirs, the snowpack level, and other key measurements. With the wet winter streak going strong, their reports have been good.

In January, storms filled up many of the state’s water reserves almost to capacity and added about 580 billion gallons of water to reservoirs across the state. That month, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, a major source of California’s water supply, doubled — and then doubled again in February.

“California has been getting a tremendous amount of rain, storms, and snow,” Blunden said. “It’s just been extremely wet and it’s been so wet … that we’ve been able to alleviate drought across the state.”

A year ago, just 11% of the state was experiencing normal conditions while 88.9% of the state was “abnormally dry,” according to the drought report. Some parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties were still colored dark red, meaning they were experiencing “extreme drought.”

SOURCE

Brainless ‘Beto’ on Climate Change Leadership: ‘Those Who Were on the Beaches in Normandy … Showed Us the Way’

He just parrots extreme Warmism

On his first day on the campaign trail Thursday, Democratic presidential hopeful Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke called for urgent action on climate change, and linked the leadership required to confront the issue with the storming of “the beaches in Normandy” in 1944.

O’Rourke threw his weight behind the “Green New Deal,” warning that the planet faces “catastrophe and crisis … even if we were to stop emitting carbon today.” And in an echo of a comment by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in January, he warned that “we have no more than 12 years to take incredibly bold action on this crisis.”

In one of several stops in Iowa, O’Rourke asked listeners in Burlington how it was that out of all the nations of the world, the U.S. has “removed itself from any obligation to work with anyone on perhaps the most pressing problem” – the fight against global warming.

“When you think about leadership,” he continued, “those who preceded us, right, those who were on the beaches in Normandy, those who faced an existential threat to Western democracy and our way of life, they showed us the way.”

“We can all come together, we can unite, we can marshal the resources, and we can convene the countries of the world around otherwise unsolvable problems.”

D Day, June 6, 1944, saw more than 160,000 American and allied personnel land on the beaches of northern France, paving the way for the liberation of Europe from the Nazis. Some 2,500 allies were killed on June 6 alone, and many more over the weeks that followed.

At a “meet and greet” in Keokuk earlier, O’Rourke was asked about the Green New Deal, and in a lengthy response shared some of his views on the anticipated effects of climate change, among them:

--“We face catastrophe and crisis on this planet, even if we were to stop emitting carbon today.”

--“Along this current trajectory, there will be people who can no longer live in the cities they call home today.”

--“There is food grown in this country that will no longer prosper in these soils.”

--“There is going to be massive migration of tens or hundreds of millions of people from places that are going to be uninhabitable or under the sea.”

“This is the final chance,” said O’Rourke. “The scientists are unanimous on this. We have no more than 12 years to take incredibly bold action on this crisis.”

Some people view the Green New Deal as too bold or unmanageable, he said.

“I tell you what, I haven't seen anything better that addresses this singular crisis we face, a crisis that could at its worst lead to extinction.”

“Not to be dramatic,” he concluded. “But literally, the future of the world depends on us right now, here where we are. Let's find a way to do this.”

SOURCE

Central Europe’s 30-Year Winter Temp Trend Still Cooling

The winter temperature trend for Germany over the past 32 years is not cooperating with “experts’” forecasts of rapid warming and snow and ice becoming a thing of the past.

The European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) here presents two charts which I’m featuring today.

The first chart, using the data from Germany’s DWD national weather service, shows that wintertime’s mean temperature trend in Germany has not risen in 32 years:

Temperature winter Germany

The green trendline shows that although CO2 in the atmosphere globally has increased from about 350 ppm since 1988 to about 412 ppm currently, Germany’s mean winter temperature has fallen a bit.

France winters cooling

The story is true for much of France as well. Japanese blogger Kirye prepared a chart depicting the winter mean temperature of 12 stations across the country using the untampered data available from the Japan Meteorology Agency (JMA):

Germany trending away from droughts

Also, the German media are often filled with scare stories telling us we will be seeing an increasing number of droughts and dryness, and that last year’s dry summer was just a taste of what is to come.

Yet once again the data contradict all the doomsday drought reports. The long term winter precipitation trend since records began has been upward.

However, we acknowledge the trend has been decreasing (to normal levels) since about 2000. Interestingly German precipitation shows a 40-year cycle, and so likely has nothing to do with CO2.

The annual precipitation trend for Germany has also been upward overall, and it too has been trending downward since about 2000 (during this time sunshine hours have increased):

SOURCE

Four Priorities for Australia (and the World)

Viv Forbes

There are four priorities for the coming election.

Firstly: Decimate the Foreign Green Snakes in the Grass.

The climate/emissions obsession started with unelected foreigners in the UN and the IPCC who drafted deep green agendas to be imposed via elected Federal, State and Local governments. Australia must immediately withdraw from the Lima/Paris/Kyoto agreements, reject the 2030 Agenda, and repeal all the green tape they spawned. This costly mess creates no measurable climate or environmental benefits.

Secondly: Build more Reliable Base-Load Power Stations.

Green extremists want to destroy the carbon energy that powers our industries, supports our life style, funds our welfare and provides our jobs. They want to take us back to primitive green energy that can never support modern civilised life.

We have played with weather-dependent wind-solar toys for too long. They will never power an advanced economy, nor will they lift poor nations from poverty. And they provide no demonstrated benefits for the climate, the landscape or consumers. All taxes, subsidies and energy targets that prop up unreliable intermittent energy must be abolished.

Thirdly: Build More Dams and Weirs.

Much of our continent cycles between droughts and floods. Both problems have the same positive solution – catch and store flood waters. The oceans are never short of water, but our land often is.

Finally: Fight Fire with Fire.

Every dry season we lose homes, properties, livestock, parks and wildlife to massive bushfires. There is only one positive solution – copy aboriginals and old-time graziers and use small, managed, early-season fires to remove flammable ground litter. This will require landowners and local fire-fighters (not urban greenies) to manage fuel-reduction burns.

We must fix these four issues. Stop draining Australian money to support foreign agendas and the bloated UN bureaucracy. Let’s help Australians instead.

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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18 March, 2019

Climate science requires acceptance, not belief or full understanding: Climate change is like gravity, only accessible to lay-people at the top levels (?)

An amusing article below by Michael Barnard off the pseudo-intellectual "Medium" site. He is badly in need of a bit of philosophical sophistication. A reading of Erich Fromm on authority might generate some thought in him.

He says that you need to accept authority to accept global warming. I sort of agree with that. It is only blind trust in authority that is behind most global warming belief as far as I can see.

What he is doing is overlooking Erich Fromm's distinction between rational and irrational authority. In Fromm's terms, Leftism is a case of irrational authority. Leftists want to impose their will on us "by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon", as Friedrich Engels put it. It is authority exercised by fear and pressure on the basis of emotional submission. It is the authority of blind obedience.

But there is another kind of authority, rational authority, by which we mean any authority which is based on competence and knowledge, which permits criticism, which by its very nature tends to diminish, but which is not based on the emotional factors of submission and masochism, but on the realistic recognition of the competence of the person for a certain job.

So Barnard claims that global warmists are rational authorities and should therefore be believed. But they are not. They behave just like irrational authorities, trying to shut up dissent and getting anyone fired who disagrees with them and refusing debate with knowledgeable opponents. They do NOT permit criticism. They expect submission only.

And their claim to competence and knowledge is totally deficient. They have made numerous prophecies over the years and none have come true. The Arctic is supposed to be ice free by now, English children are not supposed to know what snow is by now etc.

Far from being rational authorities, Warmists are false prophets

There’s a problematic question in journalism and science communication. Various people are asking journalists to stop asking politicians whether they “believe in climate change” and to start asking whether they understand it.

The problem is that outside of the odd politician who was actually a climate scientist, the vast majority of people can’t claim to understand climate change or global warming with any degree of sincerity or completeness. At best, the average layperson or even well-educated layperson will have a superficial understanding of anything beyond the basics.

Let’s take an analogy that might be useful. Do you understand gravity, or just believe in it? Let’s test this out.

Lowest level of understanding

Can you perform an experiment that demonstrates gravity’s existence? Yes, anyone can drop something.

Moderate level of understanding

Can you perform an experiment that quantifies gravitational pull? Yes, drop a ball from two meters and time it until it hits the ground. Some simple math gives you ~9.8 meters per second squared. That math is beyond some people. It was beyond everyone until Newton.

Can you perform an experiment which assesses the impact of other forces to isolate gravitational pull? Yes, drop a ball and a feather from two meters and time them. The ball hits first telling you that air resistance slows down the feather more than the ball. Then you can isolate the impact of air resistance on the ball and refine the estimation of the acceleration due to gravity.

High level of understanding

Can you generalize the effect to any two large objects? That requires an understanding of how far gravity reaches and how it changes with distance. It’s very doable, but this was beyond everyone for a long time. It’s beyond most people today.

Can you perform an experiment to determine whether gravity stays the same regardless of distance? Sure, you could perform the ball dropping experiment at sea level and at the top of a mountain. But you would have to account for the squished ball shape of the earth and the various places where there’s a bit more mass leading to a bit more gravity. And then you’d have to account for the variance in air resistance between sea level and 3 or 4 kilometres up. It’s very doable, but the variance is still tiny. Most people couldn’t perform the experiment with sufficient rigour, deal with the confounding factors, or do the math.

Could you calculate the trajectory of asteroids based on gravity? Well, we can observe the orbital periods of the moon, the sun, and the earth. We can start figuring out from there and a whack of observations their masses. We can figure out from our experiments how rapidly gravitational forces fall off. But most people couldn’t calculate the orbital mechanics of anything even with all of the data and formulas provided.

But the GPS in people’s cell phones works regardless of them being able to do the math, which explains why the GPS satellite doesn’t fall out of the sky. And planes fly regardless of whether the passenger in them can explain how the force of gravity is being counteracted.

This is a lengthy way of saying that something which everyone can interact with directly by dropping something becomes so increasingly arcane that even very smart and educated people end up in situations where they just accept the science. In other words, where they assert belief, not understanding.

This does turn into an appeal to authority, but not the logical fallacy of appeal to false authority. That’s a rhetorical trick played by ‘skeptics’. They claim that any appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, when it’s actually only referencing the statements of the unqualified that is the logical fallacy.

What does this have to do with climate change?

The vast majority of people have never seen any evidence of climate change; they just see weather. They haven’t looked at historical temperature records for the globe and crunched the numbers. They haven’t compared surface to satellite temperature data. They haven’t personally gone to multiple glaciers every year for 30 years to compare their rates of disappearance. They haven’t looked at 20,000 year old ice cores to assess CO2 isotopes. They haven’t leveraged existing and proven climate models to assess specific impacts. They haven’t amassed data on weather events and done statistical analysis that would show the impacts of climate change or not.

At best, some people see that spring is earlier than in their childhood, but most people would probably question their memories rather than the seasons.

Climate change is diffuse. Climate change is happening incredibly quickly by geological standards, but incredibly slowly by human standards. We can’t easily see it.

Most of climate science is beyond most people. For the majority of people, they just accept that, like GPS, the scientists are right. They accept the authority of peer-reviewed science, the scientific consensus, and the reports of the IPCC. They believe it to be true.

Most people don’t understand climate change at more than the simplest of levels, and even then they aren’t able to define and perform experiments which could assess it.

Climate change skeptics and deniers look at this and their brains melt and run out of their ears. They accept that GPS works, that planes fly, and that people have walked on the moon, stuff that they have a pretty equal lack of understanding of. But then they turn around and reject the science of climate change, something that they understand just as poorly.

They will happily point to inexpert experts such as Nobel Laureates in solid-state electronics who are skeptical about global warming, but will claim that citing the IPCC and actual climate scientists is the logical fallacy of appeal to false authority. In other words, they are guilty of the thing that they claim you are guilty of (a familiar pattern).

So what do we do?

Well, don’t demand that people understand it all and don’t ask that they believe in it, just ask that they accept the science as they accept GPS or gravity.

Or reframe the problem entirely and talk about pollution or sensible risk policies or health. As the major political groups which are skeptical about climate change are conservative, and conservatives dominate the ranks of skeptics, it’s worth looking at this guidance on how to talk to conservatives about the subject.

Personally, I don’t argue with skeptics or deniers about the basics of global warming and climate change. It’s not that I haven’t read through a ton of the evidence and can counter most of their arguments, or that I don’t have online resources such as Skeptical Science to find the refutations quickly. It’s just a futile exercise. In a complex space, there is a tremendous amount of scope for Gish Galloping and whataboutism, two annoying debating tactics commonly used by skeptics. I’d rather spend my time on advancing solutions and I’m not the right person to convince most skeptics to shift their views. I’m more focused on solutions.

SOURCE

Make America Greater: Approve the PCCS!

America absolutely needs outside expert review of climate claims used to oppose fossil fuels

John Droz

Should the United States conduct a full, independent, expert scientific investigation into models and studies that say we face serious risks of manmade climate change and extreme weather disasters?

As incredible as it may seem, US government climate science has never been subjected to any such examination. Instead, it has been conducted by government agencies and assorted climate, environmental, history, psychology and other “experts” paid by the same government agencies – to the tune of literally billions of dollars per year.

Moreover, all that time, effort and money has been spent on studies that claim carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases” are causing unprecedented climate and weather cataclysms, requiring the immediate and total elimination of fossil fuels that supply 82% of all US energy. Virtually none of it has been spent on studies of the powerful natural forces that have driven global warming and cooling, other climate changes and innumerable extreme weather events throughout Earth and human history.

Replacing all that energy – under the Green New Deal we hear so much about lately, or some similar schemes – would cost this country up to $93 trillion by 2030! That’s $65,000 per family per year!

Even worse, those same agencies and government contractors have actively prevented any independent review of their work. They have intimidated, silenced and vilified anyone who attempted to question or examine their data, computer models, assumptions, algorithms and conclusions.

They are adamantly opposed to any such review now. So are some 97% of all Democrats, environmentalists and “mainstream” news media.

You have to wonder: If their work is as solid, above-board and honest as they claim – wouldn’t they be delighted to defend it in public, and prove their detractors wrong?

Since they so totally opposed to any independent review – what are they trying to hide?

President Trump’s proposed investigation would be conducted by a brand new Presidential Committee on Climate Science (PCCS), led by physicist and presidential advisor Dr. Will Happer. It would be carried out by climate scientists and experts who did not participate in the original (alarmist) studies.

A decision about launching the PCCS will be made very soon. Support for the PCCS is urgently needed.

Many who oppose the PCCS claim human responsibility for climate change and extreme weather has already been resolved scientifically. That is simply not so. A genuine scientific assessment has four necessary components. It must be comprehensive, objective, transparent and empirical.

There has never been a true scientific assessment of global warming claims, anywhere on the planet.

In fact, even repeatedly referenced reports by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have faced no such review – and would fail at least three of those four criteria! That is largely because the IPCC computer models and claims of climate disasters are supported by virtually no real-world evidence.

PCCS opponents also say President Trump is acting irrationally on global warming. In reality, he is taking a far more scientific position than his critics are. Skepticism is the primary pillar of Real Science. So being labeled a “skeptic” is high praise to real scientists.

If it’s Real Science, questions, skepticism and constant reexamination are essential. Consensus is out.

If it’s consensus – and questions and skepticism are prohibited – it’s not Real Science.

PCCS opponents are telling us we have to accept their “consensus science” without question. Eliminate the fossil fuels that make our factories, healthcare, jobs, heating, lighting, food, internet and living standards possible. And put the federal government in control of all future energy and personal choices.

Certainly, the “science” that supposedly supports those demands should be examined carefully and scientifically before we rush to judgment on 82% of our energy. Not according to PCCS opponents.

The bottom line is very simple. President Trump should be applauded for proposing the PCCS, and for being open-minded enough to reconsider global warming claims – before he or we accept them as gospel.

Americans need to support him against the very vocal (and self-interested) people and organizations that oppose the PCCS.

We need to take immediate action to support President Trump on this vitally important initiative.

Use the link. Send him a quick note. Real, evidence-based climate science demands that we have this PCCS review. So does the future of our country and our children.

Via email

States Abusing Federal Provision to Block Critical Projects

There are seemingly endless regulatory obstacles for critical infrastructure projects.

One of these obstacles is starting to get some much-needed attention: abuse of Section 401 of the Clean Water Act.

The Congressional Research Service has explained that Section 401 “requires that an applicant for a federal license or permit provide a certification that any discharges from the facility will comply with the act, including state-established water quality standard requirements.”

This provision is a good example of the cooperative federalism that characterizes the Clean Water Act. Under this federal statute, states can use the Section 401 certification process to ensure that state water quality will not be harmed through federally permitted activities.

But some states may be abusing this important power.

Last year, during a hearing that addressed Section 401 abuse and considered a potential legislative remedy, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., pointed out that some states have abused the Section 401 certification process:

Recently, a few states have hijacked the water quality certification process in order to delay important projects. The state of Washington has abused their authority to block the export of coal mined in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Montana. The state of Washington has refused to grant a water quality certification for the Millennium Bulk Terminal project.

That Millennium Bulk Terminal project is a proposed large coal export facility along the Columbia River that would help export coal to Asia.

The state of Washington’s decision to block the project might have significant economic implications and may even harm foreign commerce. But this, by itself, is not evidence of Section 401 abuse. After all, states are afforded significant power under Section 401.

Here’s the abuse: In order to deny the Section 401 certification, the state of Washington heavily relied upon factors that have nothing to do with water, such as vehicle traffic, train noise, and rail safety. This section of the Clean Water Act does not give states a green light to veto projects for whatever reasons they desire.

The Water Quality Certification Improvement Act of 2018, sponsored by Barrasso, would have clarified that Section 401 reviews are limited to water quality issues.

Some organizations, such as the Western Governors’ Association, have expressed concerns about altering the Section 401 process in a manner that would limits the states’ ability to manage their water resources. Those concerns are understandable.

Any legislation to address this specific abuse should be drafted narrowly so that it only prohibits the consideration of non-water factors under Section 401, and in no way affects existing authority to directly address water concerns.

The Water Quality Certification Improvement Act of 2018, as Barrasso pointed out, would also have clarified that “states, when evaluating water quality, can only consider discharges from the federally permitted or licensed activity itself—not from other unrelated sources.”

In addition to this important clarification, any legislation should also address a closely related Section 401 abuse in which states are not merely considering unrelated discharges, but also expecting a federal permit applicant to take action to address pollution arising from unrelated discharges.

For example, in Maryland, Exelon is seeking to renew its Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license for its hydroelectric power plant. As a condition of securing a 401 certification, Maryland is allegedly requiring Exelon to remove water pollution that is not coming from the project, but instead coming from other sources.

The Section 401 certification process is not supposed to be a scheme for states to compel permit applicants to fix the state’s water problems. There are likely many other Section 401 abuses that Congress should address, including unnecessary delays imposed by states. But at a minimum, Congress should make these commonsense clarifications to existing law.

SOURCE

Why The Real Climate Threat Is Global Cooling

Climate alarmists constantly warn us that man-made global warming is making our world less habitable and that climate doomsday is fast approaching.

But a closer look at our climate reveals a surprising climate discovery that our mainstream media have conveniently ignored for decades: the role of the sun in determining Earth’s climate.

For the first time in humanity’s history, our leaders could be actively devising policies — based on their defiant and biased obsession with global warming — that will render us highly vulnerable to even the slightest cooling in our climatic system.

“We are causing irreversible damage to our environment,” “We are headed for a climate doomsday due to excessive warming,” “Climate change may wipe out humanity” — these are our everyday news headlines.

As a climate scientist, I find these headlines, and the stories they introduce, vague and full of hasty generalizations. The repeated, one-dimensional doomsday cry about carbon dioxide’s role in global temperature blinds the public to other causes.

Indeed, there is a poor correlation between CO2 emissions and global temperature.

Between 2000 and 2018, global temperature showed no significant increase despite a steep increase in carbon dioxide emissions from anthropogenic sources.

The same was the case between the years 1940 and 1970. When carbon dioxide concentration increases at a constant and steady rate and temperatures don’t follow the pattern, we can be certain that carbon dioxide is not the primary driver of global temperature.

If not CO2, what?

Life on Earth is possible because of Earth’s perfect positioning in the solar system: not too close to the sun and not too far. For centuries, academicians have acknowledged this, and climate scientists today know that the sun is the biggest influencer and driver of global temperature.

NASA’s page on solar influence clearly states that changes in the sun largely determine Earth’s atmospheric and surface temperatures. Astrophysicists and climatologists measure these changes in the sun in terms of quantifiable phenomena such as sunspot activity and solar cycles.

However, in recent times, NASA has succumbed to pressure from climate doomsday proponents. NASA’s original page on the sun’s impact on our climate system is now hidden from the public domain.

With the advent of dangerous man-made global warming theory, CO2 has taken the limelight, and the sun has been relegated to a mere spectator.

This could be warming-obsessed alarmists’ biggest mistake ever.

In central Europe, for example, temperature changes since 1990 coincided more with the changes in solar activity than with atmospheric CO2 concentration. The same has been true globally, and across centuries.

The Maunder Minimum (1645–1715) and Dalton Minimum (1790–1830) — periods of low solar activity — were responsible for the coldest periods of the Little Ice Age. England’s River Thames froze.

Whole civilizations collapsed as people starved because cold-induced poor harvests led to malnutrition that made people too weak to resist disease.

Likewise, increased solar activity in the Roman Warm Period (~250 B.C. to A.D. 400) and Medieval Warm Period (~A.D. 950–1250) brought warmer temperatures on Earth, and thriving crops led to greater nutrition and lower mortality rates.

Hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers affirm the overwhelming impact of solar activity on Earth’s temperature.

But will there be cooling?

Observations of sunspot activity at the Space Weather Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) indicate that there has been a lull in solar activity during the past 18 years — the same period during which there has been no significant warming, confirming a direct correlation between solar activity and global average temperature.

Some climate scientists say another major cooling is likely soon. Their claims are not outlandish.

Evidence for the lull in solar activity is so clear that even NASA admits the cooling trend. Martin Mlynczak of NASA’s Langley Research Center commented, “We see a cooling trend[.] … High above Earth’s surface, near the edge of space, our atmosphere is losing heat energy. If current trends continue, it could soon set a Space Age record for cold.”

Most recent scientific studies on solar cycles suggest that the next solar cycles (25 and 26) could be similar to the Maunder and Dalton minima that plunged much of the world into a disastrous cold.

An article in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Astrophysics and Space Science last month warns that the solar minimum might already have begun. Its authors also say there is a high possibility that it will be even colder than those of the Little Ice Age.

That is disturbing news.

Most of our current efforts — including the choice of our renewable energy technologies and our anti-fossil fuel developmental policies — are incompatible with fighting off the impacts of severe cold weather (localized and short-term), let alone long-lasting and global cooling like what happened with the solar minima of the Little Ice Age.

In the event of global cooling, people all over the world — the poor, especially — will be vulnerable. Our vulnerability will largely be because of global warming alarmists’ neglect of climate reality and the power-hungry climate agenda currently dominating national and international politics.

SOURCE

EPA's carbon emissions backflip after West Australian Premier's intervention

After days of anger over a decision that big businesses warned would jeopardise tens of billions of dollars of resources projects, the boss of WA's environmental watchdog was firmly sticking with his new policy.

"We stand by our guidelines," Environmental Protection Authority [EPA] chairman Tom Hatton told the ABC on Tuesday. "We feel the guidelines are necessary because emissions have been rising in WA and nationally for some time.

"And we are concerned the federal mechanisms to drive those down … are not something we can rely on."

But Dr Hatton admitted defeat just two days after that firm defence of his board's decision, which had recommended major projects be required to entirely offset their carbon emissions.

"Our guidelines and our advice would benefit from further consultation and we are going to do that," he said on Thursday.

"There are significant issues that have emerged."

How industry heavyweights exerted pressure

To understand how such an emphatic 180-degree turn took place in 48 hours, it pays to look at what is known to have occurred in between.

Oil and gas giants, already fuming, stepped up their fight significantly.

Full-page advertisements were plastered across Perth's daily newspaper, as big business splashed the cash in an effort to convince the public that the EPA's decision would inflict an enormous economic blow on WA.

They took their public relations effort up a notch, with top executives warning across a range of interviews that devastating impacts loomed, and the Premier's dismissal of the EPA's decision was far from enough to restore stability and confidence.

"There's thousands of jobs at stake, it is not just our business," Woodside chief operating officer Meg O'Neill said.

The fight was taken directly to State Parliament, with top brass from Woodside, Shell, Chevron and Santos called in for crisis talks with the Premier, during which they stressed what they saw as enormous risk and uncertainty had stemmed from the EPA's decision.

Action makes way for consultation

Just four hours later, the EPA's policy was no more — replaced by an indefinite period of "consultation".

"After the meeting I was in contact with Dr Hatton and explained the concerns that industry expressed," Premier Mark McGowan said.

"He and I agreed that something needed to be done."

Woodside chief executive Peter Coleman credited the Government "for acting quickly", while the Chamber of Minerals and Energy hailed it as a "win for common sense".

Less impressed though were environmental campaigners, who were left questioning who was actually running the state.

"Mr McGowan clearly does not understand the emergency we are in and would rather placate the big donors of the major parties than take tangible action on climate change," Greens MP Tim Clifford said.

For Mr McGowan, the EPA's backdown removed an enormous headache that had seriously threatened to further undermine his mantra as a Premier focused on job creation.

But with the EPA having so quickly and dramatically reversed its policy after his intervention, questions are likely to linger for some time about how autonomous WA's supposedly independent environmental watchdog really is.

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 March, 2019

Scientists warn rising temperatures in the Arctic are now 'locked in' and could lead to catastrophic climate change 'tipping point'

Utter rubbish. The Arctic ice just goes up and down with no long-term trend and quite out of synchrony with global temperatures. We know of active vulcanism under it and that is clearly the major influence

Even emissions cuts outlined in the Paris Agreement won't be enough to prevent an uptick in Arctic temperatures set to raise sea levels across the globe, says a report released by the United Nations this week.

According to the report, even if the world were to meet these benchmarks, temperatures in the Arctic would continue to rise by another 3-5 degrees Celsius by 2050.

'What happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic,' said Joyce Msuya, UN Environment’s Acting Executive Director.

'We have the science; now more urgent climate action is needed to steer away from tipping points that could be even worse for our planet than we first thought.'

The results of that temperature change could spell out drastic reductions in already rapidly waning sea ice and result in changing landscapes across the world.

According to the report, an estimated 4 million people are set to be affected by the thaw worldwide.

'The urgency to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement is clearly manifested in the Arctic, because it is one of the most vulnerable and rapidly changing regions in the world,' said the Finnish Minister of the Environment, Energy and Housing, Kimmo Tiilikainen in a statement.

'We need to make substantial near-term cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, black carbon and other so-called short-lived climate pollutants all over the world.'

Since 1979, the world's sea ice has declined by 40 percent and if emissions rates continue, researchers say the arctic could be completely ice free by some time in the 2030's.

Further compounding the danger of rapidly melting Arctic ice, is the a phenomenon known as 'positive feedback.'

As the sea ice melts, according to scientists, carbon that is trapped in the permafrost is released into the atmosphere, further accelerating the warming process.

Scientists say there is an estimated 1.67 billion metric tons of carbon currently trapped in the Arctic's frozen soil and ice.

If that carbon were to be released, the report says it could imperil the Paris Accord's benchmark of limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius.

SOURCE

Decades of climate-change exaggeration in the West have produced frightened children, febrile headlines, and unrealistic political promises

Bjørn Lomborg*

Across the rich world, school students have walked out of classrooms and taken to the streets to call for action against climate change. They are inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who blasts the media and political leaders for ignoring global warming and wants us to “panic.” A global day of action is planned for March 15.

Although the students’ passion is admirable, their focus is misguided. This is largely the fault of adults, who must take responsibility for frightening children unnecessarily about climate change. It is little wonder that kids are scared when grown-ups paint such a horrific picture of global warming.

For starters, leading politicians and much of the media have prioritised climate change over other issues facing the planet. Last September, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres described climate change as a “direct existential threat” that may become a “runaway” problem. Just last month, The New York Times ran a front-page commentary on the issue with the headline “Time to Panic.” And some prominent politicians, as well as many activists, have taken the latest reportfrom the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to suggest the world will come to an end in just 12 years.

This normalization of extreme language reflects decades of climate-change alarmism. The most famous clip from Al Gore’s 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth showed how a 20-foot rise in sea level would flood Florida, New York, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, and Shanghai – omitting the fact that this was seven times worse than the worst-case scenario.

A separate report that year described how such alarmism “might even become secretly thrilling – effectively a form of ‘climate porn.’” And in 2007, The Washington Post reported that “for many children and young adults, global warming is the atomic bomb of today.”

When the language stops being scary, it gets ramped up again. British environmental campaigner George Monbiot, for example, has suggested that the term “climate change” is no longer adequate and should be replaced by “catastrophic climate breakdown.”

Educational materials often don’t help, either. One officially endorsed geography textbook in the United Kingdom suggests that global warming will be worse than famine, plague, or nuclear war, while Education Scotland has recommended The Day After Tomorrow as suitable for climate-change education. This is the film, remember, in which climate change leads to a global freeze and a 50-foot wall of water flooding New York, man-eating wolves escape from the zoo, and – spoiler alert – Queen Elizabeth II’s frozen helicopter falls from the sky.

Reality would sell far fewer newspapers. Yes, global warming is a problem, but it is nowhere near a catastrophe. The IPCC estimates that the total impact of global warming by the 2070s will be equivalent to an average loss of income of 0.2-2% – similar to one recession over the next half-century. The panel also says that climate change will have a “small” economic impact compared to changes in population, age, income, technology, relative prices, lifestyle, regulation, and governance.

And while media showcase the terrifying impacts of every hurricane, the IPCC finds that “globally, there is low confidence in attribution of changes in [hurricanes] to human influence.” What’s more, the number of hurricanes that make landfall in the United States has decreased, as has the number of strong hurricanes. Adjusted for population and wealth, hurricane costs show “no trend,” according to a new study published in Nature.

Another Nature study shows that although climate change will increase hurricane damage, greater wealth will make us even more resilient. Today, hurricanes cost the world 0.04% of GDP, but in 2100, even with global warming, they will cost half as much, or 0.02% of GDP. And, contrary to breathless media reports, the relative global cost of all extreme weather since 1990 has been declining, not increasing.

Perhaps even more astoundingly, the number of people dying each year from weather-related catastrophes has plummeted 95% over the past century, from almost a half-million to under 20,000 today – while the world’s population has quadrupled.

Meanwhile, decades of fearmongering have gotten us almost nowhere. What they have done is prompt grand political gestures, such as the unrealistic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions that almost every country has promised under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. In total, these cuts will cost $1-2 trillion per year. But the sum total of all these promises is less than 1% of what is needed, and recent analysis shows that very few countries are actually meeting their commitments.

In this regard, the young protesters have a point: the world is failing to solve climate change. But the policy being pushed – even bigger promises of faster carbon cuts – will also fail, because green energy still isn’t ready. Solar and wind currently provide less than 1% of the world’s energy, and already require subsidies of $129 billion per year. The world must invest more in green-energy research and development eventually to bring the prices of renewables below those of fossil fuels, so that everyone will switch.

And although media reports describe the youth climate protests as “global,” they have taken place almost exclusively in wealthy countries that have overcome more pressing issues of survival. A truly global poll shows that climate change is people’s lowest priority, far behind health, education, and jobs.

In the Western world, decades of climate-change exaggeration have produced frightened children, febrile headlines, and grand political promises that aren’t being delivered. We need a calmer approach that addresses climate change without scaring us needlessly and that pays heed to the many other challenges facing the planet.

SOURCE

Motivated Or Manipulated? Rise Of Youth Climate Activism Fuels Alarm Over Exploitation

Kids are fast becoming the face of the climate change movement as teenagers, ‘tweens and even younger children file lawsuits, stage walkouts, and lobby lawmakers.

But newly released documents have raised questions about whether the students are being motivated or manipulated.

A cache of emails released Wednesday on Climate Litigation Watch showed that top climate activists at the 2012 La Jolla strategy session sought to involve children in a legal and civil offensive against the fossil fuel industry, which would include worldwide marches from the “youth climate movement.”

Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Christopher C. Horner, who obtained the emails via an open-records request with the University of Oregon, said the presentation contained in the email is more evidence that students have been used as props.

“It turns out that the frenzied street theater of children’s marches and schoolkids’ strikes was laid out behind closed doors years ago, at the organizational meeting of what became a climate litigation industry,” Mr. Horner said in an email.

Thousands of student activists are preparing to skip class Friday for the Youth Climate Strike, an international protest led by Swedish teen Greta Thunberg, who was nominated Wednesday by three Norwegian Socialist Left Party lawmakers for a Nobel Peace Prize.

“The adults have failed us,” Greta, 16, said in a statement. “And since most of them, including the press and the politicians, keep ignoring the situation, we must take action into our own hands.”

The U.S. student walkout has the blessing of more than a dozen leading liberal and climate groups, including former Vice President Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, as well as the Union of Concerned Scientists, which organized the La Jolla gathering.

The slides presented at the closed-door meeting by University of Oregon law professor Mary Wood proposed “atmospheric trust litigation” that would be “linked to youth climate movement [worldwide marches]” and include “stories of youth plaintiffs.”

Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the group stands by the efforts at the La Jolla workshop, which created a blueprint for legal challenges to the fossil fuel industry based on the anti-tobacco litigation of the 1990s.

“We published and posted online a summary workshop report,” Mr. Frumhoff said in an email. “We were pleased that leading experts in atmospheric trust litigation were able to join us for the conference and present their important work.”

He added, “And we strongly support and stand with the tens of thousands of youths across the world who are calling for long-overdue government action on climate change.”

Also backing the Youth Climate Strike are 150 scientists who signed a letter commending the students as they “recognize the battle for their future.”

“Without aggressive action to reduce humanity’s carbon emissions, these students can expect to bear witness to a world we can’t fully imagine yet,” said the letter, whose signatories include Penn State atmospheric sciences professor Michael E. Mann.

James Taylor, a senior fellow for environment and climate policy at the free-market Heartland Institute, said those egging on the youths with fears of imminent global disaster “should be ashamed of themselves.”

“They’re putting the emotional and mental health of young people at risk so they can use them as pawns for their own political agendas,” said Mr. Taylor. “[They] should be allowed to be children, should be allowed to enjoy life. And certainly it’s good that they’re aware of scientific and political issues, but to use them in a manner that has them fearing they’re not going to have an inhabitable world is borderline abusive.”

climate protest kids youth

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano said the emails show that “climate activists have long planned on using schoolkids to agitate for their fear campaign and regulatory ‘solutions.’”

“These kids have been indoctrinated in climate doomsday nonsense since kindergarten, and now they are being encouraged to skip school so that the federal government can ‘solve’ climate change,” Mr. Morano said in an email.

Young climate activists are increasingly making news. A group of children and teens drew headlines last month for confronting Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, urging her to support the Green New Deal resolution proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat. They pushed back when Ms. Feinstein said the legislation was unaffordable and wouldn’t pass.

On the legal front, moving through the court system is Juliana v. United States, an ambitious 2015 lawsuit filed by 21 youth plaintiffs to stop the fossil fuel industry. They were recruited by Oregon lawyer Julia Olson, executive director of Our Children’s Trust.

Lead plaintiff Kelsey Juliana, now a University of Oregon student and the others were featured in a profile last week on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” The youngest is now 11.

“This case is everything. This is the climate case,” Ms. Juliana said. “We have everything to lose, if we don’t act on climate change right now, my generation and all the generations to come.”

Mr. Morano criticized the national exposure. He said “the children should be kept out of the media as much as possible to limit their exploitation by the environmental left. Sadly, the media, led by ‘60 Minutes,’ instead chooses to promote their manipulation in glowing segments.”

Environmentalists argue that it’s appropriate for children to be front and center, given that they will suffer the most from any catastrophic consequences from rising greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere.

“Simply put, young millennials and Gen Z-ers have seen the adults who are supposed to be steering the planet hesitate, stumble, and make excuses on one of the issues that will shape their future, steering the planet right toward catastrophe,” the Climate Reality Project said in a Tuesday post.

“They’ve had enough,” the project said. “And no wonder — it’s their future on the line. So if adults aren’t going to act on their own, young people will make them.”

SOURCE

Green energy failed the polar vortex test

The recent polar vortex of extremely cold weather this winter tested Green New Deal policies, and they failed miserably. Many Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and several presidential candidates, support a Green New Deal, which would phase out the use of all coal, natural gas, and oil and replace them with green energy. Proving just how wrongheaded those policies are, solar and wind power performed very poorly during the storm while coal, natural gas, and nuclear power helped keep the lights and heat on for the vast majority of people.

Just how bad was green energy’s performance during the storm? In an area stretching from Minnesota to Iowa, wind turbines went from supplying about half of the electricity one day to providing less than 3 percent the next. What caused this dramatic swing in energy output? Most turbines automatically shut down once temperatures reach -20 degrees. Even worse, not only did the turbines stop producing power, but they also consumed power for heat to avoid damage. Solar energy production also collapsed. Due to snow cover, Xcel Energy’s solar panels only produced eight to ten percent of their potential output.

In addition to the massive problems with green energy production, there were also some problems with natural gas. Natural gas-powered plants were hampered in their efforts to generate more electricity due, in part, to freeze-offs. Freeze-offs occur in cold weather when water and other liquids freeze at natural gas wells, and they can cause natural gas shortages and price spikes. Freeze-offs are just one more reason why more pipelines are needed, but the left still opposes them.

Because of the energy production problems, businesses and consumers were asked to reduce their energy use. This is called demand response. For example, Xcel Energy asked some Minnesota residents to turn down their thermostats to 55 degrees; other Minnesotans were asked to turn down their heat to 63 degrees; and the Michigan governor asked most state residents to turn down their thermostats to 65 degrees. In response to requests like these, GM shuttered thirteen facilities; Fiat Chrysler closed two plants; and Ford cut back production at three facilities.

Environmentalists seem to think that demand response is a perfectly fine way to deal with extremely cold weather. Of course, this overlooks the fact that workers at shut down businesses might need their missing wages and that some people, including many of the elderly, get cold easily so turning their heat down is more than a minor inconvenience.

The goal should be to build a robust electric grid that is capable of meeting demand on the hottest summer days and the coldest winter nights, with additional reserves to cover contingencies. Just planning to have sufficient power to handle normal circumstances and then urging people to muddle through harsh weather in the northern U.S. is not acceptable.

To deal with the intermittent supply of solar and wind power, some green energy supporters are advocating for connecting regional grids into a national grid. By connecting the regional grids, grid operators would have more options for avoiding outages and dealing with excess energy. While a national grid may or may not be a good idea, environmentalists often oppose the high-voltage lines that would likely be used to connect the regional grids.

The facts are clear from the polar vortex. Even in the worst of conditions, coal and nuclear power are very reliable; natural gas is less so, but it is still fairly reliable. On the other hand, green energy is very unreliable, and depending upon it is both foolish and dangerous. Of course, liberals will learn nothing from this storm and will continue to push for the costly Green New Deal. To protect lives and our economy, these policies must be defeated.

SOURCE

Here Are 5 Hysterical Environmentalist Claims in Modern History

Panics over looming environmental and climate apocalypse have been with us for a long time. Thomas Malthus famously predicted in his 1798 book “An Essay on the Principle of Population” that population growth would overtake food supply and mass starvation would result unless population controls were implemented.

Of course, his predictions were utterly wrong, since free enterprise greatly increased the food supply as the population increased.

The modern environmentalist movement has picked up a Malthusian ethos of its own and, when combined with the politics of climate change, has produced numerous egregiously wrong predictions about global trends.

Here are five of the biggest misses:

1. Population Bomb to Cause Global Famine by 2000

The first Earth Day, in 1970, was filled with hyperbole and exaggerations about mankind’s future. Much of the craziness was unearthed in a remarkable expose in 2000 by Reason contributor Ronald Bailey.

One of the most common ideas, in a throwback to Malthus, was that the global food supply simply couldn’t keep up with population growth.

Peter Gunter, a professor at North Texas State University—now named the University of North Texas—wrote about how mass starvation was in the world’s near-term future. Gunter spoke in language that should be all too familiar to those who have paid attention to the debate over climate change in modern times:

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.

Ah, yes, all the scientists agree that the world will end by the year 2000.

Of course, this didn’t come to pass. In fact, a remarkable reduction in poverty has occurred around the globe since 1970. A chart published by Human Progress demonstrated just how dramatically global hunger has decreased in the past few decades.

2. Air Pollution Will Be So Bad That City Dwellers Will Have to Wear Gas Masks

Another grand prediction at Earth Day 1970 (it was full of doozies) was that the air pollution problem common to many American cities would continue to get exponentially worse without widespread government control of the American way of life.

One particularly extreme claim came from the January 1970 edition of Life magazine, as quoted by Bailey:

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 [and] by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.

Again, such remarkable accuracy from these all-knowing scientists.

This didn’t happen, in part due to federal, state, and local restrictions on emissions. But it had much more to do with the general societal response to the problem.

Wealthier, more prosperous societies simply have more means and more of an inclination to make trade-offs to enjoy cleaner air. Free societies such as the United States found ways to reduce pollutants as a means to improve quality of life.

It’s very different in countries like, say, China, where pollution in some cities is unbearable due to the developing nature of the country combined with the authoritarian nature of government, which is more preoccupied with growth in gross domestic product than the comfort and well-being of individual citizens.

The fact is, free societies began solving this problem long ago, and our cities have become much better, not worse.

3. Entire Nations Could Be Wiped Out by 1999

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., a self-avowed socialist, recently claimed that the world would end in 12 years if we don’t radically transform our economy to combat climate change.

The decadelong window of pronounced doom seems to be a favorite among climate alarmists.

A recently resurfaced report from the Associated Press shows how an almost identical, but more precise, prediction was once made by a high-ranking United Nations official in 1989.

AP reported: “A senior U.N. environmental official says 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.”

Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, claimed in 1989 that human beings had a mere 10 years to stop the effects of global warming.

Brown said: “Ecological refugees will become a major concern, and what’s worse is you may find that people can move to drier ground, but the soils and the natural resources may not support life. Africa doesn’t have to worry about land, but would you want to live in the Sahara?”

Brown pronounced doom for Canada and the United States, where the entire East Coast would be flooded and conditions would be like the 1930s Dust Bowl.

But fear not, Brown did offer hope to humanity: He also predicted that the Soviet Union might produce “bumper crops” during this time.

4. Ice Caps Will Melt Away

Predictions about the polar ice caps melting have been common. Dramatic pictures of polar bears floating on tiny icebergs have been some of the iconic images of the climate change movement.

Former Vice President Al Gore said at a conference in 2009 that a scientist predicted a “75 percent chance that the entire polar ice cap during some of the summer months could be completely ice free within five to seven years.”

In 2014, the ice caps were still there. In fact, it’s 2019 and the ice caps are still there.

Gore wasn’t the only one to make such bold prognostications about the future of Arctic ice.

In his book “A Farewell to Ice,” Peter Wadhams, a professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University, predicted that polar ice in the Arctic would be gone by mid-decade.

Not only have the ice caps survived these predictions of doom, but they have occasionally grown in size. Between 2012 and 2016, Arctic ice increased from an average of 2.2 million square miles to 3.3 million square miles, according to The Telegraph.

5. The Coming Ice Age

In 1958, Betty Friedan, one of the leading thinkers of radical, modern feminism, wrote an article in Harper’s magazine describing the “coming ice age.”

It seems the mixing of climate science and radical left-wing politics is nothing new.

Friedan based her article on the work of two scientists, geophysicist Maurice Ewing, director of Columbia University’s Lamont Geological Observatory, and geologist-meteorologist William Donn.

She explained how these scientists foresaw American port cities being drowned by rising oceans, and how a giant glacier would cover Europe and North America. The scientists described conditions by which the earth would dramatically warm and then cool, sending us into another ice age.

These scientists were more cautious in their predictions than others, but this didn’t stop Friedan from speculating that, based on their calculations about the rate of warming, a layman could conclude that “the Arctic Ocean will be open and the Ice Age [will] begin in another twenty years.”

As Iain Calder wrote in Newsmax, this was just part of a tide of predictions about how a looming ice age soon was going to plunge the world into a deep freeze. Calder wrote:

Between 1973 and 1977 the great Time magazine had a number of blaring Page One covers like: ‘The Cooling of America,’ ‘The Big Freeze’ and ‘How to Survive the Coming Ice Age’ (with a subhead: ‘Things You Can Do to Make a Difference.’)

Needless to say, despite the chilly winter, the ice caps are still with us and the new ice age hasn’t come.

If there’s a lesson to be learned from all of these predictions, it’s not that scientists are always wrong or that we shouldn’t be good stewards of the environment. Instead, we should treat extreme predictions with skepticism, especially if they mean upending our way of life.

We should be particularly suspicious of schemes such as the Green New Deal, which would entirely derail the American economy and place it under the power of government.

One way or another, free societies will do a better job of adapting to any change in climate than the Venezuelas of the world, where the folly of man causes starvation and not natural disaster.

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 March, 2019

An old scare still staggering on: Thermohaline Shutdown

Aiken Pitchmen, the author below, must be the most demoralized Warmist I have ever encountered. He writes an article declaring that the Gulf Stream will slow down (Yawn!) and then adds a footnote at the end saying that nobody really knows what will happen. One wonders why he bothered writing it at all. He must be paid pennies per word

One of the difficulties that many climate models face is predicting the future. Environmental scientists collect tons of data, and in some instances can foretell the level of certain gases in the future. Yet, understanding how the world will respond is tricky. Wind patterns, ocean currents, and weather are incredibly dynamic systems that influence each other and are influenced by many external forces. Fully modeling how the climate behaves in response to exponentially increasing carbon levels has the equivalent complexity of predicting where a toothpick will land after being dropped in a tornado.

This uncertainty is why, even climate change scientists, tend to downplay what the possible outcomes of climate change are. There simply doesn’t exist an answer with a low enough uncertainty. It is for these reasons, discussion of the possible Thermohaline shutdown, while being incredibly terrifying, are often eschewed. However, based on observation, history, and safe assumptions scientists in publications have voiced their concerns. So let’s explore this possibility.

To start, the Thermohaline circulation is a term used to describe the ocean current phenomena on Earth. The circulation travels across the Earth’s oceans, moving water between all the hemispheres. The currents in this circulation are facilitated by varying density of salt concentration throughout the oceans and the effects of temperature (Hence the name Thermo-haline). Near the equator, the salt concentration is higher due to evaporated water. When the ocean region that contains higher salinity contacts a region with lower salinity, the higher density region is swallowed and submerged by the lower density region. This submersion creates a current that starts at the equator.

This current has a tremendous impact on the climate of regions it travels through. As warm equatorial water travels northward, the water heats up the overall climate in the central eastern United States and European regions. This is the reason these regions have more temperate climates compared to similar latitudinal located regions that are land locked. Additionally, These ocean currents are responsible for moving sea organisms (and human waste) across the hemispheres.

Over the last two decades, there has been a growing concern from the scientific community that the Thermohaline circulation is experiencing a slow down. As global temperatures pass the one degree Celsius mark, the Arctic sheets and regions of Greenland have begun to melt at an alarming rate. The Arctic, which contains roughly 70% of all fresh water on Earth, dilutes the salt concentration in the ocean as the sheets melt.

The decrease in salt concentration impedes on the aforementioned density gradient influenced current. Not surprisingly, Bryden et al. noted that the net flow of the Thermohaline circulation has slowed by 30% since the 1950’s. A slowdown may explain the decrease in temperatures in certain climates. While overall global temperatures increase, the absence of warm currents in naturally occurring regions will result in sinking temperatures. There is still much uncertainty over the affects of cooling currents. If temperatures drop slightly, they might simply counteract the effects of global warming in regions like Europe. This is not to say the rest of the world will be so lucky. In a more grim scenario, a drastic reduction in Thermohaline currents can cause temperatures to greatly drop in regions. If a slowdown continues, Europe and regions dependent on warm currents for their climate can expect an ice age.

A more concerning outcome of a Thermohaline shutdown is the potential triggering of a anoxic event. Anoxic events have been associated with halting of ocean currents and global warming events in Earth’s prehistoric period. As oceans become more stagnant, the life below becomes momentarily more active. Microbial ocean organisms, such as plankton, are given the opportunity to reproduced in large numbers. This is the same idea why drinking running water is safer than still water. Running water is less likely to foster bacterial growth.

As the biomass of the ocean explodes, the oxygen content of the ocean begins to decline. Ocean life needs oxygen to survive, yet with too much organic life, obtaining oxygen can become difficult. Regions that have low oxygen content can develop into dead zones, areas in which much of marine life cannot survive in. Kump et al. demonstrated that during such Anoxic events in the past, large quantities of Hydrogen Sulfide gas were released from the Oceans. This noxious gas was most likely related to the large die-off of organic sea life.

This would explain why previous mass extinctions were associated with Thermohaline shutdowns. Much mammalian and plant life cannot survive with hydrogen sulfide gas present in the atmosphere. The same researchers also demonstrated that the release of this gas would have damaged the Ozone layer. Their theory was further supported by fossil records that showed ultraviolet (UV) radiation related scarring. Massive amounts of UV radiation would further facilitate the extinction of land organisms. Human life, as we know it, in these environmental conditions will be impossible.

While the direct causation and links between many of these events are ambiguous, one specific trend is consistent. In all cases in which mass extinctions and Thermohaline shutdowns occurred, the Earth was experiencing record global temperatures and carbon levels. During the Permian-Triassic extinction, atmospheric carbon levels had reached 1000 ppm (Ward, page 71). Current concentrations are at 410.92 ppm. The Earth is still far from reaching cataclysmic carbon levels, yet this is no reason for apathy.

It should be understood that once the Thermohaline circulation is shutdown it cannot be reasonably reversed. Earth has recovered from such events in past, yes. Full recoveries often take a little less than a million years.

A.P.

I believe I would not be doing this article scientific justice if I did not emphasize the uncertainty of Thermohaline trends in the scientific community. While a Thermohaline shutdown is frightning, data on Thermohaline slowdown is a reason for skepticism. The circulation is not constant and fluctuates in net flow. So while Bryden et al. may have noted a slow down, in such a short time frame (50 years is a short time frame relative to any global events) it’s not clear whether this event is correlated to global warming.

This article by no means declares what will happen. It simply explores one of the more frighting possibilities proposed.

SOURCE

Big Labor Slams Green New Deal

"We will not accept proposals that could cause immediate harm to millions of our members and their families."

Democrats thrive on dividing Americans into constituency groups, which is a very effective way to win votes by making those groups feel beholden to the party. But every once in a while, there’s a head-on collision at the corner of such “intersectionality.” This time, that clash involves Green New Deal proponents and union representatives.

In a joint letter to Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the chief GND sponsors in Congress, 10 national labor unions on the AFL-CIO’s energy committee wrote, “We welcome the call for labor rights and dialogue with labor, but the Green New Deal resolution is far too short on specific solutions that speak to the jobs of our members and the critical sections of our economy. We will not accept proposals that could cause immediate harm to millions of our members and their families. We will not stand by and allow threats to our members’ jobs and their families’ standard of living go unanswered” [emphasis added].

What immediate harm? The GND calls for, among many other things, eliminating fossil fuels en route to completely restructuring the U.S. economy. Mark Alexander warns the GND’s authoritarian goals “would result in catastrophic worldwide economic collapse.” But if you don’t take his word for it, Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore declared that “it would be basically the end of civilization.”

No wonder unions are a bit worried.

But Ocasio-Cortez tells us there’s nothing to fear from “being automated out of work.” In fact, she says, our “core problem” is that “we live in a society where if you don’t have a job, you are left to die.” That’s not true, of course, but it’s why her since-removed GND FAQ section called for paying even those people “unwilling to work.” Maybe unemployed union workers can ask her for a paycheck.

The irony is that the GND would hurt hard-working, blue-collar people that make up most unions — the same people who have long been Democrat voters. And because renewable energy is simply not sufficient to meet our needs, it would also hurt the poor, who are far less able to shoulder the burden of skyrocketing energy costs and other new expenses imposed by the $93 trillion boondoggle.

So while the Green New Deal is fashionable among chardonnay-sipping coastal elitists and college socialists earning gender-studies degrees, out here in the real world, even other Democrat constituency groups are afraid of its disastrous consequences.

SOURCE

States Need to Fight Green New Deal the Right Way

The fight over the so called “Green New Deal” has gone into the states. Although this left-wing idea is pitched as a plan to save the environment, it has elements that don’t have anything to do with environmentalism and fall into the category of new entitlement spending and an overall push for big government. Liberty minded activists in states need to be smart in fighting this idea and to be careful not to overreach.

The national version of the Green New Deal is described by CNN as a ”14-page resolution [that] envisions a shift to 100% renewable and zero-emission energy sources, and calls for the creation of millions of new high-wage jobs to help wipe out poverty." CNN describes the resolution as emphasizing “massive public investment in wind and solar production, zero-emission vehicles and high-speed rail, energy-efficient buildings, and smart power grids, as well as ‘working collaboratively’ with farmers and ranchers to move towards sustainable agriculture techniques.” The resolution also addresses “historic injustices visited upon the poor and people of color.” This is a grab bag of left-wing ideas tossed into one green package that has become the centerpiece of a national debate.

It is important to note that our economy has been a great driver of innovation in the energy sector producing “clean coal,” solar and electric cars. Conservatives don’t want the government to play favorites and help out solar and plug-in cars, yet there is nothing wrong with renewables competing in the private sector if they can prove efficient while convincing consumers to use them. Some people don’t care about the personal cost of renewables and just want to use renewables to feel like they are helping the environment and that is every American's right.

The state of Virginia has become a battleground over environmental policy and a Virginia version of the Green New Deal. A local Virginia paper posted an op-ed on May 5, 2019 where the VA plan was described as “a moratorium beginning Jan. 1, 2020 on approval by any permitting agency on any new major fossil fuel projects. The legislation defined fossil fuels as ‘coal, petroleum, natural gas or any derivative of coal, petroleum, or natural gas that is used for fuel.” They want 80% from solar, onshore and offshore wind, geothermal and ocean tidal sources of energy. The plan is not realistic and likely will not go anywhere in the Virginia legislature.

Some have already started to fight over a privately-funded plan on private property in Spotsylvania, Virginia and calling it part of a VA Green New Deal. This is an overreach and a mischaracterization of that private plan.

The Virginia sPower solar plan falls into the category of private individuals and corporations engaging in private contractual relationships that don’t have anything to do with the core agenda of the Green New Deal.   This project in Virginia is a $615 million private investment that, according to the Free-Lance Starr of Fredericksburg, will create “800-1,000 local employees during construction, including electricians, site contractors, landscapers, mechanics, heavy equipment operators, engineers, waste management, and security guards.” The project will generate “$110 million in economic output and another $164 million over the life of the project” as well as “approximately $13 million in new gross tax revenues for the county, which reflects a 1,800 percent increase over current tax generation without impacts on schools, public safety, transportation or other county services.” Blind hatred of the Green New Deal should not lead Virginia residents to reflexively oppose this private plan on private property.

Conservatives want to stop the use of government subsidies and tax benefits to push renewables while discriminating against fossil fuels. The markets should rule these private decisions. Our nation has used efficiency and technological advances to lower emissions dramatically over the past few decades showing that capitalism and free markets work.

It is also true that people deserve the freedom to choose renewables if they want. Renewables, or a mix of the most efficient ones, may be the future of generating energy for Americans, yet only solar and wind seem to have taken hold in a few communities. If private companies want to spend cash on renewables, then that is their choice.

When the government tries to force renewables on Americans at a high cost, that is wrong and should be stopped. The “Green New Deal” has polled as popular yet expect those poll numbers to plummet when the American people get wise to this shell game the left is playing by mixing environmental politics and the push to expand entitlement programs.

SOURCE

Debunking Decades of Climate Alarmism

Alarmists made wrong predictions in 2009, 1989, 1970, and even as far back as 1798.

As The Daily Signal’s Jarrett Stepman reminds us, “Panics over looming environmental and climate apocalypse have been with us for a long time.” The rise of environmental and climate alarmism began in earnest during the 1960s and ‘70s, but the path began long before that. As Stepman explains, “Thomas Malthus famously predicted in his 1798 book 'An Essay on the Principle of Population’ that population growth would overtake food supply and mass starvation would result unless population controls were implemented.”

Subsequent centuries have featured similar trepidation. There are five notable examples, says Stepman, beginning with the inaugural 1970 Earth Day. At the time, North Texas State University professor Peter Gunter ominously predicted, “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.” Conversely, undernourishment has plummeted worldwide.

Also in 1970, Life magazine asserted, “In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution [and] by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.” At last look, people are still roaming the streets without gas masks — Beijing notwithstanding.

In June 1989, the Associated Press stated, “A senior U.N. environmental official says 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. … He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control.” Today, it’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s turn to wave the dozen-years-left-to-live placard.

In similar fashion, Al Gore in 2009 prophesied, “Some of the models suggest … that there is a 75% chance that the entire polar ice cap during some of summer months could be completely ice free within five to seven years.” As Stepman notes, “In 2014, the ice caps were still there. In fact, it’s 2019 and the ice caps are still there.”

And finally, feminist Betty Friedan surmised in 1958 that swelling “ocean waters may flood most of our port cities within the foreseeable future — and … it will be followed by the growth of a vast glacier which may eventually cover much of Europe and North America.” Today, they argue just the opposite.

All of this raises an important question: Shouldn’t climate skeptics be given the freedom to counter these apocalyptic claims without fear of censorship, especially when skepticism, at least thus far, has been vindicated? Absolutely — and that would be the case even if some or all of these predictions materialized. Yet according to another report by The Daily Signal, an app that challenges the mainstream climate missive is suspected of being expurgated.

“Since March 4, users of Apple’s iPhone no longer can access the app through the tech giant’s App Store,” according to the Signal. It just so happens that Al Gore is an Apple board member who peddles snake oil. Coincidental, or willful suppression? You be the judge. Forgive us to being skeptical of the former.

SOURCE

Trump touts Greenpeace co-founder declaring ‘the whole climate crisis’ is ‘fake science’

President Donald Trump touted Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore’s statements that “the whole climate crisis is not only Fake News, it’s Fake Science.” Trump responded “Wow” at the end of his tweet.

Moore continued: “There is no climate crisis, there’s weather and climate all around the world, and in fact carbon dioxide is the main building block of all life.” Patrick Moore is featured prominently in the new skeptical book, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change.”

Moore made his comments while appearing on Fox & Friends today. He also explained why he called AOC A ‘Pompous Little Twit’

Moore referenced Princeton Physicist Dr. Will Happer who is not part of the Trump administration and set to head a presidential commission on climate change. See:

Partial transcript of Patrick Moore Fox & Friends segment. Broadcast March 12, 2019:

STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): It sounds like you don’t think [the Green New Deal] plan is a good one. What’s your major problem with it?

PATRICK MOORE (AUTHOR): Well, it’s a silly plan. That’s why I suggested [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] was a pompous little twit. “Twit,” meaning, “silly” in the British lexicon and, “pompous,” meaning, “arrogant.” She really rubbed me the wrong way when she said she’s “the boss,” because she can make up a proposal that’s completely ridiculous and no one else did. And that is what’s wrong about this.

In fact, the whole climate crisis, as they call it, is not only fake news, it’s fake science. There is no climate crisis. There is weather and climate all around the world. And, in fact, carbon dioxide is the main building block of all life. That’s where the carbon comes from in carbon-based life, which is all life on land and in the sea. And, not only that, a little bit of warming would not be a bad thing for myself, being a Canadian, and the people in Russia wouldn’t mind a little couple of degrees warmer either.

DOOCY: But, Patrick, you know, there are so many scientists who have come out and say — and have said that climate change is real.

MOORE: Yes, of course climate change is real, it’s been happening since the beginning of time, but it’s not dangerous and it’s not made by people. Climate change is a perfectly natural phenomenon.

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 March, 2019

Air pollution is BAD for you

One imagines that it is. But how bad? The article below purports to tell us. And their conclusions are a reasonable commentary on their results. An equally reasonable conclusion would be that the effects of air pollution on health are totally trivial no non-existent.

The numbers tell it best. After using all sorts of clever statistics to get the numbers up, they found that 8.79 MILLION deaths worldwide could be attributed to air pollution.   That sounds a lot, does it not? That figure is however a mindless extrapolation. You just have to note that the world's current estimated population is 7.7 BILLION to see what is going on. What they actually found -- if you reverse their multiplication -- is that just over ONE PERCENT of all deaths are attributable to air pollution

Is that significant or trivial? I will leave it for readers to judge. Suffice it to say that if we wanted to work on preventing things that lead to premature death, air pollution would be a bottom priority.

But it gets worse than that. The study below is a type of meta-analysis. The authors appear to have taken every existing study they could find that estimates deaths from pollution and used those existing findings as their source of data. But that is extraordinarily naive. It is the antithesis of good scientific practice. A meta-analysis should be highly selective, using only the best controlled of prior studies. And that is the besetting weakness of air pollution studies: poor control.

In all the studies of the subject that have passed across my screen over the years, I doubt that there was a single one that controlled for income. And that is a critical weakness. Perhaps the most regular finding in the whole of the epidemiological literature is that the poor have worse health. So, without control for income, what you think is a real effect may be entirely an artifact of income.

A typical such study will find that people who live in more polluted areas of a city have worse health than people who live in leafier areas. But who lives in the leafier areas? The rich! Their better health is an income effect, not a pollution effect!

So WHY have we not seen well-controlled studies of urban air-pollution? I think I know why. If any such study HAS controlled for income, they most likely found that applying the controls for income knocked an initially weak effect down to non-significance. And we all know about the bias against reporting "negative" results!

So if we look for well-controlled studies of the effects of air pollution on health or mortality we have to say that there is NO evidence that ordinary urban levels of air pollution have adverse health effects.

You can see the idiocy of worrying about the sort of air pollution we normally experience when we reflect that smokers voluntarily inhale hugely more particulate pollution than others do -- and yet they have a close to normal life expectancy. Among the famous centenarian Jews of NYC, about a third of them smoke.

So why the attention to air pollution? The study below is only one of many. I comment on about two per year and in all cases the effects they describe are weak and turn out on close inspection to be inconclusive. So why do such studies? The authors below tell us why they do such studies in the last sentence of their abstract. It is all an effort to encourage "replacing fossil fuels by clean, renewable energy". It's just another sermon in support of the Warmist religion, in other words. Tiresome

Cardiovascular disease burden from ambient air pollution in Europe reassessed using novel hazard ratio functions

Jos Lelieveld et al.

Published: 12 March 2019

Abstract

Aims
Ambient air pollution is a major health risk, leading to respiratory and cardiovascular mortality. A recent Global Exposure Mortality Model, based on an unmatched number of cohort studies in many countries, provides new hazard ratio functions, calling for re-evaluation of the disease burden. Accordingly, we estimated excess cardiovascular mortality attributed to air pollution in Europe.

Methods and results
The new hazard ratio functions have been combined with ambient air pollution exposure data to estimate the impacts in Europe and the 28 countries of the European Union (EU-28). The annual excess mortality rate from ambient air pollution in Europe is 790 000 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 645 000–934 000], and 659 000 (95% CI 537 000–775 000) in the EU-28. Between 40% and 80% are due to cardiovascular events, which dominate health outcomes. The upper limit includes events attributed to other non-communicable diseases, which are currently not specified. These estimates exceed recent analyses, such as the Global Burden of Disease for 2015, by more than a factor of two. We estimate that air pollution reduces the mean life expectancy in Europe by about 2.2?years with an annual, attributable per capita mortality rate in Europe of 133/100 000 per year.

Conclusion
We provide new data based on novel hazard ratio functions suggesting that the health impacts attributable to ambient air pollution in Europe are substantially higher than previously assumed, though subject to considerable uncertainty. Our results imply that replacing fossil fuels by clean, renewable energy sources could substantially reduce the loss of life expectancy from air pollution.

European Heart Journal

NYC Mayor De Blasio: 'Meatless Mondays' in NYC Public Schools to 'Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions'

The left are always finding somerthing to harass us with

On Monday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that starting in the 2019-20 school year, all New York public schools will offer "Meatless Mondays" in their breakfast and lunch meals to "improve New Yorkers' health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

The hope is "to keep our lunch and planet green for generations to come," said the mayor, who has described himself as a democratic socialist. In the 1980s, de Blasio supported the Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua against the foreign policy of the Reagan administration.

The "Meatless Mondays" program will offer "all-vegetarian breakfast and lunch menus every Monday," said the mayor's office in a statement. The vegetarian menu was piloted in spring 2018 in 15 Brooklyn public schools, and then was expanded to schools across the city in the fall 2018.

The Department of Education's Office of Food and Nutrition will meet with students to finalize the Mondays menu for next year's kickoff. The new program will affect about 1.1 million public school students in New York City. "Meatless Mondays" are good for the "environment," said Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza. “Our 1.1 million students are taking the next step towards healthier, more sustainable lives."

This plan will make our "planet healthier,” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

New York City Council Member Justin Brannan said, “We are not taking climate change seriously unless we are talking about the astounding role animal agriculture and meat production plays in greenhouse gas emissions. Mitigating the effects of climate change means thinking outside the box and that means looking at the foods we purchase especially when it comes to what we feed our children in public schools."

"We’ve all gotta do our part to protect our planet,” said Brannan. "Expanding Meatless Mondays will not only help raise awareness of reducing meat consumption but it will absolutely make a difference when it comes to the amount of carbon dioxide our city contributes to the atmosphere.”

"It’s noteworthy to point out that if New York City public schools swapped out a beef burger for a plant-based protein once a month, the city would emit 375,000 pounds less of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per year," said Andrea Strong, founder of the NYC Healthy School Food Alliance.

In addition to the new "Meatless Mondays" program, the mayor's office noted that N.Y. public schools have "made strides in making cafeterias eco-friendly and sustainable, including compostable plates rather than polystyrene trays, and placing clearly labeled Recycling Stations in every cafeteria. Since the 2011-2012 school year, 761 schools now take part in the City’s Organic Collection program."

"NYC students are ready to take action to fight climate change," said Debby Lee Cohen, executive director of Cafeteria Culture. "Meatless Monday is giant step forward towards the 'Green New Meal.'"

“Reducing our appetite for meat is one of the single biggest ways individuals can reduce their environmental impact on our planet,” said Mark Chambers, director of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Sustainability. “Meatless Mondays will introduce hundreds of thousands of young New Yorkers to the idea that small changes in their diet can create larger changes for their health and the health of our planet.”

Council Member Brad Lander said "Meatless Mondays" is "an important way the city can address environmental sustainability."

This will help make our "planet healthier," said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

SOURCE

State AGs Undermine Themselves on Climate

Liberal attorneys general may have just signaled their intent to sue the pants off the Trump administration just as soon as any of various proposals to rollback Obama climate initiatives are finalized. But if the AGs haven’t just undermined their own impending lawsuits, they certainly have gone a long way toward debunking all the hot air being spluttered over the Obama climate agenda rollback – regardless of your views on climate science.

The New York University School of Law’s State Energy & Environmental Impact Center just issued a report entitled, “Special Report: Six Trump Administration Rollbacks Will Result in More than 200 Million Metric Tons of Additional GHG Emissions Each Year.” Variations of that title were then dutifully regurgitated across the media.

The report focuses on six specific Trump administration proposals estimated to result in higher greenhouse gas emissions including: rollbacks or changes in the Clean Power Plan, fuel economy standards, prohibition on remanufactured or “glider” trucks and various rules meant to reduce methane from oil and gas production, and landfills. The total increase comes to about 200 million tons, on which basis the report concludes: “In short, the Trump administration is preparing to take us over the climate cliff.”

For our purposes, we can just accept at face value that these rule changes would cause emissions to increase by what is touted as a whopping 200 million tons per year by 2025. So will an extra 200 million tons of emissions really take us over the climate cliff?

Not surprisingly, unmentioned in the NYU report and all the media coverage is the inconvenient statistic from the United Nations’ “Emission Gap Report 2018.” The UN reported total manmade emissions in 2017 were estimated to be 53.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gases.

If you do the rather simple math and divide the cliff-diving 200 million tons of emissions from the Trump rollbacks by the unmentioned 53.5 billion tons from the UN report, you find that the Trump rollbacks would increase global carbon dioxide emissions by a rather un-whopping figure of 0.37 percent per year by 2025. And by that time, the percentage increase would likely be even lower as global emissions continue their inexorable rise and fuel efficiency is increased, thanks to fuel producer technological improvements,

What’s all this got to do with the state AGs? As reported by the Competitive Enterprise Institute last year, the NYU law school’s State Energy & Environmental Impact Center was given $6 million by Bloomberg Charities for the purpose of providing free legal services to state AGs who wanted to advance the climate agenda without having to spend their own resources doing so. AGs from California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York endorsed the NYU report in the media release. They own this report.

We’ll have to see how the rules and legal challenges unfold, but it sure seems like the 0.37 percent figure ought to be a lot more damaging to the AG lawsuits than the 200 million tons of CO2 is to the climate.

Steve Milloy publishes JunkScience.com, served on the Trump EPA transition team is the aut

SOURCE

Geologist Accuses Apple of Political Bias in Removing App Countering Climate Alarmism

Al Gore sits on the board of directors of tech giant Apple, which dropped an app that is skeptical of climate alarmism from its store. Pictured: Gore, founder and chairman of the Climate Reality Project, speaks Thursday at the Climate Change Leadership Porto Summit in Porto, Portugal. (Photo: Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Political figures who support the so-called Green New Deal and other proposals to restrict carbon dioxide emissions are up against some “inconvenient facts” that Americans may access immediately through a smartphone application, a geologist and author says.

But there’s one big problem.

The app, called Inconvenient Facts, is available only to Android users through the Google Play Store. Since March 4, users of Apple’s iPhone no longer can access the app through the tech giant’s App Store.

Why is that?

Gregory Wrightstone, a geologist with more than three decades of experience, told The Daily Signal in an interview that he has his own opinion about what may have transpired inside Apple.

Wrightstone is the author of a book “Inconvenient Facts: The Science That Al Gore Doesn’t Want You to Know,” which served as the basis for the information available from the app.

He notes that former Vice President Al Gore, a leading proponent of the view that mankind’s activities propel dangerous climate change, is a board member of Apple.

“It’s very rare for an app to be approved and then taken down unless there is offensive material or some other extreme issue,” Wrightstone said of Apple’s action in a phone interview with The Daily Signal, adding:

We thought at first it may have been our fault. But I did a search on climate change and global warming in the Apple App Store and pulled up a whole bevy of pro-man-made global warming apps that are really bad. They are not formatted, they have incorrect spellings and no links.

But I suppose they have the political narrative right. Compared to these, our app is the gold standard. I made sure we had charts and links and references to the source for our data. This is all right in the palm of your hand.

A total of 60 facts in Wrightstone’s book are available through the Inconvenient Facts app to Android users. Complete with data, charts, and videos, they challenge the premise of alarmist theories about climate change that link man-made emissions to dangerous levels of global warming.

Gore’s ongoing campaign to convince the public that rising levels of carbon dioxide emissions could trigger catastrophic global warming was the subject of the 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” and the 2017 follow-up, “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.”

Apple initially approved the Inconvenient Facts app for sale Feb. 3. Since that time, the app has been downloaded 13,000 times, according to figures Wrightstone provided.

He also points out that the app has earned positive reviews.

“A key takeaway here is that Apple has a monopoly over iPhone apps and the Apple App Store is the only place to get them,” Wrightstone said. “It appears that Apple has chosen to weaponize its control over purchasing apps to stifle science that doesn’t conform to its politically correct notions.”

The Daily Signal sought comment from Apple’s media relations office by phone and email, asking whether the company would address Wrightstone’s allegations of political bias. Apple had not responded by publication time.

The Daily Signal also sent inquiries to Delaware-based Carthage Group LLC, with which Gore is associated, and to the Climate Reality Project, which Gore founded, seeking his comment for this article. Neither organization had responded by publication time.

Users who tap on the Inconvenient Facts app have access to images and data that run counter to much of what was presented in Gore’s documentary films. Some examples:

—Inconvenient Fact No. 53: “There are more polar bears now than we’ve had for 50 years.”

—Inconvenient Fact No. 10 cites a “Recent Inconvenient Pause of 18 years in warming, despite rise in CO2.”

—Inconvenient Fact No. 12: “Modern warming began long before SUVs or coal-fired plants.”

— Inconvenient Fact No. 21: “The current warming trend is neither unusual nor unprecedented.”

The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, a Christian public policy group that favors free market approaches to environmental policy, published a commentary Friday that is critical of Apple. It concludes that the company’s decision to reject the Inconvenient Facts app “smacks of censorship.”

The study of geology provides important insights into the study of climate change because it considers short-term trends within the larger context of Earth’s history, Wrightstone told The Daily Signal.

“Geologists are probably the most skeptical of all the sciences concerning a man-made link to temperature changes,” the geologist said, adding of carbon dioxide:

Just to be clear, I don’t, and my colleagues don’t, dispute that CO2 is increasing, and I agree that it has to have some slight warming effect on the atmosphere. But I argue that it’s modest and overwhelmed by the same natural forces that have been driving temperatures since the dawn of time. …

Looking out across Earth’s history, CO2 levels are extremely low. I always argue we are actually CO2 impoverished.

Information about Wrightstone’s book and the Inconvenient Facts app may be found here as well as on YouTube and Facebook.

SOURCE

Regional Australian govt axes deal with wave power company

The WA government has axed its funding deal for a wave power project in the state's south after the proponent, Carnegie Clean Energy, ran out of cash.

Australian Associated PressMARCH 12, 201912:52PM
The West Australian government has decided to stop subsidising a company that planned a wave power project in the state's south but has run out of cash.

Carnegie Clean Energy was in October handed a $2.625 million payment despite not meeting targets for the Albany project and last week posted a $45 million half-year net loss, revealing it only has $1.68 million left in the bank.

On Tuesday, regional development minister Alannah MacTiernan said the WA government had terminated the funding agreement.

"We have concluded they are unlikely to meet their obligations under the agreement," Ms MacTiernan told reporters.

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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13 March, 2019

With Ethanol And Biomass No Longer Viewed As ‘Green,’ Will Other Renewables Soon Follow?

Over the last 10 years, the cost of solar panels and wind turbines declined so significantly, and were scaled-up so quickly, that many people came to believe that a transition to renewables, as proposed by advocates of a Green New Deal, was all but inevitable.

We already have all the technologies we need to transition to 100% renewables, leading scientists and scholars told The New Yorker’s John Cassidy. “The only reason not to do it is political inertia and the influence of the existing fossil-fuel industry,” one said.

And yet grassroots opposition to solar and wind farms is growing and has nothing to do with fossil fuel interests, climate skepticism, or bureaucratic inertia. Indeed, most of it is motivated by concerns over the impact of renewables on the natural environment and quality-of-life.

The largest county in California, San Bernardino, last week banned the building of any larger solar and wind farms over the opposition of renewable energy lobbyists and labor unions. They did so on behalf of conservationists and locals seeking to protect fragile desert ecosystems.

In January, policymakers in Spotsylvania, Virginia voted to block the building of a solar farm, which would be the largest in America east of the Rocky Mountains, after local residents organized themselves in opposition out of concern over the impact on the environment, property values, and electricity prices.

And in the midwest, it is birders and conservationists, not climate skeptics and fossil fuel interests, who are organizing to block a massive new wind farm proposed for Lake Erie, a biodiversity hotspot for migratory birds and bats.

It’s not the first time scientists and conservationists have opposed renewables. Over the last decade, both groups have turned against two of the largest sources of renewable energies: biofuels, including corn ethanol, and biomass. Both had been long touted, like solar and wind, as climate solutions.

It all raises the question: with biofuels and biomass no longer accepted as “green,” is it only a matter of time before environmentalists similarly reject other forms of renewable energy, including solar and wind?

Solar and wind advocates say their technologies are fundamentally different from burning plant matter. To some extent they are correct. The best-available science today shows that solar farms produce one-tenth the carbon emissions as biomass power plants.

And where biomass and biofuels are farmed, solar panels and wind turbines are manufactured in factories. Where biomass and biofuels produce heat that powers engines and turns turbines, solar panels convert sunlight into electrons, and the wind turns blades whose spinning generates electricity.

But these arguments are suspiciously similar to the ones made for decades by advocates of ethanol and biomass. They claimed their technologies were good for the environment because the emissions they produced when combusted would be reabsorbed by the vast plantations of corn, palm, and forest products.

And biomass and biofuel makers have long claimed their products are high tech, requiring processing in factories to turn wood into pellets and distill corn into ethanol.

Part of the problem is that turning grasslands and forests into farms releases huge amounts of carbon held in the plant matter and soil. And since the amount of land for agriculture is finite, the expansion of biofuels and biomass meant converting more of the Earth for farming

The same is often true for building solar and wind farms. The building of that massive solar farm in Virginia required clear-cutting a working tree farm. The role those trees played in sequestering carbon dioxide would be lost with the building of the solar farm.

Solar and wind advocates correctly note that the carbon emissions avoided by using electricity from solar and wind farms rather than from coal or natural gas is greater than the loss of carbon sequestered by the soil, trees, and other woody biomass.

But the problem conservationists had with ethanol and biomass was never simply about carbon emissions or air pollution.

Indeed, the scientific paper revealing just how terrible biofuels are for the environment was made by a conservation attorney worried about the impact of biofuels expansion on fragile ecosystems.

For as much as people hate “Big Oil,” it turns out that petroleum is incredibly land-efficient.

Even much-hyped biofuels like sugarcane require six times more land to produce the same amount of energy as petroleum. The least efficient biofuel, made from soybeans, requires 20 times more land as petroleum.

Much more HERE

Bloomie hates coal

Mayor Michael Bloomberg won’t be running for president in 2020, but the billionaire media mogul has vowed to continue trying to eradicate the coal industry. He’s also promised to target oil and gas.

Left-wing Think Progress called that admission the “bombshell the media missed.” ABC, CBS, and NBC barely noticed it.

In the midst of Bloomberg’s announcement not to run for the highest office, he promised a “new, even more ambitious phase” of his anti-coal campaign.

Think Progress was right about it not getting much media notice. Evening News and World News Tonight said nothing about those anti-fossil fuel goals in their coverage of Bloomberg’s decision on March 5.

The following morning, NBC’s Today only vaguely acknowledged Bloomberg would work to combat climate change and to defeat President Donald Trump.

CBS This Morning on March 6 breezed through its admission the billionaire would work to “retire all coal-fired power plants” in the next 11 years.

Bloomberg already spent more than $100 million over a decade boosting the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign to close all U.S. coal plants.

Now, he intends to finish that industry off and expand his efforts to oppose oil and gas too by “doubling down on the work that I am already leading and funding.” His net worth is around $55 billion, according to Forbes.

On March 5, Bloomberg wrote, “Now I will take the next big steps. First, I will expand my support for the Beyond Coal campaign so that we can retire every single coal-fired power plant over the next 11 years.”

“That’s not a pipe dream. We can do it. And second, I will launch a new, even more ambitious phase of the campaign — Beyond Carbon: a grassroots effort to begin moving America as quickly as possible away from oil and gas and toward a 100 percent clean energy economy,” Bloomberg wrote.

He also said he would continue funding gun control efforts.

Think Progress, a blog from the Soros-funded liberal Center for American Progress, affirmed Bloomberg’s commitment by agreeing with the businessman’s claim that “the science has made clear” immediate action is necessary.

SOURCE

Democrat dissent

Some Democrats in Congress are alarmed at the leftward lurch their party is taking, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Sunday, commenting in particular on the “Green New Deal” and what he called the “Chicken Little, sky-is-falling approach of the socialist Democrats like [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez and the presidential candidates on the Democrats’ side of the aisle.”

Barrasso, who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said the GND proposals are prohibitively expensive, will hit Americans’ bank accounts and cost jobs – and “will not work.”

Appearing on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Barrasso was asked by host Maria Bartiromo about the perception that the Democratic Party seems to be being led by Ocasio-Cortez and the freshman New Yorker’s ideas, and about how his Democratic colleagues viewed that.

“Some are very concerned with the position that the party has taken and the presidential candidates have taken,” he replied.

“I think [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi is unnerved by this new group of Democrats in the House who are trying to take the entire party, and are succeeding in taking the entire party on this sharp left hand turn that’s going to – as the New York Times today said, careening off a [liberal] cliff, that’s where they’re heading.”

Barrasso, who chairs the Senate Republican Conference, challenged the cost, consequences, and effectiveness of the GND proposals.

“The cost is staggering, astronomical, $93 trillion,” he said. “That would empty everyone’s bank account in America – from Warren Buffett all the way on down. SO the country cannot afford it.”

Among the consequences, Barrasso said the plan would cost families $65,000 per year, with higher energy and heating costs.

It would also hit jobs, including in the airline industry, he argued, referring to GND proponents’ views on air travel.

(A GND “frequently asked questions” document from Ocasio-Cortez’ office called for a total “overhaul” of transportation including the building of “high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.” The GND resolution which she and Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) introduced last month calls for investment in “high-speed rail” as part of that envisaged transportation overhaul, but does not refer to air travel.)

And on the question of whether the proposals will work, Barrasso disputed that they would.

He noted that the U.S. is responsible for just 13 percent of global emissions of the “greenhouse gases” blamed for climate change, compared to 33 percent from China and India.

“You can’t power the country on wind turbines and solar panels alone, that’s only eight percent of our energy,” he said. “We just cannot allow ourselves to follow this Chicken Little, sky-is-falling approach of the socialist Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez and the presidential candidates on the Democrats’ side of the aisle.”

“We cannot follow them over the cliff. It is going to hurt jobs, hurt peoples’ ability to pay their mortgage, hurt our economy, hurt our nation in terms of national security.”

SOURCE

Climate derangement in Britain and elsewhere

Claptrap in the Huff Post arose from a paper written by a number of marine biologists that appeared in Nature Climate Change. The paper attempts to suggest that marine heat waves (mhw) are increasing in frequency.

But the authors are forced to admit that mhw are caused by a range of processes ‘from localized air-sea heat flux to large scale climate drivers such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation’.

In other words, natural atmospheric conditions cause localized increases and decreases in temperature in the ocean. I think we already knew that.

Add currents, gravitational and orbital effects and ground-sea heat flux from the thousands of underwater volcanoes, many unmapped, and we have many natural reasons why a wide variety of temperatures are found across the world’s oceans.

But the modern craze is to note every small change in the weather and the environment and to paint a picture of Armageddon.

The paper is careful not to say mhw are directly caused by man-made climate change – there is no evidence for this theory – but it does note that discrete and prolonged warming events occur in the ocean as well as the atmosphere.

It is claimed that the 21st century has already experienced record-shattering atmospheric heatwaves with ‘devastating consequences for human health, economics, and the environment’.

The scientists have to be a little careful what they write – it can safely be left to the Guardian to frighten the impressionable with the laughable suggestion that scientists have revealed heatwaves are sweeping the oceans ‘like wildfire’.

Global warming, or climate change, detached itself from scientific reality some time ago. Genuine scientific research that is considered off-message is ignored and discouraged while obvious green propaganda is used to promote a political agenda dominated by collectivist thought and population control.

Nowadays Caroline Lucas MP declares a ‘climate emergency’ after the recent short spell of balmy Spring weather and her views are considered worth publishing.

Without a doubt, reality left the stage in the recent case of two emotional women who declared a ‘birth strike’ because the planet was being devastated by climate change.

Melanie Phillips noted that this action was perhaps the most literal demonstration of the revolution consuming its own – all for a climate theory ‘without foundation’.

A less charitable Darwinian view than that offered by the sage of our time is the human gene pool has been done a favor by the self-denying gesture.

One must hope that the resolve of the strikers remains resolute once the TV cameras have departed and the virtue points banked.

Science certainly left the building when the Left-wing Institute for Public Policy Research recently published a report that claimed global floods had risen 15 times since 2005, while wildfire had increased sevenfold.

Extreme weather events, marking their new status in the pantheon of climate alarm, rose a whopping 20 times. Maybe in the recent past journalist alarm bells would have sounded.

Left-wing activists making wildly improbable claims in a report where the only previous experience of one of the three authors was working as a research volunteer for two Edinburgh ‘equality’ charities. Er, hello.

The alarm bells failed to ring at the BBC and Roger Harrabin used the report to tap into the vast reservoir of rent-a-quote geography professors.

Simon Lewis from UCL said the IPPR was right to say that environmental change is happening ever faster and threatens to destabilize society, while Harriett Bulkeley from Durham thought it was a ‘good interpretation of the current evidence’.

The BBC eventually changed its coverage after Paul Homewood pressed a formal complaint.

SOURCE

Another Greenie shriek about Australia's Great Barrier Reef

This piece of research must have been frustrating to its authors. They found that the presumed evil -- farm runoff -- actually HELPED the barrier reef. So they had to do a lot of scratching to turn that around.

The big drama about the reef is that it undergoes periodic bleaching -- when the coral expels its symbiotic algae. Nobody likes the look of that but the corals mostly recover after a while. So that is what all good men and true rally to prevent. STOP the bleaching! And now we have found something that prevents it to a degree: Farm runoff! How big a disappointment can you get? Farm runoff was supposed to KILL the reef!

But by scratching around in their data, the authors found something to warm their pessimistic hearts. They found that once the coral had been harmed by some "disturbance", farm runoff hindered recovery to some degree. But if coral amid farm runoff is less damaged in the first place, does that not make the recovery rate of less concern?

Not so fast! The authors say. You have got to balance one effect against another to get an overall conclusion and we have got this nifty little model that will do just that! So we run the model and we find that that a "6–17% improvement in water quality will be necessary to bring recovery rates in line with projected increases in coral bleaching".

So there's the African-American in the woodpile! It is all based on a "projection", or in layman's terms, a guess. And the projection is heroic. They ASSUME that global warming will steadily increase and they ASSUME that warming is the main cause of coral bleaching. There are large scientific arguments against both those assumptions so if we take them away what is left? Two people can play the projection game so I project that farm runoff is on balance neither helpful nor harmful so that Nothing needs to be done. Nothing! Horrors!

My comments so far spring just from a reading of the abstract. I shudder to think what I would find if I studied the whole article. I taught applied statistics at a major Australian university for a number of years so I know the tricks researchers get up to if their results don't suit them. There were so many collaborators on this article that something HAD to come out of it. Re-running their model with more cautious assumptions would be a ball of fun.

I follow the press release below with the journal abstract

Scientific research published today on the impacts of poor water quality on some Great Barrier Reef corals shows why it’s vital the Queensland Government passes new rules on farm pollution, the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) says.

The study, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, found corals in the central and southern sections of the reef would need improvements in water quality of between six and 17 per cent to keep their recovery rates in line with projected increases in coral bleaching.

Corals exposed to poor water quality were also more susceptible to disease and outbreaks of Crown of Thorns starfish, the study found.

Proposed Queensland government laws would phase out harmful farming practices that cause pollution and sediment to run into rivers and out into the reef.

Dr Lissa Schindler, AMCS Great Barrier Reef campaign manager, said: “We need to give the Great Barrier Reef the clean water it needs to recover, and this study shows that clearly. The Queensland Government’s proposals to cut farm pollution need to be passed.”

“What this study also says is that these levels of cuts to farm pollution won’t be enough to save corals on outer reefs from the impacts of rising ocean temperatures caused by global warming.

“We have to make sure we are giving the reef the cleanest water we can, while at the same time stopping the digging up and burning of fossil fuels that drive the warming in the reef’s waters.”

Schindler said while the study found that corals in areas with poor water quality were more resistant to coral bleaching, due to the low level of light penetrating the turbid water, these corals had slower recovery rates and were more susceptible to disease and Crown of thorns starfish outbreaks.

The study, acknowledged that any marginal bleaching protection corals might get from poor water quality “are probably overwhelmed by the most extreme warming conditions” already seen during 2016 and 2017.

Schindler said it was also important to note the study did not consider any impacts of coral bleaching in the vast and once pristine northern sections of the reef that were hit hardest by extreme ocean temperatures in 2016 and 2017.

Media release. AMCS communications manager Ingrid Neilson 0421 972 731

Water quality mediates resilience on the Great Barrier Reef

M. Aaron MacNeil et al.

Abstract

Threats from climate change and other human pressures have led to widespread concern for the future of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Resilience of GBR reefs will be determined by their ability to resist disturbances and to recover from coral loss, generating intense interest in management actions that can moderate these processes. Here we quantify the effect of environmental and human drivers on the resilience of southern and central GBR reefs over the past two decades. Using a composite water quality index, we find that while reefs exposed to poor water quality are more resistant to coral bleaching, they recover from disturbance more slowly and are more susceptible to outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish and coral disease—with a net negative impact on recovery and long-term hard coral cover. Given these conditions, we find that 6–17% improvement in water quality will be necessary to bring recovery rates in line with projected increases in coral bleaching among contemporary inshore and mid-shelf reefs. However, such reductions are unlikely to buffer projected bleaching effects among outer-shelf GBR reefs dominated by fast-growing, thermally sensitive corals, demonstrating practical limits to local management of the GBR against the effects of global warming.

Nature Ecology & Evolution (2019)

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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 March, 2019

If You're Serious About Climate...

Do you ever wonder why people run for office? I mean, unless you’re a total cynic, you must assume that at least part of the motivation is wanting to do good. Sure, those who run for office want fame and prestige, but they also have strongly held views and want to affect public policy, right? So why in the world would they engage in sabotage of the ideas they hope to advance?

That’s undeniably what Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey have done with their juvenile Green New Deal.

Consider: The caricature of environmentalists is that they are just using climate change as a stalking horse for their true agenda, which is to socialize the entire economy. And lo and behold, what does the Green New Deal resolution call for? Net zero carbon emissions in 10 years, universal health care, guaranteed jobs for all, paid family leave, paid vacations, refurbishing every single building in the country to meet environmental standards, eliminating nuclear power and on and on. In fact, most of the resolution doesn’t even address climate change. Here’s a flavor:

The Green New Deal seeks “To promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth (referred to in this resolution as ‘frontline and vulnerable communities’).”

Okaaaaay. So what Ocasio-Cortez and Markey have achieved, along with all of the Democrats who’ve endorsed this childish wish list, is to make themselves look like dummies and to reinforce the impression that they are totally unserious about combating climate change.

If they were committed to mitigating what they claim to believe is a looming catastrophe, you might imagine they would study the question for at least a few minutes, even swallow hard and make some tough choices about the way forward. That’s what others have done.

Recently, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a statement noting that the “sobering realities” of climate change “dictate that we keep an open mind about all of the tools in the emissions reduction toolbox — even ones that are not our personal favorites.” In other words, they don’t like nuclear power, but they concede that it is necessary.

As Samuel Thernstrom of the Energy Innovation Reform Project points out, renewables get all the love, but they are simply incapable of meeting the energy demands of our whole economy. It’s not because the sun goes down at night and the wind doesn’t always blow. It’s because in some regions, the sun gets weak and the wind stops blowing for months at a time. Batteries are advancing, but not fast enough to make an all-renewables power grid practical for some time.

Other technologies, by contrast, are on the shelf and ready to go. Nuclear power, though it gives left-wingers the shakes, is safe and reliable. The accidents make headlines, but nuclear plants have not been responsible for a single death in the United States. Three Mile Island caused no damage to human beings. Even Russia’s 1986 Chernobyl meltdown, which caused many to predict tens of thousands of cancer deaths in its wake, has shown nothing of the kind. A 2015 National Institutes of Health paper found that, “In spite of the best efforts of statisticians and epidemiologists, the claimed Chernobyl-induced cancers and mutations have yet to manifest themselves.” The U.S. has been using compact nuclear reactors in submarines and aircraft carriers for decades — without a single accident, says Thernstrom.

The greatest reductions in greenhouse gas emissions were achieved by France in the 1970s and ‘80s when the country made a big switch to nuclear energy. They reduced their carbon emissions by 2 percent per year while still providing their people with affordable energy.

Carbon capture is showing promise, too. NET Power has opened a new natural gas plant in La Porte, Texas, that buries all of the excess carbon dioxide underground.

None of the choices we face is cost-free. But if people are serious about addressing climate change, they must, at the very least, acknowledge the simple reality that you cannot stamp your foot and demand that the entire U.S. economy be transformed in 10 years. Evaluate the trade-offs. Be serious, or risk becoming a joke and making your issue a punchline, too.

SOURCE

UK: Keep kids out of the climate debate

Primary school children are being needlessly frightened about the future.

Last week, St John’s Catholic Primary School in Bebington, Wirral, tweeted a video of its schoolchildren staging a classroom protest against fracking. ‘Stop fracking’, chant the children in unison, sat around their desks, holding placards they made in class.

The tweet was one of many showing children drawing pictures of pollution and environmental damage. Twitter users accused the school of ‘indoctrination’. The video has since been deleted and the school has made its Twitter account private

Sadly, this kind of overt politicisation of the classroom is all too common today. Environmentalism has been a feature of education for the past two decades. In 2000, the National Curriculum was revised to make teaching sustainable development compulsory in geography, design and technology, science and citizenship. The National Curriculum Handbook for Teachers, published in 2004, stated that one of the aims of the curriculum was to secure children’s ‘commitment to sustainable development at a personal, local, national and global level’.

A huge chunk of the education system is thus geared towards teaching children that our current society is unsustainable and that fossil fuels are destroying the planet. It is little wonder, then, that well-meaning teachers are encouraging their pupils to ‘show their commitment’ to environmental causes through classroom demos. But we shouldn’t let the strangeness of all this escape us.

Most political movements aim to persuade adults to their cause. But as very few adults have been convinced to make the sacrifices demanded by environmentalists, children have instead become the focus of green campaigning. Children instinctively trust the adults around them and accept that what they are taught by teachers is true. But environmental campaigns often go further than simply informing future generations about the climate. Many initiatives urge children to use emotional pressure to change their parents’ behaviour. One example is ‘Climate Cops’, run by the energy firm npower: school pupils are given police-officer-style notebooks so that they can ‘book’ themselves, friends or family members who are caught wasting energy or performing other ‘climate-unfriendly’ actions.

The previous chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, has often argued that greens should focus on children. In an interview on Al Jazeera, he said that children should be used to ‘shame adults into taking the right steps’. Pachauri’s ideas are echoed in UNICEF’s manual on climate-change education, which aims to help children become ‘agents of change’.

Last month, when thousands of children in the UK went on an officially sanctioned ‘strike’ to protest climate change, it was clear from the placards, chants and news vox pops that many children today are frightened and upset about the prospect of a burning planet. Some protesting children even said that education was a waste of time because climate change would soon render the world uninhabitable. The kind of doom-mongering these children are subjected to in the classroom may be useful for environmentalists, but it is giving our kids sleepless nights.

Children today have no reason to fear the future. Quality of life has improved substantially over recent decades across the globe, and it will likely continue to do so. Schools should be helping young children to learn and have fun, instead of scaring them stiff.

SOURCE

Howard Schultz Tears into Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal: ‘Let’s Propose Things That Are True’

Potential presidential candidate and former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz scoffed at the proposed Green New Deal on Saturday and challenged advocates such as Democratic New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to embrace reality instead of socialism.

Schultz spoke at the South by Southwest Conference & Festival in Austin, Texas. His criticism of the Green New Deal echoes criticism from GOP lawmakers who have told The Western Journal that the proposal would be a disaster.

Schulz has said he may run for president in 2020 as an independent but has been vague about his plans. He said that Democrats’ drift toward socialism is a political gift to President Donald Trump.

“For us to start moving towards a level of socialism is such an extreme position and something that is inconsistent with the values, the heritage, and the tradition of the country,” Schultz said. “And that is what Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and others are proposing to try and defeat Donald Trump with a far extreme proposal.”

“If Donald Trump runs against one of those types of candidates it’s my belief that Donald Trump will be reelected, that the vast majority of Americans are not going to embrace socialism,” Schultz said.

Schultz said the Green New Deal has lost touch with reality.

“I read that by 2030 they’re suggesting that every building in America becomes clean energy, conforms to clean energy, just to put that in perspective, because it’s not realistic, that would mean that between 2,000 and 3,000 buildings a day would have to be reconstructed to conform to what they’re saying,” Schultz said. “So let’s be sensible about what we’re suggesting.”

Schultz added that the concept was “a well-intentioned idea but it’s never going to happen.”

“Let’s propose things that are true, that are honest, that are sincere, and that are realistic,” Schultz said.

Ocasio-Cortez could not let the comments pass without a reply. "Ah yes, because we‘ve all drawn upon the rich inspiration of American leaders who‘ve inspired a nation in crisis by saying, “No, You Can’t.”

Schultz also said that the growing litany of “free” programs proposed by Democrats ignore the reality that all programs have costs.

“There’s nothing free in America,” Schultz said. “So these proposals about Medicare for all, and free college, and a government job for everybody, that is not free. So someone is going to have to pay for that and that means that taxes for everyone is going to have to go up or someone’s going to have to wave a magic wand and do something that doesn’t exist but that has to be paid for by somebody and the difficulty in trying to pay for any of that is we’re sitting with $22 trillion of debt that has to be addressed.”

He added that a job guarantee is a promise that government cannot keep. “I don’t understand how you’re going to give a job for everybody, how you’re going to give free college to everybody, how you’re going to create clean energy throughout the country in every building of the land,” he said. “I think it’s immoral to suggest that we can tally up $20, $30, $40, $50 trillion of debt to solve a problem that could be solved in a different way.”

SOURCE

Climate Change Theory: What's Wrong with it?

For the record, climate does vary -- think ice ages. And a combination of natural climate variability and measurement problems make the likelihood of singling out a human fingerprint very low. I look here at how climate alarmism is being sold in a distinctly unscientific manner.

The term ‘science’ properly refers to the scientific method, which is a system of inference designed to weed out incorrect ideas in favor of those supported by experiment and observation. The crux of the scientific method is rejection of theory rather than proof of it. From Bacon to Hopper and Feinman, it has been well understood that scientific theory must be “falsifiable,” that is, subject to test and rejection. Falsifiability depends on narrow and specific conditions imposed by theory. If the conditions fail, the theory is wrong.

On the other hand, we hear a lot these days about consensus, skepticism, and denial. Warmists often cite the “97-percent consensus” that manmade climate change is true and “settled.” This claim stems from a single study of article abstracts dealing with climate. The study suffers from a number of serious method flaws and has been roundly debunked. A more reasonable conclusion from the study is that 3% of the abstracts support manmade warming, not 97%. In reality the science is not at all settled.

What else is wrong with climate change alarm?

First, how did global warming get to be climate change? At least with warming there is a scientific theory: increase CO2 levels and get two or three degrees of direct and indirect warming. Why the switch to talking about too cold/too hot and other severe weather? Perhaps it’s because satellite and weather balloon data have failed to bear out GW theory for almost 20 years. Well, says NASA, surface weather station data do show warming as expected. But this picture emerges only as a result of serial and unexplained fudging of the data. Plus, NASA is from the government and has made such a mess of land and sea surface data as to make it useless as evidence for anything but data manipulation.

Second, there’s an awful lot of argument from authority going on in the alarmist camp. The researchers there call themselves climate scientists and make the ostentatious claim that only they can understand the atmosphere. Did you get what I said about the scientific method? What in that description suggests that only experts can be critics? Not to mention, the most powerful cohort in the warmist universe is the computer modelers. These guys design code that reflects theory, what they think is going on in the air. CO2 is in; solar is out. Then they run the models to get a whole bunch of curves and say, well then; that proves it. The models did just what we told them to do. Anything funny about this logic?

SOURCE

Another "heatwave" in Australia

The BoM are always trying to pretend that global warming is here. They are not brazen enough these days to say exactly that but constant talk of heatwaves creates that impression. The weather they refer to is in fact fairly normal -- as they admit further down in the story.

A Brisbane summer extends into March and a normal mid-afternoon summer temperature in Brisbane is 34C. At mid-afternoon on Monday 11th the temperature was 32C. The BoM forecast was 36C. So the "heatwave" impression is entirely false

Look at the graphic they supply as part of their report. With all the red ink it looks rather terrifying but all it shows is a normal weather pattern. Western Australia and Western Queensland (the purple bits) are always extraordinarily hot. The graph is a good example of how you can be truthful but deceptive

Parts of the east coast are set to swelter through extreme temperatures this week due to a post-summer heatwave.

The mercury will hit 36C in Brisbane's CBD on Monday and 39C in the western suburb of Ipswich - around 10C above average for this time of year.

The March record stands at 37.9C degrees for Brisbane and 38C for Ipswich.

The forecast has prompted the Bureau of Meteorology to issue a severe heatwave warning for south Queensland.

Meanwhile, Sydney will reach 28C on Monday and top 34 degrees on Tuesday - before three days of showers bringing 10mm of rain.

Perth will also be hot, reaching 30C on Monday, the same temperature as Canberra.

The south coast will be cooler, with Melbourne and Adelaide peaking at 23C while Hobart will reach 22C.

Brisbane will on Tuesday cool down slightly but still reach 33C and temperatures will remain in the 30s until at least next Saturday.

Further west, the Darling Downs and Lockyer Valley regions will swelter through the high 30s.

'A trough off the south-eastern Queensland coast has been quite persistent in its location, so the northerly winds will bring warm air to the region over the next few days,' Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Michael Gray told Daily Mail Australia.

Mr Gray said the warm weather isn't unusual for this time of the year in south-east Queensland. 'It's only been a few weeks since summer has ended,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'Stay inside in the air conditioning, keep water bottles full and don't go outside in the hottest part of the day between 10am and 3pm,' he said.

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 March, 2019

Green Land Grabs on Steroids – Using Bees So Gov’t Can Take More Land

Green groups want to use bees to block human activities on land 15 times bigger than Virginia – or even more.

Special interest environmental groups got stung recently by an 8-0 U.S. Supreme Court opinion that held private landowners cannot be compelled to forego future economic uses of their property and at their own expense convert their land into suitable habitat for an endangered frog. Now radical greens are eyeing even bigger land grabs.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has sued the Department of the Interior for failing to designate “critical habitat” for the “endangered” rusty patched bumblebee. It’s the latest of many Endangered Species Act (ESA) lawsuits, abusive sue-and-settle litigation, and other actions involving insects, and it led to an eleventh-hour Obama Administration endangered designation for the rusty patched bee (“RPB”).

Interior points out that extremely limited knowledge about RPBs makes critical habitat determinations impossible. The NRDC counters that Interior must designate habitats based on “best available evidence.” The problem is, available information is so inadequate, conjectural, false or falsified that it must absolutely not be used to justify the astounding potential impacts of RPB habitat designations.

Groups that have “bee”-friended them claim RPBs were “once common” in many Northeastern and Midwestern states. However, back then bees and other insects were studied for taxonomic purposes – not to assess species’ diversity and populations. So no one knows how many there used to be, or where.

The activists also claim RPB populations declined rapidly beginning in the mid-1990s, because of habitat loss, disease, climate change and especially the use of crop-protection pesticides. That’s not what they were saying a few years ago, before wild bees replaced honey bees in anti-pesticide campaigns.

Back in 2013, when it petitioned Interior’s Fish & Wildlife Service (“FWS”) for RPB endangered status, even the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation said the bee’s apparent decline was primarily due to habitat loss and multiple diseases that spread from domesticated honeybees to wild bees.

“The exact cause for the loss of the rusty patched is unclear,” says University of Virginia biology professor T’ai Roulston. “[B]ut it’s almost certainly related to disease,” especially a fungal gut parasite that “can shorten the lives of worker [bees] and disrupt mating success and survival of queens and males.”

Habitat loss is clearly another major factor. Over the past half-century, cities and suburbs expanded, and farmers increasingly emphasized large-scale monoculture crops like corn and canola for food and biofuels. That reduced underground RPB nesting sites and the varieties of flowers that wild bees prefer.

The Obama FWS ignored these facts, arbitrarily downplayed its earlier disease and habitat loss explanations, and began blaming disease, climate change, habitat loss, and pesticides, especially advanced-technology neonicotinoid pesticides, which became a scapegoat for wild bee health problems after it became obvious to everyone that fears of a honeybee apocalypse were unfounded. A busy, understaffed Department of the Interior let the last-minute Obama era RPB endangered species designation take effect in early 2017.

Little evidence supports the pesticide claims, and much refutes them.

For example, a wide-ranging international study of wild bees, published in Nature Communications, found that only 2 percent of wild bee species are responsible for 80 percent of all crop visits. Most wild bees never even come into contact with crops or the pesticides that supposedly harm them.

Even more compelling, the Nature study determined that the 2 percent of wild bees that do visit crops – and so would be most exposed to pesticides – are among the healthiest bee species on Earth.

Other studies found that neonic residues are well below levels that can adversely affect bee development or reproduction. That’s because most neonics are used as seed coatings that are absorbed into plant tissue as crops grow. They protect plants against insect damage – targeting only pests that actually feed on the crops – but are largely gone by the time mature plants flower. Neonics are barely detectable in pollen.

None of these facts will matter, however, once the FWS starts designating RPB critical habitats. The agency and environmentalists will be able to delay, block or bankrupt any proposed or ongoing project or activity within a habitat if they can make any plausible claim that it might potentially harm the bee. Building new homes or hospitals, laying new pipelines, improving roads and bridges – a farmer’s decisions about plowing fields, planting crops or using pesticides – could all be subjected to litigation.

The potential geographic reach of these critical habitat designations is enormous.

RPBs are likely to be found “in scattered locations that cover only 0.1% of the species’ historical range,” the FWS has said. That doesn’t sound like much. However, 0.1 percent of the bee’s presumed or asserted historical range is nearly four million acres – equivalent to Connecticut plus Rhode Island.

Even worse, that acreage is widely dispersed in itty-bitty parcels across 13 states where amateur entomologists have supposedly spotted rusty patched bumblebees since 2000. That’s some 380 million acres: 15 times the size of Virginia! That is green land grabs on steroids, and it’s just the beginning.

No one knows just where those parcels might be. So environmental groups could pressure and sue government agencies to halt projects – or agencies could do it at their own volition, to delay or block gas pipelines, for example – while large areas are carefully examined for signs of rusty patched bumblebees.

New York regulators might be especially prone to doing that, considering the governor and legislature’s unbending opposition to “climate destabilizing” natural gas, even as gas and electricity prices climb ever higher in the Empire State.

More ominously, anti-pesticide and other environmental groups want yellow-banded, western and Franklin’s bumblebees designated as endangered. These species were supposedly once found in tiny areas scattered over a billion acres in 40 US states! Other anti-pesticide, anti-fossil fuel, pro-Green New Deal activists also want beetles and other bugs designated as endangered. It’s all about control.

The ultimate effect – if not their intent – would be to let radical groups use “threatened or endangered” insects to delay or veto countless projects and activities across nearly the entire United States.

Probably most Americans would say delaying or even scuttling certain projects and activities might be warranted when the threatened or endangered species holds a position of significance in the animal kingdom, and really is down to the last of its kind.

But bees, beetles and other bugs? Especially when we don’t know how many there ever were, or where? Or what might actually be threatening their continued existence, if it really is threatened? Highly unlikely.

Just as relevant, why aren’t the same eco-activist groups expressing the same concern – or any concern, really – about bald and golden eagles, other raptor and bird species, or multiple rare bat species that are being decimated by wind turbines? Whooping cranes are teetering on the brink of extinction, and yet their Canada to Texas flyway is now home to hundreds of bird-butchering turbine rotors.

The resulting carnage is ignored by greens and regulators alike, and Big Wind operators prohibit independent biologists from entering the killing grounds to get accurate counts of bird and bat carcasses.

Many of those wondrous and vitally important species would likely be wiped out entirely if anything like the Green New Deal sprouts hundreds of thousands of 400-foot-tall onshore turbines across the USA.

The Fish & Wildlife Service needs to bring further balance and sanity to the ESA, to ensure that conflicting and competing needs are examined and balanced – fully, carefully and honestly.

All this underscores why the Endangered Species Act must be revised. It also explains why radical environmentalists and their allies will fight any changes tooth and nail, along with any nominee who might try to make any changes in any Trump land use, environmental or agricultural agency or policy.

These are complex but vital policy issues, requiring rational, responsible discussions and decisions.

SOURCE

‘Green New Deal’ Would Hit Minorities the Hardest

The “Green New Deal” will fail for many reasons. One is that the people pushing it seem oblivious to the needs of poor and minorities families, who would be directly hurt by the plan.

By one estimate, that Green New Deal would cost $600,000 per household and eliminate the use of all fossil fuels in just 10 years. It would result in higher energy prices for all Americans, but would disproportionately hurt people of color and other minorities who are the most susceptible to energy poverty.

Energy poverty occurs when households are unable to afford their basic electric and heating needs due to high energy prices.

Yes, we need to protect the environment. But unrealistic proposals like the Green New Deal only contribute to energy poverty and won’t work for low-income families.

We need an energy approach that makes better use of what we have, especially if it can keep costs low and create jobs.

One of the answers is natural gas. Natural gas is abundant and affordable compared to most forms of energy, and it burns cleaner than other fossil fuels. In fact, shifting to gas-fired plant generators was the single greatest factor in the United States achieving a 28 percent reduction in CO2 emissions since 2005, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Right now, America needs better access to natural gas. This winter’s polar vortex exposed natural gas supply problems in the Northeast. We’ve certainly made progress—America is producing more natural gas than ever—but there isn’t enough pipeline infrastructure to move enough natural gas into the communities that need it most.

When temperatures dropped to the teens and single-digits, demand exceeded supply and forced prices to skyrocket. There’s simply no excuse for forcing low-income African-Americans and other minorities to choose between heating a home and putting food on the table.

These pipeline shortages are bad enough, but they are made worse by the same activists who claim social justice in supporting the Green New Deal.

Where’s the social justice and compassion in blatantly opposing affordable, traditional energy resources that are becoming cleaner and more efficient every year?

Recently, I saw some of these “keep it in the ground” people in economically depressed Buckingham County, Virginia, protesting the construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, where a pipeline compressor would create jobs and up to $1 million in tax revenues. That’s a desperately needed economic jolt to a county where every third person is African-American.

But the activists, with their bullhorns, T-shirts, and protest signs, ignored the potential benefits of this project and claimed to be fighting “environmental racism” by opposing the pipeline compressor. All of the protestors were white.

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline could save consumers in Virginia and North Carolina more than $377 million in electricity bills annually—states with disproportionately high black populations.

How a pipeline that would make life more affordable and create more prosperity is racist is beyond my comprehension. Sadly, the only environmental racism I see is actually “green energy discrimination” foisted upon minority households, who can least afford higher energy costs.

I’m all for renewable energy where it makes sense and where it doesn’t needlessly drive up our cost of living. If electric cars are attractive to consumers, let them compete in a free market without the help of government subsidies—our tax dollars.

The working poor and middle class need to rely on affordable energy, and no one should be vilified for using a fuel-efficient gasoline engine to get to work. That’s ridiculous.

More pipeline infrastructure projects are needed to transport oil and natural gas from where it’s refined to cities and towns where it’s needed. Lower fuel costs also keep prices for commodities—food, construction materials, and industrial goods—in check.

There is a practical, realistic path forward when it comes to modernizing our national infrastructure and pipeline grid. We can do it while improving energy efficiency and lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

But the Green New Deal, with its $93 trillion price tag, isn’t any viable plan at all. It’s a pipe dream—a bad deal for America.

SOURCE

Democrats’ Green Energy Crusades Are Always Catastrophic

As the march toward the 2020 presidential election begins to pick up steam, Democratic candidates are stumbling over themselves to embrace the next “fresh” and “exciting” big-ticket item on the progressive agenda. Today, that means renewable energy subsidies and a whole lot of them. Sen. Kamala Harris became the latest candidate to proclaim her love for government-mandated renewable energy production. She did so by courageously falling in line with fellow Democratic hopefuls Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in their support of the Green New Deal.

The problems with this plan are threefold: it’s neither green, nor new, nor a deal. Indeed, the left’s hot take on renewable energy is really anything but. Their proposal to spend countless tax dollars to prop up solar, wind and other renewable energy companies is a tried and true method for failure. Whenever liberals attempt to use green energy subsidies in their crusade to save the world from itself, the results have been unfavorable at best, catastrophic at worst. And while it is unsurprising that Democrats have a short memory — they’re embracing socialism outright — it’s clear they need a refresher in the myriad failures of green energy subsidies.

In reality, the left’s fresh take on environmental policy is over 40 years stale. In 1978, in the wake of the nation’s energy crisis, the Carter administration signed the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act into law. The purpose of this old regulation has quite a familiar ring: to promote conservation efforts and the production of renewable energy. It attempted to accomplish this goal through government mandates. The law forced utility companies to purchase power from renewable sources and offer that energy to consumers at “equitable retail rates,” similar to how government subsidies operate.

The last four decades have shown just how dangerous tampering with the free market can be. PURPA, once an obscure law regulating American utilities, has grown far beyond its original purpose. The regulation has become a significant driver pushing the development of solar projects within the energy sector, but for all the wrong reasons.

Essentially, PURPA hasn’t kept up with market progress. It still forces companies to engage in long-term, fixed-price contracts at costs well above market rates, even though renewable energy is much more plentiful than it was in 1978. As a result, utilities end up purchasing the PURPA-mandated power at a markedly higher price than other clean alternatives. This raises the cost for consumers while disincentivizing the proper use of renewable energy. In effect, the regulation accomplishes the opposite of what it set out to do.

Liberals had to swallow another dose of economic reality in 2010 when the Obama administration created the infamous Solyndra debacle. That year, President Barack Obama heralded the solar energy company Solyndra as “leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.” The company became the president’s exemplar of success in his initiative to expand renewable energy production and green jobs.

The company received over half a billion dollars in subsidies from the federal government in taxpayer-guaranteed loans. Using that money, Solyndra managed to create a meager 585 jobs at a cost to the American taxpayer of nearly one million dollars per head. It worked to develop solar panels for which there was no substantial demand. And just one year later, the company declared bankruptcy, shut down its plant and laid off those workers the government paid so much to hire.

The PURPA and Solyndra embarrassments are certainly a tragic waste of resources. Nevertheless, the failed experiment belies the flawed assumption in the left’s ongoing push for green energy subsidies. They mistakenly believe that the government can select winners and losers more efficiently than the free market can. Green energy subsidies are merely an expression of the belief that throwing government money at renewable energy companies will propel them toward success.

The Green New Deal is merely another iteration in this pattern of failure. Piggybacking off the same misconceptions that plagued both PURPA and Solyndra, the Green New Deal is on the fast track toward catastrophe. Liberals may argue that this most recent plan is different, special and fresh, but history disagrees. And Democrats would be wise to heed its warning.

SOURCE

Climate Crusaders Are Wrong To Cheer Norway’s So-Called Oil Divestment Proposal

Climate crusaders celebrating Norway’s proposal to divest its sovereign wealth fund from oil and gas stocks should pause before popping the carbon-neutral champagne.

In fact, the proposed divestment is limited to only include companies solely involved in oil and gas exploration, not integrated majors like BP, Exxon, and Equinor, Norway’s state-owned oil giant. Norway’s proposal would affect about $40 billion in holdings out of a $1 trillion fund.

Also, Norway’s government said Friday the decision was to “reduce the vulnerability of our common wealth to a permanent oil price decline,” and not environmental considerations.

Basically, the country doesn’t want to hold too many oil and gas stocks should the price tank like it did in 2014.

Environmental activists are spinning this as a victory in their war against fossil fuels. Activists said it shattered the “illusion” that fossil fuels would continue to be used for decades, despite global warming.

Norway is trying to insulate itself from price volatility — the country is heavily reliant on petroleum exports and oil revenues. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is the largest in the world and funded through oil and gas revenues.

“The oil business will be a major and important industry in Norway for many years to come,” said Norwegian Finance Minister Siv Jensen, according to The Financial Times.

Jensen did, however, say Norway was looking to capitalize on expected growth in renewable energy. Paradoxically, Jensen suggested the growth in renewables, mainly wind and solar, would be driven by oil majors like BP.

“Everything indicates that almost the entire growth in listed infrastructure for renewable energy over the next 10 years will be driven by companies that do not have renewable energy as their main activity. It is a growth the fund should be able to take part in,” Jensen said.

Norwegian lawmakers will vote on the proposal to divest from oil and gas companies later this year.

SOURCE

A rich elitist might have trouble getting to represent the Australian Greens

Greens readily put out their hands for billionaire money but having a rich establishment lawyer actually represent them in parliament might not be the desired image

The federal seat of Kooyong in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs is the bluest of blue-ribbon seats. It has existed since Federation and is one of only two original electorates in Victoria never to have been held by the Labor Party. Seven representatives have served there, all white males who were on average 43 years old when first elected to the seat.

To the Greens, the seat symbolises everything the party supposedly despises — a white patriarchal gerontocracy, the accumulation of wealth to the detriment of the masses, and the absence of diversity. The last thing you would expect of a party that thrives on identity politics would be to nominate an affluent, ageing, white Anglo-Saxon male. But that is exactly what it did this week when it announced Julian Burnside AO QC as its candidate. That’s right, a man who turns 70 this year and was born when Ben Chifley was Prime Minister and the White Australia Policy still operated. Who came second in preselection, Sam Newman?

Burnside is a long-time resident of Hawthorn, where the median house price is around $2.3 million. The suburb features grand mansions, old money, and Scotch College, one of the most prestigious and wealthiest private schools in the country. He was born into privilege, the son of a prominent Melbourne surgeon, and educated at Melbourne Grammar. As a barrister, he grew rich from representing wealthy clients such as corporate fraudster Alan Bond.

But according to the Greens’ website, the party speaks “on behalf of those who wouldn’t otherwise get much of a say inside parliament: children, refugees, students, individuals and families living in poverty…” Honestly, it is almost as if the party’s constituency was not society’s marginalised, but instead those insufferable types who publicly wail for the wretched in the hope it shifts attention from their bourgeois lifestyle.

Perhaps Burnside, in order to counter the perception he is just another pious toff, will highlight that, if elected, he would be foregoing the millions he earns as a barrister for the relatively paltry parliamentary base salary of $207,100. All very well, but he still carries elitist baggage. Commenting in 2007 on judicial appointments in Victoria, he said one of the problems in attracting suitable candidates was that the “pay is not great”. To put that in perspective, a lowly magistrate in Victoria has a base salary of $317,930, while a Supreme Court judge is paid $458,840 a year. If that is an example of what constitutes hardship, Burnside has much work to do if he is to give the appearance of empathising with the great unwashed.

Having long professed no interest in entering politics, he was asked this week on Sky News to explain his turnaround.

“Because,” he began theatrically, gazing upwards as if expecting celestial endorsement, “the situation is desperate”. Climate change is Burnside’s burning issue. “I think if we are worried about our children and our grandchildren, let’s save the planet for them,” he added, sounding very much like the environmental messiah. You could be excused for thinking ‘QC’ stands for quixotic clichés.

Given Hawthorn’s elevation is around 42 metres above sea level and not about to be flooded soon, I’m not sure Burnside is making the right pitch to his would-be constituents. Perhaps he would be better off stressing their coastal weekenders are threatened, or at least they will be in 100 or so years if the alarmists’ predictions are correct.

For the party he now represents, belief in man-made climate change is not so much an affirmation of science as it is an article of faith, and Burnside’s pronouncements on that subject have not always accorded. For example, in 2011, he stated: “I’m prepared to say that I accept as fairly accurate the science of global warming. But I’m prepared to start from the assumption that the science may be wrong. We don’t know.”

Only fairly accurate? Operate from the premise that the science may be wrong? This leaves him open to charges of denialism, and even if he recants the anti-rightists of the party will closely examine his historical utterances for signs of deviationism.

However, there is one tenet of Greens ideology in which Burnside has always maintained the faith, and that is the party’s ludicrous open borders policy in respect to asylum-seekers.

“The idea that we’re going to be flooded with boat people is one of the boogies that ... [shadow immigration minister] Scott Morrison tries to bring out, but it’s never happened in the past,” Burnside told ABC in 2011.

“Now I don’t see any reason why it will happen in the future. It’s a dangerous voyage.” This was both naïve and obtuse. Less than a year before in one incident alone, 48 asylum-seekers died in the Christmas Island boat tragedy.

In July 2010 — two years after the Howard government’s Pacific Solution had been dismantled, resulting in the arrival of nearly 200 illegal boats — Burnside denied there was a problem. “It is absurd to suggest that we have ‘lost control’ of our borders,” he wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald. “Our borders are close to watertight”. In the years following Burnside’s assurance, the flow of illegal boats would turn into a flood, resulting in the unauthorised arrivals of 800 vessels, 50,000 asylum-seekers, and the deaths of around 1200 people.

Just as Burnside cannot acknowledge the Pacific Solution was an effective deterrent to the people-smuggling trade, neither can he admit the Coalition’s success with Operation Sovereign Borders. His ‘nothing to see here’ tactic during the chaotic period when people smuggling resumed between 2008-13 later shifted to maintaining the problem can be easily managed.

In 2013, pressed by Sky News host and Associate Editor of The Australian Chris Kenny, he claimed that Australia could cope with 50,000 boat people per year.

Later that year he proposed the entire state of Tasmania should be an open detention centre for asylum-seekers while their claims were processed. And this is the man who, if elected, will likely hold the party’s immigration portfolio.

As one who carefully cultivates a goody two shoes image, Burnside argued in 2009 that politicians who mislead or deceive the public in their official capacities should be subject to sanctions, including imprisonment. Presumably he would say that he himself maintains these high standards. With that in mind, let’s examine his reaction to the shrill and uncorroborated reports by the ABC in January 2014 that members of the Navy had beaten asylum-seekers and inflicted severe burns by forcing them to hold on to engine pipes.

These reports were false. Host Paul Barry of ABC’s Media Watch said the organisation’s news service had “over-reached by essentially endorsing the allegations of Navy mistreatment on radio, TV and online throughout the day”. A mealy-mouthed media release from the ABC later conceded “the initial reporting needed to be more precise”.

So how did Burnside react? “Notice that reports of navy abuse of refugees came just after govt said military personnel would not be personally liable for misconduct,” he tweeted.

This was a vile and slanderous insinuation against the Navy made even worse by the fact that it came days after the ABC’s mea culpa. That tweet remains online. And just this week he tweeted his prediction that Prime Minister Scott Morrison would “send a whisper to the Navy to let a couple of asylum seeker boats through before the election”.

"Prediction:#Scomo will send a whisper to the Navy to let a couple of asylum seeker boats through before the election. Then he will try to terrify the nation that we are under attack. Could he be that dishonest?"

Who was the pompous windbag decrying those who mislead and deceive the public?

In deciding to enter the political race, Burnside may have taken too much comfort from the fawning receptions given by Melbourne’s bien-pensants. Outside the bubble his patience is tested when ill-bred and impertinent types question the wisdom of St Julian.

Last August, during a question and answer session for high school students, he told Simon Breheny of the Institute of Public Affairs to “’shove your freedom of speech up your arse, and f**k off”.

Last year I wrote of his nasty disposition when attacking Coalition members, including his comparing them with Nazis and retweeting an image of Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton’s face superimposed on the uniform of a German SS officer. Yet Burnside constantly tweets homilies about the importance of good manners.

Get used to the intense scrutiny that campaigning entails, Mr Burnside. You might want to reflect on the words of the great Benjamin Franklin when he observed “A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one”.

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 March, 2019

America needs President Trump’s Climate Science Committee

Independent scientists must review alarmist “science” that is driving anti-fossil fuel policies

John Droz

America is in the midst of a cataclysmic battle – and yet you’ve likely heard very little about it.

Right now, the 30-year US global warming fight is coming to a pivotal juncture – within the next few days. It is vital that we take immediate action to support President Trump on an important initiative.

Dr. William Happer (an eminently qualified scientist in the White House) has proposed the Presidential Committee on Climate Science [or Presidential Commission on Climate Security] (PCCS).

The PCCS will bring together multiple qualified scientists who will review such significant issues as global warming’s alleged impact on national security, agriculture, sea levels and extreme weather. Their assignment will be to separate real, evidence-based science from agenda-driven political science.

Those who want a genuine scientific assessment of global warming / climate change claims fully support the PCCS.

They know claims that American and the world face imminent disaster from soaring planetary temperatures, rising seas, more frequent and extreme storms and droughts, species extinctions and other human-caused climate calamities have never been subjected to full-throttled scientific review in a public forum. That’s because every attempt to have such a review has been opposed and silenced.

Those who oppose a real scientific assessment of climate chaos claims are against the PCCS. Not surprisingly, so far the most vocal and dominant voices oppose any scientific review of their claims. (See here, here and here.)

They know their “science” is based on computer models and is contradicted by real-world evidence.

We need to make it clear to the President that citizens are following the PCCS matter, and that citizens fully support this excellent idea. There are two ways to send the President a message on this vital topic:

Phone the White House comment line: 1-202-456-1111

Email the White House explaining your support using this link.

Doing both would be even better!

The President’s decision is expected within the week, so please do this quickly.

To give you some perspective on the PCCS matter, I wrote two new documents:

1) Answers to some of the PCCS critics’ objections, and

2) Background on the 30-some year history of US climate alarmism (and how the PCCS fits in).

I hope there will be a segment about the PCCS on Fox News, an article or editorial in the Wall Street Journal, and more sensible articles on other media outlets (like this, this, this, and this).

These faulty to even fraudulent global warming and climate change claims are the driving force behind the Green New Deal’s plans to terminate fossil fuel use, ban cattle raising, and eliminate cars and airplanes; force us to rely on wind and solar power that would blanket millions of acres with turbines and panels; and replace our free enterprise system with socialist policies that would take money from you – and give it to someone else.

Get involved. Write to President Trump – and ask him to appoint his PCCS immediately.

SOURCE

Stop the anti-climate science totalitarians

They want to upend and transform America, but demand No Debate on underlying “science”

Paul Driessen

Democrats, climate campaigners and renewable energy interests are in full outrage mode over news that President Trump intends to launch a Presidential Committee on Climate Science. He should do it now.

The PCCS would, at long last, review and question the “dangerous manmade climate change” reports by federal agencies and investigations funded by them. The committee would be led by Dr. Will Happer, a highly respected scientist and well known skeptic – not of climate change, but of manmade climate chaos. He would be joined by other prominent experts – of whom there are many – who share his doubts.

No way! the climate alarmists rant. How dare you question our disaster claims? Our settled science?

No! How dare YOU use those claims to justify your agenda – and your continued efforts to bludgeon and silence us into submission – without letting anyone examine, much less debate, your supposed evidence?

For years, you have loudly and incessantly asserted that the United States and world must end fossil fuel use, or we are “doomed.” Now you’re demanding that the United States completely upend its energy production, transportation and manufacturing sectors, housing and office buildings, and entire economy. You want the federal government to control and limit our lives, choices and living standards – and redistribute our wealth, even to those “unwilling to work,” according to confiscatory socialist principles.

For years, you Democrats, environmentalists, Deep State bureaucrats, government-grant-dependent scientists, news and social media have colluded to censor and silence manmade climate chaos skeptics, and stifle any debate. All of you have huge financial, reputational and power stakes in this.

Your Climate Industrial Complex is a $2-trillion-per-year global behemoth. Your Green New Deal would cost this nation up to $93 trillion by 2030 – sticking every US family with a $65,000 annual bill.

And still you insist that the science is settled, that there is no room for discussion, that we must act immediately to “save the planet” from climate and extreme weather disaster. Now you want to wrap up your kangaroo court proceedings – with our side given no opportunity to present our evidence, defend fossil fuels and carbon dioxide, examine your alleged evidence, or cross-examine your experts.

If your evidence is so solid and unimpeachable, you should be more than happy to lay it on the table, subject it to scrutiny, question our experts, and let us question yours – extensively and mercilessly.

After all, the future of our planet is at stake – or so you claim. The future of our country certainly is.

Your radical agenda and actions are un-American, totalitarian, anti-science, and contrary to our most fundamental principles of open, robust debate – on one of the most critical issues in US history.

A large majority of Americans believe our planet has warmed and is warming. No one denies that. And thank goodness, or we’d still be stuck in the Little Ice Age. But that’s not the issue. The issues are: Is any likely future warming going to be disastrous? And are humans and fossil fuels to blame?

You claim the answer is Yes. Again, where is your proof? If you have any actual evidence, lay it on the table. Show us exactly where the natural forces that have driven countless climate changes throughout history end – and where the human factors begin. Quantify them. Don’t give us computer models that simply reflect the assumptions that went into them. Present solid, Real World evidence. If you have any.

While you’re at it, you also need to prove that dismantling America’s energy and economic system will make one whit of difference in our climate and weather (assuming for the sake of argument that human carbon dioxide emissions now drive climate and weather) – when China, India and other countries are building thousands of coal and natural gas fueled power plants, and millions of cars and trucks.

Their emissions already dwarf ours. And they are not going to give up fossil fuels for decades, if ever.

Prove your GND energy system can actually power America, without destroying jobs, living standards, manufacturing, health, prosperity and environment. As I have said over, over and over, it cannot be done. Your alternatives are not workable, affordable, green, renewable, ethical, ecological or sustainable.

Here’s just a few of the Real World climate science facts that alarmists don’t want exposed or discussed.

* Temperatures have risen by tenths or hundredths of a degree in recent years – less than the margin of error, and most of the “highest temperatures on record” have been in urban areas, where local manmade heat skews the data. We’re also experiencing record cold and snow in numerous locations.

* The average prediction by 102 climate models is now a full degree Fahrenheit above what satellites are measuring. Michael Mann’s climate model could concoct hockey sticks from telephone numbers and other random numbers. Are we supposed to trust these models on critical energy policy?

* Violent tornadoes (F3 to F5) averaged 56 per year from 1950 to 1985. But from 1986 to 2018 only 34 per year touched down in the USA on average – and for the first time ever not one did in 2018. The March 3 Alabama tornado was tragic, and the 2-mile-wide 2013 Oklahoma City monster lasted 40 minutes. But the 1925 Tri-State Twister was a mile wide, traveled a record 220 miles, lasted a record 3.5 hours, and killed a record 695 people.

* Hurricanes becoming more frequent and intense? From 1920 through 1940, ten Category 3-5 hurricanes made US landfall; from 1960 through 1980, eleven; 1980 through 2000, ten; 2001 through 2018, nine. There is no trend. Moreover, Harvey and Irma in 2017 were the first category 3-5 hurricanes to make U.S. landfall in a record twelve years. The previous record was nine years, set in the Civil War era.

* A warmer Arctic? The Washington Post did report that “the Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer, and in some places seals are finding the water too hot.” But that was in 1922!

* Polar bear populations are the highest on record: between 24,500 and 28,500 or more of them!

* Oceans cannot become “more acidic,” because they are not and have never been acidic. Earth’s oceans are slightly alkaline. That slight alkalinity has decreased slightly (from 8.2 on the pH scale to 8.1) over the past few decades. But they are not getting acidic … and won’t anytime soon.

* Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is the miracle molecule without which most life on Earth would cease to exist. In fact, the more CO2 in the air, the faster and better crop, forest and grassland plants grow – and the better they can withstand droughts, diseases, and damage from insects and viruses.

* In fact, a slightly warmer planet with more atmospheric CO2 would be tremendously beneficial for plants, wildlife and humanity. A colder planet with less carbon dioxide would greatly reduce arable land extent, growing seasons, wildlife habitats, crop production and our ability to feed humanity.

Millions of Americans are exasperated with Republicans like Congressman John Shimkus of Illinois, who recently whined that it’s “just not worth the fight anymore” to battle climate alarmism – and protect our nation and our children’s future. Elected officials like him need to get spinal implants, learn the Climate Facts, or resign and turn their seats over to someone who will fight for us. That’s why we need the PCCS.

It’s why they hope the President Trump we elected to clean out the Deep State … show why manmade climate chaos claims are pseudo-science … and Make America Great Again for decades to come … will demonstrate his toughness and leadership right now, when we so need him to.

We need to tell Mr. Trump: Please stand up to these Climate Totalitarians who want to destroy our nation, in the name of saving the planet from climate disasters that exist only in computer models, Hollywood movies, and self-serving assertions by the Climate Industrial Complex. Alarmists have controlled the climate narrative thus far. Now we need to give other experts a chance to weigh in, loud and clear.

Appoint your Presidential Committee on Climate Science now! Give sound, honest science a chance.

Via email

Strange prophecy

Human civilisation is going to ‘crumble’ under an onslaught of climate change-induced superstorms and ‘apocalyptic heatwaves’, it’s been claimed. But don’t worry too much, because the electrical grid in western countries will probably survive mother nature’s bitter blitzkreig.

Cell Press, a leading science publisher, sketched a vivid portrait of the grim fate awaiting society in a press release entitled: ‘Good news! Europe’s electric grid will still work even as the world crumbles.’

The study described in this release is called ’21st Century Climate Change Impacts on Key Properties of a Large-Scale Renewable-Based Electricity System’ and is rather more sober than the notice announcing its publication.

‘Scientists at Aarhus University in Denmark studying the effects of climate change on weather-dependent electricity systems have found a silver lining in Earth’s otherwise fraught future outlook,’ Cell Press continued. ‘Temperatures may climb and seas may rise, but the lights (and, undoubtedly, the air conditioning) will still be on in nations with high capacities for wind and solar energy.’

The study’s authors found that Europe’s power grid is actually well-placed to survive the ravages of climate change. Systems currently in place are built to survive extreme weather events, so should be able to weather the storm as Earth heats up over the next century.

Scientists also suggested the increase in power usage caused by an increased need for air-conditioning could be offset slightly by the lower demand for heating in northern Europe. In its statement, the Cell Press added: ‘If humans fail to mitigate the apocalyptic heatwaves and superstorms to come, at least it seems probable that we can hole up in our climate-controlled living rooms and watch HBO Nordic. Indefinitely.’

SOURCE

Bipartisan Bill Would Enrich a Few Energy Technologies at Expense of American Taxpayers

As Americans work to file their taxes, Congress is setting to work on a package of expired tax credits this spring to enrich a few energy technologies at the expense of federal taxpayers.

Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., of the Senate Finance Committee last week introduced a bill that would retroactively renew 26 tax credits that expired at the start of 2018.

The Grassley-Wyden bill would carry those tax credits through 2019 even though they were intentionally left out of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and past omnibus spending deals.

Called the Tax Extender and Disaster Relief Act of 2019, the legislation carves out favors for a few odds and ends such as race horses, motor sports complexes, and medical expenses.

But most of the bill gives special breaks to energy companies that produce biofuels, electric and fuel cell vehicles, and certain boutique renewable energy technologies, including biomass and geothermal.

Targeted tax credits have become a popular way for government to award special treatment and artificially attract private-sector interest to politically favored and well-connected industries.

In short, they’re nothing more than subsidies doled out through the tax code. Not only is this fiscally irresponsible, but Congress also does no service to these energy technologies and companies in the long run by subsidizing them.

It’s bad enough that several years of lobbying by these special interests appears to be working. Rather than getting closer to a free energy sector, that’s unfortunately business as usual for Washington.

But it’s another thing altogether to see some in Congress all too willing to hand out subsidies apparently unsolicited by lobbyists. How efficient.

As reported by E&E News, some Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee are angling to add wind and solar tax credits to a larger tax extenders package like the one introduced by Grassley and Wyden.

On these, Republicans and Democrats reached a compromise in the 2015 omnibus spending bill to extend credits one more time and put them on a schedule to sunset in 2022, a decision that diverted over $14 billion to the green energy industry. From the beginning, these credits (like those in the Grassley-Wyden bill) were designed to be temporary but have expired, been extended, re-extended, and retroactively extended for decades.

Finally, it seemed that Washington had had enough, and the wind and solar industries could no longer claim they were infant industries in the face of falling costs and industry growth.

Fast forward four years to now.

About the wind production tax credit, the wind industry said: “The wind industry agreed to an orderly phase-out of the production tax credit … We aren’t actively asking for an extension to our PTC.”

And the solar industry said of the solar investment tax credit: “We have not asked for an extension of the ITC.”

And yet now, that compromise could mean nothing if Democrats have their way.

There is some hope of responsible action winning out. Grassley, historically a champion of wind subsidies, said: “We made that decision in 2015. I think it would be wrong for me to go back on my word.”

But one has to ask: What will it take to get the rest of Congress to keep a promise?

SOURCE

Australia: Rebel National Party members ignite energy war over ‘big stick’ laws, power prices

Six Queensland Nationals MPs have reignited the Coalition’s civil war on energy policy, demanding that Scott Morrison put his shelved “big stick” laws to a vote in budget week and fast-track a decision on the underwriting of a new cleaner coal plant.

The energy rebels have signed a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, challenging his authority with written demands calling for “immediate” action to address “unsustainable Queensland electricity costs”, after he failed to avert the deferral of the legislation to bring energy companies to heel.

In the letter, obtained by The Australian, the MPs called on the “Coalition executive” to revive the legislation that would allow the government to seek orders divesting an energy company of its power generation assets.

The MPs have also called on the government to underwrite a new power generation project in regional Queensland before the May election is called, raising the stakes in the push by conservatives for contracts to be signed backing a new cleaner coal plant.

The letter does not identify a preferred power generation source but Queensland Nationals said yesterday they would support “whatever is the cheapest option”, although some indicated their first preference would be for a cleaner coal plant.

The six Nationals who signed the letter include frontbencher Michelle Landry — an outspoken advocate for a new cleaner coal plant — as well as Keith Pitt, Llew O’Brien, George Christensen, Ken O’Dowd and outgoing senator Barry O’Sullivan.

“We the undersigned call on the Coalition executive to take immediate action to legislate the big stick bill in the next parliamentary sitting and to underwrite new generating capacity (power station) construction for regional Queensland,” the letter said. It warned that voters in the MPs’ regional Queensland seats were at their “wit’s end”.

“Since our government’s election in 2013, our constituents have consistently raised with us the cost of energy in our electorate and our state," the letter said.

“The combination of drought, other natural disasters and a recalcitrant Labor state government has our local industries, small businesses and everyday consumers at their wit’s end. They simply cannot continue to pay such exorbitant energy costs.”

Regional Queensland will be a key battleground in the federal election campaign, with the Coalition defending a string of marginal seats and hoping to wrest the Townsville-based seat of Herbert from Labor.

The MPs said the cost of electricity in regional Queensland was governed by the Labor state government, which “owns the only retailer, all of the poles and wires and 70 per cent of the generation capacity. Without divestiture powers, in our view, no action can be taken which would cause Queensland Labor to reduce power prices”.

The letter follows the announcement by Scott Morrison of a $2 billion top-up for Tony Abbott’s direct action fund to tackle climate change, and a further $1.4bn equity injection in the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro project.

The government has also announced $86 million towards a new Tasmanian hydro power project, Battery of the Nation, and a new Bass Strait transmission link.

The letter, copied in to Energy Minister Angus Taylor, was sent after Nationals were denied a partyroom meeting last month to discuss deferral of the “big stick” laws aimed at cracking down on energy market misconduct.

The proposed divestiture shake-up — opposed by Labor and big business and initially attacked by energy companies as unconstitutional — is seen as a major initiative of the minor Coalition partner, with some Nationals arguing for a broader divestment power to be enshrined in law to capture supermarkets and banks.

The government deferred the legislation last month after the Greens threatened to move an amendment that would prevent public money being used to underwrite coal-fired power stations.

Mr Pitt and Mr O’Brien yesterday urged the government to put the “big stick” laws to a vote, even if Labor and the Greens tried to sabotage or defeat the bill in the house.

“If the Labor Party want to vote against lowering energy prices and cost of living in this country, then we should let them,” Mr Pitt said.

“I want to be able to look every one of my constituents in the eye and tell them we have done everything we possibly can to deliver lower energy costs.”

When asked today if the big stick policy was a test of Mr McCormack’s leadership, Mr Pitt told ABC radio: “That’s a question for Michael. We are asking for action and I suspect he will have the horsepower to get it done.”

Mr O’Brien said the “big stick” was a “matter of priority” that meant “putting the legislation to a vote at the first opportunity”.

Asked whether he would broach the issues raised in the letter with the Prime Minister, Mr McCormack said the government would “consider these matters again when the parliament resumes in April”.

“I speak with the Prime Minister regularly on matters of importance to regional Australia, such as power prices that are hurting households and small businesses at the moment,” he told The Australian. “That’s why the Australian government has introduced legislation into the parliament to help set up permanent ways to reduce power prices for all consumers.”

A spokesman for Mr Morrison told The Australian: “Every Liberal and Nationals member wants to see lower energy prices, which is why our legislation is so important and why we want it to pass unamended through the parliament.

“It’s a stark contrast to Labor who … refuse to back any mechanism to ensure we have reliable, affordable power for Australian families and businesses.”

Opposition treasury spokesman Chris Bowen said this morning he agreed with the rebel National MPs about bringing on a vote on the “Venezuelan-style” big stick bill in the budget sitting week.

“I’m happy for it to come to a vote because Labor will be voting against it,” he told ABC radio.

“The National Party are right to say parliament should have a say … this is an anti-business, anti-investment, Venezuelan-style, socialist intervention from a government that believes in nothing.

“This is a piece of populist gimmickry on the part of Josh Frydenberg … it is appalling policy.”

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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8 March, 2019

Making Sense of Climate Science Denial

Above is the headline of an hilarious new "course" being run out of the University of Queensland, about a 15 minutes drive from where I live. The mover and shaker of it appears to be the famous "Mr 97%", John Cook, the cooker of books.

The "course" purports to prove the truth of imminent catastrophic global warming and to explain why there are some deranged people who don't accept the "truth" of it.

But the very first words in the introduction to the course are a lie. We read:

"In public discussions, climate change is a highly controversial topic. However, in the scientific community, there is little controversy with 97% of climate scientists concluding humans are causing global warming."

That contrasts with the fact that Cook's own research showed that less than ONE THIRD (not 97%) of climate scientists endorsed global warming. Here are the words from the originating paper:

"We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW"

So in a great green feat of magic, 32.6% has become 97%.

And it gets worse than that. Cook et al. did a second study where they mailed out questionnaires to climate scientists asking if they agreed with global warming. Only 14% replied! So that time they could not even get up to 32.6% agreement. They got only 14%. A full 86% declined to say that they agreed with global warming. That 97% swam even further away the second time around!

I pity anyone who takes this absurd "course". The prospectus for it is here.

Europe's Populist Right Threatens to Erode Climate Consensus

Europe’s consensus in favor of curbing greenhouse gas emissions is weakening due to rising support for right-wing populists, many of whom cast doubt over whether people bear the responsibility for climate change.

Those were the conclusions of environmental-policy researchers at Adelphi, who found that 21 right-wing populist parties across Europe either overtly deny or cast doubt on scientific agreement that human activity is behind global warming. The analysis, published Tuesday by the Berlin-based policy researcher, underscores the challenge climate advocates face entering European Union elections in May, which could challenge the durability of the bloc’s goals amid broad social and economic uncertainty.

“Most of the narratives used to counter climate and energy policies are fundamentally rooted in economic or social justice grievances,” according to the report’s authors Stella Schaller and Alexander Carius. “Climate action is perceived as an elitist issue.”

Support for right-wing populists looks set to surge in May’s European elections, with parties like Italy’s Northern League and Poland’s Law and Justice likely to gain seats at the expense of established parties. As the majority of right-wing populists line up against EU climate and energy proposals, political barriers against climate policies will likely grow, the report found.

The European Parliament has a key role in shaping climate rules in the EU. Together with member states, it has the power to approve or reject legislation proposed by the European Commission. The final composition of EU laws is negotiated between those three institutions.

The researchers wrote that the populist wave poses “the danger that centrist parties will pander to climate-skeptic priorities or nationalist rhetoric, and shift from progressive to reactionary positions.”

Shrinking Climate Consensus

The percentage of European members of parliament voting in favor of climate and renewable energy policies will probably shrink further after elections in May.

There are already signs that the right-wing wave has blunted attempts to introduce environmentally-friendly policies, with Germany’s coal commission delaying the country’s exit from burning the dirtiest fossil fuel. That’s in part due to concerns about job losses in the Lausitz region of Saxony, where the AfD is catching up to more established parties ahead of September elections.

The AfD in its 2017 federal election program wrote that carbon dioxide “is not a pollutant, but an indispensable component of all life,” adding that “the International Panel on Climate Change and the German government are suppressing the positive effects of CO2 on plant growth and thus global nutrition.”

The researchers found the AfD and the United Kingdom Independence Party were the most active in objecting to environment legislation, with climate change denial “a key feature” of both parties’ profiles. Only two right-wing parties explicitly support the consensus on climate change -- Hungary’s Fidesz and the extreme-right Latvian National Alliance.

SOURCE

Using 'eco-friendly' products will NOT make up for mankind's environmentally damaging habits

Environmentally conscious individuals who purchase eco-friendly items in a bid to cancel out their negative impact on the planet are damaging the natural world even more.

That is the claim from a study which found the guilt we feel about our carbon footprint forces people to pursue quick fixes in a bid to balance out their actions.

People use mental 'rules of thumb' in the hope the good outweighs the bad.

It found that buying products labelled as 'environmentally friendly' are actually further damaging the environment - not fixing it.

'People intuitively think the environmental burden of a hamburger and an organic apple in combination is lower than the environmental burden of the hamburger alone - or that the total emissions of a car pool remain the same when hybrid cars are added to the pool,' says Study leader Professor Patrik Sorqvist, an environmental psychologist at Gavle University in Sweden.

This leads people to pursue misguided quick fixes to get over eco-guilt.

'People might purchase some extra groceries because they are 'eco-labelled'; think that they can justify jetting abroad for vacation because they have been cycling to work; or take longer showers because they've reduced the water temperature.

'And companies - nations, even - claim to balance greenhouse gas emissions by planting trees or by paying for carbon offsets through the European Union Emission Trading Scheme.

'Meanwhile, the best thing for the environment would of course be for us to consume less overall,' stresses Professor Sörqvist.

'Terms like 'eco-friendly' or 'green' encourage the view that objects, behaviours and decisions with these labels are 'good' rather than 'less bad' for the environment,' says co-author Dr Linda Langeborg, also of the University of Gävle.

'Calling a hamburger restaurant '100 per cent climate compensated', for example, may deceive people into believing that eating dinner at that restaurant has no environmental burden.

'Instead, we should give consumers immediate feedback on how much 'eco-labeled' and other products add to the environmental impact of what they are buying. For example, self-scanning systems in supermarkets could provide customers with an accumulated carbon footprint estimate of their shopping basket,' suggests Dr Langeborg.

The team of researchers developed a theory that shows best intentions are counter-productive when it comes to nature. It suggests humans treat our relationship with the natural world like a 'social exchange' - making us see environmentally friendly behaviour as compensatory.

Professor Sorqvist likened it to the way we try to smooth things over after disputes with our friends and family. He said: 'Reciprocity and balance in social relations have been fundamental to social cooperation - and thus to survival.

'So the human brain has become specialised through natural selection to compute and seek this balance.

'But when applied to climate change this social give-and-take thinking leads to the misconception that 'green' choices can compensate for unsustainable ones.'

The study published in Frontiers in Psychology said it would be impossible to mentally account for the environmental impact of all of our actions.

So we use mental 'rules of thumb' to track our green footprint - and seek out eco-friendly products to make up for any damage we may have done.

Professor Sorqvist said: 'Jetting to the Caribbean will make you a huge environmental burden - no matter how many meat free Mondays you have.'

When eco-friendly items are incorporated with conventional ones people often assume the overall product is helpful.

Professor Sorqvist said: 'For instance, some groups have found people intuitively think the environmental burden of a hamburger and an organic apple in combination is lower than the hamburger alone - or the total emissions of a car pool remain the same when hybrid cars are added.'

The researchers say stricter legislation of marketing devices and a carbon footprint label for products would be a better way to guide consumer behaviour.

Dr Langeborg said: 'Terms like 'eco-friendly' or 'green' encourage the view objects, behaviours and decisions with these labels are 'good' rather than 'less bad' for the environment.

'Instead we should give consumers immediate feedback on how much 'eco-labeled' and other products add to the environmental impact of what they are buying.

'For example, self-scanning systems in supermarkets could provide customers with an accumulated carbon footprint estimate of their shopping basket.'

SOURCE

Our Planet Is Not Fragile

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claims that "the world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change." The people at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change agree, saying that to avoid some of the most devastating impacts of climate change, the world must slash carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and completely decarbonize by 2050.

Such dire warnings are not new. In 1970, Harvard University biology professor George Wald, a Nobel laureate, predicted, "Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind." Also in 1970, Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford University biologist, predicted in an article for The Progressive, "The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years." The year before, he had warned, "If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." Despite such harebrained predictions, Ehrlich has won no fewer than 16 awards, including the 1990 Crafoord Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' highest award.

Leftists constantly preach such nonsense as "The world that we live in is beautiful but fragile." "The 3rd rock from the sun is a fragile oasis." "Remember that Earth needs to be saved every single day." These and many other statements, along with apocalyptic predictions, are stock in trade for environmentalists. Worse yet, this fragile-earth indoctrination is fed to the nation's youth from kindergarten through college. That's why many millennials support Rep. Ocasio-Cortez.

Let's examine just a few cataclysmic events that exceed any destructive power of mankind and then ask how our purportedly fragile planet could survive. The 1883 eruption of the Krakatoa volcano, in present-day Indonesia, had the force of 200 megatons of TNT. That's the equivalent of 13,300 15-kiloton atomic bombs, the kind that destroyed Hiroshima in World War II. Before that was the 1815 Tambora eruption, the largest known volcanic eruption. It spewed so much debris into the atmosphere that 1816 became known as the "Year Without a Summer." It led to crop failures and livestock death in the Northern Hemisphere, producing the worst famine of the 19th century. The A.D. 535 Krakatoa eruption had such force that it blotted out much of the light and heat of the sun for 18 months and is said to have led to the Dark Ages. Geophysicists estimate that just three volcanic eruptions — Indonesia (1883), Alaska (1912) and Iceland (1947) — spewed more carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere than all of mankind's activities during our entire history.

Our so-called fragile earth survived other catastrophic events, such as the floods in China in 1887, which took an estimated 1 million to 2 million lives, followed by floods there in 1931, which took an estimated 1 million to 4 million lives. What about the impact of earthquakes on our fragile earth? Chile's 1960 Valdivia earthquake was 9.5 on the Richter scale. It created a force equivalent to 1,000 atomic bombs going off at the same time. The deadly 1556 earthquake in China's Shaanxi province devastated an area of 520 miles.

Our so-called fragile earth faces outer space terror. Two billion years ago, an asteroid hit earth, creating the Vredefort crater in South Africa, which has a diameter of 190 miles. In Ontario, there's the Sudbury Basin, resulting from a meteor strike 1.8 billion years ago. At 39 miles long, 19 miles wide and 9 miles deep, it's the second-largest impact structure on earth. Virginia's Chesapeake Bay crater is a bit smaller, about 53 miles wide. Then there's the famous but puny Meteor Crater in Arizona, which is not even a mile wide.

My question is: Which of these powers of nature could be duplicated by mankind? For example, could mankind even come close to duplicating the polluting effects of the 1815 Tambora volcanic eruption? It is the height of arrogance to think that mankind can make significant parametric changes in the earth or can match nature's destructive forces. Our planet is not fragile.

Occasionally, environmentalists spill the beans and reveal their true agenda. Barry Commoner said, "Capitalism is the earth's number one enemy." Amherst College professor Leo Marx said, "On ecological grounds, the case for world government is beyond argument."

SOURCE

The 'misleading' oil spill map shared by environmental activists which could cost Australia 5,000 jobs and billions of dollars

A map showing the predicted result of 100 different oil spills at once has been hijacked by environmental activists in a bid to shut down a new drilling which could bring billions of dollars and thousands of jobs to Australia.

Last month Norwegian oil company Equinor publicly released its plans for exploratory oil drilling 370 kilometres off the South Australian coast.

The company calculated which areas could be affected in 100 different scenarios of an oil spill left unattended for 129 days.

A map in the plans details the amalgamation of all these areas, showing that anywhere along the length of the south coast and up the east coast as far as Sydney may be affected by a spill.

The map was shared by Greenpeace and other environmental activists in a bid to drum up support for stopping the project.

The group tweeted the map with the caption: 'BREAKING: Oil giant Equinor has released its so-called 'Environmental Plan' for oil drilling in the Great Australian Bight. 'This map from Equinor's own prior modelling shows a spill could hit anywhere from SA to NSW.'

This week a right-wing think tank slammed the protesters, insisting they are misleading the public by sharing the map. Fred Pawle of the Menzies Research Centre wrote an article in the Spectator calling the map an 'illusion'.

He said: 'The response from the perpetually outraged has been to misinterpret a map of the area that would be affected by a spill, share it extensively on social media and invite people to send their objections.

'The illustration looks scary but thankfully it is an illusion,' he added, pointing out that the map did not show one spill but 'areas that could be affected by any one of 100 scenarios.'

Pawle went on to back the drilling project, citing research that oil in the Bight could produce up to six billion barrels by 2060 and create up to 5,000 jobs in Australia. He said this activity would 'increase Australia's GDP by $6billion to $19billion per year.'

Equinor, which has two permits for exploratory drilling in the Bight, outlined plans to start a large testing operation as early as late 2019.

Drilling the Bight is not new - 13 wells have been drilled since 1972, the most recent in 2006.

But activists are outraged about the prospect of a new project, especially after the Deep Water Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 which pumped 3.19 million barrels of oil into the ocean, killing 10 people and thousands of animals in the world's worst oil spill which had a clean up bill of $25billion.

Greenpeace released a statement outlining which animals could be under threat from an oil spill in the region. It read: 'The bight's waters hold 36 species of whales and dolphins, including the world's most important southern right whale nursery, and many humpback, sperm, blue and beak whales.

'Australian sea lions swim freely throughout the Bight, one of the only places in the world they can be found in large communities… Imagine a place so unique that over three-quarters of the species living there existed nowhere else on the planet. That's the Bight.'

It encouraged activists to send objections to the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority, which is assessing Equinor's application.

Several other groups have also been protesting against the plan, including a group of surfers headed by Aussie legend Mick Fanning who wrote an open letter.

It read: 'Formal plans have been lodged to turn the Great Australian Bight into a deep water oil field. The drilling, planned by Norwegian oil giant Equinor for later this year, would be deep, remote and risky. If it failed, Equinor's own spill modelling shows the potential for oil on beaches across thousands of kilometres.

'An oil spill in the Bight would be catastrophic, and the southern coastline of Australia would never be the same. The Bight is wild and pristine and should remain that way.

'The surfers below stand with the coastal communities of the Bight and beyond and call for the Great Australian Bight to be kept free from all deep water oil drilling.'

Equinor has insisted that 'drilling can be done safely'.

But opponents point out that the 2km depth of the ocean - 750m deeper than the Gulf of Mexico - and notoriously stormy conditions make the project potentially extremely dangerous.

These factors, as well as 'economic reasons' led BP to abandon plans to drill in the Bight in 2013.

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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7 March, 2019

The 1978-1997 Warming Trend Is an Artifact of Instrumentation

S. Fred Singer

How we tackle, using newly available data, what may have caused the fictitious temperature trend in the latter decades of the 20th century

We first look at ocean data. There was a great shift, after 1980, in the way Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) were measured (see Goretzki and Kennedy et al. JGR 2011, Fig. 1), “Sources of SST data.” Note the drastic changes between 1980 and 2000 as global floating drifter buoys geographic changes increasingly replaced opportunities for sampling SST with buckets.

Note the drastic changes between 1980 and 2000 as global buoys increasingly replaced bucket sampling of SST – with also important geographic changes. Source: JJ Kennedy et al., JGR 2011.

Data taken from floating drifter buoys increased from zero to 60% between 1980 and 2000. But such buoys are heated directly by the sun, with the unheated engine inlet water in lower ocean layers. This combination leads to a spurious rise in SST when the data are mixed together.

In merging them, we must note that buoy data are global, while bucket and inlet temperatures are (perforce) confined to (mostly commercial) shipping routes. Nor do we know the ocean depths that buckets sample; inlet depths depend on ship type and degree of loading.

Disentangling this mess requires data details that are not available. About all we might demonstrate is the possibility of a distinct diurnal variation in the buoy temperatures.

The land data have problems of their own. During these same decades, quite independently, by coincidence, there was a severe reduction in “superfluous” (mostly) rural stations—unless they were located at airports. As seen from Fig. 2, the number of stations decreased drastically in the 1990s, but the fraction of airport stations increased sharply...

...from ~35% to ~80%, in the fraction of “airport” weather stations, producing a spurious temperature increase from all the construction of runways and buildings. These are hard to calculate in detail. About all we can claim is a general increase in air traffic, about 5% per year worldwide (Fig. 19, “HTCS-1”).

We have, however, MSU data for the lower atmosphere over both ocean and land; they show little difference, so we can assume that both land data and ocean data contribute about equally to the fictitious surface trend reported for 1978 to 1997. The BEST (Berkeley Earth System Temperatures) data confirm our supposition.

The absence of a warming trend removes all of the IPCC’s evidence for AGW (anthropogenic global warming). Both IPCC-AR4 (2007) and IPCC-AR5 (2013), and perhaps also AR-6, rely on the spurious 1978–1997 warming trend to demonstrate AGW (see chapters on “Attribution” in their respective final reports).

Obviously, if there is no warming trend, these demonstrations fail—and so do all their proofs for AGW.

SOURCE

New Santer Study: 97% Consensus is now 99.99997%

A new paper in Nature Climate Change by Santer et al. (paywalled) claims that the 40 year record of global tropospheric temperatures agrees with climate model simulations of anthropogenic global warming so well that there is less than a 1 in 3.5 million chance (5 sigma, one-tailed test) that the agreement between models and satellites is just by chance.

And, yes, that applies to our (UAH) dataset as well.

While it’s nice that the authors commemorate 40 years of satellite temperature monitoring method (which John Christy and I originally developed), I’m dismayed that this published result could feed a new “one in a million” meme that rivals the “97% of scientists agree” meme, which has been a very successful talking point for politicians, journalists, and liberal arts majors.

John Christy and I examined the study to see just what was done. I will give you the bottom line first, in case you don’t have time to wade through the details:

The new Santer et al. study merely shows that the satellite data have indeed detected warming (not saying how much) that the models can currently only explain with increasing CO2 (since they cannot yet reproduce natural climate variability on multi-decadal time scales).

That’s all.

But we already knew that, didn’t we? So why publish a paper that goes to such great lengths to demonstrate it with an absurdly exaggerated statistic such as 1 in 3.5 million (which corresponds to 99.99997% confidence)? I’ll leave that as a rhetorical question for you to ponder.T

There is so much that should be said, it’s hard to know where to begin.

Current climate models are programmed to only produce human-caused warming

First, you must realize that ANY source of temperature change in the climate system, whether externally forced (e.g. increasing CO2, volcanoes) or internally forced (e.g. weakening ocean vertical circulation, stronger El Ninos) has about the same global temperature signature regionally: more change over land than ocean (yes, even if the ocean is the original source of warming), and as a consequence more warming over the Northern than Southern Hemisphere. In addition, the models tend to warm the tropics more than the extratropics, a pattern which the satellite measurements do not particularly agree with.

Current climate model are adjusted in a rather ad hoc manner to produce no long-term warming (or cooling). This is because the global radiative energy balance that maintains temperatures at a relatively constant level is not known accurately enough from first physical principles (or even from observations), so any unforced trends in the models are considered “spurious” and removed. A handful of weak time-dependent forcings (e.g. ozone depletion, aerosol cooling) are then included in the models which can nudge them somewhat in the warmer or cooler direction temporarily, but only increasing CO2 can cause substantial model warming.

Importantly, we don’t understand natural climate variations, and the models don’t produce it, so CO2 is the only source of warming in today’s state-of-the-art models.

More HERE

Why Trump Must Veto the Federal Land Grab Bill

President Trump gave one of his most memorable and impactful speeches two weeks ago, when he systematically dismantled the case for socialism. In that speech, he recalled the economic harm and destruction in nations that have adopted socialism, communism or Stalinism. "America will never be a socialist country," Trump pledged in his speech in Florida.

Well said. And the first big step that Trump could take in preventing any slippery slide in that direction would be to veto the Land and Water Conservation Fund bill, which enables the federal government to spend billions to purchase millions of acres of private lands for "conservation." What? Uncle Sam is going to take out of private hands millions more acres of America's valuable landmass? This is the reverse of privatization — it is the nationalization of our nation's farmland, forests, streams and pastures.

I am told by House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Gary Palmer that this land grab was a high priority of the anti-growth environmental groups that oppose further development in the Western states — where most of this land would be seized. Amazingly, a Republican-controlled Senate approved the federal land grab with little debate, and the House under Speaker Nancy Pelosi snuck the bill through with virtually no debate at all. It's a good bet almost none of the House or Senate members read this 700-page bill.

According to an analysis by Rep. Garret Graves, R.-La., and an expert on natural resource issues, the bill "permanently authorizes $9 billion per decade for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) to acquire new federal and state lands." My Heritage Foundation colleague Nick Loris reports that the Department of the Interior already has a $16 billion maintenance backlog on the lands the government already owns but can't take care of. At its core, this legislation violates a central and common-sense principle of the Republican Party and its fight against the Democrats' ongoing "War on the West." That principle dating back to the Newt Gingrich years is simple: Congress shall allow no net loss of private property to the feds. For every acre the government plans to purchase or simply seize, it must sell off at least one acre in return.

The federal land holdings are already gargantuan, with almost one-third owned by the government and with half of the land in the Western states owned by Uncle Sam. In Nevada and Utah, the government owns almost two-thirds of the land. President Obama nationalized millions of additional federal lands — and though Republicans whined, they did little to stop him.

How depressing it would be if Donald Trump — who has been rightly critical of the Obama land grabs — were to launch a new federal land-purchasing program on his watch? One common justification for federal land ownership is to preserve these properties with national significance for future generations. But the federal government has proved over the last 30 years that it is an atrocious protector of our forests and wildlife. The feds have let millions of acres of federal lands be destroyed through awful land management and even "let it burn" policies during forest fires.

But there is another even more important reason Trump should veto this spending bill. It would take royalty payments from valuable oil and gas drilling leases and use those funds for the government's land purchasing scheme.

This would short-circuit a plan that Rep. Palmer has proposed. He smartly wants to devote potentially trillions of dollars raised from the leases to pay for a massive infrastructure bill. We need more roads and bridges, new pipelines and better ports. And an ingenious way to pay for them is through leases. Two new studies from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity estimate that the net value of drilling and mining on federal lands and waters could reach $3 to $5 trillion over the next 30 years. That money could pay for a lot of roads, airports, pipelines, bridges and fiber-optic cables to connect America — and without having to charge taxpayers a single penny.

I would wager to bet that President Trump has no idea this land socialism is tucked inside a bill that he is expected to sign. Don't do it, Mr. President. Fight against land-grab socialism, and fund your coveted infrastructure plan by charging fair value leases on drilling and mining. If there were ever a bill that deserves Donald Trump's first veto, it is this one.

SOURCE

Weepy Jay Inslee: We Need to Talk About Climate Change ‘From a Character Issue Rather Than Just Science’

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who is running for president on a climate change platform, told ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopolous” on Sunday that the way to convince voters that climate change should be a top priority is to frame it as a “character issue rather than just science.”

“The way this works is to talk about this from a character issue rather than just science. Look, I really believe that the way to win this is to talk about the basic American character of who we are. We think big. We go to the moon. We invent. We create. We build. We lead the world, we don't follow it, and we don't fear the world, you know, we lead it. And I think we have got to argue this from a character standpoint, and an optimistic standpoint, because that's what wins in America, and I truly believe that,” he said.

Inslee responded to President Donald Trump mocking the Green New Deal, saying, “he is so pessimistic.”

“We're the optimists in this debate, we know we can invent and create and build a clean energy economy. We know we can do that, because we're doing it in my state where we’ve built a wind turbine industry from $0 to $6 billion in 12 years. We’re electrifying our transportation fleet. Two days ago my legislature passed my 100 percent clean grid bill,” he said.

“We're making progress like crazy in my state, but what we need is a president to do what presidents do, which is to blow the bugle and really call the country to a higher mission,” Inslee added.

“Don't you have to also level with people? You laid out the optimistic view and there’s a good case for that and there’s no question that taking on the issue of climate change, all the science has reached a consensus on this is critical. But who is going to bear the burden of taking on -- what kind of sacrifices will you require from Americans?” Stephanopolous asked.

“You know, if you net this out, what's going to require sacrifices is the course of inaction. You got to understand there’s enormous cost of doing nothing here,” Inslee said.

“It means we're going to have more Paradise, California,” the governor said, referring to the wildfires that claimed the lives of 85 people. “I drove for an hour in darkness, and it looked like an apocalypse set from a movie theater.”

“People are going to bear this burden, particularly front line communities, marginalized communities who are going to be flooded and burned out. In my state, our kids could not go outside because we had the worst air quality in the world in Washington State. So there’s a huge cost to our economy, to our health, to our national security if we do not act, but there’s an enormous economic advantage by embracing clean energy,” he said.

“We're experiencing it today where we’re spinning carbon fiber for electric cars in my state, where we’re making biofuels. We're getting jobs -- you know it’s interesting, clean energy jobs in the clean energy sector today, before we take action, are growing twice as fast as the rest of the United States economy,” Inslee said. “If you’re bullish and you want to have a growth-oriented economy, this is the message.”

Stephanopolous pointed out that Inslee failed to pass a carbon tax through the Washington Legislature.

“You mentioned your experience in Washington state, but you failed to pass a carbon tax through your legislature, you had a ballot initiative on a carbon fee that you campaigned hard for. It went down in November. If you couldn't succeed in your state, how can you succeed with the whole country?” Stephanopolous asked.

Inslee said they’re using “multiple tools” to fight climate change.

“Well we are succeeding in our state. Look, there’s multiple tools in our toolbox, and this is good news, right? It’s good news that we don't have to depend on just one tool. So we're exercising multiple tools that are working. Our renewable portfolio standard, as I said, developed a $6 billion wind industry in 12 years,” he said.

“We now are growing jobs in all kinds of sectors because of my clean energy development fund, a $100 million fund that we have. We’re electrifying and put people to work in software, dealing with the integration of batteries, new battery technology,” Inslee said, adding that the day he announced his bid for the presidency, the state senate passed a bill to provide 100 percent clean energy, “and that ought to be a goal that we ought to give all Americans.”

SOURCE

Florida bill would make banning plastic straws illegal

A bill in Florida that advanced through a state Senate committee Monday would prohibit local municipalities from banning plastic straws for five years.

The Tampa Bay Times reported that the bill, when first introduced in the committee, would have actually forced restaurants and other dining establishments to only give out plastic straws when requested by a customer.

The bill was amended during its committee hearing after state Sen. Travis Hutson (R), the bill's sponsor, said he realized he was going too far and considered the initial bill “government overreach.”

The amended bill if passed would establish a study to be conducted by the state Department of Environmental Protection to examine the impact of plastic utensils.

"So what I did was file an amendment that would put a moratorium but give us a study,” Hutson told the local news outlet.

The study would also look into the impact a plastic straw ban would have on people with disabilities who “may rely on single-use plastic straws for feeding and hydration," according to the Orlando Sentinel.

Additionally, the bill would fine local governments $25,000 if they violate the five-year moratorium on passing plastic straw bans.

The Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee approved the amended bill on a party-line vote. The measure will go to two more committees for hearings before the full Senate votes on 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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6 March, 2019

Leftist hypocrisy: It never stops

Democrat Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said a lot of things about “climate change” while promoting her “Green New Deal.” For example, via Federalist Papers:

“We’re like, ‘The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,’” Cortez said in January, The Post reported.

“And, like, this is the war; this is our World War II,” she said, talking more like a teenager than a Congresswoman.

“It is basically a scientific consensus that the lives of our children are going to be very difficult” she said last week.

“And it does lead young people to have a legitimate question: is it OK to still have children?” she said.

Enter the “New York Post,” which establishes that AOC is a hypocrite and a fraud…

Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to save the planet with her Green New Deal, but she keeps tripping over her own giant carbon footprint.

But the woman who boasts of a “razor-sharp BS detector” seems to have trouble sniffing out her own.

Since declaring her candidacy in May 2017, Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign heavily relied on those combustible-engine cars — even though a subway station was just 138 feet from her Elmhurst campaign office.

She listed 1,049 transactions for Uber, Lyft, Juno and other car services, federal filings show. The campaign had 505 Uber expenses alone.

In all, Ocasio-Cortez spent $29,365.70 on those emissions-spewing vehicles, along with car and van rentals — even though her Queens HQ was a one-minute walk to the 7 train.

The campaign shelled out only $8,335.41 on 52 MetroCard transactions.

SOURCE

Greenpeace Co-Founder: AOC Is a ‘Pompous Little Twit,’ Green New Deal Would Be ‘Worse Than WWII’

Patrick Moore, who said he left Greenpeace 33 years ago “because they were hijacked by eco-fascists,” tweeted Saturday, “@AOC Pompous little twit. You don’t have a plan to grow food for 8 billion people without fossil fuels, or get food into the cities. Horses? If fossil fuels were banned every tree in the world would be cut down for fuel for cooking and heating. You would bring about mass death.”

Furthermore, he blasted Ocasio-Cortez for calling climate change “our World War II,” saying instead the Green New Deal would be “worse than WWII.”

“Isn't @AOC a bit young to talk about WW2? It was Hell & more than 60 million died. It's her @GND that would be worse than WW2. Imagine no fuel for cars, trucks, tractors, combines, harvesters, power-plants, ships, aircraft, etc. Transport of people & goods would grind to a halt,” Moore tweeted Sunday.

"I suspect @AOC is a flash in the pan. Her @GND is so completely crazy it is bound to be rejected in the end. But she does have wind in her sales due to the political situation. 2020 will be even more interesting now,” he tweeted.

Moore also criticized Ocasio-Cortez’s use of ride-sharing apps Uber and Lyft while campaigning, instead of using the subway near her campaign office.

The "world as it is" has the option of taking the subway rather than a taxi. option of Amtrak rather than plane, option of opening windows rather than A/C. You're just a garden-variety hypocrite like the others. And you have ZERO expertise at any of the things you pretend to know,” Moore said.

SOURCE

Socialist Green New Deal Rejects Nuclear Energy

The goal isn't "saving the planet." It's more power for government brokers.

The Left’s obsession with environmentalism and more specifically climate change has little to do with protecting the environment. Instead, as we have repeatedly noted, the real motive behind the Left’s “green” agenda is red socialism — increasing government control over the economy.

This reality was made patently clear with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal (GND). Using apocalyptic warnings of the world ending in 12 years should the country not embrace her radical and absurd agenda — which would effectively destroy America’s entire economic system as we know it — AOC and her fellow travelers claim their cause to be a just one because they are simply trying to save the planet. But, as National Review’s David French astutely points out, “When you read the [GND] you quickly realize that progressivism is the priority, not the environment. In other words, environmentalism and progressivism are wrongly treated as fundamentally inseparable.”

As for supposedly working to “save” the environment, the GND offers no practical real-world solutions. Where this may be most glaringly evident is in the GND’s rejection of nuclear energy. The resolution proposes that “100 percent of the power demand in the United States” would be met “through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources.” But these energy sources “would not include creating new nuclear plants” and, in fact, “the plan is to transition off of nuclear and all fossil fuels as soon as possible.”

Yet, as Time magazine “Hero of the Environment” Michael Shellenberger argues, the only truly “green energy” is nuclear power. “When it comes to generating power for billions of people, it turns out that producing solar and wind collectors, and spreading them over large areas, has vastly worse impacts on humans and wildlife alike,” he says. “I think it’s natural that those of us who became active on climate change gravitated toward renewables. They seemed like a way to harmonize human society with the natural world. Collectively, we have been suffering from an appeal-to-nature fallacy no different from the one that leads us to buy products at the supermarket labeled ‘all natural.’ But it’s high time that those of us who appointed ourselves Earth’s guardians should take a second look at the science, and start questioning the impacts of our actions.”

So why the Left’s aversion to nuclear energy? Maybe because it’s a proven, reliable, and cost-effective source of green energy that doesn’t necessitate a socialist takeover of the American economy. The fact is, nuclear power offers a more realistic means of meeting the Left’s loudly proclaimed environmental goals, but it does so via capitalism — and there’s the rub.

SOURCE

New EPA Chief Implementing Trump’s Energy-Dominant, Environmentally Friendly Agenda

Andrew Wheeler was confirmed by the Senate last week as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Wheeler previously served as deputy administrator before stepping into the role of acting administrator in July 2018. He visited the Conservative Political Action Conference last week and spoke to The Daily Signal. A lightly edited transcript is below.

Rob Bluey: Although you were just confirmed by the Senate, you’ve been in the job as acting EPA administrator for several months. Can you share what it’s been like to have that experience to work in the Trump administration?

Andrew Wheeler: It’s been great. You know, I started my career as an employee at EPA in 1991 during the first Bush administration. It’s great to be back. When President Trump called me and asked me to take over at EPA, he said, “Continue to clean up the air. Continue to clean up the water, and continue to deregulate in order to create more jobs for the American public.” We can do all three. The president knows we can do all three, and I think we’re proving it.

Bluey: You’ve had success in all three of those areas. What would you say over the past several months stands out in your mind as one of your biggest accomplishments?

Wheeler: We just released our new Waters of the United States regulations with the Federal Register. This is something that the administration has been going back and forth with. There have been three Supreme Court cases. The Obama regulation was stayed by a number of different courts.

We did this with a very unique approach: One, we put it out there, and we said we’re distinguishing between what is a federal waterway and what is a state waterway. Second, and this is the overarching theme of the whole regulation, is that a property owner should be able to stand on his or her property and be able to tell for themselves whether or not they have federal waters without having to hire an outside attorney or a consultant. That’s really important to provide that certainty to the American public.

Bluey: Can you explain what exactly a water of the United States is, because as you just described, in many cases, it’s unclear for property owners.

Wheeler: The Clean Water Act, back in the 1970s, defined it as navigable waters, but it’s been expanded over the years by regulation and then by also some Supreme Court decisions. There have been three Supreme Court decisions in the last 12 years. And so it goes a little beyond navigable. We include wetlands that are adjacent to those waterways.

We have a whole list. For the first time, we are defining what is a water, and we’re also defining, just as important, what is not a waterway. For example, if something retains water just because of rain, that’s not a water of the United States anymore.

Farm ditches will no longer be considered a water of the U.S. That might surprise people, but both of those have been declared wetlands or waterways in the past. So we are defining what is in, and also, just as importantly, what’s out.

Bluey: As you craft the rules and regulations at your agency, one of the important things is getting feedback from the American people. I know it’s been a priority under the Trump administration to get out of Washington and hear from Americans. Tell us about the experiences that you’ve had and some of the places you’ve been able to go.

Wheeler: It’s been great. When we announced the Waters of the U.S., we did have an announcement in Washington, D.C., but the very next day I got on a plane with Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and we went to Tennessee. We had a meeting with farmers from three different states. And to hear the feedback from those farmers was very important.

When I went to California, I met with a lot of farmers there. When I went to Pennsylvania, I sat down with some state environmental organizations. Those are the environmental organizations that are really trying to clean up the environment. I heard what their problems were in trying to clean up some of the old abandoned mines in the state of Pennsylvania.

I go out and I try to meet with local people who live around the Superfund sites. When I was in Montana at a Superfund site, I sat down with the Moms for Clean Air, who actually opposed me. But I sat down with them in Montana to hear what their concerns were about living around the Superfund site. And that was the Anaconda and the Butte, Montana, Superfund sites.

It’s important for me to hear what people think about what we’re doing and what their problems are, so we can better respond and be more responsive to the American public.

Bluey: One of the things that Vice President Mike Pence touted at CPAC is the success that the Trump administration has had when it comes to regulations and reducing the red tape. What does that mean in terms of the constituencies you deal with?

Wheeler: One of the things that I’m trying to talk about more is energy production. President Trump wants us to be energy dominant. And we are. We are energy dominant. But along with that, we produce our fossil fuels here in the United States in a much more environmentally conscious manner than fossil fuels produced anywhere else in the world.

If you’re Europe, and you want to buy natural gas, you can buy it from Russia or you can buy it from the United States. Our natural gas is more environmentally conscious, more environmentally friendly the way we produce it because of our regulations here. Same with our coal. Same with our oil. That’s really important for the American public to understand as well.

We have a lot of politicians and people here in the United States saying we shouldn’t have any fossil fuels in the United States. Well, that means that the rest of the world will be buying much more environmentally damaging fossil fuels that are produced in a much more damaging fashion than we produce them here.

Bluey: EPA adopted a lean management approach that has been important in terms of improving the time that it takes to get permits done and some of the day-to-day functions at the agency. How’s it going under your watch?

Wheeler: It’s going really well. The lean management’s also known as the Toyota system. We’re using it to address our longstanding systems in the EPA. For example, how long it takes us to process a permit. When we came in, President Trump said, “I want to do all federal permits within two years.” And we took a look at the EPA, and we said, “How long is it taking you to process permits?” And they weren’t tracking it.

It’s impossible to improve a system if you aren’t tracking how long it takes. So the first thing we did was start tracking how long it takes. And we have a goal of trying to get all of our permits done within six months.

Bluey: Looking ahead, what are some of the things that you hope to accomplish over the next several months?

Wheeler: We certainly want to move forward and finalize some of the regulations we have out there. The Waters of the U.S. [rule] that I mentioned, we put it out for public comment. I encourage people to please comment on it. You can find it in the Federal Register. Take a look at it. Let us know whether you like it or don’t like it, what room for improvement.

We want to hear back from people. I know we’re going to hear back from a lot of people who don’t like what we’re doing. And if you like what we’re doing, tell us. We want to hear from everyone, and we want to have input from everybody about what we’re doing.

Bluey: Administrator Wheeler, thanks for joining The Daily Signal.

Wheeler: Thank you very much.

SOURCE

Bill Gates, defying the Climate Barons, tells the ugly truth about renewables

A remarkable change has come over the view of the left in recent decades. With the collapse of socialism (in fact, if not in theory), big business was no longer an automatic enemy. Indeed it was to be co-opted as a partner in “social responsibility” and “sustainable development.” Some of the world’s wealthiest business people eagerly sought to start knitting the rope of Global Salvationism.

The bizarro modern counterparts of the Robber Barons might be called the Climate Barons, those billionaires and capitalist foundations that seek to kill the fossil-fuelled industrial age in order to save mankind from manmade environmental catastrophe.

While America’s Koch brothers are ritually condemned as funding “denialism,” a far more substantial group is supporting NGO thuggery and misinformation, promoting lawsuits and other pressure tactics to euthanize fossil fuels. They also seek to hide the huge economic and social costs of the allegedly essential “transition to a low-carbon economy.”

This group includes U.S. billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg and the British hedge-fund billionaires Jeremy Grantham and Chris Hohn. It includes a raft of multi-billion-dollar foundations bearing names such as Rockefeller, Hewlett and Packard.

The Climate Barons present themselves as promoters of “Climate Philanthropy,” but insofar as their promised low-carbon transition involves forcing the adoption of expensive and unreliable energy, they are both responsible for destroying jobs (Alberta being perhaps the most prominent victim), and exacerbating poverty in poor countries. Their activities might more accurately be described as Climate Malanthropy.

Here’s the good news: Bill Gates, the world’s most prominent philanthropist, has broken ranks. Although the Microsoft co-founder still outsources his thinking on catastrophist science, he has acknowledged that intermittent renewables are the last thing to be forced on poor countries. He has also castigated the Climate Barons’ strategy of killing fossil fuels via financial pressure.

During a recent onstage Q&A at Stanford University, when interviewer Arun Majumdar, a “Google Scholar,” suggested breezily that people were “optimistic” that the costs of renewables and battery storage were coming down, Gates got visibly agitated. “That is so disappointing,” he said, tearing into the misplaced priorities of such feeble optimism. While he supported nuclear, he said battery technology was woefully deficient and renewables needed “a miracle.” They certainly weren’t the solution for India or Africa right now.

Gates revealed that he had recently been at a New York conference of financiers backing the fashionable demand of “climate disclosure,” whereby corporations are required to offer up highly unlikely climate-risk scenarios so as to unnecessarily worry investors and increase their cost of capital. Gates claimed that the idea that finance or investor pressure could provide a solution was “madness.” So was, he said, the demonization of electrical utilities. And in this low-carbon transition, he asked, where would steel and plastic come from? What would power the airplanes? Most dramatically, he claimed that those who suggested that the climate problem was easy to solve were a bigger problem than the climate deniers are.

It is intriguing to compare the Gates interview with another video, made around the same time, in which Majumdar also appears. It was touted as a “Giving Pledge Learning Session” designed to boost “Climate Philanthropy.” One especially intriguing aspect was that Gates and his wife founded the Giving Pledge, in the vain hope of convincing people billionaires aren’t evil. This video suggests that some just might be.

The video features hedge-fund billionaire Jeremy Grantham, who has established several climate foundations that spread alarmism and seek to silence deniers. The chair of Grantham’s main climate foundation is Lord Nicholas Stern, author of 2006’s outrageously perverted Stern Review (officially titled: The Economics of Climate Change). Grantham also employs Bob Ward, perhaps the U.K.’s main attack dog when it comes to trying to silence media skepticism. “Everybody needs to be in on this (transition)” said Grantham. Meaning everyone needs to agree with him.

Another Climate Baron making an appearance was Julie Packard, vice-chairman of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, which has committed US$1 billion to climate over the past 10 years. And there was Larry Kramer, head of the Hewlett Foundation, which has also devoted massive amounts to the climate-alarm crusade.

Chris Hohn, another British hedge-fund billionaire, asserts in the video that “solar and wind are cheaper than coal.” He might try running that past Gates. Hohn also claimed that there was need for a “massive step up” in climate philanthropy — but we might note that spending is pretty stepped up already. Hohn funds a charity called the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, CIFF. CIFF oversees a portfolio of multi-year grant commitments worth more than US$800 million. Of that total, almost US$300 million is dedicated to climate change, more than 10 times the amount committed to “child protection.” CIFF is also a big supporter of “carbon disclosure.” It’s hard to see what that has to do with children who are suffering poverty, malnutrition or abuse right now.

CIFF’s website maintains that “A low carbon world will help secure a healthy and prosperous future for children.” Again, Bill Gates — or indeed any objective observer — would mostly disagree.

Now that Bill has seen the light on the “transition,” maybe there’s hope he’ll turn his analytical mind to just how “settled” climate science really is.

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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5 March, 2019

Rounding up Roundup: The racket

Matt Ridley is always alert to corrupt "Science" and his latest blog post is a mine of valuable information on several current or recent frauds. Below is just that part of his post dealing with glyphosate -- one of the safest chemical there are but which has a huge money turnover. So it has become a glittering prize -- $$$$$ -- for people trying to find something wrong with it and get some of that money

This is the claim that exposure to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup weedkiller, increases the incidence of a particular, very rare cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). ‘Exposure to weed-killing products increases risk of cancer by 41 per cent,’ said the Guardian’s headline.

Once again, this paper is not a new study, but a desktop survey of other studies and its claim collapses under proper scrutiny. According to the epidemiologist Geoffrey Kabat, the paper combined one high-quality study with five poor-quality studies and chose the highest of five risk estimates reported in one of the latter to ensure it would reach statistical significance. The authors highlighted the dubious 41 per cent result, ‘which they almost certainly realised would grab headlines and inspire fear’.

The background is important here. Vast sums of money are at stake. ‘Predatort’ lawyers have been chasing glyphosate in the hope of tobacco-style payouts. Unluckily for them, however, study after study keeps finding that glyphosate does not cause cancer. The US Environmental Protection Agency, the European Food Safety Authority, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation working with the World Health Organisation, the European Chemicals Agency, Health Canada and the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment have all tried and failed to find any cancer risk in glyphosate.

The only exception is the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a rogue United Nations agency that has been taken over by environmental activists, which claimed that neat glyphosate was capable of causing cancer in animals if ingested. By the same criteria, IARC admits, coffee, tea and wine (which are indeed ingested) and working as a hairdresser are also carcinogenic; in fact, out of 1,000 substances and other risks tested, IARC has found only one to be non-carcinogenic. The IARC study also did the usual pseudo-science thing of citing some results but was reported by Reuters to have discounted contradictory results from the same studies.

This is what Reuters reported:

The edits identified by Reuters occurred in the chapter of IARC’s review focusing on animal studies. This chapter was important in IARC’s assessment of glyphosate, since it was in animal studies that IARC decided there was “sufficient” evidence of carcinogenicity.

One effect of the changes to the draft, reviewed by Reuters in a comparison with the published report, was the removal of multiple scientists' conclusions that their studies had found no link between glyphosate and cancer in laboratory animals.

Following that claim, another study by the Agricultural Health Survey of 45,000 people actually exposed to glyphosate again found no association between glyphosate and any cancer, including NHL. Nobody outside the predatort industry takes the IARC finding seriously.

Nonetheless, the study had a beneficial effect for lawyers. Last year, citing the IARC study but not its debunking, a jury in California awarded a $289 million jackpot to the family of a school groundskeeper who died of NHL. Meanwhile, an investigation by Reuters found that the conclusion of the IARC study had been altered shortly before the report’s release and that the specialist consulted, Christopher Portier, started working with law firms suing Monsanto soon afterwards. Another case is due to start shortly, this time in federal court. More than 9,300 people with various cancers have filed similar cases.

Reuters again:

Documents seen by Reuters show how a draft of a key section of the International Agency for Research on Cancer's (IARC) assessment of glyphosate - a report that has prompted international disputes and multi-million-dollar lawsuits - underwent significant changes and deletions before the report was finalised and made public.

One effect of the changes to the draft, reviewed by Reuters in a comparison with the published report, was the removal of multiple scientists' conclusions that their studies had found no link between glyphosate and cancer in laboratory animals.

In one instance, a fresh statistical analysis was inserted - effectively reversing the original finding of a study being reviewed by IARC.

In another, a sentence in the draft referenced a pathology report ordered by experts at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It noted the report “firmly” and “unanimously” agreed that the “compound” – glyphosate – had not caused abnormal growths in the mice being studied. In the final published IARC monograph, this sentence had been deleted.

Kabat had this to say:

In view of the new revelations, it appears that, rather than being the objective scientist he has portrayed himself to be, he may have had a preconceived plan to use the IARC ruling, which he played a major role in shaping, to cash in on the ensuing litigation campaign.

See also David Zaruk:

During the same week that IARC had published its opinion on glyphosate’s carcinogenicity, Christopher Portier signed a lucrative contract to be a litigation consultant for two law firms preparing to sue Monsanto on behalf of glyphosate cancer victims.

This contract has remunerated Portier for at least 160,000 USD (until June, 2017) for initial preparatory work as a litigation consultant (plus travel).

This contract contained a confidentiality clause restricting Portier from transparently declaring this employment to others he comes in contact with. Further to that, Portier has even stated that he has not been paid a cent for work he’s done on glyphosate.

It became clear, in emails provided in the deposition, that Portier’s role in the ban-glyphosate movement was crucial. He promised in an email to IARC that he would protect their reputation, the monograph conclusion and handle the BfR and EFSA rejections of IARC’s findings.

Portier admitted in the deposition that prior to the IARC glyphosate meetings, where he served as the only external expert adviser, he had never worked and had no experience with glyphosate.

SOURCE

Green New Deal Dodge: Schumer Asks Dems To Vote “Present”

Senate Democratic leaders are grappling over how to vote on a controversial climate change proposal that is being championed by progressives and mocked by conservatives. …

Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) has floated a plan with his caucus to vote "present" on the ambitious legislation. It remains to be seen if Senate Democrats will embrace Schumer’s strategy.

That’s not flying with at least one member of Schumer’s caucus. Joe Manchin (D-WV) told The Hill that he’s a “no” on the GND, and a hard “no” on present votes:

“I got to work with reality. I got to make sure we have the benefit of affordable energy,” Manchin said.

Asked about his colleague’s plan to vote present on the Green New Deal, Manchin responded, “They can do what they want to do. I’m not a present-type guy.”

The real sham is the Green New Deal itself, which Schumer’s attempting to distance from his caucus. So is this “present” vote, which directly contradicts Schumer’s attack on Mitch McConnell for calling the vote. In his two-minute speech on the Senate floor, Schumer demanded that McConnell take a stand on climate change and the need for congressional action:

If Republicans need to do all that, why doesn’t Schumer feel the need to make his colleagues take a stand on their own bill? These demands are a lame attempt to shift attention away from a ridiculous proposal that has much more to do with imposing government control on American lives than it does about the climate.

Besides, McConnell’s hardly the only one “knocking the Green New Deal,” as Schumer complained yesterday. Even Nancy Pelosi’s able to discuss it honestly in Rolling Stone magazine, for pity’s sake. Why not just admit it’s a mistake rather than vote “present”?

Now, in terms of the Green New Deal [as conceived], that goes beyond what our charge is. Our charge is about saving the planet. They have in there things like single-payer and?.?.?.? what is it? Guaranteed income?

Pelosi Deputy Chief of Staff Drew Hammill: Guaranteed income, and then a jobs guarantee.

Pelosi: And then they have, I don’t know if it’s single-payer or Medicare for All.?.?.?.?It’s kind of, like, a broader agenda. All good values, but nonetheless, not what we hope to achieve with this focused, determined, decision-making.

The answer to the previous question is obvious — Pelosi’s not going to make her caucus take an embarrassing vote on the GND that will paint her members into tight corners no matter what they choose. If they vote no, progressive groups like the Justice Democrats will come after them in the primaries. If they vote yes, independent and moderate voters will abandon them in the general election.

Under the circumstances, “present” may be the best strategy possible. It’s craven and hypocritical, but with his party careening towards socialism, that’s all Schumer has left.

SOURCE

Green New Deal Hits A Road Block: Largest California County Bans Large Solar And Wind Projects

California’s largest county has banned the construction of large solar and wind farms on more than 1 million acres of private land, bending to the will of residents who say they don’t want renewable energy projects industrializing their rural desert communities northeast of Los Angeles.

L A Times reports:

Thursday’s 4-1 vote by San Bernardino County’s Board of Supervisors highlighted a challenge California could face as it seeks to eliminate the burning of planet-warming fossil fuels.

State lawmakers passed a bill last year requiring utility companies to get 60% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2030, and 100% from climate-friendly sources by 2045. But achieving those goals will require cooperation from local governments — and big solar and wind farms, like many infrastructure projects, are often unpopular at the local level.

Representatives of national solar developers including First Solar and Clearway Energy urged the supervisors to consider the economic benefits of solar projects, including jobs and tax revenues. They were joined by union members, who told the supervisors that solar farms create hundreds of high-paying construction jobs.

“They’re temporary construction jobs, but that’s what we make our livelihood off of. And to put language in there that strictly prohibits these projects from going forward would be irresponsible,” said Justin Lanford, president of the San Bernardino County chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Dozens of local residents spoke in support of the proposed ban, known as Renewable Energy Policy 4.10. They came from high desert communities such as Daggett, Joshua Tree and Lucerne Valley, where existing solar projects are seen by many as eyesores that destroy desert ecosystems and fuel larger dust storms.

Sara Fairchild, a resident of Pioneertown, said she’s been working with a group trying to get California Highway 247, which runs from Yucca Valley to Barstow, designated as a state scenic highway. Supporters say the designation would draw tourists and boost local economies. But Fairchild is worried that several solar projects proposed along or near the highway would ruin the pristine desert landscapes that make the area so attractive.

“These vast open areas are precious for their natural, historical and recreational qualities. But they are fragile, and no amount of mitigation can counter the damage that industrial-scale renewable energy projects would cause,” Fairchild told the supervisors. “Once destroyed, these landscapes can never be brought back.”

The policy approved by the supervisors prohibits utility-oriented renewable energy projects — defined as projects that would mostly serve out-of-town utility customers, rather than local power needs — within the boundaries of Community Plans that have been adopted by more than a dozen unincorporated towns. Construction of utility-oriented solar and wind farms would also be banned in so-called Rural Living zones. Solar projects that are already going through the permitting process would still be allowed to proceed.

Supervisor Robert Lovingood said residents “spoke clearly about what they want to see.”

“If we don’t adopt this, that’s just spitting in their face,” he said, adding that the county has already designated several smaller areas where renewable energy projects could be approved.

Curt Hagman was the only supervisor to vote against the restrictions. He said he doesn’t want to preclude new renewable energy technologies that might have less of an impact on rural areas, while still bringing economic benefits to the county. And he said the supervisors already have the ability to reject bad projects.

V. John White, a Sacramento lobbyist who leads the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, said before Thursday’s vote that there’s still a lot of land where solar and wind projects can be built in California, including retired farmland in the Central Valley and Imperial County. But the backlash against big solar projects in San Bernardino County, he said, shows that state officials “will have to involve local governments more directly than what we’ve done up through now” as they work to achieve higher renewable energy targets.

SOURCE

Mass. running out of gas as pipeline opposition builds up

The municipal utilities that serve Holyoke and Middleborough just imposed separate moratoriums on new natural gas hookups, citing supply constraints. Is your community close behind?

Probably not. The two biggest gas providers in Massachusetts, National Grid and Eversource, say their supplies are adequate for now.

But some in the industry speculate that we’re approaching a major inflection point, as the region’s strained pipeline system shows signs of failing to keep up with demand. Pipeline expansions get more difficult to build politically every year. To the anti-gas forces in the environmental community, the moratoriums reaffirm their arguments about the need to wean Massachusetts off the fossil fuel.

That won’t be easy. Natural gas remains a dominant fuel source for New England’s power plants. It also remains the preferred heat source for any new developments — except in the growing list of communities with moratoriums in place.

These bans on new hookups started popping up in Western Massachusetts about four years ago. Berkshire Gas imposed moratoriums in an eight-town region stretching from Greenfield to Amherst; Columbia Gas did the same next door, in Easthampton and Northampton.

Northeast Energy Direct, the controversial Kinder Morgan pipeline proposal, could have helped ease the pain there. But resistance was too strong, and Kinder Morgan nixed it. Berkshire informed its waiting list of 300-plus potential new customers last fall that no help would be coming soon.

The capacity issues in that area eventually caught up with Holyoke Gas & Electric, which imposed its own moratorium on new service on Jan. 28. Columbia Gas is pursuing projects to increase circulation in the Springfield area. But those, too, face formidable opposition.

The Middleborough Gas and Electric Department moratorium this month was more of a surprise, the first true supply-related ban in the eastern part of the state. General manager Jackie Crowley told utility commissioners that a lateral pipeline that feeds Southeastern Massachusetts has been at capacity for some time. The utility’s system load has continued to grow, but there are no new projects on the horizon to address its need for more gas. Crowley says she wanted to get the word out before the spring construction season starts, so builders could seek alternatives.

As a small utility, it’s difficult financially for Middleborough to build liquefied gas storage tanks, to sock away gas for cold days when it’s in short supply. Crowley says she is talking to Algonquin pipeline owner Enbridge about increasing capacity, but a long-term solution could be years away.

Several Cape Cod towns already face similar bans on hookups, but a National Grid spokeswoman says those were imposed a few years ago to ensure system reliability while the company upgraded a mid-Cape pipeline. They are on track to be lifted this spring. But she also concedes the company could face challenges serving new natural gas customers given how hard it is to get a pipeline expansion approved.

Tamara Small, chief executive of developer group NAIOP Massachusetts, can’t help but feel the chill. NAOIP members already suffered through a lockout by National Grid of union workers and a state-imposed, safety-related moratorium last year. Those are over, but the backlog is considerable. The emergence of new moratoriums, she says, sends the wrong message to businesses looking to expand here.

The natural gas industry’s foes see these moratoriums as a sort of vindication. Environmental advocates say it’s time to get more serious about other, greener options: rolling out heat pumps for warmth, and turning to cleaner sources of electricity such as Canadian hydropower and offshore wind.

Maybe the industry is indeed reaching an important tipping point. But which way it will tip depends on who you ask.

SOURCE

Australian conservatives claim household energy bills could soar by HUNDREDS of dollars under the Left's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Households would be forced to fork out hundreds of dollars more on their energy bills under Labor's commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to recent modelling.

A comparison of the two major parties revealed Labor's plan to cut down on emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 would cost households in NSW an additional $600 on average on their power bill.

By the time the policy is fully implemented, power bills could cost an extra $480 per household on average in Victoria.

The analysis was brought to light by Coalition-associated Menzies and Page Research Centres who claim power bills would soar between six and 30 per cent by 2030 under a Labor government, News Corp reported.

By comparison, the Coalition policy would see a 40 per cent decline in the average household power bill by the same year.

The Coalition is planning to reduce emissions by 26 per cent, almost half of Labor's commitment, by 2030.

An average annual power bill in Victoria in 2017-18 is about $1208 a year but is expected to drop to $796 by 2030 amid the Coalition's proposed plans to reduce emissions.

Under the Coalition in NSW, the average annual bill would drop from about $1368 to $804.

By comparison, the annual household power bill in Victoria under Labor is forecast to jump six per cent to $1276.

Labor has committed to cutting down on emissions by 45 per cent by 2030. The Coalition is planning to reduce emissions by 26 per cent by 2030.

Power bills would soar between six and 30 per cent by 2030 under a Labor government - while the Coalition would see a 40 per cent decline, according to the findings.

According to the economic modelling, it would rise three per cent in NSW to $1404 a year by 2030.

Small and medium businesses with annual consumption of 16,000 kWh should expect the same electricity prices under Labor, the report found.

An Australia-wide drop of an average of $1,500 in electricity prices for small and medium businesses is anticipated under the Coalition.

Under the more conservative emissions policy employed by the government small and medium sized businesses would be $2164 better off a year in NSW and $1892 in Victoria.

With polling day three months around the corner, the cost of household power bills is expected to be draw-card for voters who could be willing to swing.

Labor's energy spokesman Mark Butler would not guarantee whether energy bills under his party would drop when asked last week.

Nick Cater the Executive director of the Menzies Research Centre said the research proved that Labor's commitment to renewable energy would not necessarily bring down the costs. 'The inconvenient truth is that there are huge costs to reducing emissions from energy production, and these are paid for by all of us, either as consumers or taxpayers,' he said.

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 March, 2019

CPAC Crowd Cheers When Trump Mocks AOC’s Green New Deal

President Trump brought down the house at the annual CPAC convention when he delivered a rousing speech that delighted the crowd of patriotic conservatives who seemed to sense that their values are under assault as never before.

On the same day that socialist Bernie Sanders was rousing the rabble in Brooklyn with his trademark bitter tirades against capitalism and appeals to radically transform the United States into something unthinkable, the president hit all the right notes and showed that he will be a formidable force in the coming battle against radicalized Democrats.

Bernie and his fellow travelers have been pitching the Green New Deal, a Trojan horse for the socialism that has inspired millennials whose enthusiasm vastly exceeds their knowledge of history and the bitter fate of the countries that have taken the leap of faith.

While the Green New Deal is already akin to a religion with the political left, it isn’t going to sell in Middle America and the Rust Belt which is where national elections are won and lost. In a preview of his upcoming campaign, Trump delighted in his mockery of a plan that would bankrupt the nation and would take a totalitarian government to bring about which is exactly what the Democrats are planning.

The crowd went absolutely wild when the leader of the free world all but ripped the beating hearts of the left out of their chest and waved it in their smug faces.

“The Green New Deal, I encourage it,” Trump continued sarcastically after boos from the audience. “I think it’s really something that they should promote.”

“They should work hard on,” he continued. “It is something our country needs. Desperately, they have to go out and get it, but I’ll take the other side of that argument, only because I am mandated to. But they should stay with that argument and never change. No planes. No energy. When the wind stops blowing, that is the end of your electric.”

To the audience’s delight, Trump pretended to be someone’s spouse just hoping the wind blows so they can watch a little television.

“Darling, is the wind blowing today? I would like to watch television, darling.”

“It’s true,” Trump said after the crowd burst into laughter.

SOURCE

House Dems scheduled an ‘important’ hearing on climate change – barely any of them showed up, so GOP killed it in 4 mins

By now, you know the truth. Climate change is the single greatest calamity facing mankind. Because there’s a Republican in the White House, Democrats have ramped-up the scare tactics to a fever pitch, and they can’t seem to get through a single presser without mention the fact that we’re all doomed. The oceans are going to rise, super-storms are going to decimate the coasts and, in the words of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, we’re all going to be dead in 12 years.

So… you would think that Democrats would be eager to attend a House subcommittee hearing on the subject. After all, if they don’t do something, Guam is going to tip over and Al Gore’s $9 million ocean view mansion is going to wash away.

So why, if this is such a grave threat, did only two Dems bother to show up to their own hearing?

Via the Politico:

House Republicans managed to quash Democrats’ hearing on climate change on Tuesday by outvoting the majority party at the poorly attended event, forcing it to adjourn only minutes after it began.

The hearing of the House Natural Resources panel was to be the latest to dive into climate change since Democrats took control of the House last month, bringing new attention to the issue they complained Republicans had ignored during their eight years leading the chamber. The hearing was designed to probe the “denial playbook” that Democrats say fossil fuel backers have copied from cigarette companies — the same tactics used by opioid makers and the National Football League to dispute strong scientific evidence.

Apparently, a meeting designed to forestall the end of the world wasn’t important enough for Democrats to attend. With only 2 Democrats appearing, Louie Gohmert and three other Republicans killed it in just a few minutes.

SOURCE

Green New Nightmare: City’s Attempt To Go ‘100% Renewable’ Brings Massive Costs

As Congress debates the Green New Deal resolution to transition the U.S. economy to “net-zero” greenhouse gas emissions, a Texas town struggles under the growing financial burden of going green.

Georgetown has spent $30 million since it began its transition to 100 percent renewable energy in 2016, and now city officials are lashing out at local reporters and a conservative think tank for scrutinizing the cost to taxpayers.

“The entire 100 percent renewable claim is misleading,” Bill Peacock, vice president of research conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

TPPF has been holding public hearings with angry Georgetown residents since last fall. The group also called out the city’s renewable energy claim that it runs solely on renewable power.

Peacock said the city’s “dogged, almost bling pursuit of renewables” has cost residents $30 million, maybe more, in additional electricity costs because of how it structured its contracts. Georgetown is reportedly the largest U.S. city to claim to run on 100 percent renewable electricity.

“Nobody enters into contracts for twice as much electricity as they need,” Peacock said. “The only way it makes sense is if you’re trying to make the point that you’re 100 percent renewable.” “Nobody else made this mistake that we’re aware of,” Peacock said.

Now the city is scrambling to get out of its long-term, fixed-price energy contracts. But what’s more remarkable is the city also distanced itself from its claim to fame — running on 100 percent solar and wind power.

“The City has never claimed that the electrons produced by its energy contracts are the same electrons consumed in Georgetown,” city spokesman Jackson Daly said in an emailed statement.

Except, that’s the opposite of what city officials sold to the media over the past few years. In fact, “100%” is emblazoned on the city utility’s logo. The city says it can claim this because it purchases more wind and solar power than it actually needs, even though it doesn’t directly get all that power.

Georgetown also produced videos on its solar and wind contracts, framing them as the “first step in Georgetown’s 100 percent renewable plan.” Those videos also suggest Georgetown is directly receiving all that green power, which isn’t the case.

There was likely no bigger proponent of going all in on renewables than Mayor Dale Ross, a Republican called the “unlikeliest hero of the green revolution” by Smithsonian. Ross even gained international attention. The BBC recently called him “an unlikely climate change hero.”

Since joining the green revolution, Ross has been featured in films, including a cameo in former Vice President Al Gore’s 2017 film “An Inconvenient Sequel.” Gore even called Georgetown a “trailblazer” for being the biggest U.S. city to go 100 percent renewable.

Georgetown’s actions inspire other cities, including Washington, D.C., to follow suit and pledged to go 100 percent renewable. The news outlet CityLab compared what Georgetown was doing to the Green New Deal that’s touted by Democratic 2020 presidential hopefuls.

But now Ross seems to be buckling under the public backlash. He reportedly threatened Lorraine Brady, the editor of the local newspaper, for reporting on the city’s green energy woes.

“I was stunned and felt threatened,” Brady wrote in early February, detailing how Ross said he would use his influence as mayor to hurt The Williamson County Sun’s finances. “This apparent effort to silence the press suggests a disregard for the people and their right to know.”

Three weeks earlier, The Williamson County published an article showing Georgetown had lost roughly $30 million since it began purchasing wind energy in 2016. Losses amplified in the last year after it began buying solar power in 2017.

Ross declined to speak to TheDCNF, instead referring questions to Daly, who criticized TPPF and local reporters scrutinizing the city’s decisions.

“Reports by a local newspaper and an anti-renewable energy advocacy organization have attempted to question Georgetown’s status as an electric utility that uses 100 percent renewable energy,” Daly said.

Green Raw Deal?

Georgetown started its move toward renewables in 2012 when the city paid the Lower Colorado River Authority $4.1 million to end its contract. Officials then began looking for other power providers, eventually signing long-term contracts with a solar and wind farm.

Ross called the decision a “no-brainer” that was based on dollars and cents, not global warming activism. The idea was to set electricity rates for the next 20 to 25 years, which he said natural gas providers wouldn’t do.

“This is a long-term pocketbook issue,” Ross said in August. “It’s a win for economics and a win for the environment.”

Georgetown’s utility signed up for wind and solar at fixed prices until 2035 and 2043, respectively, contracting to buy about twice as much power as it actually needs — the excess of which would be sold on the grid.

John Hesser, who joined the Georgetown city council in 2013, said he was the only council member to oppose the long-term green energy contracts, which the city signed in 2014 for wind and 2015 for solar.

“Renewable energy has its limits,” Hesser told TheDCNF. “I was the only one who objected to the contract.”

After a career in finance, Hesser said he saw the risk in betting everything that electricity prices would go up, especially from natural gas and coal plants.

“What I saw was the financial contract looked like a futures contract,” Hesser said. “You do not take a fixed rate contract in a variable rate market. It’s like a mortal sin in finance.”

Energy prices plummeted, particularly natural gas prices, meaning the city lost money selling power back to the market. City figures show it exceeded its electricity budget for 2018 by $10.5 million.

City officials are looking for ways to make up the shortfall, including raising electricity rates. Recent rate hikes raised the average resident’s bill about $13 a month to recover losses selling power on Texas’s electricity market.

The city is also trying to renegotiate its power contracts, and Hesser said “some good things” were happening on that front but did not go into detail.

SOURCE

California Recycling Program Costs Residents $308 Million in 2018

California consumers lost out on at least $308 million in nickel deposits on cans and bottles in 2018, largely because it’s increasingly difficult to find a place to recycle them, according to a new report made public Thursday.

In the last five years, about 40 percent of California’s recycling centers have closed, with more than 100 closing in Los Angeles County alone. The state says 1,600 centers remain open statewide, but advocacy group Consumer Watchdog said there are still barriers to Californians finding a place to recycle and that many grocery stores won’t take back the empties.

The group’s report suggests several reforms to California’s 33-year-old recycling program, which has struggled to be profitable. Democratic state Sen. Henry Stern has also proposed changes to the program.

“Californians plunk down a nickel for their cans … but increasingly they’re only getting half that nickel back on average,” said Consumer Watchdog president Jamie Court. “Consumers are losing, the environment is losing.”

The organization faults state regulators for lax oversight, saying they should more aggressively fine major retailers that won’t redeem containers or undercount the number of deposits they collect. It says the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, known as CalRecycle, should spend more money to promote recycling centers and punish companies that hoard deposits.

“Overall, the program has been highly successful, but recent years have brought challenges,” CalRecycle spokesman Mark Oldfield responded, citing broader market conditions.

He said the agency is looking for ways to help increase buy-back locations but put the monetary value of unredeemed deposits at $272 million, which the consumer group says omits administrative fees required by law that brings the total to $308 million.

The consumer group provided an advanced copy of its report to The Associated Press.

It recommends doubling the amount for deposits to a dime for each glass or plastic bottle or aluminum can to encourage more consumers to recycle, similar to the deposits required in Oregon and Michigan.

Consumers there recycle at least nine of every 10 containers. About three in four containers are recycled in California, but that includes those redeemed by bulk haulers as well as individual consumers. California currently charges 5 cents for containers under 24 ounces and 10 cents for larger containers.

Beyond the $308 million in unclaimed deposits, the group alleges consumers are missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars more, including $200 million in deposits that go to commercial trash haulers and bulk collectors. It also cites a 2014 report from the Container Recycling Institute that shows an undercount in bottle deposits paid by consumers, though Oldfield said that number has never been substantiated.

On the legislative side, Stern’s bill would restrict which retailers must accept containers and allow about $3 million in annual incentives to low-volume recycling centers to try to keep them open. A similar bill passed last year but former Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed it.

Stern said he is trying to help smaller “mom and pop” grocery stores while restoring some incentives for recyclers.

“A lot more work has to be done in this area and I’m hoping to work with consumer advocates to make sure people are getting a fair shake here,” Stern said.

Court said he hopes Stern’s bill is a starting point for negotiations. “It’s not an overhaul of the system, it in fact creates more exemptions for the grocery stores, which is bad,” Court said. “It does a couple things, but it doesn’t go far enough.”

Stern said the system needs improvements before consumers are asked to make larger deposits. Although Democrats control two-thirds majorities in both legislative chambers, Stern said they are cautious about raising fees even though, in theory, consumers would get their higher deposits back when they recycle. “But if we can make a case that there’s a good market rational, I’m open,” he said.

SOURCE

Australia: BoM is still deceiving

The BoM are always saying that somewhere in some period Australian weather is "hottest". They no longer are brazen enough to say that the heat is the work of global warming but they clearly aim to create the impression that global warming is ongoing. As with all Green/Left talk, however, they always tell just the bit that suits them. We read:

Australia just sweltered through its hottest summer on record

Australia suffered its hottest summer on record from December through February and forecasts show the southern autumn will continue to be drier and warmer than average, the government said Thursday.

"After a record hot December and January, it won't come as a surprise that this summer will be our warmest on record," said Andrew Watkins, manager of long-range forecasting at the Bureau of Meteorology.

Although the final figures won't be available until Friday, the bureau said it was already clear the average maximum and mean temperature for the three months of summer would for the first time be more than two degrees Celsius higher than long-term averages.

SOURCE

Now read just one thing elsewhere that they "overlook:

January–February 2019 North American cold wave

In late January 2019, a severe cold wave caused by a weakened jet stream around the Arctic polar vortex[3] hit the Midwestern United States and Eastern Canada, killing at least 22 people. It came after a winter storm brought up to 13 inches (33 cm) of snow in some regions from January 27–29. On February 2, the polar vortex moved west, and later affected Western Canada and the Western United States.

SOURCE

So which is it? Is the earth cooling or warming? The clear answer is neither. There are just different random fluctuations in different locations that tend to cancel one another out

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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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3 March, 2019

Even the Washington Post rips green new deal: ‘we can’t afford bad ideas’

The Washington Post editorial board came out against the Green New Deal resolution championed by Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her allies.

“Good intentions aren’t enough. We can’t afford bad ideas,” the editorial board wrote in its Green New Deal takedown posted Sunday.

While the editorial board agreed with the broad energy goals of the Green New Deal, the Post leveled criticism against the resolution’s 10-year timeline and inclusion of totally unrelated welfare demands.

“They should not muddle this aspiration with other social policy, such as creating a federal jobs guarantee, no matter how desirable that policy might be,” the editorial board wrote. (RELATED: Is Ocasio-Cortez Serious? Asks If We Can Still Have Children Because Of Climate Change)

The Post also called the Green New Deal’s goal of reaching “net-zero” greenhouse gas emissions within 10 years “impossible” and criticized the resolution’s “promise to invest in known fiascos such as high-speed rail.”

Ocasio-Cortez joined with Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey to introduce Green New Deal resolutions in early February, which not only included aggressive energy goals, but also a slew of welfare and “social justice” goals.

“These expensive aspirations, no matter how laudable, would do nothing to arrest greenhouse-gas emissions,” the editorial board wrote. “As ostensible parts of a Green New Deal, they divert money and attention from the primary mission: rapidly eliminating emissions between now and midcentury.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez looks on during a march organised by the Women's March Alliance in the Manhattan borough of New York City
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) looks on during a march organised by the Women’s March Alliance in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., January 19, 2019. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs.

Republicans oppose the Green New Deal, which is to be expected, but Democrats are divided on the bill as well.

A video posted online by pro-Green New Deal environmentalists showed Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein criticizing Ocasio-Cortez’s resolution as unrealistic and unable to pass the Senate.

The Post put forward its own Green New Deal proposal — the paper called for putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions and using government to “fill in the gaps” with additional climate policies.

“Pricing greenhouse-gas emissions with a carbon tax or cap-and-trade program, the economy-wide option, is bigger than the more spectacular-sounding but piecemeal subsidy and mandate programs some environmentalists prefer,” the editorial board wrote.

“But even carbon pricing would not be quite enough,” the Post’s editorial board added. “There are places where the price signal would not come through or be effective. In those circumstances, the government would have to do more.”

The Post also called for the U.S. to remain in the Paris climate accord, which President Donald Trump plans to withdraw from, and ratify the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which would regulate hydrofluorocarbons.

Of course, the Post’s version of the Green New Deal has about as much of a chance of being enacted as Ocasio-Cortez’s bill — almost none.

SOURCE

Western Caucus Addresses Green New Deal

Today, members of the Western Caucus and subject matter experts released statements attacking the Green New Deal after the Western Caucus' forum and press conference on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's legislation:

Chairman Paul Gosar (AZ-04): "The Green New Deal would drive energy production and jobs to countries like China and India that have much worse environmental standards. Global greenhouse gas emissions will increase as a result, in direct contradiction to the main talking point for the Green New Deal. The socialist Green New Deal attempts to provide education, health care and housing to all. The Mercatus Center estimates that the costs of the single-payer health care provision alone would cost $32 trillion in the first 10 years. The Green New Deal is an alarmist pipe dream that seeks to fundamentally “transform America” without a blueprint. This socialist manifesto changes by the day and important details on how a transition of the Green New Deal’s magnitude will occur are missing, including how we will pay for this pie in the sky aspiration."

Vice-Chairman for Indian Affairs and Oceans Don Young (AK-At Large): "The Green New Deal is a PR stunt that will never become law. I’ve fought to secure the rights of Alaskans to develop energy on their lands, and this proposal would turn the clock back on the progress we’ve made. The Green New Deal is a bad deal for Alaska, and I’ll keep fighting this massive government overreach."

Chief Rules Officer Dan Newhouse (WA-04): "The Democrats’ Green New Deal is a bad deal for the American People and ignores sound science. It calls for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero in just ten years—which could cost Americans $93 trillion. The drafters of this plan set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in ten years because they ‘aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.’ Government intervention and control of Americans’ lives at this enormous scale is no laughing matter. It dictates that in ten years every existing building in this country must be upgraded and retrofitted for ‘comfort.’ The drafters also want to subsidize those who are ‘unwilling to work.’ It defies sound science by ignoring clean sources of energy like those that power my home state of Washington. Washington relies on clean, renewable, and affordable hydroelectric dams for 70 percent of our power, but the Green New Deal ignores hydropower completely. It would even phase out the clean and reliable baseload energy provided by nuclear power. This Green New Deal would be catastrophic for the American economy and way of life. We must respect our environment, ensure clean air and water for our citizens, and encourage innovative way to produce energy through a variety of reliable, renewable, traditional, and alternative sources."

Michael Zehr, Consumer Energy Alliance: "American consumers need practical energy solutions that come from our nation’s existing mix of affordable energy resources. As it stands, the Green New Deal does not offer cost-efficient or sustainable solutions for hardworking families and businesses across our country." Mr. Zehr also testified that the Green New Deal is estimated to cost hard-working Americans $155.5 billion to replace furnaces, $50 billion to replace water heaters, $11.9 billion to replace gas dryers and $26 billion to replace stoves. "

Myron Ebell, Competitive Enterprise Institute: "The Green New Deal is neither green, nor particularly new, and is about as bad a deal as can be imagined. Its name hearkens back to the romantic memories many Americans have of the New Deal. The New Deal of the 1930s was a series of relatively modest ad hoc programs intended to put people back to work and lift the economy out of the Depression. But the Green New Deal is much more ambitious than the New Deal."

Katie Tubb, The Heritage Foundation: "The ‘Green New Deal’ resolution is filled with lessons. It is exactly how not to successfully enact desperately needed infrastructure investment. It is exactly how not to enact a progressive agenda to address our nation’s dangerous income inequality. And it is exactly how not to win support for critical measures to curb climate change… According to the resolution, a ‘Green New Deal’ would require every car to be electric-powered and ban all fossil fuels, among other proposals. It is difficult to take this unrealistic manifesto seriously, but the economic and social devastation it would cause if it moves forward is serious and real."

Rick Manning, Americans For Limited Government: “Socialism is always a failure. It deprives people of freedom, choice, property and opportunity. The Green New Deal is nothing more or less than a new rationale for a failed government system that has always resulted in enslavement and deprivation of the people — and it must be rejected.”

Marc Morano, Director of Communication, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow: "The environmental Left has been using green scares to push for the same solutions we see today — wealth redistribution, central planning, sovereignty limiting treaties — since the overpopulation scars of the 1960s and 1970s."

SOURCE

Earth is greener today than it was 20 years ago thanks to 'human activity,' NASA study shows

Rising CO2 helps with that

New findings from NASA revealed that the planet has seen an overall increase in greening over the last 20 years.

A new findings from NASA revealed that the planet has seen an overall increase in greening over the last 20 years, due mainly in part to “ambitious tree planting programs.”

The research published on Feb. 11 found that the greening of earth over the course of the last two decades has shown an overall increase by 5 percent, equal to more than two million square miles of extra green leaf area per year compared to the early 2000s.

The data, which compared satellite images from the mid-1990s taken by Boston University and those collected from two NASA satellites orbiting the earth for 20 years, showed that both China and India are leading the way in the greening of the globe.

Chi Chen of the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University, lead author of the study, said that the two countries “account for one-third of the greening, but contain only 9 percent of the planet’s land area covered in vegetation.”

Initially, researchers attributed the change to warmer weather, wetter climate and the fertilization from added carbon dioxide, but Rama Nemani, a research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, said that the new data showed that “humans are also contributing.”

Nemani pointed to China’s programs to conserve and expand forests and India’s cultivation of food crops.

“Now that we know direct human influence is a key driver of the greening Earth, we need to factor this into our climate models,” she continued. “This will help scientists make better predictions about the behavior of different Earth systems, which will help countries make better decisions about how and when to take action.”

SOURCE

Climate alarmists should cool off about Britain's warm weather spell

There’s a difference between weather and climate, as they never tire of telling us.

It goes without saying that the normal reaction to unseasonably warm weather is to leg it to the nearest beer garden and have a pint. But while us reasonable folk in Britain have been busy enjoying the warm spell, the climate alarmists have all gone into meltdown.

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas has already used the weather as an excuse to wheel out the old clichés about global warming being the greatest threat to our species. ‘We shouldn’t be enjoying a heatwave in February’, reads the breathless headline on her article for the Independent. ‘This is what climate breakdown feels like’, she says. In the Guardian, journalist Jonn Elledge asks: ‘Am I the only one who’s terrified about the warm weather?’

It is true that it was a first when temperatures topped 20 degrees centigrade this week. We’ve now had the warmest February day on record. But that is only alarming until you consider that the previous hottest February day came in 1998 – over 21 years ago.

The inconvenient truth for the green lobby is that the current unseasonal spell of warm weather is just that: weather. The Met Office has already said the cause of the current hot spell is a high-pressure front dragging warm air over from Africa, not global warming. And yet the same alarmists who claim that unseasonal cold spells can’t be taken as proof that global warming isn’t real are now asserting that the current warm spell proves beyond all doubt that we’re heading for the end of the world.

The Earth’s temperature does seem to be increasing, and there’s no use denying that. However, the current rise is likely to just be part of the uncontrollable natural cycle of heating and cooling which the planet has always endured. It is also true that a small amount of this temperature increase is likely to be caused by human activities, although the extent to which global warming is man-made remains disputed.

What’s missing in our discussion of climate change and environmental issues is an acknowledgement of the trade-off between human progress and environmental damage. Millions of people in the global South have been lifted out of poverty in the past few decades largely because of cheap and readily available fossil fuels – the same fossil fuels the green lobby would gladly see banned. With 10 per cent of human beings still living in extreme poverty, more fossil fuels will need to burn before everyone can enjoy the living standards and modern comforts we in the West have grown so accustomed to.

So when eco-warriors talk about clamping down on cheap fossil fuels, or reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, they know this will also mean clamping down on development. It is clear that to many of the staunchest environmentalists, economic growth is not something to be celebrated, but something to be managed, and where possible restricted, because of the environmental repercussions it can have. This is why environmentalism is so trendy among the anti-capitalist movement that is currently flourishing on Twitter and within the Labour Party. Never mind that many of the solutions to today’s environmental problems are likely to be technological anyway – meaning that more economic growth, not less, is our best bet for a cleaner and greener future.

Either way, this week’s lovely weather is not worth worrying about. The bottom line is that one February hot spell does not mean the world is dying, and climate alarmists would be better off if they dropped the doom-mongering and just enjoyed the sun like the rest of us. This is Britain, after all, and the rain is guaranteed to be back in no time.

SOURCE

Beware green technocrats

The UK Committee on Climate Change has nothing but contempt for the public.

Ask people what the UK’s biggest housing problems are, and most will tell you, rightly, that there aren’t enough homes, and that prices and rents are far too high. But UK policymakers are preoccupied by something else and have been for a long time: that our homes contribute to, and are at risk from, global warming.

So it was that a non-departmental public body, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), announced last week that ‘UK homes are not fit for the future’, and that tough new building standards and enforcement will be necessary. Most shocking of all, the CCC said ‘no new homes should be connected to the gas grid’, and that gas central heating and plumbing should therefore be phased out.

Saving the planet, and homes, from the ravages of climate change is a good idea. But the CCC’s claims are questionable. As I reported here during last Summer’s heatwave, the CCC, like many climate alarmists, has a tendency to exaggerate risk and lose historical perspective. In truth, homes are actually better protected from the slightly warmer, slightly wetter and slightly windier weather that scientists predict might be our future than they were even a generation ago.

The CCC argues that UK emissions-reduction targets cannot be met ‘without near complete decarbonisation of the housing stock’. Gas boilers should therefore be banned in new (and then older) homes, because ‘energy use in homes accounts for about 14 per cent of UK greenhouse gas emissions’. In their place will be more energy-efficient systems, such as ground- and air-source heat pumps, and greater levels of insulation.

The problem with this is that if economic alternatives to gas-fired central heating and hot water existed, there would be no need for standards and their enforcement. But they don’t exist. Zero-carbon homes are the stuff of Grand Designs – a nice idea, but more a fashion accessory for the wealthy than a design principle that will improve lives. Lower-cost experiments with low-carbon construction have resulted in complaints of homes becoming too hot in the summer; having poor ventilation and, therefore, damp and mould; and of requiring their inhabitants to sacrifice comfort. Most notably, and most tragically, the incautious application of energy-efficiency standards as dictated by remote technocrats – rather than consumers, according to their own needs – contributed to the Grenfell disaster.

All of which should provoke debate about the UK’s climate-change policy. UK political parties all make the same bland promises to ‘tackle climate change’, but the devil is in the platitudes. That is to say, they rarely explain costs or consequences. It seems clear that climate-change and energy policies have not been constructed in the voter’s interest, and certainly without his or her consent. And the climate establishment’s contempt runs deep. Ten years ago, I interviewed CCC member Julia King (aka Baroness Brown of Cambridge), after a public talk on UK climate policy. She told me that the problem for politicians is that the population is ‘extremely selfish’, and the main objective of the CCC was ‘behaviour change’. There has been no public debate about the principles underpinning the shift to a lower carbon economy – including banning gas boilers – because members of the climate-change establishment do not believe they are answerable to the public.

The CCC was established by the Climate Change Act (2008) to give ‘independent advice’ to parliament on what its climate targets should be and how they can be achieved. But this act was passed at one of the lowest points in UK democracy, in which a cross-party consensus on climate change, and the endless spawning of quangos, epitomised the lack of political diversity and accountability in Westminster. Accordingly, far from being ‘independent’, the CCC was populated by crony capitalists and green zealots. The result has been a single-minded body that has ignored criticism and dodged debate because, like all unaccountable, undemocratic technocracies, it can.

For people with the means to afford ever-increasing energy bills and higher-cost transport, the CCC’s latest wheeze may seem trivial. But a proposed ban on gas boilers is merely one part of a broader technocratic project that further disempowers the public. So, regardless of whether you think climate change is the huge problem the CCC claims it is, the solution to it cannot be technocracy.

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 March, 2019

Hormesis: How a scientist's disputed views about pollution may change EPA

The amusing part below is why Leftist scientists (such as Thomas Burke, professor and director of the Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health) oppose the recognition of hormesis.

They say you can allow for it in clinical settings but in everyday setting you must not use it because you cannot control the dosage.

The slipperiness there is that the safe use of hormesis is NOT limited to clinical settings. There are already many instances where hormetic effects emerged safely in everyday settings. The dosage range for hormetic effects is in fact quite large so it could be safely allowed for in many regulatory settings

Hormesis has in fact emerged in what would conventionally be regarded as a "medium" exposure to ionizing radiation. But radioactivity is a great bugaboo to the Left so they desperately need to deny that

Ed Calabrese's theory that low doses of toxic chemicals are good for people could soon become U.S. policy.

In early 2018, a deputy assistant administrator in the EPA, Clint Woods, reached out to a Massachusetts toxicologist best known for pushing a public health standard suggesting that low levels of toxic chemicals and radiation are good for people.

"I wanted to check to see if you might have some time in the next couple of days for a quick call to discuss a couple items," Woods wrote to Ed Calabrese.

Less than two weeks later, Calabrese's suggestions on how the Environmental Protection Agency should assess toxic chemicals and radiation were introduced, nearly word for word, in the U.S. government's official journal, the Federal Register.

"This is a major big time victory," Calabrese wrote in an email to Steve Milloy, a former coal and tobacco lobbyist who runs a website, junkscience.com, that seeks to discredit mainstream climate science.

"Yes. It is YUGE!" wrote Milloy, in response.

It was a glorious moment for Calabrese, who had been snubbed for decades by mainstream public health scientists because of his controversial research and theories.

It also signified the major shift the EPA has taken under the Trump administration.More than any before it, this White House has actively sought out advice from industry lobbyists and the scientists they commission in setting pollution rules.

Denouncing the Obama-era EPA as an agency beholden to environmental extremists, the administration has not only dismissed mainstream science but embraced widely discredited alternatives that critics say are not consistent with the agency's focus on improving public and environmental health.

Calabrese's role illustrates a different side of this shift: the potential removal of long-standing public health practices and the incorporation of industry-backed and disputed science into federal environmental policy.

Calabrese spent decades advancing his ideas, facing skepticism and criticism from peers in the toxicology community while winning funding from companies whose bottom lines conformed to his views.

He says most of the pushback he receives comes from left-of-center toxicologists who see him as "the devil incarnate" for accepting industry funding and challenging their ideology. He maintains his science is solid and will be vindicated in time.

"These environmental regulatory people are very closed-minded," he said. They won't reconsider their standards, and see that some of the agents they call harmful "actually can induce adaptive responses," Calabrese said.

This view - that pollution and radiation can be beneficial - has many experts worried. The fact that such a position might become EPA policy, they say, portends a future in which corporate desires outweigh public and environmental health.

"Industry has been pushing for this for a long time," said David Michaels, former assistant secretary of labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration who's a professor of environmental and occupational health at George Washington University. "Not just the chemical industry, but the radiation and tobacco industries too."

If the EPA ultimately adopts Calabrese's proposed new regulations, researchers say it could change decades of standards and guidelines on clean air, water and toxic waste. It could also fundamentally alter the way the government assesses new chemicals and pesticides entering the marketplace.

"This is industry's holy grail," Michaels said.

For decades, federal agencies charged with investigating and regulating carcinogens, toxic chemicals and radiation have been guided by the assumption that if a substance is dangerous at some level, it is harmful at any level. The higher the exposure, the more harm done. The lower the dose, the less. And the risk doesn't entirely disappear until the substance is removed.

This is known as the linear no-threshold model, and industry dislikes it because it generally assumes that there is no level, or threshold, of exposure that can be considered totally safe.

But research done on low exposures to toxins has been less than definitive. Experiments designed to test carcinogens and radiation at low levels often produce conflicting results - with, for example, some studies of a chemical showing harm, other studies showing no effect, and a few suggesting a net benefit. In other cases, there is no information at all to guide regulators.

In the face of such uncertainty, the EPA and other agencies have taken a cautious approach by relying on the linear no-threshold model. Where data are absent or uncertain, they assume some level of risk.

It is an imperfect but protective approach, many public health specialists say. They argue that in a human population that varies widely in age, health and levels of chemical exposures, it is imperative that the agency cast a wide, conservative and protective net.

For decades, national and international scientific bodies have upheld this approach. It has been reviewed and re-reviewed dozens of times, including most recently by the congressionally chartered National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and the EPA.

At the same time, industry has funded scientists to conduct and promote research designed to poke holes in the linear no-threshold model.

And that is where Calabrese comes in. He has long argued that regulators "erred on the side of being protective" at the cost of billions of dollars a year to industry.

Calabrese is a proselytizer of hormesis, the idea that dangerous chemicals and radiation are beneficial at low doses. He says they have a stimulating effect.

Polluting industries have promoted hormesis as an alternative to linear no-threshold for decades, but they had gotten little traction until the EPA embraced it in April.

"It's clearly not mainstream," said Thomas Burke, professor and director of the Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Burke and other experts say there are clearly scenarios in which toxic chemicals can have beneficial effects in clinical and pharmacological settings, such as in the case of tamoxifen, which at low doses is effective at preventing and treating breast cancer but at higher doses can lead to blood clots, stroke and uterine cancer.

But, they say, what happens in a clinical setting can't and shouldn't be immediately applied to a regulatory, public health setting.

In the clinical case, "you have a doctor controlling and administering the medication to an individual," said David Jacobs, a professor of public health at the University of Minnesota, who has published studies showing hormetic effects in some industrial pollutants. "The doctor can pull the medication at any time.

"There is no way to control the dose a person gets from an industrial or agricultural chemical," he said. "It's not being doled out in pills and monitored by a physician who can lower it if the patient isn't responding well."

Therefore, Jacobs said, it would be dangerous to use hormesis as a framework for protecting public and environmental health.

SOURCE

California introduces bill banning paper receipts

Based on the usual defective science that ignores the dictum that the toxicity is in the dose

First there was the plastic bag ban, and then the straw ban. And now, the Golden State is coming after paper. California may become the first state to require businesses to offer electronic receipts unless customers specifically ask for paper copies.

On Tuesday, Democratic Assemblyman Phil Ting of San Francisco, with the help of a very tall paper receipt, proposed legislation that would force businesses to offer customers e-receipts.

Many businesses in the Golden State and around the country are already turning toward electronic receipts, but Ting's bill would require it as the standard.

According to Ting, the law is needed because paper receipts pose a health risk many consumers are unaware of - chemicals Bisphenol-A (BPA) and Bisphenol-S (BPS), already prohibited in baby bottles, which cannot be recycled and with which most paper receipts are coated.

The bill would require all businesses to provide proof of purchase receipts electronically starting in 2022 unless a customer asks for a printed copy.

The penalties in Ting's bill are modeled on the state's straw bill, said Nick Lapis, of Californians Against Waste. It calls for written warnings for the first two violations and a fine of $25 a day for subsequent infractions, with an annual $300 cap.

But not everyone is on board with the paper receipt ban.

Republican Assemblyman Brian Dahle of Bieber said he's concerned the receipt proposal could be burdensome for small businesses, won't save that much paper and may not be practical in rural areas without Internet connection.

In addition, "then they have your email, then they'll be marketing to you or selling your information or it can get into privacy issues," he said.

Ting said consumers can still request paper receipts if they are worried about giving out their email addresses.

Many larger stores already offer the choice of paper or electronic receipts but it is unclear if a mandate would cause a hardship for small and medium-size stores, said California Retailers Association spokeswoman Pamela Williams. Her association and other business groups have not taken a stance on the bill.

Ting said businesses can save money by moving away from printed receipts.

The advocacy group Green America, which is pushing a "skip the slip" campaign, estimated that millions of trees and billions of gallons of water are used annually to produce paper receipts in the United States.

Ting cited studies by the Environmental Working Group and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that retail workers have higher concentrations of BPA or BPS than those who do not have regular contact with receipts.

Ting, with use of his living prop - a man wearing a very long paper receipt - demonstrated how large, and wasteful, paper receipts can be.

And he's not the first to point out how comically long receipts can get.

CVS has consistently been the butt of paper receipt jokes with people using them as rulers, costumes and even as cheap fixes for house projects.

SOURCE

AOC's Green New Deal To Cost $93 Trillion; That's $600,000 PER HOUSEHOLD

According to a new study, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's `Green New Deal' would cost up to $93 trillion dollars, or $600,000 per American household.

The study was conducted by the American Action Forum which was lead be Douglas Holtz-Eakin who was in charge of the non-partisan CBO from 2003 to 2005.

This is what the group had to say.

"The Green New Deal is clearly very expensive," the group said in its analysis. "It's further expansion of the federal government's role in some of the most basic decisions of daily life, however, would likely have a more lasting and damaging impact than its enormous price tag."

The Green New Deal called for an end to all gas cars, planes, promised jobs for those who are "unwilling to work" and even called for an end to farting cows.

The American Action Forum even calculated the yearly price of guaranteed green housing, universal health care, and food security which was outlined by the deal, and they found that the cost for each household in America would be $36,100 to $65,300 every year. That would equate to over $600,000 over 10 years.

I don't know about you, but there is no way I could afford that price tag every year.

This plan is not only idiotic, but completely unattainable.

Read what The Washington Free Beacon reported:

"The American Action Forum's analysis shows that the Green New Deal would bankrupt the nation," said Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

"On the upper end, every American household would have to pay $65,000 per year to foot the bill," he said. "The total price tag would be $93 trillion over 10 years. That is roughly four times the value of all Fortune 500 companies combined. That's no deal."

Barrasso said the focus should be on innovation, rather than costly federal programs.

"Instead, we should promote innovation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Promising new technologies like advanced nuclear power, carbon capture, and carbon utilization hold the key to significant emissions reductions," he said. "We can lower our emissions without crashing our economy."

The United States is already leading the world in the reduction of carbon emissions.

In Trump's first year in office, emissions were down by 2.7%. The only purpose of the Green New Deal is to grab attention for AOC and her far Left followers.

Check out what the American Action Forum concluded via The Washington Free Beacon:

"The Green New Deal is clearly very expensive," the American Action Forum said. "Its further expansion of the federal government's role in some of the most basic decisions of daily life, however, would likely have a more lasting and damaging impact than its enormous price tag."

In all, the plan would cost between $52.6 trillion and $94.4 trillion, over 10 years. The burden to the taxpayer would amount to between $361,010 and $653,010 for each household over 10 years.

Electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket under such a plan. Barrasso's office previously calculated the Green New Deal would increase electric bills by up to $3,800 per year.

Taking the lead of Ocasio-Cortez, who recently suggested people should stop reproducing because climate change will end the world in 12 years, Democratic 2020 hopefuls have lined up to endorse the Green New Deal.

It's shocking how Democrats aren't condemning Cortez and are actually endorsing her radical ideas.

The facts speak for themselves. The Green New Deal would bankrupt our country and would have lasting negative effects on our nation.

SOURCE

Under Trump's Tariffs, The US Lost 20,000 Solar Energy Jobs

Great!

2016 was the best year on record for solar energy in the United States. A report from the U.S. Department of Energy at the time showed that solar energy was responsible for a much larger share of employment in the electric power sector (43%) than the whole of the fossil fuel industry combined (22%). With such robust numbers, it seemed as though solar energy, and renewables more broadly, were about to revolutionize the energy sector in the United States and lead the push towards cleaner energy and lower carbon emissions.

However, solar energy jobs have stagnated and dipped for two consecutive years since the Department of Energy's initial report, with a loss of 10,000 jobs in 2017 followed by a further 8,000 in 2018. Although some job losses were foreseen as a result of project finalizations in several states, the biggest contributing factor was President Trump's tariffs on solar panels . The first shot fired in what would become a wide-ranging trade war with China in 2018, the U.S.' decision to add a 30% tariff on foreign-produced solar panels had a negative effect on its domestic solar industry, which heavily relies on cheap imports.

The Solar Foundation's latest report has called the last two years "challenging". Since that record year, the solar sector has lost close to 18,000 jobs, but the Foundation is confident that 2019 will be the year they bounce back, as it explains: "Based on the Census survey, the solar industry expects a jobs turnaround with 7% growth in 2019." That being said, the Foundation also acknowledges that its predictions could be wrong, as it was when it projected a 5.2% job growth in the sector for 2018.

SOURCE

`Climate Security' Panel May Give White House Skeptics New Voice

The White House is considering establishing a presidential committee to assess the consensus of scientists and the Pentagon that climate change poses a national security threat, according to a person familiar with the plan.

The move, being spearheaded by William Happer, a physicist and National Security Council senior director who has touted the benefits of carbon dioxide emissions, could give climate skeptics a platform to push back against conclusions reached by Pentagon and other agencies within Trump's own administration that climate change is a major national security threat.

The proposed Presidential Committee on Climate Security has yet to receive sign off by the White House and the panel will be the subject of a deputy-level meeting on Friday, according to the person who requested anonymity to discuss non-public deliberations.

Representatives of the National Security Council did not immediately comment.

The idea drew swift condemnation from climate activists.

"The science and facts on climate change are well-established and do not need a administration-influenced review by an NSC headed panel," said Ron Keys, a retired U.S. Air Force general and senior member of the advisory board at the Center for Climate and Security, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. "What we do need are practical and pragmatic policy choices today to fix the problem."

According to a National Security Council discussion paper obtained by the Washington Post, which reported earlier on the proposed committee, the panel would "advise the president on scientific understanding of today's climate, how the climate might change in the future under natural and human influences, and how a changing climate could affect the security of the United States."

"It's a great idea, spearheaded by a great guy," said Steve Milloy, a policy adviser for the Heartland Institute, a group critical of climate science. "Sounds like the dishonest/know-nothing climate bedwetters in the national security apparatus - as well as those across the federal government - are about to get schooled in CO2 reality."

The effort to upend the military approach to climate change comes as some conservatives grow disappointed the Trump administration is not moving more aggressively to eliminate or undercut a swath of domestic climate policies enacted under former President Barack Obama.

Conservative Concerns

Still the possible new initiative illustrates the seriousness of the Trump administration's commitment to undermining a scientific and government consensus about the national security threat posed by climate change, as rising seas, more intense storms and deeper droughts threaten to uproot communities, destroy property and create new geopolitical tensions around the globe.

Last month the Pentagon issued a report warning of the dire risk of climate change to the military's bases and troops and a worldwide threat assessment of the U.S. intelligence community by the Office of the Director for National Intelligence recognized climate change as a threat. A report issued late last year by several federal agencies said climate change posed a serious threat to the U.S., and one that is quickly getting worse.

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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