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
This is a backup copy of the original blog
29 April, 2022
Biden Going Green by Killing Jobs, Strangling Growth with Red Tape
Despite the application of dubious new environmental standards that will cut across numerous executive agencies, the Bidens are with a straight face arguing that this will actually reduce regulations.
There they go again.
The “they” is Team Biden and the “again” is another round of massive regulatory increases that will cost millions of blue-collar jobs and prevent any new energy pipelines and probably new utilities from being built, and virtually stop the construction of new or extended bridges, highways, and tunnels.
The move will significantly raise environmental reviews of all these infrastructure-type projects, completely reversing one of President Trump’s best policies, which streamlined National Environmental Policy Act permits and timetables.
This issue is dear to my heart because Mr. Trump’s infrastructure reforms were developed in the national economic council, where I worked closely with Andrew Olmem and Francis Brooke.
It used to take seven, 10, or even 15 years to get a new building permit through the executive branch. Mr. Trump brought that down to one to two years and took out the excessive, unscientific, radical enviro approval layers.
One of the wonderful things about this new Biden review is that despite the application of dubious new environmental standards that will cut across numerous executive agencies, and therefore cause a huge stall in project decisions, the Bidens are with a straight face arguing that this will actually reduce regulations.
“Restoring these basic community safeguards will provide regulatory certainty, reduce conflict, and help ensure projects get built right the first time,” according to the White House council on environmental quality chairwoman, Brenda Mallory.
Notice, she didn’t say projects would get built on time: She said projects would get built right the first time—which could mean taking forever, or maybe even never happening.
By the way, this executive order makes a mockery of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed with Republican votes last fall. Only about 10 percent of the $1.2 trillion would've gone to bridges, roads, and tunnels anyway, but the Biden executive overreach could shrink those projects to nothing.
Here are a few of the add-ons that are supposed to result in less red tape. First of all, their new enviro impact statement will include a so-called cumulative impact on existing or new projects. Cumulative: That could go back a century or even forward a century. And there's no way to measure it.
This is the reappearance of the radical-left climate activist idea of the social cost of carbon: back a century, forward a century, upstream producers and/or downstream users.
You think anybody could figure that out? They’re just ginning up a high social carbon cost that will lead them to reject any new infrastructure projects. Incidentally, beside the word cumulative, these new regs that are supposed to cut red tape—more regs = less red tape, got it?—will also cover direct and indirect impacts on the environment. These new enviro reviews include the endangered species act, the clean water act, and the clean air act, along with the enviro impact.
This makes a mockery of the infrastructure legislation that came up with the “one federal decision” policy, because all these impacts from carbon, birds—remember the lesser male prairie chicken endangered species flap that endangered the entire Permian Basin oil and gas reservoir?—you add all this up (and for heaven’s sakes we mustn’t forget the EPA, which is chock full of Biden radicals) and you’ll need sign-offs for water and air. The federal highway administration inside the transportation department, which is supposed to make these decisions, will never be able to make them because all these project reviews cover so many agencies that it will take forever.
Let us add, however, that the new rules specify that any new projects—and that includes, let’s say, a widening of a clogged highway somewhere in a high-growth red state, or any construction expansion that was so-called unplanned, whatever that means—will be put at the bottom of the administrators’ pile.
I’m not making this up: It is specified in the fine print.
This being the Bidens, there also will be special attention to so-called disadvantaged communities and under-represented groups. Their new rule supposedly reconnects these communities and groups, but if you can’t build a new highway or bridge or road, or a utility for that matter, how can you connect them? Especially with any new construction being put at the bottom of the pile in the administrator’s inbox.
Going to the top of the pile of this infamous inbox are projects that would help electric vehicles, charging stations, and renewable energy generation. Someone has to help me here, because my free-speech hero, Elon Musk, and his new electric vehicles would presumably ride on new highways.
Yet the federal highway administration won’t build a new highway because it would be new and would have too many environmental problems, cumulatively.
At some point, somebody’s going to take this new Biden executive order to the federal courts and quite possibly the Supremes, because the new rules are a rewrite of the infrastructure law just passed in Congress—and that’s not the role of regulators.
Finally, because all the Biden lefty greenies are once again driving policy, it makes a mockery not only of the just-passed infrastructure bill—that wasn’t very good anyway—and it tells you that the Biden war against fossil fuels is alive and well.
Pipelines will not pass the new review process. Infrastructure for drilling or mining projects—to, let’s say, extract minerals like nickel, copper, and lithium to go into batteries—will be stopped.
The net-net of all this is that millions of hard-hat, blue-collar and related service jobs will be lost. The middle class and those right below it will suffer enormously as a result of the radical enviros in the Biden administration.
Trust me: When it comes to a new project, more review areas covering more federal agencies will not reduce regulation, but will increase it enormously. Mr. Biden’s falsehoods can’t change that. Here’s the good news: The cavalry is coming.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14146&omhide=true&trk=title
**************************************************Media are terrorizing public over climate fears
The American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) monthly “Healthy Minds” poll recently found that a large percentage of Americans believe their physical and mental health are being negatively impacted by climate change. APA President Vivian Pender, M.D., believes this is a real impact of climate change itself on the population. In reality, what the poll is measuring is the psychological damage generated by the mainstream media’s nearly continuous stream of false, alarming claims that the world faces an “existential” climate crisis.
According to the poll, “58% of adults believe climate change is already impacting the health of Americans and nearly half (48%) agree that it's impacting the mental health of Americans.”
In 2019, a group of more than 170 news organizations and journalists, led by the Columbia Journalism Review, The Nation, and The Guardian, teamed up to push “a week’s worth of climate coverage in the lead-up to the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York on Sept. 23.” Kip Hansen did a nice analysis of the coordinated propaganda event at WattsUpWithThat.
Everyone paying attention knew we were in for much more than just a week’s worth of propaganda. Most likely, we were getting a glimpse behind the curtain.
Climate alarmism has been rampant for decades. However, with the lightning-fast reach of social media and coordinated efforts from businesses eager to get in on the “green gimmies” from government, it has only become worse. When was the last time you heard about a weather event that was not tied to climate change?
Even more worrisome, the poll shows that today’s youth are especially frightened.
Per the APA poll, “Young people were more anxious about climate change. Of those aged 18-34, 66% were anxious about its effect on the planet, 51% were worried about its impact on their mental health, and 59% worried about its impact on future generations. They were also more likely to believe it was already having an effect on the health (64%) and mental health (57%) of Americans.”
I know the power that the education system holds over a young mind. From my earliest encounters with the sciences in school, the idea that we humans were destroying the planet in one way or another was ubiquitous. In middle school, it was very common in science class to calculate your home’s “carbon footprint” for homework assignments. I also had a teacher who berated students for using too much water at home.
To impressionable kids, this is a horribly heavy burden to carry.
Starting in elementary school and going all the way through high school, the lessons are repetitive in a way that makes them feel almost liturgical. In many high school curriculums, including AP (Advanced Placement) sciences, the theory that carbon dioxide is the control knob for Earth’s temperature is not questioned or challenged. A student who does so is in for an uphill battle unless he or she has a very open-minded teacher.
Unfortunately, most kids don’t really question what they’re being taught, to look skeptically at things and wonder if it’s true. It is not that they’re dumb or careless, but they do, by and large, believe that their teachers are trustworthy, that at least what they are being taught is not false.
Nor do I blame most teachers. The textbooks and the curricula include these lessons, why dig too deep? There are, of course, fanatics and radicals among teachers (more and more, it seems). But, who or what created them?
Answer: The media, which greatly amplifies alarmism. If it weren’t for the fevered pitch of anxiety and dire warning laced into every media report of every weather event; every time it is hot (or cold), dry (or wet), climate change would be a scientific area of interest like any other, and countless attribution scientists would be out of work.
The scientific journals play to the media; they boast more and more extreme headline-grabbing studies, and soon enough you get decades of “last chances” to save the planet. Social media has a role in all of this too, almost anyone who defies the climate alarm narrative is censored.
Fortunately the fears of those polled are unwarranted: data show that not only are climate-related deaths way down, most severe weather events are trending downwards too.
Of course, there is always the chance that these poll numbers are total garbage anyway, achieved with leading questions and selection bias. In that case, numbers like these are meant to make those not in these groups feel like they are “outside” the norm, elevating their concerns.
Don’t let the alarmists fool you or your kids. Engage in critical thinking, question the status quo, and always dig into the data.
And for sanity’s sake – turn off the Weather Channel!
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"The Conversation" Misleads on Coral Reefs and Solutions to Climate Change
A Google News search for the term “Climate Change” brings up an article by The Conversation, in which two authors associated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report make a series of claims, including that climate change is decimating coral reefs, and that renewable energy sources are cheaper than traditional energy. These claims are false.
Most egregiously, the authors make the unsubstantiated claim that half of the world’s coral reefs are dead.
In the article, “Climate change will transform how we live, but these tech and policy experts see reason for optimism,” the authors wrote that, “[A]bout half the world’s coral reef ecosystems have died because of increasing heat and acidity in the oceans.” This is not only false, but also a misleading framing.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and there is simply no evidence that half of the world’s corals are dead. It is possible that half of the world’s corals have experienced some degree of bleaching over the past few decades, but bleaching is not the same as death and most bleached corals have recovered, with coral on the whole expanding their range. The authors provide no verifiable data or specific studies to back up their assertions. The studies that do exist refute them.
Corals are hardy and resilient, having first evolved more than 500 million years ago when the Earth’s temperature was much higher than today. They have survived and expanded through periods of higher and lower temperatures than at present. As discussed at Climate Realism, here, here, and here for example, coral have expanded their range recently and new coral reefs are discovered all the time.
Coral bleaching is a process where corals expel the symbiotic algae that colonize their surface. If another kind of algae does not return, over time the coral might die. Most corals quickly recover. Spectacular cases of corals rebounding occur constantly around the world, such as the case with Coral Castles reef, which was bleached by a 1998 El Niño event. By 2015, much of the reportedly dead coral reef was discovered to be thriving once again. This stunned the experts who devoted their careers to studying it, who at the time predicted the reef would take 100 years to recover. Afterwards the researchers stated in a press release that “Our projections were completely wrong.”
The same has happened to other reefs that suffered during the 1998 El Niño, like a dozen reefs on the Seychelles, which have since mostly recovered.
The Great Barrier reef’s demise has also been greatly exaggerated by alarmists, as shown in these Climate Realism articles here, here, and here.
Nor, as explored in Climate at a Glance: Ocean Acidification, are Earth’s oceans becoming acidic. Since ocean water remains alkaline, corals aren’t being harmed by any change in water chemistry.
The solution to the non-threat to coral reefs and other non-issues, the authors say, is transitioning to “green” energy sources.
“For example, renewable energy is now generally less expensive than fossil fuels, so a shift to clean energy can often save money,” The authors state.
This claim is demonstrably false as well, relying on a poorly organized report on Levelized Costs of Energy (LCOE) produced by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). In the report, the EIA neglects to realistically account for the low-capacity factor, or percentage of the claimed maximum electricity generation, of wind and solar power. The EIA assumes higher efficiency than the real-world data on solar and wind power generation show. Additionally, they do not account for the costs of the backup power supplies needed for when wind and solar don’t work. A thorough analysis of these issues can be found here, written by Willis Eschenbach.
On the real world costs of wind and solar, Eschenbach concludes, “At a bare minimum, it will be the capital cost of the dispatchable backup generator plus some portion of the other fixed, variable, and transmission costs … and that means that because of the costs of the needed backup generators, there is very little chance that solar and wind will ever be competitive with other methods.”
When these factors are added, so-called renewables are far from cheap compared to traditional energy sources. Indeed research consistently shows as states and countries add wind and solar power to their electrical power grid, the costs of electric power rise sharply. Simultaneously, and not coincidentally, the reliability of the power supply declines.
For individuals who make a living studying climate change, the authors of this article in The Conversation apparently know very little about the facts on the ground. They make a multitude of false claims, with those concerning the demise of coral reefs and electricity production being arguably the most egregiously ignorant and misleading. The aim of IPCC researchers should be to accurately inform the public concerning the true state of the climate. For this article, that would require the presentation of more facts and less hyperbolic claims.
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Now it's cheeses aandwiches that will kill the planet
In 1979, when the first series of The Food Programme was broadcast on BBC Radio 4, the show’s presenter asked whether more episodes of it were going to be commissioned. The station’s controller asked in surprise: ‘But won’t you have said everything there is to say about food?’
Apparently not. Today we watch endless TV cookery shows, we fret about food miles, trans fats and calorie counts, and we grow ever fatter, too — 63 per cent of UK adults are now overweight or obese.
For proof of the complexities of the food industry, look no further than 13 Foods That Shape Our World, billed as ‘the first official book’ from The Food Programme, which has now been on air for 43 years. The cover suggests it’s a jolly romp through the history of our most important foods, but it’s actually a long howl of anguish about modern food practices.
Take the sun-kissed Italian tomato: what could be healthier and more cheerful? In fact, many of Italy’s tomatoes are picked by migrants who work in dismal conditions. What’s more, your favourite pasta sauce may not even come from Italy. China is now the world’s major grower and processor of tomatoes and, as long as the paste is repackaged in Italy, it can be labelled as Produce Of Italy. ‘As a tomato lover ... there’s quite a lot to worry about,’ Alex Renton writes mournfully.
Farming cows, sheep and goats for their milk may be ‘as ancient as civilisation’, but Renton tells us disapprovingly that modern dairy farming results in nearly as many ‘climate-damaging emissions’ as global aviation and shipping combined. The ingredients for a cheese sandwich produce more than five times as many harmful emissions as a peanut butter and jam sandwich — but isn’t that stuffed full of sugar?
Renton is rightly scornful of the poor quality of much low-cost massproduced bread, but for anyone planning to bake their own wholemeal additivefree loaf instead, he points out that heating your oven to the right temperature for bread ‘is ten times as costly in terms of emissions of climate - affecting gases as buying one from a shop’.
So what is the eco-conscious foodie to do? The author’s answer to almost all ethical food dilemmas is that we should simply be prepared to pay more for what we consume (and in the case of bread, that means patronising your local artisan bakery).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-10764487/The-cheese-sandwich-killing-planet.html
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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28 April, 2022
Boris Johnson accused of misleading the public on the rising cost of green energy levies
Net Zero Watch has accused the Prime Minister of being economical with the truth about the cost of renewable energy levies.
Speaking during his visit to India, Mr Johnson rejected growing calls for scrapping green levies on energy bills, claiming that renewable energy “has helped to reduce bills”.
Mr Johnson said:
"Overall, if you look at what we have done with renewables it has helped to reduce bills over the last few years and will continue to do so. That’s why one of the things I want to do is use this moment to really drive towards more offshore wind turbines."
In fact, the opposite is true: the costs of renewable levies on energy bills have risen significantly in the last few years.
According to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) the cost of green levies on energy bills has risen from £7.5 billion in 2018/19 to 9.5 billion in 2021/22, rising to £12.4 billion in 2026/27 (the OBR has excluded the costs of the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) for small-scale renewable generation).
Boris Johnson’s intervention comes just days after government officials briefed the media that ministers were “examining whether green levies – used to fund renewable energy subsidy schemes – could be phased out gradually or dropped altogether by the autumn when bills are expected to soar.”
Green levies currently cost the UK economy about £11 billion a year in total, putting £150 a year on the average household electricity bill, and a further £250 per household on the annual cost of living, a total of £400 per household per year. The levies also depress wages and rates of employment.
Net Zero Watch and a long list of MPs have repeatedly called on ministers to remove these subsidies from energy bills to help reduce the mounting cost of living crisis.
Pollsters have warned the Tories that the cost of living is becoming a defining issue for voters.
Craig Mackinlay MP, chair of the parliamentary Net Zero Scrutiny Group, said:
"If renewables were providing cheap energy they wouldn’t need a subsidy, surcharged on consumers’ bills. We hear too much of the low-cost argument about renewables which is simply untrue. The environmental levies are a lever the government could reach for as entirely under their control to provide immediate relief on domestic energy bills. It is becoming incomprehensible why they don’t use it."
Dr Benny Peiser, Net Zero Watch director said:
"Boris Johnson is prioritising the Net Zero agenda over all other economic and social issues. He even seems prepared to commit political suicide over the cost of Net Zero and cost of living crisis. His self-defeating dogmatism is politically unsustainable."
Net Zero Watch. press-release@netzerowatch.com
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We Can Adapt to Climate Change Without Destroying Our Way of Life
Our understanding of climate and how it changes is advanced enough to make reasonable decisions, using computer models, about activities such as future energy use and food production. However, for the last four decades, some have been using these models to project catastrophes in the event that governments fail to act. Although many of these projections have been wrong, the doomsayers continue to warn that humanity has 12, 10, or even fewer years left to save society.
These models represent our best current understanding of how the climate works. They have been positively evaluated by the World Climate Research Programme. Yet they are not necessarily correct. For example, a group of scientists at the University of Alabama in Huntsville found that the forecast temperature trends were twice those observed for the tropical upper atmosphere. Other published studies have shown that these same models overestimate global mean surface temperatures, such that observed global temperature trends are often in the lower part of the range of the models’ predictions.
As early as the late 1980s, the New York Times published projections that global temperatures would rise 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit while sea levels would rise 1 to 4 feet by the second quarter of the 21st century. Concern was raised that climate change would cause more droughts and more flooding. The reality has been far from these dire scenarios. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report shows more modest warming (less than 1 degree Fahrenheit) and much less sea-level rise (8 inches since 1900, according to NASA). And where heavy precipitation or drought has increased, the confidence in the models is low, according to the same report.
Other dire predictions also have been demonstrably falsified—for example, that parts of the globe, including Great Britain, would be relatively snowless by 2020, that the North Pole would be ice-free by the mid-2010s, and even that Mount Kilimanjaro’s glaciers would disappear by the mid-2010s. In the late 1980s, widespread famines were predicted, followed by the collapse of global agriculture, all by the start of the 21st century. Since that prediction, agricultural output has increased in the Midwest by about 20%.
Finally, a recent study showed that predictions that ocean acidification would decimate fish populations are also proving to be false.
Does all this good news mean that we can ignore the models or that researching them is a wasted effort? Of course not. They may be among the best tools we have. We just need to interpret their results with an awareness of their limitations. When people sensationalize the findings by highlighting only the most unfounded alarmist projections in the upper part of the forecast range, we should resist their alarmism absent compelling evidence.
Given the relatively poor record of model predictions, we should not be frightened into adopting draconian policies that threaten our entire way of life and well-being—especially those that would harm the world's poor. Rather, we should adapt to changes in climate, which can be done most effectively through the entrepreneurial innovations made possible through free markets.
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Biden's Energy Chief Wants to Destroy American Energy
President Biden's Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm — known for laughing when asked what the Biden administration would do to lower gas prices — is now talking about how the whole country should look to California as an example for its plan to eradicate fossil fuels and go fully electric, something that hasn't gone well in Golden State and few Americans elsewhere want.
Asked about Los Angeles' plan to have zero emissions by 2028 and Governor Newsom's plan for California to only sell electric vehicles by 2035, Secretary Granholm said the state's goals are "real" and declared "California is on the leading edge of this, clearly."
"The whole country looks to what California is doing," Granholm continued, though observers across the nation are more likely looking in the same way people can't look away from a car wreck, rather than in admiration. Granholm noted that "some people don't like what California is doing" (no kidding), "but California is really thinking ahead into the future," she said.
The unaffordable cost of electric vehicles for many Americans aside for now, a cursory review of how California's energy "transition" has been going turns up only dystopian examples from what the left calls a "greener" future that's not too dissimilar from the past that existed before electricity was readily available.
Rolling blackouts have plagued California, especially in the hottest summer months as the state's energy grid fails to produce enough supply from its alternative sources to meet the demand of its residents. As a result of California's going-for-broke embrace of alternative energy, residents are routinely issued "flex alerts" by state energy officials who beg residents to use less power in order to avoid massive grid failures. In an example from last summer, California asked its 39 million residents to "set thermostats to 78 degrees or higher," "avoid using major appliances, like dish washers and clothes washers and dryers," and "turn off all unnecessary lights." How...quaint?
Alternative energy sources have dragged California back to a time where air conditioning wasn't readily available, oil lamps provided light, and laundry had to be done by beating clothes against boulders in a river. Ironically, despite Granholm's bragging about California's "leading edge" status, California asks its residents — even before conservation alerts are issued — to only use major appliances "earlier in the day, when solar energy is abundant" and to charge electric vehicles in the morning "so there's no need to do it later, when solar is not available."
The dependence on alternative power sources, clearly, isn't working or viable. People getting home from work just... aren't supposed to charge their electric vehicles until the sun is up the following morning? And if California continues on its plan to have only new electric vehicles in the state, the drain on the state's grid will only get worse. As rolling blackouts continue, Californians will find their mandated "green" cars are less mobile than Fred Flintstone's Cavemobile.
And if, as Granholm claims, the nation is looking to California to lead when it comes the the energy "transition" that Granholm and President Biden want to pursue in their goal of ending fossil fuels, why exactly are so many residents fleeing to other freer states where fossil fuels aren't demonized? More Californians left their state than any other in the country in the year that ended last July 1 — some 350K+ residents sought better conditions elsewhere. Most went to Texas, Florida, and Arizona — red states where people are freer and the government isn't trying to drag residents back to frontier living in the name of "environmental protection."
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Net Zero is dead
Comment from Australia
As this magazine argued early last year, the simplest way for the Coalition to win the 2022 election would have been to replicate John Howard’s and Peter Costello’s ‘tough decision’ GST strategy and in the interest of national prosperity and cleaner energy go to the polls with a commitment to revoke the Australian ban on nuclear energy in order to give us the cheap, reliable energy we will require for decades to come and with which we are abundantly blessed via natural resources. Such a policy would not only have given the Coalition something to fight for, it would have been the ultimate ‘wedge policy’ to skewer Labor on and – not that this seems to matter anymore – would actually have been the right thing to do.
Instead, Scott Morrison and his team of quislings, sorry advisers, asked the wrong questions in a motley grab-bag of inner-city focus groups and came up with the worthless and pointless policy of pledging to get Australia to Net Zero without nuclear power. Or indeed without any credible clean base-load energy source. (And please, spare us the Twiggy Forrest/ Mike Cannon-Brookes drivel about green hydrogen. Only the most cynical, corrupt or foolish politician would gamble an entire nation’s future on such an unproven and illogical technology spruiked by billionaire investors.)
All of which is now fairly academic because, as is always the way, events (dear boy) have overtaken political hypotheticals.
Vladimir Putin’s vile invasion of Ukraine has not only killed a tragic number of Ukrainians as well as Russian soldiers, it has also stabbed a bayonet through the heart of Net Zero with all the murderous efficiency of a Zaporozhian Cossack.
European governments like Germany’s, which for the last few decades have pursued the climate cult’s insane goal of obliterating carbon emissions, are now frantically re-opening coal mines and seeking reliable base load energy sources wherever they can find them, whether from fossil fuels or nuclear power. Countries in Scandinavia are suddenly desperate to start exploration and drilling in the North Sea again.
According to Benny Peiser, head of the Global Warming Policy Foundation who is currently visiting Australia and who along with Professor Ian Plimer (another regular and popular contributor to these pages) spoke at length to the Roseville branch of the Liberal party, average household electricity prices in the UK have jumped from a thousand pounds a year to two thousand and are headed for three thousand pounds per annum by this coming British winter. Mr Peiser forecasts many individuals and families will simply not be able to heat their homes.
Among British conservative backbenchers there is now a serious push to abandon Net Zero altogether. In the coming months, as war in Ukraine drags on and the energy crisis worsens, the delusional Greens-fuelled commitment to Net Zero may well cost not only Boris Johnson his job, but risks bringing down governments of all hues across Europe.
The task for a re-elected Morrison government, or a minority Coalition government relying on the support of any One Nation, Liberal Democrat or UAP representatives who scrape into the lower house, will be to abandon Net Zero and to rapidly set about promoting a nuclear energy industry in Australia.
The alternative, a Labor/Greens government, does not bear thinking about, but think about it we must. The simple reality is that, much like Joe Biden’s hopeless administration, an Albanese-Marles-Wong-Keneally government (just putting it down in black and white is risible enough) will quickly collapse in popularity as cold hard reality smashes to smithereens their utopian climate fantasies.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/04/net-zero-joins-the-choir-invisible/
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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27 April, 2022
Outrage as government poised to green-light UK’s first new coal mine for decades
The UK government is said to be “on the cusp” of giving the go-ahead to a controversial new coal mine in Cumbria, sparking a furious response from concerned environmental groups and campaigners.
Under the proposals the Woodhouse colliery, near Whitehaven in Cumbria, will be the first new deep coal mine since the 1980s and will extract coking coal from beneath the Irish Sea, 85 per cent of which will be exported.
According to a report in the Sunday Telegraph, Michael Gove, the levelling-up, housing and communities secretary, could approve the contentious new mine as soon as next month.
The coking coal will be used by the steel industry, but critics have said it is unnecessary now that hydrogen and electricity-based technologies can be used to make steel.
The mine has already attracted international condemnation with Joe Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry criticising the plans ahead of the Cop26 summit hosted by the UK last year, calling coal “the dirtiest fuel in the world”.
“Senior Conservative Party sources” told The Sunday Telegraph that Mr Gove is believed to be supportive of the plan to open the mine, and his decision will largely hinge on the recommendations set out by the Planning Inspectorate.
The mine was controversially given the green light by local councillors in October 2020, causing anger that the government had declined to “call in” such a major development with considerable emissions potential.
After furious opposition, the government pulled a hard U-turn and launched an inquiry to review plans for the £165m mine.
The government’s independent advisers, the Climate Change Committee, said the Woodhouse colliery “will increase global emissions and have an appreciable impact on legally binding carbon budgets”.
Though the government has until July to reach a verdict on the project, it appears a decision could now be imminent.
The move towards expanding UK coal production comes as the government has also committed to new drilling in the North Sea for oil and gas.
Campaigners have said the government is undermining Britain’s position as a world leader on addressing the global climate crisis.
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Cancel Mom’s Grocery Bag Misinformation
The CDC’s Mask Mandate Is Dead and Won’t Be Back; Here’s Why
I don’t deliberately avoid organic foods or markets, but I don’t seek them out either. Claims that organic food tastes better or is more nutritious are not supported by evidence and certainly don’t justify the far higher prices. Mostly, I’m put off by assertions that organic food is pesticide-free, safer and more planet-friendly. Those assertions are simply false advertising; deliberate misinformation.
Mom’s Organic Market shopping bags provide an excellent example. They’re emblazoned with six “Bee Informed” messages that help customers Bee the Change, Give Bees a Chance, and Save the Bees from a looming Armageddon attributed to synthetic pesticides. The Bee Misinformed messages merit correction.
1. The #1 irrigated crop in the US is lawn grass, using over 10 trillion gallons of water per year. Mom’s didn’t say where its number came from; and if this basic information is fishy, what about the other messages? The Natural Resources Defense Council says US lawns consume three trillion gallons per year – not ten. Still, too many people overwater, use fine sprays that let too much water evaporate, and/or water lawns during the hottest hours or days of the week. The better message is, water smarter.
2. Suburban lawns and gardens receive more pesticide applications per acre than agriculture. This may be true, but is it? Can’t Mom’s be more transparent about its sources? Homeowners should use lawn and garden chemicals carefully, responsibly and sparingly – and assume that any chemical (synthetic or organic) may be toxic and dangerous: to bees, other insects, fish, wildlife, pets, children and themselves.
3. A single bee colony can pollinate over 300 million flowers a day. Busy as a bee – sure. But really? A typical hive (colony) has 10,000 to 80,000 worker bees. Assuming 50,000 on average, this means each bee would have to visit 6,000 flowers per day. Perhaps in a sprawling canola field; but otherwise pretty unlikely. Again, what’s Mom’s source?
4. Scientists found bee-killing neonicotinoids in 75% of honey sampled from around the world. Now we’re getting into the nitty-gritty of ongoing organic food and environmentalist campaigns to frighten people (especially moms) into going full-organic and avoiding conventionally grown food.
The scientists are finding parts per billion. 1 ppb is equivalent to 1 second in 33 years – or 50 drops of water in a 50-by-25-by-2-meter Olympic-sized swimming pool: 2 teaspoons in 660,000 gallons.
Used primarily to coat seeds, neonics become part of the plant tissue and target only pests that actually feed on the crops, particularly during early growth stages. They greatly reduce the need for aerial or ground-level spraying with other chemicals that are much more of a threat to bees and other pollinators. They are a far lower risk to honeybees or wild bees than some organic pesticides – or Varroa destructor mites that attach to bees, suppress their immune systems, carry deadly diseases, create pathways for other diseases to enter bee bodies, and can cause well-publicized “colony collapse disorder.”
Neonics may be detected in honey because so much comes from vast canola fields in western Canada, where canola is grown with neonic-coated seeds, and beekeepers place their hives in the fields because bees thrive there and produce delicious honey. Don’t equate detection with danger.
5. There are traces of 20 different pesticides in the average American’s body. Mom’s could at least post the source for this assertion on its website. More important, these parts per billion are detectable only because modern lab equipment is so sophisticated. The traces are not at levels that should cause concern.
And what about organic pesticides? Organic farmers also use many different pesticides to protect their crops. But Mom’s, Greenpeace, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the organic food industry don’t look for or talk about traces of organic farming pesticides: in honey, on produce or in human bodies. Perhaps they don’t want people (especially mothers) to know or think about that.
The Risk Monger’s Dirty Dozen List of Toxic Organic Pesticides provides an informative overview of “natural” fungicides and insecticides used on organic farms – including chemicals that are toxic to bees, other insect and wildlife species, and humans.
Among those organic farm chemicals, copper sulfate is highly toxic to bees, deadly to fish, and bio-accumulative in soil and water. Pyrethrin neurotoxin pesticides are also very toxic to bees – and are possible human carcinogens; originally derived from flowers (which is why they can still be classified as organic), they are now manufactured synthetically. Like neonicotinoids, nicotine sulfate is derived from nicotine; it can paralyze bee wings and legs, and is poisonous to humans.
Other “natural,” “organic” chemicals that are highly toxic to bees include rotenone, spinosad, hydrogen peroxide, azidirachtin (neem oil), citronella oil, and even garlic extract and acetic acid.
If Greenpeace, the EWG or the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) ever spent the time and money to test for these chemicals, they’d undoubtedly find “traces” of “organic” chemicals on “organic” produce.
6. Roughly 0.1% of pesticides reach their targeted pests, leaving 99.9% to impact the environment. That sounds farfetched because it is, especially for crops grown using neonic-treated seeds so that the pesticide becomes a systemic part of the plant and targets pests that try to eat the crops.
Today’s farmers are far more careful and judicious in how, where and how much they use chemicals to control the insects, viruses, molds and other pests that want to beat you to the foods you enjoy. They also employ a variety of “integrated pest management” techniques – including corn, cotton and other crops that splice Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) genes into the plant structure, to control pests that feed on those crops, thereby reducing the need for hand, tractor or aerial spraying with chemicals.
(Organic farmers often spray live Bt bacteria on crops. But that carries risks that the spray could drift onto nearby plants and beneficial insects. It’s a mystery that EWG doesn’t wax apoplectic about that.)
Those who still harbor concerns might be comforted knowing that the USDA conducts a Pesticide Data Program that’s been ongoing now for three decades. The PDP tests different (conventionally grown) produce every year – and issues a “report card” on how well US and international farmers comply with Environmental Protection Agency rules designed to protect moms and families from (conventional) pesticide-related health issues.
While the annual EWG “Dirty Dozen List” is designed to instill unfounded fears about eating non-organic fruits and vegetables, because of alleged pesticide poisoning – the PDP analyses are scientific and data-driven. The PDP goal is to ensure that all pesticide residues have fallen to levels that pose no risks to humans by the time they reach supermarkets.
The latest 200-page report provides comforting news for consumers. It’s available here – or you can read plant pathologist Steve Savage’s summary and commentary here and here.
One further issue deserves mention. Not surprisingly, Mom’s bags are made of kraft paper. Plastic bags (we’re told) are petroleum-based and clog landfills. Of course, it’s more complex than that.
I operated bag-making machines during college. Paper and paper-bag-making processes are tree, energy and chemicals-intensive; and heavier, bulkier paper bags take years to break down in landfills. The volume of either is trifling, however, compared to pollution and waste from solar panels and wind turbines.
The bottom line is simple. As the USDA and Risk Monger emphasize, pesticide residues on both conventional and organic fruits and vegetables almost never pose risks to moms, dads, kids, or other planetary creatures. Bee not afraid. Enjoy eating them, because they’re good for you.
And correct or cancel Mom’s misinformation
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Jacob Rees-Mogg warns over 'huge cost' of net zero drive
The "huge regulatory cost" of Boris Johnson's drive for net zero will hold back plans for a post-Brexit bonfire of red tape, Jacob Rees-Mogg has warned.
The Brexit Opportunities Minister said the Government needs to “face up to” the challenge of burdensome climate red tape and added that efforts to cut emissions must not rely on “endless regulation”.
The Government wants to axe £1bn of red tape left over from the EU, with Mr Rees-Mogg spearheading an effort to ditch 1,500 individual Brussels rules.
However, he warned that the rise of the net zero agenda means it will not be possible to introduce initiatives such as a "one in, one out" approach, where a piece of regulation has to be scrapped for every new one added.
A raft of new rules are being introduced to help Britain go carbon neutral by 2050, with ministers expected to push for more heat pumps and solar panels as well as limiting how much carbon can be produced by heavy industry.
Speaking at an event organised by the Centre for Policy Studies, Mr Rees-Mogg said: "Net zero is going to be a huge regulatory cost and that is an issue for the country to face and to face up to.
“If we were to have a ‘one in, one out’ or ‘one in, two out’ rule, you would end up excluding net zero, as we previously excluded EU regulation, and then you're tinkering at the edges because you're ignoring the biggest piece of regulation.”
The comments are the latest sign of nervousness about the economic impact of the net zero drive from some within the Cabinet and sections of the Tory Party.
He added that keeping the costs of the net zero push as low as possible is “fundamental”, saying it should be driven by technological innovation rather than “endless regulation”.
Mr Rees-Mogg said he wants the £1bn “Brexit freedoms” red tape target to be a “minimum” and will soon release a list of 1,500 rules left over from the EU that could be cut.
Net Zero policies such as banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 and ending the sale of new gas boilers from 2035 will likely need new rules and regulations.
Last October the Government published a 368-page strategy detailing the full scale of changes that will be needed to hit the net zero target by 2050. The Treasury warned it would face a £37 billion a year black hole from the eventual loss of tax revenue generated from the driving of polluting vehicles, such as fuel duty.
Yet supporters of the net zero drive warn that the financial and humanitarian consequences of failing to tackle climate change far outway the impact of action in the years ahead.
David Cameron brought in a “one in, two out” policy on new rules and regulations in a bid to cut down on red tape - a long-held push for Conservatives to unburden the free market.
But current Government sources believe the drive fundamentally failed to secure the changes it should have because EU laws were effectively exempt from the policy.
Lord Frost, who held the Brexit brief in Cabinet before Mr Rees-Mogg, was said to have tried to re institute the “one in, two out” policy last year but was blocked by Cabinet colleagues.
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Australia: Greenies as prohibitionists
Matt Canavan
As I was driving home on Saturday after a busy day, I realised that everything I had done that day, the Greens want to ban. I had not had this much fun campaigning since Bob Brown came to town.
I had started the day at RockyNats. A worthy successor to SummerNats, the annual car festival of burnouts, drag races and drifting that comes to Canberra once a year. The SummerNats organisers have squeezed in a second event in Rockhampton to be held over Easter. They’re perhaps getting in more festivals before the Greens want to ban the sale of petrol cars by 2030.
I then headed over to Paradise Lagoons just west of Rockhampton, where a massive horse ring and grandstand emerges from the Fitzroy river floodplain. Built by the visionary cattle king Graham Acton, the Paradise Lagoons campdraft this year celebrated its 20th anniversary and people come from all over the country to compete.
I am not sure whether the Greens know what campdrafting is but when they find out I am pretty sure they will want to ban it, too.
I finished the day at the Professional Bull Riders rodeo at the Great Western Hotel, the only pub in Australia with a rodeo ring inside the pub. After sadly shutting due to Covid, the Great Western is back and it was pumping on Saturday night. It takes a special kind of guts, or perhaps insanity, to jump on the back of a 800 kg raging bull for eight seconds.
The Greens have introduced legislation to ban rodeos.
The Greens wrap their self-appointed roles as the fun police in concern over the environment and animal welfare. The truth is more prosaic, however; the Greens just want to have power to tell people what to do.
The Greens are a modern form of the Temperance movement that succeeded in disastrously outlawing alcohol in early 20th-century United States. Their aims were well intentioned. Our society remains afflicted by too much consumption of liquor and drugs but you cannot remove human sin through the law book.
All prohibition did was create a thriving underground industry run by criminal organisations that led to more violence than ever committed by drunks.
Notwithstanding this sobering tale, the modern day Temperance movement in the Greens wants to outlaw much more. The Greens want to ban or restrict cars, red meat, coal, gas, oil, zoos, factory farming, horse and greyhound racing, dams, forestry, fishing, plastics, live exports, bawdy jokes, smoking and guns. And that is just a selection from five minutes or so on their website.
It would probably be simpler to write a list of the things that you will be allowed to do under a Green dictatorship. Whatever is permitted, there will not be much fun.
In the Greens world you will be able to watch all sorts of violence online but you had better not go hunting to provide food and clothing. In the Greens world you will be able to consume all sorts of exotic illicit drugs but dare not have a smoke at the end of a hard day’s work. In the Greens world you can invest whatever money you like in carbon credits but putting a bit on the dogs at the pub is the work of the devil.
When you make this comparison you realise that the Greens are afraid of the real world. Their obsession with drugs, virtual experiences and the latest climate fad all allow them to escape from the harsh realities of the need to provide food and energy.
That is how their policies are so often disconnected from reality. They do not know how things actually work because they rarely do any hard yakka – aka ‘work’ – in the real world. They are not – or do not know any – people who drill for oil and gas. They are not – or do not know any – people who raise and slaughter cattle for food.
The Labor party used to have people who grew food, made things with their hands or mined coal. That always helped to keep the more crazy parts of their left wing in check. However, the modern Labor party is full of people who have gone straight from university to union activist to parliamentarian. They have lost touch with the real world.
As a politician in a country area, I visit mines, factories and farms regularly. I hear from people on the frontline how hard it is to deal with uncaring bureaucrats, unethical banks and unprincipled unions.
The same people that want to take away our fun want to take away our work. The Greens and their friends in the Labor party are on the ultimate power trip thinking that can control everything, including the temperature of the globe.
Carbon traders are the successors of the Temperance activists. Just look at how the authoritarian left are salivating at the prospect of Central Bank Digital Currencies, which could be weaponised to give us all carbon budgets of 14 grams of red meat a day, as recommended by the United Nations.
In the meantime, Labor has consoled itself by promising a new carbon trading scheme for over 200 businesses Australia-wide. These include almost all our iron ore mines, coal mines, gas facilities, major factories and our last two oil refineries.
Just like Prohibition, if we tax these industries to oblivion they will just move to other countries. It is like the old Hale & Pace joke, ‘no, I don’t think we should ban mining because it would just go underground then, wouldn’t it?’ By sending our mining industries offshore, more Australian jobs would be lost to overseas.
And we would be poorer for it and would not be able to afford to buy cars to do burnouts, buy bulls to use in rodeos or have the money to travel to a campdraft. Maybe this is the Greens plan then. The Greens will never get popular support to ban fun, but if they scare us so much about the climate, they just may make us too poor to have any.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/04/australian-notes-316
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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26 April, 2022
John Deere electric tractors
The radical lefties are now going after diesel-powered farm equipment and want all farmers to use electric tractors and combines.
A farmer has over 10,000 acres of corn in the Midwest. The property is spread out over 3 counties. His operation is a "partnership farm" with John Deere. They use the larger farm operations as demonstration projects for the promotion and development of new equipment. He recently received a phone call from his John Deere representative, and they want the farm to go to electric tractors and combines in 2023.
He currently has 5 diesel combines that cost $900,000 each that are traded in every 3 years. He also owns over 10 really BIG tractors. John Deere wants him to go all-electric to satisfy the "Go Green" liberals. He said: "Ok, I have some questions.
1. How do I charge these combines when they are 3 counties away from the shop in the middle of a cornfield, in the middle of nowhere?
2. How do I run them 24 hours a day for 10 or 12 days straight when the harvest is ready, and the weather is coming in?
3.How do I get a 50,000+ lb a combine that takes up the width of an entire road back to the shop 20 miles away when the battery goes dead?
There was dead silence on the other end of the phone. When the corn is ready to harvest, it has to have the proper sugar and moisture content. If it is too wet, it has to be put in giant dryers that burn natural or propane gas, and lots of it.
Harvest time is critical because if it degrades in sugar content or quality, it can drop the value of his crop by half a million dollars or more. It is analyzed at time of sale.
It is standard procedure to run these machines 10 to 12 days straight, 24 hours a day at peak harvest time. When they need fuel, a tanker truck delivers it, and the machines keep going. John Deere's only answer is "we're working on it.”
They are being pushed by the radical Dems in the government to force these electric machines on the American farmer. These politicians are out of control. They are messing with the production of food crops that feed people and livestock... all in the name of their "green dream" with no thought about how to achieve their objective.
Via email
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Climate nut dies after lighting himself on fire outside Supreme Court
A climate activist who lit himself on fire on Earth Day outside the United States Supreme Court Building has died, according to reports.
Wynn Bruce, 50, of Boulder, Colorado, died Saturday, a day after he set himself ablaze in Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Police Department told Fox News.
The incident happened around 6:30 p.m. on the plaza in front of the court building.
He was airlifted to a local hospital, where he died.
A Facebook page belonging to a person named Wynn Bruce said he was a Buddhist and a climate activist.
In 2020, Bruce left a cryptic Facebook comment that included a fire emoji and the date of his death, 4/22/2022.
A Buddhist priest from Boulder said she knew Bruce and called his death “an act of compassion.”
“This guy was my friend. He meditated with our sangha [Buddhist community],” Dr. K. Kritee wrote. “This act is not suicide. This is a deeply fearless act of compassion to bring attention to climate crisis. We are piecing together info but he had been planning it for at least one year.”
Supreme Court Police said that they were still investigating the man’s motive for self-immolation. No one else was injured in the incident.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/23/wynn-bruce-dies-after-lighting-himself-on-fire-outside-supreme-court/
********************************************************NY Gov. Kathy Hochul’s insane, impossible carbon-free plan
Gov. Kathy Hochul has fully embraced one of the very worst obsessions of her disgraced predecessor: a war on carbon emissions.
The centerpiece is the Climate Leadership and Climate Protection Act that then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo got passed in 2019 in a blatant bid to boost his chances of winning some future Democratic presidential nomination. This travesty required New York to cut economy-wide greenhouse-gas emissions (from 1990 levels) by 40% by 2030 and 100% by 2040.
Worse, it gives unelected state bureaucrats massive power to cripple fossil-fuel companies and ram through pricy alternative-energy projects over any and all opposition — which allows massive amounts of pay-to-play favoritism.
Worst, the green advocates who favor the CLCP plan estimate the taxpayer cost of implementing it to be north of $300 billion, which guarantees that it will cost even more — or would, if it weren’t inevitably going to eventually fall victim to reality.
Consider: The plan centers on a mandate on ConEd and other utilities that 70% of all power come from renewables by 2030, and 100% by 2040. The 2030 goal alone is impossible, since it requires roughly tripling the amount of electricity generated by renewables — which means vast increases in wind and solar power, since 80% of the state’s current renewable power is hydropower, which reached its maximum decades ago.
That is, the plan pretends that sources that now account for less than 6% of the state’s electricity will somehow produce much more than half of it within eight years.
Not. Going. To. Happen.
But New York is going to try, forcing local communities to accept vast wind and solar farms and sending electric bills soaring to pay for it all, including billions for new transmission lines to carry power into the city.
Hochul, of course, prefers to talk about fuzzy-sounding stuff like her new plan to make high-rises in New York carbon-neutral within the next 15 years. The claim is that more than 70% of the city’s carbon emissions now comes from buildings, though that’s mainly because 1) the city has no manufacturing left, and 2) most of its power is generated outside the five boroughs.
And forcing expensive retrofitting to turn old buildings “green” is all too likely to just force them to close, especially since commercial real-estate faces a dire shortage of demand thanks to the rise of work-from-home in the wake of the pandemic.
Other parts of Hochul’s CLCP agenda will add more trouble in coming years:
No natural gas connections in newly constructed buildings after next year.
No new gas service to existing buildings, also starting 2024.
No sales of gasoline-powered landscaping equipment (lawnmowers, chain saws, wood chippers etc.) by 2027.
No new natural gas appliances for home heating, cooking, water heating or clothes drying after 2029.
Banning gasoline-automobile sales by 2035.
Meanwhile, Hochul (like Cuomo before her) has already vetoed carbon-energy projects and pipelines on the theory that giving New York other options would imperil the great green dream.
All this, when the state accounts for roughly 0.4% of global carbon emissions, while the countries that spew the most (China and India) won’t even pretend to do more than start reducing their own emissions sometime after 2030. This is vast pain for trivial gain.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/23/gov-kathy-hochuls-insane-impossible-carbon-free-plan/
***************************************Cancel Earth Day, celebrate Earth
As a fourteen-year-old student in south-central Pennsylvania at the time of the first Earth Day in April 1970, I recognized the need for a real cleanup of what was a horribly abused environment. When I went off to study geology at college, I embraced the environmentalist movement as my own. In my early years at university, I subscribed to Mother Jones and the Militant. For a short time, I was even a member of the Socialist Workers’ Party.
Along with millions of other young and not-so-young people, I recognized the urgent need to improve our industrial processes and behaviors in a way that was more mindful of our air, water, and land. It may be difficult for a present-day adolescent to realize just how badly we were treating Mother Earth back then. It was common practice for people to throw trash and empty cans out of the windows of their Chevys and Fords. Industrial waste in the Cuyahoga River caught fire, a giant oil rig blowout offshore of Santa Barbara despoiled much of the western coast, Lake Erie was declared “dead,” and air pollution was so bad in Los Angeles that “smog” was coined.
Accompanying that first Earth Day were dozens of apocalyptic predictions of doom not too dissimilar to those of today. Among the most alarming were from Paul Ehrlich that “100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years” and that some “65 million Americans would perish in the Great Die-Off between 1980 and 1989.” Kenneth Watt claimed that “we have about five more years at the outside to do something.” Even the New York Times warned, “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”
Well, here we are 52 years later, with nearly all of the objectives of the inaugural Earth Day in the rearview mirror. The quality of our air and water has improved tremendously and likely has not been this clean since the advent of the Industrial Revolution. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there has been approximately a 50% decline in emissions of key air pollutants just since 1990 — sulfur dioxide by a whopping 90% (Figure 1). This improvement in air quality occurred during a period of increasing prosperity and growth of the U.S. economy. People drove more miles, and population and energy use increased.
Commensurate improvements have occurred to our nation’s water resources as well. Cleveland’s waterway, aflame in 1969, was named “River of the Year” in 2019. The once “dead” Lake Erie is now a mecca for sport fishing, and the formerly polluted waters of Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers are now known as the site of a major bass fishing tournament. In the coalfields of the northeast, thousands of miles of streams once left lifeless by mine-acid drainage now support fish and bald eagles. Industries often return water to streams cleaner than it was at the plant intake.
Despite unsupported allegations of increasing doom and disaster due to dangerous human-made warming, just the opposite is occurring. A dispassionate review of Earth’s ecosystems and the human condition reveals that both are prospering — and not by a little but by a lot.
NASA reports a significant increase in worldwide vegetation over the last 35 years is “largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.” This CO2-driven plant enhancement is also fueling crop growth from the hottest to the coolest climates that are turbocharged by a modest rise in temperature that is extending growing seasons.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the United States has seen a 50% increase in forested acres and an astounding increase in Pennsylvania alone of more than 500%. The area burned by forest fires globally is in significant decline. The number of acres burned in the United States is 20% of that burned 80 and 90 years ago.
By nearly every metric, Earth’s ecosystems and the human condition are thriving. Much of the improvement is the result of a modest one degree of warming since the middle of the 19th century and an increase in CO2, likely the result of the burning of fossil fuels that have provided prosperity unknown to any previous generation.
We have done a very good job in protecting our ecosystems, cleaning our air and water, and protecting endangered species. That should be celebrated. But Earth Day is no celebration. The observance has been hijacked by extremists who have made a bogeyman of the harmless gas carbon dioxide, ignoring its benefits as plant food.
With no purpose other than to serve as a fundraiser for climate cultists, Earth Day should be canceled.
https://co2coalition.org/2022/04/21/cancel-earth-day-celebrate-earth/
********************************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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22 April, 2022
Biden administration restores stricter environmental reviews removed by Trump
The Biden administration is restoring stricter environmental standards for approving new pipelines, highways, power plants and other construction projects, including requiring consideration of how such projects might affect climate change.
The changes announced Tuesday reinstate National Environmental Policy Act measures that had been removed by former President Donald Trump, who said that federal regulations were needlessly hindering much-needed infrastructure projects.
Under the stricter reviews, federal agencies must take into account the cumulative impacts that a project or a new proposed federal regulation would have in areas such as air and water quality, wildlife habitat and climate change, according to a White House statement. The new guidelines widen the scope of environmental reviews beyond direct and indirect effects.
The Trump administration had deleted from the regulations the definition of cumulative effects, which called on regulators to take into account long-term impacts such as frequent exposure to toxic air. Environmental groups said the absence of that definition confused regulators on whether to analyse those effects.
“Restoring these basic community safeguards will provide regulatory certainty, reduce conflict and help ensure that projects get built right the first time,” said Brenda Mallory, chairwoman of the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality, which helps federal agencies abide by the 1970s law that governs the review process.
The revisions will take effect next month.
Environmental groups have cited violations to the law’s provisions in their legal challenges to projects that build out US infrastructure supporting the oil and gas industry. Prior to its abandonment, the Keystone XL oil pipeline had gotten tied up in court over an environmental review.
Calgary-based Enbridge Inc., one of the largest natural-gas pipeline operators in the US with more than 23,335km of transmission pipelines, argued to keep some of the Trump era changes.
Enbridge spokesman Michael Barnes said the company is reviewing Tuesday’s changes, and referred to the company’s previous statement that “reverting to less efficient and predictable NEPA regulations will not just affect oil and gas pipelines but will delay and complicate the development of new energy facilities and infrastructure.” Last year, the company’s plans to replace a deteriorating crude oil pipeline across Minnesota were challenged in court by environmental and tribal groups who cited issues with the environmental review.
No change was made to rules adopted under Mr Trump that require full environmental-impact statements to be completed within two years and less comprehensive reviews to be finished within one year.
The US Chamber of Commerce and other business trade groups opposed restoring the measures when first proposed last year. Among other objections, the Chamber said the stricter environmental reviews could stall needed improvements funded by the bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill signed by President Biden last year.
The groups, including the American Farm Bureau Federation and the American Chemistry Council, pointed out that the regulations could impede construction of new transmission lines needed to connect clean-energy projects like wind-turbine farms to the power grid.
“With rapidly rising inflation, major supply chain disruptions and workforce shortages, the last thing our country needs is unnecessarily extensive and duplicative bureaucratic red tape and delayed project approvals,” Marty Durbin, the Chamber’s senior vice president for policy, said Tuesday.
The American Petroleum Institute and several other oil and gas groups had objected to requiring cumulative effects as a measure, saying that the new rules could impede projects needed to build pipelines to natural-gas export terminals and satisfy global energy demands.
“With energy costs high for American consumers and European allies looking to the US for access to an affordable and stable energy supply, we need policies in place that provide certainty and ensure American producers can meet rising demand at home and abroad,” said Frank Macchiarola, the group’s senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory affairs.
Ted Boling, a former Council on Environmental Quality official during the Obama and Trump administrations, who helped develop the 2020 revisions, said he doesn’t think the revisions will slow down infrastructure projects. That is because CEQ officials left most of the Trump change intact, he said, and the revisions they did make will provide clearer guidelines to regulators.
Matthew Davis, senior director of government affairs of the League of Conservation Voters disagreed, saying government approvals are often faulted for holding up projects when other factors such as funding delays are the real cause.
“It’s convenient to blame permitting, but that’s not usually the case,” he said.
Environmental groups said that restoring regulations marked a step in the right direction for legally required reviews, but that more needs to be done.
“The Biden administration still has work to do to ensure federal decision makers prioritise the input of frontline and historically marginalised communities and fully restore” the law’s previous provisions, said Mustafa Santiago Ali, vice president of environmental justice, climate and community revitalisation for the National Wildlife Federation.
White House officials said they are considering additional guidance on greenhouse-gas emissions and plan to propose another round of review-process changes in the next few months.
Leslie Fields, the Sierra Club’s national director of policy, advocacy and legal, said the next round of rule making is expected to undo more Trump changes to the review process “and restore the principles of informed and science-based decision making, transparency and public engagement.” “Donald Trump’s attempts to weaken NEPA were clearly nothing more than a handout to corporate polluters,” she said.
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UK: Climate change school subject launched to teach students how to save the planet
A new natural history GCSE focusing on how to protect the planet is set to be announced by the education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, on Thursday.
The new qualification – set to be available from September 2025 – will focus on topics such as climate change and biodiversity.
Environmentalists have welcomed it as a means of helping teenagers with mental health issues.
Mary Colwell, who led the campaign for the subject, said it will be “very nurturing and life-enhancing” by connecting secondary school students with the natural world.
She also said understanding nature will help students recognise impacts of climate change as they happen.
“But it’s not just about problem solving and tackling climate change,” she said. “I think that the natural world provides people with a lot of solace and inspiration and we are in challenging times, being surrounded by things that nurture us. The study of natural history is very nurturing and life-enhancing.”
The lack of engagement with nature among the youth population is a growing concern for policymakers. Spending time in nature is known to have a positive effect on mental health but research has found that three-quarters of children spend less time outdoors each day than prisoners.
Ms Colwell said the new GCSE “could help young people with mental health issues and I think that was one of the reasons why [former environment secretary] Michael Gove was very keen – he was very supportive of the idea when we went to see him back in 2018 and he kept raising the idea that I can see the connections between this and a mental health crisis in young people.
“There is a connection between connecting with nature and better mental health.”
The new GCSE, designed by exam board OCR, would aim to teach students the skills for careers in conservation.
A consultation on the subject found the most popular prospective topics were flora and fauna and the human impact on the world. Respondents also said outdoor study should be an important part of the GCSE.
Jill Duffy, OCR chief executive, said: “This GCSE is a wonderful opportunity for young people everywhere – from urban to rural environments – to study and connect with wildlife and the natural world.
“Deeper engagement with biodiversity and sustainability will equip generations of young people to understand their environment and grapple with critical challenges.
Teen conservationist and wildlife writer Kabir Kaul, 15, said the new subject “will give my generation the knowledge and practical skills they need to value and protect the environment around them”.
Environmental issues are already on the curriculum in geography and science but the government said the new course would “go further” in studying the history and evolution of species and the impact of life on natural environments, as well as how they are changing and evolving.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/climate-change-gcse-natural-history-b2062026.html
******************************************Biden allowing increased ethanol in fuel this summer is nearly useless and may violate the Administrative Procedures Act—again
President Joe Biden’s plan to extend the availability of higher biofuel blends of gasoline during the summer months is a tiny bandage on a massive wound. Biden intends to allow the sale of E15, or gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol, to continue through the summer.
The move, announced during a trip to an ethanol plant in Iowa, is the latest attempt by the Biden administration to slow inflation, which hit a new 40-year high last week. The last time inflation reached 8.5 percent was December of 1981.
The Biden administration asserts that this move will save Americans 10 cents per gallon at the pump. But E15 consumption only accounts 814 million gallons, or 0.6 percent, of all gasoline sales in America, of which the U.S. consumed 134 billion gallons in 2021.
Additionally, out of roughly 145,000 gas stations across America, the White House admits that only 2,300 of those stations sell E15. E15 accounts for less than 1 percent of fuel of all fuel sales in America and is only available at 1.6 percent of gas stations nationwide. Average Americans are unlikely to drive additional miles to visit one of these rare stations.
With the national gas price average at $4.087 today and ethanol 30 percent less energy dense than gasoline, it is difficult to overstate how inconsequential the impact of this decision will be on lowering fuel prices. It will do almost nothing.
Under the 2005 federal Renewable Fuel Standard, and later expanded by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007, renewable fuels such as ethanol are required to be increasingly blended into transportation fuels in an effort to reduce greenhouse gases. E10 fuel, or a gasoline 90 percent gasoline, 10 percent ethanol mix, is sold all year long.
Contradictory to the environmental claims of ethanol, the sale of is E15 is typically banned from June 1 to September 15 due to environmental concerns. Under the 1990 Clean Air Act, the E15 blend fails to meet the Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) requirements and creates smog that is harmful to the ozone layer during the summer.
Furthermore, Biden’s move raises significant Administrative Procedures Act concerns. In fact, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a prior bid by President Donald Trump to extend E15 waiver allowing sales throughout the summer. Considering that have been no major legislative changes, it appears unlikely that Biden will experience a different outcome from the court’s 2021 ruling.
The primary cause of high gasoline prices is failure of supply to keep up with demand. Virtue signaling with feed corn (the type of corn used in ethanol production) may sound good to environmentalists and Iowa farmers, but it does little to help the 50 percent of Americans who say gas price increases have created a financial hardship. 10 cent savings per gallon does not help the average American when there is just a 3 out of 200 chance the cheaper alternative will be available at their local station.
Green energy is not an inherently evil concept. However, forcing expensive green energy policies prematurely before they’re at sufficient scale, and telling Americans to suck it up and buy a $50,000 electric car, when their average annual household income is only roughly $67,000, is either evil or astoundingly ignorant.
The real answer is to drill more American oil. Allow for new leases on federal lands and do not reduce the number of acres available by 80 percent. Remove ESG goals from national oil companies. These goals are inherently contradictory to the existential purpose of an oil company. Allowing E15 this summer won’t even make a scratch in addressing these problems.
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Welcome to post-apocalyptic climate policy
Roger Pielke Jr.
Climate policy is quickly moving into a new phase, and that is good news
In the past weeks I’ve noticed some important events that characterize a common underlying trend:
The chief executive of BMW announced that the company would not cut a single job as it transitions to producing only electric vehicles;
The government of India announced that it would build 10 new nuclear power plants in “fleet mode,” with a goal of 5 years from start to finish;
In the U.S., some states and public utilities are making the case for siting modular nuclear reactors at former coal power plants;
Also in the United States, President Biden announced that he was going back on his 2020 campaign pledge to ban oil and gas drilling on federal lands and will now open additional lands for fossil fuel drilling.
What do these seemingly disparate events around the world have in common? Two things, both important. First, they are individual data points reflecting that a global energy transition is well underway, and that it is set to continue. And second, carbon-free energy technologies of production and consumption are increasing their role in the global economy, but when they are not deploying fast enough — leading to geopolitical or economic consequences — then fossil fuels will quickly fill that gap. It’s like an iron law.
If these are but a few data points, a full pointillist painting can be envisioned in the form of various approaches to modelling the evolution of the global energy system. In the Tweet below, Zeke Hausfather — a climate scientist who works for Stripe, a company seeking to capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — has usefully summarized a large and growing recent literature on climate projections to 2100.
These recent projections are based on updated estimates of where the global energy system is currently and appears to be headed based on current and pledged policies. In the figure, which presents the recent studies by date of publication, you can easily see a downward trend with a central tendency projection of global temperatures in 2100 decreasing from almost 3C in 2100 to less than 2C. It wasn’t so long ago that this central tendency was though to be >3 C, and many, not least the IPCC, believed that such “business as usual” trajectories had us heading for even 4C or 5C. For readers of this newsletter, it won’t be a surprise to learn of the good news that perceptions have changed of the likelihood of the chances of such extreme futures. Even the IPCC has come around to this view.
Zeke Hausfather:
"In our @Nature News and Views piece, we put this new paper in the context of an explosion of literature on current policy, 2030 NDC, and net-zero commitment outcomes that has been published over the past few years"
While not everyone is ready to accept the recent good news on climate, the fact is that the world has now moved into what might be called a “post-apocalyptic climate policy” — that is, a climate policy that is predicated not on millenarian expectations for the end of times, but one that is grounded more realistically and pragmatically in first how to maintain, and second how to accelerate the positive energy system trends now underway.
Of course, a change in perspective can be difficult to accept. We have already seen a range of reactionary reactions be to our newly understood need for a post-apocalyptic climate policy. I’ve observed a few:
Apocalypse maintenance. Letting go of the end of times as the focus of climate advocacy will be difficult for those who have built careers, politics and personalities upon it. Some some hold on to the possibility of apocalypse by emphasizing the uncertainty of the future (merchants of doubt?), such as with respect to future rates emissions. Watch out for those who claim that apocalyptic futures cannot be “ruled out” without first telling you what it even means to “rule out” certain futures. While few now believe that apocalyptic futures are where we are headed, keeping apocalyptic futures as seemingly plausible and in play is a common rhetorical tactic that distracts from more meaningful policy discussions focused on far more likely futures.
Moving the goal posts. Another strategy for keeping the apocalypse alive is simply to redefine when the apocalypse is expected to occur. When a warming 4C or 5C was being promoted as a “business as usual” future, futures with 2 to 3C warming were highlighted as examples of policy success. We can see a clear example of this exact framing in the most recent U.S. National Climate Assessment, which presented an extreme climate scenario (called RCP8.5) as policy failure, with as much as 5.5C warming by 2100. The NCA identified a so-called “mitigation scenario” (called RCP4.5) and presented it as policy success, even though this scenario was projected to “more likely than not” exceed 2C.
Today, with current polices and pledges pointing towards the lower end of 2C to 3C future (or even less), the threshold for apocalypse has in parallel been defined down. For some, a catastrophic future now occurs at 3Cand some are even promoting 2C or even 1.5C as the threshold of catastrophe. For instance, just last month after the release of the latest IPCC report UN Secretary General António Guterres defined the threshold of catastrophe as 2C: “If we continue with more of the same, we can kiss 1.5 goodbye. Even 2 degrees may be out of reach. And that would be catastrophe.” Catastrophe is not what it used to be.
Rooting for policy failure. A third approach to keeping the idea of a future apocalypse alive involves rooting for (or at least promoting) the idea of future policy failure. Of course projections of hopeful climate futures conditioned on future policy implementation are based on an assumption that those future policies will need to be implemented. That is the very nature of scenarios — they help us to understand what we might do to achieve policy goals. But of course, such conditionality has always been the case with scenarios. For instance, the most extreme climate scenarios used to support the notion of a climate apocalypse (such as RCP8.5) were also conditioned on policy implementation — in that case, the assumption that policy makers will intentionally seek to convert all of the world energy to coal. That was never going to happen, and continued decarbonization of he global economy looks far more likely.
So instead of dwelling on the apocalypse, what should we be doing instead? I have three suggestions.
First, we have to move beyond the rhetoric of climate catastrophe. Whatever use it may have served in the past, such rhetoric is now a liability. As time goes by and the threshold of catastrophe is defined down, catastrophists are setting the stage for their own delegitimization. The world is currently at about 1.2C. If 1.5C is the threshold for catastrophe, then we are presently not far away in time when such futures will collide with the real world. Because the IPCC does not actually project apocalyptic futures at 1.5C (or even 2C), when people wake up one day and learn that the scheduled apocalypse did not come to pass, they may start asking some questions. Future climate change poses serious risks, of course, and society manages all manner of risks in global issues — pandemics, geopolitics, agriculture, population, etc. — without turning them into unhelpful millenarian caricatures. Climate change is far too important to be treated unseriously.
Second, we need to double down on what I and colleagues have called oblique climate policy, recognizing that accelerated decarbonization of the global energy systems makes sense for many more reasons than just climate. For instance:
Europe has recently learned that its reliance on fossil fuels from Russia pose significant economic and geopolitical risks. Relying less on fossil fuels and more on carbon-free energy from domestic or partners would dramatically reduce those risks.
We see around the world that price volatility (and overall higher-priced energy) can lead to economic and political disruption. Whether it is the destabilizing effects of higher food prices or the knock-on political effects of higher-priced fuel, it is clear that reliable, cheap energy fosters greater political stability.
Don’t forget, vast populations around the world still lack access to the energy services that you and I enjoy every day. The demand for greater supply of energy will be a continuing feature of global geopolitics and national political agendas. Expanding access to energy services without creating new geopolitical risks, economic volatility or domestic political conflict requires expanding access to reliable and affordable supply. That supply will be fossil fuels unless viable alternatives are readily available at acceptable costs.
Of course, if each of these reasons underpinning a more pragmatic approach to energy policies also has the knock-on effect of accelerating decarbonization of the global economy, then so much the better. A post-apocalyptic climate policy is also one that is more robust. Because it is supported by multiple justifications for action, scary climate futures do not have to carry all the weight. But with more policy complexity that accompanies obliquity, so too comes a need for more diversity in the relevant expertise needed to understand and develop policy alternatives. Maintaining the vision of a climate apocalypse thus isn’t just about how we see the future, it is also about who sits in positions of power providing knowledge in support of shaping that future.
Overall, moving to a post-apocalyptic orientation towards climate policy will be a good thing. It will turn decarbonization from a single-issue focus to a many-issue focus. We have precedent for such a reframing in how a perceived global “population crisis” of the 1960s and 1970s transformed from an issue focused on “overpopulation” to one more focused on seemingly oblique issues, like women’s rights, education, agricultural productivity, democracy and more. Issues related to population remain crucially important in 2022 even thought the apocalyptic framing was left behind. Climate change appears to be following a similar path.
rogerpielkejr@substack.com
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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21 April, 2022
Biden administration launches $6 billion giveaway to nuclear power plant operators
The Biden administration on Tuesday opened applications for a $6 billion program to help nuclear power plants struggling with rising costs as it seeks to stop the generators from shutting down under its goal of transitioning to clean energy.
The U.S. nuclear power industry's 93 reactors generate more than half of the country's carbon-free electricity, according to the Department of Energy (DOE). But 12 reactors have closed since 2013 in the face of competition from renewable energy and plants that burn plentiful natural gas.
In addition, safety costs have soared after the 2011 tsunami at Japan's Fukushima plant and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The industry produces toxic waste, currently stored on site at plants across 28 states.
The DOE said it will take applications from owners of nuclear plants for the first round of funding in its Civil Nuclear Credit Program until May 19. It will prioritize reactors that have already announced their intention to close. The program, intended for plants in states with competitive electricity markets, was funded by the infrastructure bill that passed last year.
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Greenies want to regulate the seabed
The startup’s pitch was simple and cinematic:
The mining company would send large robots to explore the bottom of the ocean and harvest minerals millions of years old that could be used to make electric car batteries.
A promotional video showed a machine gliding over the seabed and DeepGreen Metals company executives in deep contemplation along a dramatic shoreline. A big selling point at a time the company was courting investors, though, was the man shown walking on a massive ship and speaking of the need to mine the ocean floor: the secretary-general of the International Seabed Authority, the United Nations-affiliated organization responsible for regulating ocean mining companies and preserving the deep sea.
Michael Lodge's appearance in the video struck now-former members of Lodge’s own staff — and scientists who warn of potentially catastrophic environmental fallout from the mining venture — as problematic. It raised concerns, they said, of a conflict of interest between industry, the authority and its secretariat, the 47-person administrative arm Lodge leads, at a crucial moment for the world’s oceans.
“Land-based resources are becoming increasingly difficult to access. We have taken the best resources already,” Lodge said in the 2018 video, as he peered at the computer screens on the DeepGreen vessel. He went on to let viewers know that his agency was on board with the company's quest, having greenlighted a 15-year “exploration” contract.
As Lodge’s organization works to draft regulations that will allow robots to mine the seabed on an industrial scale, internal documents reviewed by The Times point to a closeness with mining companies that stands out as unorthodox in environmental regulation.
“The ISA is not fit to regulate any activity in international waters,” said Sandor Mulsow, a marine geologist who served as the authority’s top environmental official for more than five years until 2019. “It is like to ask the wolf to take care of the sheep.”
The authority, which was established by a United Nations treaty but operates autonomously, is pushing to set up rules that could allow seabed mining in as soon as two years, despite calls from scientists and even some car companies for more research into the little-known ecosystems and the scale of damage that excavating the ocean floor could cause. A vast stretch of the Pacific between Hawaii and Mexico is set to be mined first, and Southern California ports would probably be a major base for some mining operations.?
This new frontier of the electric car supply chain operates by its own rules. Much of the International Seabed Authority’s key work is conducted out of sight from its members — 167 nations and the European Union. Australia, Mexico, Chile, Britain and at least five other member states have expressed growing concern that the authority isn’t requiring mining contractors to do enough environmental assessment. The organization is accused by some nongovernmental organizations and some of its own former employees of being too accommodating to the companies it regulates.
Its budget is small, at less than $10 million, but auditors and key ISA staff have raised concerns over the authority's financial controls. The staff is dispirited to the point that a management consultant in 2018 summarized the ISA in an internal email as “an unpleasant (and often toxic) place to be.” The consultant returned in 2019 to report morale had dropped further.
The International Seabed Authority, through a lawyer, disputed the findings of The Times’ investigation. It said the authority “consists of motivated, highly committed experts from more than 20 countries, working hard to fulfill the important mandate with which it has been entrusted.” Asked about the promotional video in which Lodge is shown, the ISA said he regularly interacts with stakeholders including member states and contractors and visits sites including research vessels, adding that “interactions reflect the proper and professional continuance” of the authority’s mission. “The ISA had little control over the use of the images captured by third parties.”
Lodge has publicly accused critics of the authority of misconstruing its work and overstating the potential impacts of mining. At a conference in June, he talked of “a growing environmental absolutism and dogmatism bordering on fanaticism.”
Earlier, he had pointedly dismissed concerns raised by scientists and nonprofits, telling the publication Economist Impact that the consequences of mining are “predictable and manageable.” “If you said that no industry can start until we know what is going to happen from that industry, then that’s an entirely circular argument that would prevent any industry in the history of humanity from starting,” Lodge said in the late 2019 interview.
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British government plans to scrap green energy levies welcomed
Net Zero Watch has welcomed the government's intention to consider scrapping green energy levies on energy bills.
According to the Daily Telegraph, "government officials are examining whether the controversial levies – used to fund renewable energy subsidy schemes – could be phased out gradually or dropped altogether by the autumn when bills are expected to soar."
Green levies cost the UK economy about £11 billion a year in total, putting £150 a year on the average household electricity bill, and a further £250 per household on the annual cost of living, a total of £400 per household per year. The levies also depress wages and rates of employment.
Net Zero Watch and a long list of MPs have repeatedly called on ministers to remove these subsidies from energy bills to help reduce the mounting cost of living crisis.
Dr John Constable, Net Zero Watch director of energy, said:
"Given the high prices now available in the electricity markets it is evident that wind turbines, solar panels and biomass power stations no longer need any subsidies and should now be able to compete as pure merchant generators."
Putting renewables on a market basis would also help to reduce system operating costs, and prevent green generators subsidised under the Renewables Obligation from, as is increasingly suspected, taking both the very high market prices and the subsidies, thus generating hyper-profits.
Steve Baker MP said:
"In light of the deepening energy cost and cost of living crisis the government seems to be making gradual progress towards a more realistic energy policy. Making the public poorer and colder never seemed likely to survive contact with electors. We can only hope ministers now accelerate reforms to a policy which is socially, economically and politically viable."
Dr Benny Peiser, Net Zero Watch director said:
"It would appear that ministers are realising that billions in subsidies for renewable energy is no longer compatible with the cost of living crisis, threatening the welfare of tens of millions of households and undermining economic and political stability. The longer the Government delays terminating handouts for renewable energy investors the higher the economic and political cost for consumers, businesses and the government.
Press Release from Net Zero Watch. press-release@netzerowatch.com
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Australian PM promises no mining and carbon taxes
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will attempt to wedge Labor on taxes and support for the mining industry in Western Australia as he tries to win over voters in the resource-rich state in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Morrison suffered his first major gaffe of the election campaign while on the hustings in Perth on Monday, incorrectly stating the rate of JobSeeker.
But he will shift the conversation to taxes in a speech to the WA Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, saying the government knows how to keep a lid on them.
“That’s why if the Coalition is returned at the forthcoming election, I can assure you there will be no mining tax,” Morrison is expected to say. “There will be no carbon tax. And there will be no adverse changes to fuel tax credit arrangements.”
The Coalition is at risk of losing up to three seats in the state, with Western Australians overwhelmingly backing their Labor premier Mark McGowan’s border closures during the pandemic which effectively cut them off from the rest of the country for two years.
The Coalition is expected to use previous comments from Anthony Albanese from as early as 2018 supporting a price on carbon and an emissions trading scheme to argue Labor cannot be trusted to make the same pledge.
Morrison will say that his government never takes the resources sector in WA for granted and that Australia needs to back its traditional strengths “from iron ore and gold to gas and coal”.
He will also promise to continue investing in critical minerals, mining regions and cutting-edge research and technologies.
“The resources sector has been and remains central to our economic plan that has led us through this crisis and setting our opportunities for the future,” Morrison is expected to say.
Geo-politically and economically, Australia have entered a period of renewed tension and turbulence in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Morrison will warn.
“On top of the economic fallout from the global pandemic, we now face the biggest energy and commodity price shock since the oil shock of the early 1970s,” he will say.
Morrison will say that critical shortages in energy have led to widespread increases in prices in recent months.
“While the economic consequences of Russia’s war of aggression are still playing out, sanctions applied to Russia are affecting commodity supply chains, and further sanctions are in prospect,” he will say.
“Commodity market dislocation and supply chain stresses have pushed up inflation around the world. Australia is not immune from these pressures.”
Morrison will pledge to “keep investing in mining regions”.
“Australians in our capital cities have long been the beneficiaries of visionary investments to develop the Pilbara, going back more than 50 years,” he will say.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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20 April, 2022
‘Experts’ get it wrong
Climate change scientists are willing to tell what their models predict. Beyond mentioning that CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas, they don’t adequately explain why more of it in the atmosphere will further warm the planet.
If the ‘science is settled’, as claimed, climate scientists should not have any difficulty in explaining it to an intelligent audience. If explanations are given, they are few and far between. No detailed mention is made of why a temperature increase of 1.5?C above a particular average global temperature will cause great catastrophes.
Renewable technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines, and battery storage are often touted as replacements for fossil fuels. Contributors like Mark Lawson have pointed out the renewable energy folly. To demonstrate their capability against such comments, investors should build unsubsidised renewable energy farms. They might also like to purchase the machinery and facilities to mine, refine, manufacture, transport, and install their products, and provide facilities for their staff.
Using only their self-generated power output they should do all of the above tasks, as well as dispose of their products at the end of their approximately 20-25 year life. Their excess energy could be sold as ‘green’ energy. Only products made under those conditions should be sold as ‘certified clean green’. There is no reason to hand out subsidies because renewable energy promoters readily point out they are making energy cheaper.
Wind and solar electric generators have been made for long enough to demonstrate they can supply the energy needed to make all facilities necessary to regenerate themselves and supply the excess power needed for long-term baseload power needed to replace fossil fuels. No investors have developed such a facility. That suggests they are aware such a facility could never generate enough electricity to produce such capability, let alone sufficient additional energy to feed into a grid.
In its current form, more CO2 is generated in the production of solar panels, wind turbines, storage batteries, and electric vehicles than is saved by generating all electricity and transport using fossil fuels. Subsidising them is taking money from the poor, who can’t afford them, giving it to the rich who can afford them, and increasing the CO2 emissions they are trying to reduce.
It is easy to prove the above statements wrong. Point out all the solar and wind generators installations that currently produce sufficient electricity to make all the equipment needed to mine, refine, manufacture new generators (as well as the necessary equipment, facilities, and batteries needed), distribute, install, service and dispose of the end product in an environmentally friendly manner. Having done all that, their products must make sufficient energy to provide reliable baseload power to other industries and the community. If any exist, are they giving a return on their investment?
If additional atmospheric CO2 is a major problem, the answer is nuclear. In the meantime, new generation 50 per cent efficient clean coal-fired electric power generators convert half of the heat they generate to electricity. Solar panels average less than 20 per cent efficiency, the other 80 per cent is absorbed as heat. They generate double the heat per unit of electric power than the new clean coal power. That doesn’t include the heat or CO2 generated in their manufacture. It helps explain why some climate scientists are concerned about atmospheric CO2 levels rising even faster than predicted, despite the increasing uptake of wind and solar generators.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/04/experts-get-it-wrong
**************************************************UK: More Climate Indoctrination In The Classroom
A new ‘climate change’ GCSE will teach students ‘how to conserve the planet’. For ‘teach’ read ‘indoctrinate’.
The broad outline of the course has been drawn up – and now, officials will work with exam boards and Ofqual, the exams regulator, to design a full curriculum.
The course will aim to give young people “a deeper knowledge of the natural world around them”, and it will be available to students from 2025.
Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi, who will formally announce the qualification on Thursday, said: “The new natural history GCSE will offer young people a chance to develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of this amazing planet, its environment and how to conserve it.”
It is one of the first new qualifications to be announced since the exam system was reformed in 2017.
Broad Outline For Course Drawn Up
The Department for Education says the natural history course would enable students “to explore the world by learning about organisms and environments, environmental and sustainability issues”.
The broad outline of the course has been drawn up, but now officials will work with exam boards and Ofqual, the exams regulator, to design a full curriculum.
A 2021 global survey across 10 countries demonstrated the depth of anxiety many young people are feeling about ‘climate change’.
Nearly 60 percent of young people approached by Bath University said they felt very worried or extremely worried about the environment.
The survey spoke to 10,000 people aged between 16 and 25.
What Are Students Currently Taught?
Students already learn about the urbanisation and landscapes in geography and habitats in science.
During COP26, the education secretary said teachers will be supported in delivering ‘climate change’ education through a new science curriculum in place by 2023.
‘Climate change’ is currently on the curriculum and taught in science, citizenship and geography from Key Stage 3 (the beginning of secondary school) onwards.
In primary school (Key Stages 1 and 2) pupils are taught the core concepts – including what the climate is, how it changes, and the difference between manmade and natural environments.
The education secretary will also launch a wider Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy, which will “help young people develop excellent knowledge of STEM and practical opportunities to improve biodiversity and climate resilience”.
Editor’s note: The survey only noted the views of people aged 16 to 25, which sociologists tell us is the ages where people reason emotionally. After about 25, people start to reason logically, which is why most older people can recognise a scam, where many youngsters cannot. It is for this reason all the climate propaganda is aimed at young people, to illicit an emotional response.
https://principia-scientific.com/more-climate-indoctrination-in-the-classroom/
*************************************************Climate Change Is Not Causing an Increase in ‘Dixie Alley’ Tornadoes
A recent article by a meteorologist writing for WDSU New Orleans, “Rising tornado numbers linked to climate change, study says,” makes the erroneous claim that climate change is causing more tornadoes in the southeastern United States. In reality, data show overall tornado occurrences nationwide are likely trending downwards as the planet modestly warms. The writer of the article appears to have misrepresented or misunderstood tornado research.
Meteorologist Adam McWilliams says climate change is shifting more tornadoes into “Dixie Alley,” a region of the Southeastern United States that has a high tornado outbreak frequency.
McWilliams writes in the WDSU article, “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA] says since January 2019, 99 of the nation’s 120 tornado-related deaths – 83% — have occurred in the Southeast. In the 2010s, NOAA says 54% of tornado deaths occurred in the Southeast, up from 25% in the 1980s.”
This is a poor argument. As a matter of logic, if the number of tornadoes in Tornado Alley decrease, as some research suggests, then the percentage of deaths by region would be expected to shift, as well.
After misrepresenting NOAA’s findings McWilliams referenced another report, writing, “A 2016 study from Purdue University says that climate change is linked to this increase in tornado activity,” and describes the results of the study, which found an eastward bias for tornado occurrence over time.
In the Purdue news release linked in the article, the study’s authors make far more modest, scientifically circumspect claims. The researchers forthrightly state more research is needed before they could definitively point to climate change as the culprit.
Their research divided the last sixty years into two thirty-year sections, and analyzed tornado occurrences, with the earlier thirty year block representing a cooler period.
From the release:
Data showed a notable decrease in both annual counts and tornado days in the traditional “tornado alley” of the central plains, aided by declines in summer and autumn. However, annual values were sustained in the southeast with some increase in “Dixie alley” due in part to substantial autumn seasons increases from Mississippi to Indiana, Agee said.
Severe tornadoes are decreasing nationally, contrary to alarmist claims, a fact NOAA has recently tried to hide. Climate Realism has covered this several times, including here, here, and here, for example.
As the NOAA Tornado Climatology and Data page explains:
“The increase in tornado numbers is almost entirely in weak (EF0-EF1) events that are being reported far more often today due to a combination of better detection, greater media coverage, aggressive warning verification efforts, storm spotting, storm chasing, more developmental sprawl (damage targets), more people, and better documentation with cameras (including cell phones) than ever.”
Got that! Better detection of tracking of weak tornadoes, not more tornadoes, are responsible for the seeming increase in tornadoes overall.
Tornadoes are weather events, and cannot be conclusively linked to a changing climate. When presented the question “Does climate change cause tornadoes,” NOAA’s tornado research FAQ compiled by Roger Edwards responds with a solid “No,” and goes on to explain that “Climate models cannot resolve tornadoes or individual thunderstorms.”
Even the VORTEX Southeast page linked by McWilliams rejects his premise, and goes into detail about the reasons why tornado outbreaks in the Southeast seem to be worse than in other regions.
From their home page:
For example, tornadoes in the Southeast occur in a region often characterized by hills and trees which reduce visibility of the horizon. They are also more likely to occur at night, in fast-moving storms, and earlier in the year compared to other parts of the country. Furthermore, vulnerability is increased by unique socioeconomic factors, which VORTEX-Southeast research has shown include inadequate shelter, housing type, and larger population density relative to other tornado-prone areas in the U.S.
The real problem for the southeast, especially Mississippi, which in fairness McWilliams did devote the second half of his article to, is poor infrastructure and a larger, more dense population with a lot of people living in mobile homes. This combination of dense population and fragile infrastructure offers more, more vulnerable, targets for tornado damage.
As a meteorologist, McWilliams should have recognized this, and been more honest in his reporting on tornado occurrences in the southeast. It seems before sitting down to write, McWilliams failed to do the research necessary to provide a balanced, fully informed article on tornado trends in the Southeastern United States. Perhaps that was intentional, since only a misrepresentation of the evidence can generate alarming claims that climate change is causing more tornadoes.
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Climate cowards and apocalypse peddlers
Have you ever questioned the links between bushfires and atmospheric CO2?
Discussions about the changing climate and the level of human contribution are only allowed if the discussion follows the approved narrative. Heaven forbid somebody decides to do their own research into how global average temperatures are calculated, how many temperature stations were around in 1850, how climate models compare to observations, how CO2 functions as a greenhouse gas, and how past predictions have borne out.
For those who would label me a ‘denier’, I have a label for you – coward. Allow me to explain my contempt.
If green-left politics is your bag and you endorse the approved message, please explain your doomsday cultist narrative and how your objectives will send us backward to enjoy the living standards of a third-world country, with negative impacts on the environment.
To those who say that ‘Australia should be a climate leader’, I ask you to show evidence of a country both cutting emissions and improving its economy, living standards, and security, while pushing the renewables mantra. The world’s best examples of high renewables all have high electricity costs – Germany, United Kingdom, California, and Australia.
If you are not swayed by real-life examples of failure, then I urge you to ask yourself, why the ‘experts’ are pushing us into weather-dependent power sources, when the weather is supposed to become more unpredictable and extreme?
To the renewables lobby, including their sycophant ‘experts’, media, and political allies, I ask why, if your product is so good, do you continuously push for subsidies, targets, market intervention, cheap finance, and government spending, all while demonising the fossil fuel industry that has almost single-handedly created our current abundance of wealth and health.
To those who say ‘we need more climate action’, I ask you to quantify those actions and the effects of those actions on the climate. Please be specific. You and your ilk have a history of vagueness and being very, very wrong.
To those who rave about ‘the transition’, I ask you to define the end of the so-called transition – when will this magic outcome occur, and what does it look like? Because to me, this transition looks like a never-ending cycle of building wind/solar/batteries, with their short life-span requiring replacement every 10-20 years.
To anybody who believes emissions reduction is important, I ask if you support nuclear power.
If you think the federal government has any role in the management of bushfires, I ask you to look at the responsibilities and performance of the state environmental and emergency service bureaucracies.
If you think the world is going to end because of sea-level rise, I ask you to put ice cubes in a glass, fill it with water, then wait for the ice to melt and observe the glass not overflowing.
If you think ‘the science’ is infallible, I ask you to read what Alan Finkel, Peter Ridd and Richard Horton have to say about the credibility crisis in scientific published research. Then give the ClimateGate emails a once-over. Then ask why the world’s primary atmospheric carbon dioxide measurement laboratory is located beside an active volcano.
If you are swayed by ‘the consensus’, I ask you to read Happer, Lomborg, Plimer, Schellenberger, Epstein, Spencer, Curry, Peiser, and Ridley. Then compare those with the writings of Gore, Thunberg, and Obama.
If you find yourself convinced by the weighty opining of ‘experts’ that all CO2 increase is caused by human activities, I recommend the mission pages of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory and the finding that in one year, the combined emissions from three rainforests increased by five-times Australia’s annual emissions.
If CO2 emissions are the first thing you think about when you wake in the morning, consider that global emissions reduction reduced by almost 10 per cent in 2020 because of Covid lockdowns, and that it cannot be differentiated from natural variation (according to NOAA).
If the fact that burning coal has led to prosperity and improved health for billions of people hurts your brain, try this:
Burning wood releases the carbon isotopes C12, C13 and C14
Burning coal and gas releases only C12 and C13
Measuring the dilution of C14 in the atmosphere proves the increase of C12 and C13
You can’t apportion how much CO2 is entering the atmosphere from burning coal, without knowing how much CO2 of all types is also entering and disappearing from the atmosphere separately
If you think the UN has Australia’s best interests in mind, I ask you to name another large, unelected bureaucracy that you trust to decide your best interests. Then ask what the UN has done for you lately.
If you think CO2 emissions are the harbinger of doom, then I ask you to lead by example and commit to a single vehicle, composting, no air conditioners or plane travel, using only local seasonal produce, no batteries, no computers, no electricity, no running water, no textiles, nothing made in a factory or transported or harvested by machine, or grown using fertiliser and herbicides.
If you find yourself nodding along with phrases like ‘green hydrogen superpower’, I suggest you look up how much energy is consumed in producing green hydrogen, how the energy for green hydrogen is generated, and what that looks like on the environment.
If you quite like your first-world lifestyle, spare a thought for the third-world where people are being offered the joys of solar panels, which doesn’t remove them from poverty.
If you are tempted to label me a right-wing nutjob, climate-change denier, racist, a symptom of the colonial white privileged patriarchy, go for it. But please allow me to respond…
If you are part of the media, political, or scientific elite and you disagree with anything I’ve said, but you cannot be bothered to look it up yourself, if you’ve never bothered to look into the so-called ‘other side’, if you have no interest in the truth of things, if you cannot bring yourself to challenge your pre-conceived ideas, then you are a climate coward.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/04/climate-cowards-and-apocalypse-peddlers/
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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19 April, 2022
Antarctic sea-ice is at a record LOW, study warns
It's the nature of ice that when sea ice melts, it has NO effect on sea levels
Antarctic sea ice is at a record low and has shrunk to below 772,000 square miles (2 million kilometres) since records began, a new study has warned.
While Arctic sea ice has been disappearing for years as a result of global warming, until recently, Antarctic sea ice was having the opposite experience.
Since the late 1970s, Antarctic sea ice has been enjoying a modest increase of around one per cent per decade.
However, measurements taken in February show that sea ice levels in the southern hemisphere are now at a record low.
Antarctic sea ice is at a record low and has shrunk to below 772,000 square miles (2 million kilometres) since records began, a new study has warned© Provided by Daily Mail Antarctic sea ice is at a record low and has shrunk to below 772,000 square miles (2 million kilometres) since records began, a new study has warned
On February 25, sea-ice levels in the Bellingshausen Sea, Amundsen Sea and the Weddell Sea hit record lows of around 30 per cent lower than the average from 1981-2010© Provided by Daily Mail On February 25, sea-ice levels in the Bellingshausen Sea, Amundsen Sea and the Weddell Sea hit record lows of around 30 per cent lower than the average from 1981-2010
What is sea ice?
Sea ice is simply frozen ocean water. It forms, grows, and melts in the ocean. In contrast, icebergs, glaciers, ice sheets, and ice shelves all originate on land.
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Majority Of People Unwilling To Fund ‘Saving The Planet’
Research in many places shows that people are very worried about climate change and they are broadly supportive of implementing policies to tackle this issue.
However, people struggle to accept the personal impact policies may have on them and are reluctant to put up the cash to implement the policies.
The Associated Press breathlessly reported in October the results of its own poll. “Majority in US concerned about climate change.” But the measure of that ‘concern’ didn’t make any headlines. Only 50 percent of those polled were willing to pay $1 more a month for electricity.
This is consistent with other polls by groups as disparate as the Washington Post and Competitive Enterprise Institute, which also reported that people are not so concerned about climate change that they are willing to crack open their wallets for it. (1)
Perhaps part of the issue is that fear of a change has dropped compared to other pressing issues. The following is a list of fears addressed by the Chapman University Survey of Americans Fear Wave 7 (2020/2021), ranked by the percent of Americans who reported being afraid or very afraid. (2)
Top Ten Fears Of 2020/2021 Percentage Very Afraid Or Afraid
1- Corrupt government officials 79.6 percent
2- People I love dying 58.5 percent
3- A loved one contracting COVID-19 58 percent
4- People I love becoming seriously ill 57.3 percent
5- Widespread civil unrest 56.5 percent
6- A pandemic or a major epidemic 55.8 percent
7- Economic/financial collapse 54.8 percent
8- Cyber-terrorism 51 percent
9- Pollution of oceans, rivers and lakes 50.8 percent
10- Biological warfare 49.3 percent
Global warming and climate change were number 13 at 48.7 percent
Environmental Concerns Diminishing
In the face of other fears and growing concerns, it seems as if environmental issues have taken a back seat. Fears of pollution of oceans, rivers and lakes have dropped in rank from second to ninth place, losing nearly 18 percent of Americans.
This trend can also be seen as 23.7 percent of respondents are now very afraid of climate change, down 13 percent from 2019. A similar sort of drop can be seen in those who are very afraid of pollution of the air (down 14 percent) and drinking water (down 18 percent). In general, it seems as if Americans are less afraid of concerns involving the environment than they were in years before. (2)
United Kingdom
The public in the United Kingdom is considerably more concerned by climate change than it was even a year ago, following a string of wildfires, storms and other extreme events around the world, a recent survey shows. However, the survey also finds that while people are in favor of drastic measures to help the country become net zero by 2050 in theory—when they realize the cost and potential inconvenience it could give them personally support drops off rapidly.
A majority of the UK public support seven out of eight key net zero policies, in principle, while opposing increased taxes on meat and dairy. (3)
Conclusion
Although folks say they are worried about climate change, most clearly aren’t worried enough to spend their own money on it, or make personal sacrifices for the cause.
https://principia-scientific.com/majority-of-people-unwilling-to-fund-saving-the-planet/
**********************************************Macron Doubles Down on Green Agenda as Fear of a Le Pen Victory Grows
As France’s incumbent president Emmanuel Macron faces a mortal threat to his presidency in his populist opponent Marine Le Pen, the La République En Marche leader has decided to double down on his green agenda seemingly in the hopes of winning over hostile leftist voters.
Le Pen has traditionally been far less enthusiastic when it comes to green energy when compared with other presidential candidates, with Macron now seemingly betting that the distinction will end up being the key difference that lands him a second term in the Élysée.
According to a report by Le Monde, the current French president laid great emphasis on his Green New Deal-like politics during a meeting on Saturday, claiming that he would turn France into a “great environmental nation“.
“We have been twice as fast as the previous two five-year periods in reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Macron claimed. “We have reduced them by 12% in five years.”
“But what the IPCC has told us again is that it’s not enough, we have to go twice as fast,” he continued. “You know what? We will do it.”
“The choice today is clear,” the President is also reported as saying. “The far-right is a climate-skeptic project, a project that wants to leave Europe’s climate ambitions, that wants to destroy windmills.”
Macron’s reference to windmills is seemingly a nod toward Le Pen’s desire to move France away from the use of wind farms, with the right-wing populist who is aiming to be France’s first woman president saying that she would implement a moratorium on new wind farms, and even aim to take down existing ones.
The incumbent Macron seems to be betting on such a Le Pen policy being extremely unpopular with the leftists within France’s population, who appear to be otherwise largely reluctant to vote for him, even if only to keep Le Pen out of office.
In particular, many who voted for the most successful left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon have reportedly struggled in deciding who they should vote for between Macron and Le Pen, with some even struggling to decide on whether to vote at all.
“It’s like choosing between the plague and cholera,” described one young leftist voter according to a POLITICO report.
However, it is far from certain whether Macron’s efforts will have an effect, prompting fears across the European Union that they could be soon facing down a Eurosceptic, strongly nationalist France, and that they too could see voters turn to the right in the coming years.
“Is it inconceivable that you could have a president of France that is an economic nationalist?” Ireland’s progressive deputy PM (Tánaiste) Leo Varadkar asked. “It is not.”
“I often worry sometimes that maybe there is a certain trajectory we are yet to follow,” he also said, saying that there was a danger Ireland would shift to the right over the coming decades. “There might be a backlash against individual liberty, against international trade agreements.”
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Australian PFAS water treatment plant finally ready for action
This is an old Greenie scare but there is still no clear evidence that PFAS compounds are harmful to humans in the concentrations normally encountered
In a small remote town in the outback, a multi-million-dollar mega facility shipped in from America will soon turn potentially toxic drinking water into some of the cleanest in Australia.
It is the largest to be built so far and one of the first, but experts and activists say many more will be needed as Australia begins to deal with PFAS contamination.
A few years ago, residents of Katherine received the alarming news that the water they had been using was contaminated by a group of human-made chemicals known as PFAS, which some experts say are linked to cancers and other serious health concerns.
Between 1988 and 2004, during firefighting training at the Tindal RAAF Base, PFAS leached into the Katherine River and spread kilometres through the highly connected aquifer below.
The government advised against eating fish caught from the river, the local swimming pool was closed, bore-reliant properties surrounding the base were delivered bottled water by Defence and residents lined up for blood tests.
A major study on the health effects of PFAS and a landmark class action were launched and an interim water treatment plant was brought in, but its size left many in fear the clean water would run out.
Since then, residents have been clinging to the promise Australia's largest PFAS water treatment plant would be built and after years of delays it has been confirmed the facility will be completed by August at the latest.
Senior project manager at Power and Water Corporation Liam Early said it would deliver "very high-quality water," and agreed it would likely be the first of many needed across Australia as the nation began to grapple with the enormity of PFAS contamination.
Associate professor Suzie Reichman, an expert in pollution science at the University of Melbourne, said the sticky substances were known as "forever chemicals" because of their persistence in the environment and could be found in hundreds of everyday products like cosmetics, sunscreens and non-stick pans.
"Evidence is mounting that high concentrations can have a number of health impacts, including cancer," Dr Reichman said.
"We haven't definitively proven that in humans, but we also don't know what concentrations cause [cancers].
"The Australian government has taken a very precautionary approach and we have very low thresholds for PFAS in the environment, including in drinking water.
"But because it wasn't on people's radars as a contaminant for so long, we're now seeing it has gotten out into the environment … the more we look the more we're finding."
With an already high reliance on groundwater projected to rise across Australia as surface resources become less available due to climate change and droughts, Dr Reichman said treatment plants, despite their expense, would offer a good solution.
"We have already contaminated the environment with PFAS, and if it's the only source of water, the solution to keep it safe for people and stock … is to clean it up," she said.
After water is sucked up from the groundwater through a bore, it is processed through the pressure vessels.
Microplastics made of resin called "media" capture the PFAS and remove it from the water.
While Defence continues to filter contaminated water and pump it back into aquifers at Katherine, Oakey and Williamtown, ongoing droughts and lingering health concerns are far from over for residents.
Peter Spafford, Katherine's sole GP during the peak of the PFAS scare, said long-term health issues were still a worry for residents despite a major study finding no conclusive evidence of increased risk of cancer or disease in the three towns.
Amid over-pumping, drought, and the steady influence of climate change, he said the treatment plant was a "bandaid measure".
"It's tapping into underground water supplies, which, certainly with decreased rainfall and the increased usage due to fracking, [are] not necessarily sustainable," Dr Spafford said.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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18 April, 2022
US to Resume Oil, Gas Drilling on Federal Lands, With Increased Oil Royalty Rate
The Biden administration on April 15 said it would resume plans to facilitate oil and gas drilling on federal lands, but that it would offer fewer acres of land than initially proposed for lease sales, and charge higher royalties to oil and gas companies.
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will make 144,000 acres of federal land available for leasing by energy companies. The figure is about 80 percent less than the 733,000 acres that had previously been under evaluation.
The decision came as a result of “robust environmental review, engagement with Tribes and communities, and prioritizing the American people’s broad interests in public lands,” the Interior Department stated.
Companies will be charged royalties of 18.75 percent of the value of extracted oil and gas products—a bump up from 12.5 percent—to “ensure fair return for the American taxpayer and on par with rates charged by states and private landowners,” the department said.
“For too long, the federal oil and gas leasing programs have prioritized the wants of extractive industries above local communities, the natural environment, the impact on our air and water, the needs of Tribal Nations, and, moreover, other uses of our shared public lands,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said in a statement.
“Today, we begin to reset how and what we consider to be the highest and best use of Americans’ resources for the benefit of all current and future generations.”
The move comes amid ongoing pressure for the Biden administration to address high energy prices across the nation, especially gas prices above $4 a gallon.
It also brings the administration into compliance with an injunction from the Western District of Louisiana.
Biden, just a week after taking office in January 2021, paused new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters, via Executive Order 14008. The administration was ordered in June 2021 to resume the sales, with the federal judge in Louisiana siding with several oil- and gas-producing states and saying Interior officials had offered no “rational explanation” for the pause on new leasing.
The BLM is set to issue final environmental assessments and notices for upcoming oil and gas lease sales on April 18. The sales notices will cover leasing decisions in nine states—Alabama, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming.
Interior Department officials declined to specify which states would have parcels for sale or to give a breakdown of the amount of land by state, saying that information would be included in the April 18 sales notices. They said the reduced area being offered reflects a focus on leasing in locations near existing oil and gas development, including pipelines.
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How Big Green Undermines Pennsylvania’s Energy Potential
Pennsylvania sits at the epicenter of what is aptly described as America’s “natural gas revolution,” which is why the state is well positioned to help free America and Europe from relying on foreign adversaries for their energy.
But there’s a problem. Average residents who stand to benefit from affordable and reliable domestic energy supplies are operating at disadvantage against anti-energy campaigns that receive financial support not just from outside of the state, but also possibly from outside of the U.S. That’s why now is a good time for policymakers to take a hard look at the oversized influence green activists are exercising in Pennsylvania at the expense of their constituents.
While testifying before the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee in September 2018, Ken Stiles, a former CIA analyst, now a professor with Virginia Tech, described how “agents of influence” either knowingly or unknowingly work to advance the interests of foreign powers.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine further highlights the geopolitical importance of the Keystone State and its vast supplies of oil and natural gas. Innovative drilling techniques such as hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking) have been used to access these precious natural resources in the Marcellus Shale, a geological formation of sedimentary rock that cuts across a large portion of Pennsylvania.
In his testimony, Stiles makes the point that “covert support for anti-fracking and anti-pipeline groups is a form of espionage.”
The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and the League of Conservation Voters, are among the groups that have come under congressional scrutiny for maintaining close ties with China and Russia. All three are active in Pennsylvania and all three have been complicit in efforts to undermine natural gas production. The NRDC, for instance, has been instrumental in efforts to block fracking in the eastern part of Pennsylvania, which prevents the state from realizing its full energy potential.
Pennsylvania is number two only to Texas in terms of natural gas production, according to the Energy Information Administration. Government figures also show Pennsylvania is the third largest coal producing state and the third largest net supplier of total energy to other states.
Stiles told lawmakers that if the U.S. can export natural gas, oil, and coal to its allies, then Russia will no longer be in position to “blackmail” western democracies. This would certainly help to explain why America’s strategic competitors might view environmental advocacy groups as an ideal conduit for espionage campaigns aimed at restraining American energy.
A U.S. Senate report describes how the San Francisco-based Sea Change Foundation pulls in funds from overseas that are then steered into U.S. environmental groups. Stiles went into detail about this money trail in his testimony.
“No doubt Moscow has been funneling money into U.S. environmental groups for years, worried that fracking technology would one day become viable – and a threat to Russian economic prowess in the world energy market,” Stiles said in his prescient testimony.
Despite public testimony and congressional investigations highlighting their connections with foreign powers, green activists continue to have the upper hand over free market outfits in Pennsylvania like the Marcellus Shale Coalition that favor the development of domestic oil and gas supplies.
That’s partly because the alleged foreign agents cited in congressional reports now have allies in government in the form of Tom Wolf, the chief executive in Harrisburg and Joe Biden, the chief executive in Washington D.C. But it’s also because they continue to benefit financially from left-leaning foundations inside and outside of Pennsylvania that spend billions of dollars in grants to support litigation and regulations that stifle production of the most affordable, reliable, and accessible forms of energy.
The Sea Change Foundation is a key player here. But so are its San Francisco neighbors namely the Energy Foundation and the Tides Foundation. There’s also the Bloomberg Family Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation both based in New York to name just a few more.
From within Pennsylvania, Heinz Endowments based in Pittsburg, and the William Penn Foundation based in Philadelphia, are among the biggest funders of anti-energy activism. Big Green Inc., a project of the Institute for Energy Research, a Washington-D.C.-based group that advocates for free market energy policies, tracks donations from these foundations on a state-by-state basis. In 2019, Heinz donated $375,000 to the Clean Air Task Force, an anti-oil think tank, $590,000 to the Clean Air Council, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit created in 1967 to push environmental litigation, and $90,000 to the Sierra Club “to protect the region from impacts from fossil fuel use and development, according to Big Green.
The database also shows that since 2000 the William Penn Foundation has donated $10 million to the Open Space Conservancy, which acquires land so it can block development and construction, $7.1 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a federally endowed conservation group that bankrolls left-leaning conservation groups, and $2 million to the Delaware Riverkeeper Network that opposes natural gas development and frequently sues government agencies.
With the midterm elections approaching, Pennsylvania has reached a critical turning point where energy policy concerned. The state could either cut an even larger figure as an energy powerhouse or succumb to green activism that serves to benefit America’s strategic competitors. In fact, the outcome of the governor’s race will probably determine whether Pennsylvania enters the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, also known as RGGI, a multistate climate change compact built around “cap and trade” regulations. On Tuesday (April 5) the state senate fell just one vote shy of the two-thirds majority needed to override Wolf’s veto of a resolution that would prevent the state from joining RGGI. But the Commonwealth Court has blocked Wolf from implementing RGGI pending expected litigation. In a joint statement, Senate Republicans praised the court for prevent Wolf from taking executive action they view as unconstitutional.
“The governor’s attempt to unilaterally enter Pennsylvania into RGGI would put even more financial pressure on Pennsylvania families with increased electric bills at a time when they are already struggling due to inflation and the anti-energy policies of Governor Wolf and President Biden,” the senators say in their statement. “We need an energy strategy that makes the best use of our natural resources and unleashes the full potential to our economy – not cripple it for the sake of political ideology.”
That’s well said. But the NRDC, with roughly $180 million in assets, and the Sierra Club, with more than $88 million in assets, are sure to play a prominent role in the upcoming elections. Both groups have repeatedly testified in favor of joining RGGI and both groups have the resources to drown out the voices of state residents who pine for American energy independence.
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PetroChina taps shale oil in ageing western China field
SINGAPORE, March 29 (Reuters) - Top Chinese oil and gas major PetroChina is exploring shale oil in an aging western China basin and aims to build a pilot zone to pump one million tonnes of crude a year, or about 20,000 barrels per day (bpd), by 2025.
The state giant started drilling four horizontal wells in Yingxiongling in Qinghai oilfield, part of the Qaidam basin in western province of Qinghai where oil exploration began in the 1950s, Petrochina's parent company CNPC said on Tuesday.
PetroChina aimed to build the pilot zone with annual production of 100,000 tonnes this year, expanding to 500,000 tonnes a year by 2023, after having achieving breakthroughs in explorations in 2021, CNPC said on its website.
The shale oil structure is located at an average altitude of 3,200 to 3,800 metres above sea level and is typically of high pressure and high output, the company said.
China produces only 35,000 bpd of shale oil mostly in the northern Ordos basin and northwestern Jungar basin, less than 1% of national oil output.
Under Beijing's call to enhance domestic energy supply security, state energy giants are spending more to develop more geologically challenging formations to compensate for fast declining reserves in mature oilfields like Daqing. read more
China, which imports more than 70% of its crude needs, intends to maintain domestic oil production at about 4 million bpd for years to come.
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Climate-change clots have well and truly lost the plot
Below is a a scathing attack on the Australian Greens. Much the same could be said of Greenies elsewhere
Anthony Albanese – the man who fights Tories but emulates John Howard – has got it in hand. Together with Adam Bandt, he will transform a land of droughts and flooding rains into a land of milk and honey.
Albanese and Bandt have a plan, and with at least 20 of their fellow Australians dead, thousands homeless, and tens of thousands dealing with damage and hardship, the Labor and Greens leaders have decided life would be better without floods – in fact, without any natural disasters.
As Bandt tweeted during these floods: “Let’s be clear, this could have been avoided. The Liberals are supercharging climate disasters with new coal and gas mines and have failed to prepare for the devastating impacts.”
It makes you question the patriotism and humanity of Scott Morrison and the Coalition doesn’t it? Because what sort of callous ideologues would refuse to dispense with natural disasters if they had the option?
The Greens leader said: “Nothing is natural about this. And nothing will save this climate-wrecking government this election.” You have got to admit, he has a point – if you could stop this and you chose not to, then why would people vote for you?
Thankfully, Bandt and Albanese do not just whinge, they have solutions. Bandt says we just “have to leave the coal and gas in the ground” – which I guess makes sense.
We could lead the way, abandon fossil fuels, and then just hope we are followed by China, India, Indonesia, Russia, America, Canada, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Nigeria, Kuwait, Iraq, Papua New Guinea, Brunei, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. You never know.
The Labor leader says, “too many Australians have first-hand knowledge of the brutality of bushfires, drought and flood – climate change is here now”. And, according to his policies, the way to fix this is to build more renewable energy generation and subsidise people to buy electric cars.
If only Morrison had thought of that. Half price Teslas for all, and Lismore stays high and dry.
The good news is that, according to the politicians and esteemed oracles of the fourth estate, all this can be fixed. All voters need do is use the election to switch from the Coalition’s net zero by 2050 pledge to Labor’s net zero by 2050 promise. Painless.
ABC regular and NSW Senate candidate Jane Caro is on to this solution. This week she posted a video, standing under a collapsed ceiling in her kitchen – which seemed a particularly perilous place to be, given it had apparently fallen in after the torrential rain that hit Sydney.
“Climate change is real and happening now, even in my kitchen,” she posted. In the video she said it might “take a while” to get her ceiling repaired, but selflessly she conceded many people might be suffering greater trauma.
“Stay safe, stay dry, let’s hope the sun comes out,” she implored her climate-savvy followers, “and we get a change of government”. Yep, that will do it. Change the government, and you change the climate. Barack Obama proved that in 2008 when he proclaimed that this was “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal.” Job done. No wonder he got that Nobel prize.
We have seen the same healing effect here. The last time Labor was in power, under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, when they were trying to impose an emissions trading scheme and then teamed up with the Greens to impose a carbon tax, the only natural disasters we had were the Black Saturday bushfires that took 173 lives and the Brisbane floods.
Oh, and cyclone Yasi, and cyclone Oswald, and some other bushfires.
But still, these must have been “natural” natural disasters rather than “supercharged” by global warming because I do not recall any politicians or media blaming the federal government for those extreme events at the time.
Climate obsessed, so-called independent candidate Allegra Spender this week noted that “three years ago we had historic drought, two years ago we had historic bushfires, now we have historic floods” and then linked these events to emissions targets.
But we are left to wonder why the highest floods in so many regions – and the worst droughts in most of the country, and many of the worst bushfires – occurred way back in the 19th century, or in the early to middle years of the 20th century.
Were the early settlers secretly driving V8s? Did those sneaky convicts have a coal-fired power plant running on the sly? Best ask Bruce Pascoe.
The blaming of floods on global warming makes more sense than the finger pointing about droughts, given anyone with a basic understanding of climate science understands a warmer planet is a wetter one.
But this just makes us wonder why the very same people blaming climate “inaction” for the floods were doing the same in recent years for fires and droughts.
In 2005, the former climate commissioner Tim Flannery said, “if the computer models are right then drought conditions will become permanent in eastern Australia”. I am no climate scientist but a quick gaze around the Nepean-Hawkesbury these past two years would struggle to find evidence of a permanent drought – perhaps he was misquoted, and actually referred to “drowning” conditions.
A couple of years later, Flannery told the ABC that “even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems”. Maybe he was right, it has not so much filled them, as overfilled them.
These inconsistencies and this opportunism cannot be easily dismissed, even if the only media Flannery speaks to never question him on it.
This permanent drought fearmongering, backed up by other climate alarmists, led to the mainland state governments spending a total of more than $12bn building desalination plants.
Only Perth’s was necessary and has been useful; the others are expensive white elephants kept on standby, chewing up money and energy in the hope they will be required some day.
In NSW and Queensland, the money spent on desal plants would have been better spent on flood mitigation dams.
Another one of the climate-obsessed so-called independents, Georgia Steele, is running in Hughes, in Sydney’s south. She reckons the evidence is clear that Morrison has “botched” climate policy because it fits a pattern of him botching the bushfire response, Covid quarantine, Covid vaccine supplies, submarine deal, religious discrimination bill, federal integrity commission, making Parliament House safe for women, and the flood response. Wow, that is some list; it leaves you wondering who is putting the Prime Minister’s pants on in the morning.
All this politicking, fact-free partisan abuse and phantasmagorical opposition promises of kinder, gentler natural disasters are undone by plain facts and logic. As Alan Finkel – the nation’s chief scientist at the time – told a Senate committee in 2018 that if all of our country’s carbon dioxide emissions disappeared overnight the impact on the global environment would be “virtually nothing”.
At that time we contributed about 1.3 per cent of global emissions; we now account for even less, about 1.1 per cent – while China, India, Indonesia, in fact, most of the world’s 10 most populous nations continue to increase emissions.
The fear, alarm and unquestioning coverage is every bit as astounding as the loopy claims of the activists.
Every hot day, dry day, cold day, wet day or fire day is cited as evidence of global warming.
The Guardian Australia’s Katherine Murphy leads the charge; her fringe views are elevated as mainstream commentary by the ABC.
“If every country acted with the abject derangement that Australia has exhibited for a decade,” she ranted this week, “then the planet will most decidedly cook.”
You will have to ask her whether that cooking will lead to floods, droughts, fires or snowstorms. But I reckon she would be likely to bet on the lot.
There is precious little questioning by our media about record maximums posted from weather stations that are barely three years old, or temperature records that are revised downwards and ignore all readings before 1910, and rainfall records that disregard detailed measurements from the 19th century.
Curiosity and facts have lost all value – ideology and narrative reign supreme. Presumably we will see the eyes of the world descend on this nation in May, because the global climate and the fate of the planet are going to be decided at our federal election.
For the green left and the media, it has become a simple world with simple solutions. None better than the flood mitigation strategy proposed by ACTU boss Sally McManus.
“I know there must be a really obvious answer to this, but a question for the hydrologists,” she tweeted last week.
“When Warragamba Dam is near capacity, why doesn’t Sydney Water suspend billing and ask people to turn on all their taps to take it down a bit before more rain comes?” Yep, and if that doesn’t work, I suppose the unions could just picket the rain.
The climate arguments are so simplistic and stupid that mainstream voters surely could not swallow them, no matter how disenchanted they are with the government.
Still, if they do, it will only confirm that the climate is the least of our problems.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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17 April, 2022
Methane emissions surged by a record amount in 2021, NOAA says
Methane levels may well have surged but what does that imply for global warming? Nothing. The electromagnetic frequencies obstructed by methane are all also blocked by water vapor so methane does not add any extra obstruction
Global emissions of methane, the second-biggest contributor to human-caused climate change after carbon dioxide, surged by a record amount in 2021, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Thursday.
Methane, a key component of natural gas, is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide but doesn't last as long in the atmosphere before it breaks down. Major contributors to methane emissions include oil and gas extraction, landfills and wastewater, and farming of livestock.
"Our data show that global emissions continue to move in the wrong direction at a rapid pace," Rick Spinrad, the NOAA administrator, said in a statement. "The evidence is consistent, alarming and undeniable."
NOAA said the annual increase in atmospheric methane last year was 17 parts per billion, the largest amount recorded since systematic measurements began in 1983. The increase in methane during 2020 was 15.3 parts per billion. In 2021, atmospheric methane levels averaged 1,895.7 parts per billion, or roughly 162% greater than preindustrial levels, NOAA said.
The report comes after more than 100 countries joined a coalition to cut 30% of methane gas emissions by 2030 from 2020 levels. The Global Methane Pledge of 2021 includes six of the world's 10 biggest methane emitters — the U.S., Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Mexico. China, Russia, India and Iran did not join the pledge.
Last year, a landmark United Nations report declared that drastically slashing methane is necessary to avoid the worst outcomes of global warming. The report said if the world could cut methane emissions by up to 45% through 2030, it would prevent 255,000 premature deaths and 775,000 asthma-related hospital visits on an annual basis.
Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute, said reducing methane is a relatively cheap and easy way to achieve significant climate benefits.
"Methane reductions have to be one part of a transformative global effort to phase out deadly fossil fuels in favor of truly clean renewable energy," Siegel said in a statement. "Anything less puts us on a catastrophic path to an unrecognizable world."
A study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters also found that slashing methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, agriculture and other human sources could slow climate change by as much as 30%.
NOAA also warned that carbon dioxide is continuing to rise at historically high rates.
The global surface average for carbon dioxide last year was 414.7 parts per million, an increase of 2.66 parts per million over the 2020 average, the agency said. The measurement marks the 10th consecutive year that carbon dioxide rose by more than two parts per million, the fastest rate of increase since monitoring began 63 years ago.
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The ESG movement is even worse than you think
The ideas behind the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) movement have been around for quite some time. However, until recently, they have remained mostly out of the public eye.
So, what is the purpose of the ESG movement? Initial ESG efforts were aimed at fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), in a push to decarbonize our economy and transition to “clean” energy.
Yet, what if there is more to the transition? What if it goes beyond energy? After all, the “E” in ESG deals with more than just “Environmental.” Issues such as land use and production agriculture must be evaluated for climate risk. What if the transition envisioned by ESG backers includes food production and consumption, mining, and timber? And that is just the “E” in ESG.
It is important to understand that the transition envisioned by ESG backers goes far beyond the source of energy, and it truthfully has little, if anything, to do with the environment. The transition being engineered by ESG backers seeks to remake our society in the vision of our utopian betters.
Most large global corporations, central banks, and Wall Street investment firms are aligned in their support of ESG and NetZero 2050. The Biden administration, through numerous executive orders, has directed all federal agencies to develop ESG goals, policies, and regulations. This unholy alliance controls nearly every sector of our economy. And if you thought the “E” in ESG is bad, wait until they get to the “S.”
Even a casual observer of the news over the past several years has seen the things that form the foundation of our society under attack. The family, parental rights, public education, the Constitution, the free market, free speech, freedom of assembly, man, woman, everything.
Which brings us to Disney. If you do not believe that the goal of ESG is to fundamentally change our society, our individual rights and freedoms, how do you explain Disney’s latest actions? For instance, Disney recently eliminated the greeting “Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls” at the Magic Kingdom to promote inclusivity. Diversity and inclusivity are very important in the “S” of ESG. Now, who can argue against diversity and inclusivity? Well, the tricky thing about ESG is that the transition also applies to the meaning and intent of words.
Disney’s “transition” started much earlier and goes much deeper, as shown in recent videos and statements. I grew up watching Walt Disney on Sunday nights. Yes, I am that old. And I have to wonder how things got to this point with such an iconic brand. When did the magic leave the kingdom? And why?
In a recent article in the Washington Examiner, Vivek Ramaswamy, author of the bestseller Woke, Inc. pointed to the role that Disney’s three largest shareholders may have played in picking the fight over Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill. Who are the three largest shareholders in Disney? BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street—do these names sound familiar? Together, these three firms own 15.3 percent of Disney stock. In a publicly traded company that is a lot.
Need proof. Much was made of the news that Elon Musk acquired a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter to become the company’s single largest shareholder. Mr. Musk was even offered a seat on the Board at Twitter. Yes, shareholders owning 15 percent of your stock have your attention.
You may question Mr. Ramaswamy’s assertion, but it is consistent with the ESG movement. As BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said, “Behaviors are going to have to change and this is one thing we are asking companies, you have to force behaviors and at BlackRock we are forcing behaviors.”
If BlackRock and the other ESG movers and shakers are into forcing behaviors, do you think they simply sat by and watched Disney’s halting efforts over the past year before going all in against the Florida legislation? Or is it more likely that there was a phone call or two? As any CEO of a publicly traded company can attest, you take that call. Disney’s actions show that if these large financial institutions were not pushing those decisions, they certainly weren’t opposed.
Now, you may wonder why BlackRock and other Wall Street firms would weigh in on social issues, parents’ rights, and public education. It will not come as a surprise if you go to their websites and read about their policies and initiatives, in their own words. It is all there, and it is time to take this very seriously.
For more proof, a recent column in Politico’s newsletter, The Long Game, discussed SOC Investment group’s latest shareholder activism efforts to require companies to undergo a civil rights audit focusing on social justice and related issues. They are having some success with companies like BlackRock, Citigroup, and Apple agreeing to conduct the audits. There’s that BlackRock again.
On their face, it can be hard to understand the intent and outcome of these shareholder resolution efforts. On one hand, this could improve accountability for money that public corporations have given to popular causes. On the other hand, the audit results can be used to push ideology through publicly traded companies. Given everything we are seeing, which is more likely?
One thing we do know is that as the ESG movement gains momentum large corporations will be the tool to “force behaviors” and complete the transition of our society. Shareholders in these public companies must be involved and educated. I should add that Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street are not the actual shareholders of Disney stock. The true owners are the participants in state pension plans, 401(k)s, and individual investors who employ these money management firms to buy, hold, and vote shares with their money.
Large corporations are being pushed by financial institutions to adopt ESG policies that you may not agree with or that run counter to your values and beliefs, and they are largely using your money to do it.
Several states are taking steps to exercise the voting rights under state pension plans and other state funds. These policymakers and state financial officers should be supported in this effort as they face tremendous pushback. They are accused of “meddling in the free market,” but the idea of a free market has gone the way of Disney’s innocence.
How bad is the ESG movement? Judge a tree by its fruit.
https://humanevents.com/2022/04/12/the-esg-movement-is-even-worse-than-you-think
************************************************Climate Change is Not Causing More Power Outages
The Columbian ran an article claiming extreme weather, exacerbated by climate change, is causing an increase in power outages across the United States. This claim is false. Data clearly show that there has been no increasing trend in almost any extreme weather condition. The best evidence indicates poor grid maintenance of an aging system, and the increasing imposition of intermittent sources of energy onto the grid, without regard to maintaining adequate baseload generation and infrastructure are to blame the increasing number of outages.
The article, ‘Storms batter aging power grid as climate disasters spread,’ describes results from a handful of studies focusing on damages to infrastructure due to weather coming to the faulty conclusion that climate change is to blame.
“Power outages from severe weather have doubled over the past two decades across the U.S., as a warming climate stirs more destructive storms that cripple broad segments of the nation’s aging electrical grid, according to an Associated Press analysis of government data,” The Columbian writes.
In fact, extreme weather has not been increasing alongside modest warming, as we have covered in Climate Realism many times, including here, here, and here.
Hurricanes are among the extreme weather events The Columbian claims are becoming more frequent and powerful. Data refutes this claim. Data assembled by Ryan Maue, Ph.D., formerly the chief scientist the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, shows Accumulated Cyclone Energy from hurricanes in the United States has not increased
Both datasets are discussed in greater detail in this Climate Realism article by meteorologist Anthony Watts. Confirming the U.S. data, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent Sixth Assessment Report, released in July reported it could find no evidence tropical cyclone patterns, numbers or intensities had increased during the recent period of modest warming, nor could it attribute any changes in hurricane activity to human causes.
In a transparent effort to hype claims the world faces a climate crisis, a false but common refrain in the mainstream media this century, The Columbian buried the lede. Although the article repeatedly claims climate change is to blame for increasing numbers of power outages in Maine, Louisiana, and California, it mentions only in passing that the electric power grid in each of these states is out of date and poorly maintained. The Columbian writes:
In Maine: “As with much of the nation, Maine’s electrical infrastructure was built decades ago and parts are more than 50 years old, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. “
Louisiana: “Much of the grid was built decades ago, and the majority of power transmission facilities are now at least 25 years old.”
Also in California: “Almost 200 California wildfires over the past decade were traced to downed power lines that ignited trees or brush, including a record 41 blazes in 2021.”
The Associated Press article that The Columbian uses as its source argues you can tell the weather is getting worse because the costs related to weather damage are rising. This claim is both unscientific and false. Data clearly indicates that the costs of natural disasters are increasing because of demographic changes: Population growth and the expansion of dwellings, businesses, and infrastructure into areas historically prone to natural disasters means, of necessity, the costs related to extreme weather events will be higher when inclement weather strikes
Increases in coastal homebuilding and luxury resorts along the coasts necessarily result in more, more expensive, properties being put at risk from hurricane strikes. Climate Realism has discussed this fact on multiple occasions, for example, here.
Despite the author of The Columbian story acknowledging many of the California’s blackouts were due to Pacific Gas and Electric Company intentionally shutting down power because of the possibility of their aging power lines setting fires, the paper still tried to link the outages to climate change induced wildfires.
In reality, between the aging lines and proximity to flammable brush, California has their own unique power grid problems due to state-encouraged “transition” to electric powered vehicles and the banning of gas utilities in new homes. Not only are Californians adding pressure to the grid that way, but the state also is seeking to replace reliable fossil fuel electricity generation with “green” sources like wind and solar, which are totally dependent on the very weather they claim is already causing blackouts. The absurdity of these policies is well documented at Climate Realism, in articles like these here, and here.
Meteorologist Anthony Watts writes in ‘Thanks to Climate-Driven Green Energy Mandates, California’s Electric Grid Is Near Collapse,’ that “Solar power has a thorny problem: It disappears after sunset. And California’s electric grid is highly dependent on it now thanks to the political mandate known as the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32).”
AB 32 made it so that 50 percent of all California’s electricity is mandated to be powered by sources like wind and solar by 2025, ramping up every few years until it gets to 100 percent “green” energy by 2045.
Concerning California wildfires, as explored in Climate Realism, here, here, and here, for example, the modest recent increase in recent years is not outside of the historic norm for the arid region and is directly attributable to changed forestry and wildfire fighting policies at the federal and state level, more people moving into areas naturally prone to wildfires, and arson.
Had The Columbian not jumped on the climate crisis bandwagon and tried to wrongly link increasing numbers of power outages to climate change, it could have done its readers a good service. Describing the dangers of poor grid infrastructure is a worthy pursuit, and an important issue. Improving fundamental infrastructure is critical to continued economic progress and to ensuring people are better insulated from the impacts of natural disasters when they occur. Downplaying the real problem of aging infrastructure and population and policy shifts, as The Columbian did, in favor of preventing climate change, which is impossible, puts people at risk, especially those in regions that are naturally vulnerable to bad weather. If you focus on the wrong problem, one is more likely than not to develop the wrong solutions.
https://climaterealism.com/2022/04/no-the-columbian-climate-change-is-not-causing-more-power-outages
**************************************************The SEC Climate Change Proposal isn’t Grounded in Science
On March 22, 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a new rule for public comment (File Number S7-10-22) that would require public companies to report the climate-related impact of their businesses. Since it has been well established in multiple IPCC reports that the human impact on climate has never been observed, only modeled, this seems unnecessary. The climate models, used by the IPCC and NOAA to “compute” the human impact on climate have already been invalidated by Dr. Ross McKitrick and Dr. John Christy in their well-known Earth and Space Science peer-reviewed paper. McKitrick and Christy’s previous 2018 paper is cited numerous times in the latest IPCC report (AR6), and the report acknowledges that their paper is correct on page 3-24, where they also admit that one likely reason is the models are overestimating the sensitivity of the climate to CO2. They also admit on the same page that the models are overestimating warming relative to observations in both the atmosphere and the oceans. Page 10 of the SEC proposed rule states:
“In particular, the impact of climate-related risks on both individual businesses and the financial system as a whole are well documented.10”
While “climate-related” risks do exist, as they always have, it is well documented that they are decreasing with time, both in terms of frequency, financial impact, and severity. Figure 1 is a plot of the number of climate related disasters from 2000 through 2019 from EM-DAT.
The database goes further back in time, but reliable reporting of disasters did not start until 2000, according to Regina Below and Prof. D.Guha-Sapir of EM-DAT. The decrease is logical since summers and days are warming at a lower rate than winters and nights. The tropics are hardly warming at all while the North Polar region[1] is warming quite a lot. Thus, the climate is becoming milder as it warms, with fewer extremes and therefore, fewer severe storms.
Climate is usually defined as a change in average weather over a period of 30 years or more. The footnote above specifies “climate-related disasters” that have $1 billion in damages in 2020 and notes they surpass previous highs from nine years before and three years before. The value of one billion dollars is corrected for the consumer price index (CPI) but not corrected for population or GDP. All the cited years are within one climate period of 30 years; thus they are considering weather events, not climate. It is well established that weather damages, as a percentage of GDP, are declining over climate periods of time. Figure 2, from Professor Roger Pielke Jr. shows the recent trend in disasters as a percent of GDP.
The SEC document claims that: “the impact of climate-related risks on both individual businesses and the financial system as a whole are well documented.” This does not seem to be the case. Recent research by Professor Roger Pielke Jr., Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, and data from the EM-DAT disaster database all show the impact of climate change, whether of natural or human origin, is declining.
The costs in the NOAA “Summary Stats” document are adjusted for the consumer price index, but they are not adjusted for population or GDP, and these are critical factors. The document they cite about the 4th warmest year on record, critically does not document why warming since the 20th century is a bad thing. There were many very cold and deadly years in the 20th century and cold kills many more people than heat. The coldest years in the U.S. were 1985, 1899, 1977, and 1983. In the U.K. 1963, 1947, 1940 and 1979 stand out. Our current climate is much nicer.
Particularly, when considering the horrible suffering of people in the Northern Hemisphere during the Little Ice Age, due to cold and drought, one should not assume that a warmer climate is worse than a colder one. The Little Ice Age is now considered the “preindustrial period,” which the IPCC normally defines as 1850-1900, although sometimes they define it as 1750 to 1900[2]. The end of the Little Ice Age is normally taken as 1850. It was far from an ideal climate and during its colder periods, glaciers advanced in the Alps and destroyed entire towns. It was a time of perpetual war, famines, and plagues. Horrible persecutions of Jews and “witches” were common.
Society was suffering from the cold and lack of food, and they needed to blame someone. They chose Jews and older unmarried women unfortunately. Over 50,000 witches were burned alive. Tens of thousands of Jews were massacred. Not because there was any proof, just because someone had to suffer for the bad climate. Some people, the masses mainly, seemed to need to blame someone or humanity’s sins for natural disasters. Behringer notes that in the Little Ice Age: “In a society with no concept of the accidental, there was a tendency to personalize misfortune.” We should not make the mistake of blaming humans or human “sins” for natural disasters. Clear proof is needed first that human actions are significantly contributing to climate change. Such proof does not exist, the claim comes from computer models that have now been falsified.
It seems the SEC is accepting the politically correct dogma that warmer is bad, without demanding evidence that it is. This is no way to make policy.
https://climaterealism.com/2022/04/the-sec-climate-change-proposal-isnt-grounded-in-science
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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15 April, 2022
Empirical observations show no sign of ‘climate crisis’
A systematic review of climate trends and observational data by an eminent climate scientist has found no evidence to support the claim of a climate crisis.
In his annual State of the Climate report, Ole Humlum, emeritus professor at the University of Oslo, examined detailed patterns in temperature changes in the atmosphere and oceans together with trends in climate impacts.
Many of these show no significant trends and suggest that poorly understood natural cycles are involved.
And while the report finds gentle warming, there is no evidence of dramatic changes, with snow cover stable, sea ice levels recovering, and no change in storm activity.
Professor Humlum said:
“A year ago, I warned that there was great risk in using computer modelling and immature science to make extraordinary claims. The empirical observations I have reviewed show very gentle warming and no evidence of a climate crisis.”
GWPF director, Dr Benny Peiser said:
“It’s extraordinary that anyone should think there is a climate crisis. Year after year our annual assessment of climate trends document just how little has been changing in the last 30 years. The habitual climate alarmism is mainly driven by scientists’ computer modelling rather than observational evidence.”
https://www.thegwpf.org/publications/empirical-observations-show-no-sign-of-climate-crisis/
*************************************************Climate-Change ‘Solutions’ That Are Worse Than the Problem
If you can afford a Tesla, you probably find it hard to imagine that there are some 3.5 billion people on Earth who have no reasonably reliable access to electricity. Even less obvious may be the way rich countries’ pursuit of carbon neutrality at almost any cost limits economic opportunities for the world’s poor and poses serious geopolitical risks to the West.
Anyone on an investment committee has likely spent untold amounts of time discussing ways to mitigate the impact of climate change, but they’ve likely never heard anyone state one simple and incontrovertible fact: The widespread exploration and production of fossil fuels that started in Titusville, Pa., not quite 170 years ago, has done more to benefit the lives of ordinary people than any other technological advance in history.
Before fossil fuels, people relied on burning biomass, such as timber or manure, which was a far dirtier and much less efficient source of energy. Fossil fuels let people heat their homes in the winter, reducing the risk of death from exposure. Fossil-fuel-based fertilizers greatly increased crop yields, reducing starvation and malnutrition. Before the advent of the automobile, the ability for many people to venture far from their hometown was an unfathomable dream. Oil- and coal-burning transportation opened up access to education, commerce, professional opportunities, and vital services such as medicine. There has been, and remains, a strong correlation between the use of fossil fuels and life expectancy.
Limiting the availability of fossil fuels in the name of climate activism would cut off many of the world’s poor from these benefits. Climate activists worry about a potential “existential crisis” decades down the road, but poor people, really poor people, face an existential crisis every day. Even for those who aren’t among humanity’s most unfortunate, rising energy prices force serious economic trade-offs. Purposely eschewing America and Europe’s own natural resources increases costs to consumers, raises the cost of doing business, and limits economic growth. Viewed with this in mind, the debate over emissions seems like an upper-class problem.
If Chinese belligerence and increasing authoritarianism over the past two years have taught us anything, it is that no amount of trade and international cooperation will instill what are generally considered to be Western values in other civilizations who have no real desire to adopt them. Trusting China to do anything other than what is directly in its own best interests, especially when it comes to the trade-offs between economic development and climate issues, would seem to be in direct conflict with history and common sense—and it poses serious geopolitical risks to the international democratic order. The war in Ukraine has emphasized how leaving European and American fossil fuels in the ground can put the West at the will of dictators, increasing the risk of atrocities, war or even the use of weapons of mass destruction. An easing of regulations on drilling in the U.S. and easier regulations on liquefied natural gas exports to flood the global market with oil and natural gas would do far more than any sanctions to stop Vladimir Putin’s barbarism.
The climate-change solutions the West is pursuing also pose a danger to the environment. The lodestar of the environmental movement today appears to be electric vehicles. One would be hard-pressed to find a product more dependent on resources from extractive materials. An electric car requires almost four times as much copper as an automobile powered by an internal combustion engine. The widely accepted goal of having 30% of the world’s vehicle sales be electric by 2030 would require enormous investments in mining industries that are decidedly not eco-friendly.
And whatever emission cuts America and Europe manage to make by forcing electric vehicles and other inefficient technology on consumers will be negated by emissions from other nations. Regimes like Russia and China won’t put aside their geopolitical ambitions for climate activism; developing countries like India won’t sacrifice economic development and their peoples’ well-being in the hope it’ll slow global warming.
Sadly, environmentalism has grown into a secular religion in which reasonable debate is regarded as heresy. But if politicians and voters can approach climate change with an open mind, they’ll see that economic growth is likely to solve the issue without heavy-handed government intervention. History has shown that free markets produce incredible leaps in human ingenuity. The greater access the world has to all sorts of energy sources, the faster humanity will discover new technologies that are more environmentally friendly. Rationing fossil fuels would only retard the process of decreasing carbon emissions and cost lives in the process.
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America Needs Proactive Energy Solutions, Not False Allegations
Political grandstanding against “Big Oil” continues to grab headlines as the House Energy and Commerce Committee called on oil and gas company executives yesterday to testify on the latest unfounded claim alleging their companies are price gouging and taking advantage of the high gas prices to the detriment of the American people.
The hearing attempted to divert public attention away from the Biden administration’s anti-fossil fuel policies, which threaten our country’s energy security and largely are responsible for rising energy prices.
The Biden administration seems wholly ignorant regarding how retail gas prices are determined. He revealed his ignorance in tweeting recently that “Oil prices are decreasing, gas prices should too. Last time oil was $96 a barrel, gas was $3.62 a gallon. Now it’s $4.31. Oil and gas companies shouldn’t pad their profits at the expense of hardworking Americans.”
Prices in the global market for crude hover north of $100 per barrel. Even if those prices were to fall dramatically, it takes time for prices at the pump to adjust downward. Many factors, including transporting oil from the field to the refinery, from the refinery to distributors, and then on to the pump, must be taken into account.
The Biden administration created a bottleneck in the crude oil supply chain by canceling the Keystone XL pipeline that would have carried oil from fields in Canada and the Dakotas to refineries on the Gulf Coast. It’s far too late in the current crisis for restarting that project to have any immediate effect. Nor will releasing 180 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve do much to lessen the pain caused by Biden’s green energy policy agenda.
Soon after coming into office, the president paused the Interior Department’s leasing program for energy exploration and drilling rights both onshore, on federal lands, and in the Gulf of Mexico. Although a federal court in Louisiana granted an injunction against the offshore leasing moratorium and leasing has continued while the administration’s appeal is pending, Biden has not signaled when the five-year leasing program will resume.
Blocking access to known oil and gas reserves, onshore or off, contributes to reductions in supply and to higher wholesale and retail energy prices. Reality will bite wallets even more forcefully in June of this year when the Interior Department’s current five-year offshore leasing plan is set to expire.
If not renewed, opportunities for securing any new offshore drilling leases will end abruptly. Combined with ongoing opposition from environmental groups and other possible legal challenges, large fractions of the domestic energy resources needed to power the U.S. economy for the foreseeable future will be placed out of reach. Americans will become more dependent on energy supplies from unreliable trading partners in the Middle East and other corners of the globe. And our ability to support western European allies by exporting energy supplies, especially liquefied natural gas, to counter Russian geopolitical hostility will be compromised.
Ironically, environmental interest groups also will feel the pinch. The economies of Gulf Coast states depend heavily on the tax revenue generated by oil exploration and recovery both onshore and off, which helps fund programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which helps finance maintenance projects on public lands.
A recent study by Energy and Industrial Advisory Partners estimates that renewing Interior’s five-year leasing program would allow Gulf Coast states to produce an average of 2.6 million barrels of oil and natural gas per day from 2022 to 2040. If the leasing program is canceled, or even if it is delayed, nearly a third of the energy now being recovered offshore will be lost. So, too, will be about $1.5 billion per year in governmental revenue and an estimated $5 billion in U.S. GDP.
Leasing is only the first step in recovering energy resources. Leases, which are acquired in competitive auctions, grant exploration rights to the highest bidder and, if oil and gas deposits are discovered underneath the leased ground, permits for drilling must be secured. Such investments are not sure things. So, the administration’s attempt to blame high oil prices on 9,000 unused leases is not accurate. The number of producing wells on federal lands is at a two-decade high and the idle leases represent an extremely small fraction of the producing-well total.
Instead of shifting blame to energy companies and disingenuous attempts to distract with political grandstanding, the Biden administration should be finding long-term solutions by taking advantage of our robust energy resources here at home.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14116
************************************************Anti-Pesticide Researchers May Have Committed Serious Ethics Breaches
A recent public release from a graduate student at George Washington University claimed insights from old data answers new questions in newly published research. These new insights claimed they found “high” herbicide exposures which were associated with serious negative health outcomes in women and children – extraordinary and serious claims from a prestigious institution published in a peer-reviewed journal.
However, a review – that both the institution and publisher should have done – shows bias, undisclosed conflicts, clear violations of institutional and publishing ethical standards, and lack of evidence as the hallmarks for these claims. This research does raise new questions – questions for George Washington University and the journal Environmental Health.
When academics lend their names, and that of their institutions, to special interest group campaigns, they put their employers’ reputations on the line. So, it is curious why the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health would choose to lend its prestige to the research arm of a notorious anti-pesticide campaign.
In a study published in the journal Environmental Health last month [Feb 10, 2022], GW researchers claimed they had discovered three in five Americans tested positive for “high” levels of herbicide residues, which they represented as a human health risk. The publication’s ethics disclosures stated the work received “no funding,” and the GW authors denied any conflicts of interest. The same couldn’t be said be said of another co-author, not from GW, whose name raised eyebrows among watchdog groups and academics who follow pesticide health risk claims.
Charles Benbrook is an economist and consultant to the organic food industry and pesticide class action lawyers. He was a listed co-author representing the Heartland Health Research Alliance (HHRA). And, shortly after GW’s press release hit the wires, Benbrook was promoting the research as the work product of an ongoing HHRA campaign called The Heartland Study – for which he serves as executive director.
Benbrook’s project lists GW as a partner organization, and Milken School professor Melissa J. Perry was the project’s co-lead investigator. Perry and HHRA have previously acknowledged her lab is funded by HHRA for this herbicide-related research. Like the published article, GW’s press release made no mention of HHRA or their researchers’ affiliations with and funding from the so-called Heartland Study.
Benbrook’s reputation has yet to recover from Washington State University’s decision to terminate his last academic contract in the wake of the revelation that Benbrook’s research was solely funded (without disclosure) by organic food industry interests who also happened to be clients of Benbrook’s for-profit consulting firm. In this new GW study, Benbrook fell into old habits. In prior work, Benbrook represented himself as solely affiliated with Washington State without disclosing that organic industry donors and clients were responsible for 100 percent of his university salary and research expenses.
Multiple mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, the Huffington Post, The Hill, and other academic publishing sources noted the ethical lapse, some suggesting Benbrook was offering “science for hire” to those willing to pay. Reasonable observers might think academics and institutions agreeing to partner with Benbrook would apply a modicum of diligence to any new endeavor.
The latest GW study’s lead author is a graduate student who formerly served as board secretary for HHRA and her research position at GW is funded by Benbrook. Her boss, GW professor Perry, is the listed co-lead investigator at HHRA’s Heartland Study whose lab also receives funding for this specific pesticide research project from HHRA. HHRA’s fundraising materials and website list GW as a formal institutional partner of the NGO. All of this undermines the denial of external funding and conflicts made by Perry and her other colleagues.
Where does HHRA get money for this research? According to news reports and Heartland Study promotional materials (some since removed from their website), the study’s top donors include Benbrook’s organic industry and pesticide litigator clients. These clients profit handsomely from claims that pesticides harm human health.?
Even in the presence of such conflicts, readers might expect that GW’s internal institutional review process and the publisher’s peer review would be enough to ensure the published findings bearing their names meet rigorous standards of proof. Institutional standards and peer review are supposed to prevent conflicted individuals from publishing unfounded claims. Yet, this appears to be not the case.
Nobody at GW appears to have flagged this research, which was previewed in a university showcase event eight months prior to publication as a joint project with the HHRA campaign. This campaign collaboration and partnership with the HHRA NGO was omitted from GW’s press release and final paper.? ?
The paper’s peer reviewers, Susan Kegley and Michael Antoniou, insisted they adhered to the ethics policy of the Environmental Health journal. Yet neither appear qualified under the publication’s rules requiring that “independent experts” without conflicts review the work. They are both frequent participants in anti-pesticide campaigns with an interest in the paper’s findings.
Reviewer Michael Antoniou is a listed “partner” of HHRA for the herbicide-research Heartland Study. Antoniou is also a recent (and frequent) co-publisher with Benbrook on other papers – including a recent paper in which HHRA funding for the research by Antoniou was acknowledged. Antonio’s HHRA research partner Robin Mesnage, like Benbrook, is a paid consultant to pesticide litigators, and has had prior herbicide-related published research retracted.
Even more disturbing is the fact that Antoniou has a history of collaborating directly with a known Russian disinformation source, which funded the translation of his book on GMO myths as well as his travel to Russia to promote it. He and co-author Clair Robinson were in fact hosted by Elena Sharoykina, a Putin-appointed member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation. She is currently spreading disinformation about the Russia/Ukraine conflict, alleging that it’s tied to multinational agribusiness spreading of GMOs and the U.S. military supply of genetically modified bio-weapons to Ukraine.
The second reviewer, Susan Kegley, is the former chief scientist for the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) who runs a for-profit pesticide testing company. Her clients include NGOs like PAN and joint Benbrook affiliated and organic industry-funded projects. Like Antoniou, Kegley has also published recent papers with Benbrook which acknowledged HHRA funding of the work.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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14 April, 2022
The Warmists have found a use for Vladimir Putin
Flights should be banned in continental Europe and car use banned in city centres to save energy and prevent Vladimir Putin profiting from fossil fuel sales, campaigners have said.
It would be possible for Europe to quickly end its reliance on oil and gas from Russia by taking strong measures, according to a report by the climate adviser Mark Lynas, energy analyst Rauli Partanen, and energy and sustainability installations specialist Joris van Dorp.
Policies include rationing, with everyone in Europe allowed the same minimum amount of energy to use, and limiting thermostats to 18C in winter.
“The biggest problem is gas. In total last year Europe imported 155 billion cubic metres of gas from Russia,” the authors said. Critics of the EU’s oil and gas policy have pointed out that hydrocarbon sales are financing the war in Ukraine.
Even the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said recently: “We’ve given Ukraine nearly €1bn. That might seem like a lot but €1bn is what we’re paying Putin every day for the energy he provides us with. Since the start of the war, we’ve given him €35bn [£29bn], compared to the €1bn we’ve given Ukraine to arm itself.”
The report’s authors said: “We conclude it is possible to eliminate Russian gas imports starting immediately in Europe. This will require an unprecedented level of European solidarity, a combination of a Marshall plan and a Berlin airlift to redistribute energy around the continent as needed and support the transition.”
The International Energy Agency recently released a 10-point plan to reduce demand for oil use in member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, with suggestions including subsidised public transport, lower speed limits and a reduction in business flights. The authors of the latest report from the RePlanet Research Institute, however, say such measures would reduce demand by 2.7m barrels a day in advanced economies, still substantially less than Russian oil exports to Europe.
The authors argue that we need to go further, and say they have worked out how to eliminate 25% of all oil use in Europe.
“We propose bans on all business flights, private jets and internal flights within Europe to save oil, and bans also on car use within cities,” they said. “This should be combined with free public transport. While the impacts of this are not easily quantified, we believe this could double the reduction in oil use beyond that proposed by the IEA.”
To replace the gas Europe buys from Russia, the authors recommend measures including stopping the nuclear phaseout in Germany, Sweden and Belgium, reducing heating in buildings by 4C, and a fast-track deployment of additional solar and wind generation.
These policies could be popular in Europe. New polling conducted by Savanta ComRes found that 41% of people polled in the UK, Germany Poland, France, Sweden and the Netherlands said they “strongly agreed” that their country should immediately stop buying Russian oil and gas. Only 6.4% strongly disagreed.
Just over 40% said they would be prepared to accept energy rationing to manage demand, and 52.7% that they would eat less meat to reduce demand on Ukrainian exports.
“Europe is sending over €500m every day directly to the Kremlin because we continue to import vast quantities of Russian oil, gas and coal. This situation cannot continue,” the authors of the report said.
“It is morally and politically untenable for Europe to fund Putin’s war machine – paying for the same missiles and bombs that are raining down on Ukrainian schools and hospitals – at the same time as supposedly uniting to stop Putin through sanctions. There is only one solution. We must cut off this torrent of money we are sending to the Kremlin by immediately stopping our imports of Russian fossil fuels.”
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Electric Cars not Ready for Showtime
It seems that no one can ever do quite enough to satisfy the demands of professional complainers. Not even Elon Musk, world-famous promoter of electric vehicles. He was met rudely by protesters at the grand opening of his Tesla assembly plant, just outside Berlin, during recent ceremonies: "...it [the plant] has faced opposition and some environmental activists blocked the factory’s entrance while displaying banners flagging its high water use…”
All said and done, it should become clear to various parties that the newer generation of electric vehicles is no better, environmentally speaking, than late-model automobiles powered by the much-maligned internal combustion engine. The goal of saving the Earth from ungrounded fears of “climate disruption” attending CO2 emissions pales in contrast to the massive disruptions by a transportation system whose dependence on EVs that will trigger dreaded brownouts.
Modern EVs share inherent shortcomings with their dowdy ancestors. I recall my father pointing out a relic black Baker electric (made circa 1910–14) as it trundled down our street. It resembled a hearse more than a car. Obviously, 2022 Teslas far outperform the Baker, but both the Baker in its own time and today’s nifty Teslas require lengthy recharging when the batteries run low. More about that detail a little later.
Here’s another sobering thought for EV prospects in northerly climes. There is no waste heat from onboard fuel combustion to warm the car’s interior. Both warm and cool air must come from a heat pump operated parasitically with current drawn from the battery pack, whose stored energy is intended primarily for vehicle propulsion. Diverting power to accessories decreases the driving range below its advertised value, and substantially during very cold or very hot weather.
Industry contenders (Tesla, GM, Toyota, and others) are in the latter stages of sorting through the best combinations of energy storage (the battery system) and prime mover (the electric motor).
Electric motors in primitive form go back to the early 19th century. Pioneers like Faraday, Tesla, and Edison contributed to their development. By the late 19th century, the DC (direct current) motor had evolved sufficiently for use in automobiles. Trolley cars, buses, and subway trains also ran with DC motors when the Big Apple was young.
With the advent of AC (alternating current), its inventor, Serbian-born Nicola Tesla, enabled practical AC induction motors that power most commercial applications today. But today’s highly competitive automotive playing field leaves the outcome for dominance (AC or DC) far from settled.
At issue are scarce materials needed in the construction of both the lithium-ion batteries and several versions of high-performance motors to power EVs. Lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, and rare-earth metals (lanthanum, neodymium, and other elements) lead the list of key components in batteries and motors. Serious supply problems ahead promise to keep consumer prices sky-high.
And to no one’s surprise, China cornered about 90% of lithium reserves and dominates the market. Automakers are scrambling for other sources amid turmoil in other international arenas.
Mining lithium and other strategic metals incur environmental costs such that strictly enforced regulations in the United States force most mining and processing of lithium offshore. But in Third World countries, extracting these exotic minerals often leaves behind improperly disposed of dross containing toxic waste. Out of sight, out of mind, right, greens?
It is mistaken to assume electric vehicles leave behind no environmental footprint, either in their construction or operation. The electricity needed for charging comes from the grid fed by coal-fired, nuclear, and hydro-plants, far more than from wind farms or solar panels atop roofs.
Those pushing for a rapid transition to an all-electric fleet suffer myopia that may come back to bite them, sooner than later.
The favored cars of the future are not ready for prime time in 2022, despite what the President recently said. And in many more ways than proponents are willing to acknowledge.
What’s to come? Factors yet to emerge will help buyers decide whether the evolving EV, a conventional model, or a hybrid presents the intelligent choice. There are several things to consider: investment cost, operating costs, convenience, reliability, and safety. There is no obvious choice based solely on what’s good for the environment, despite the widely advertised opinions of EV advocates.
Stubborn safety issues persist with electrics, centering on potential fire hazards inherent in lithium batteries. In February, a freighter loaded with high-end EVs sank in the Atlantic after a fire swept through its cargo (4,000 Porches, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, etc.), many equipped with lithium-ion batteries. The ship capsized and sank, having sustained irreparable damage. It’s not clear whether the fire originated within a battery, but once ignited, it quickly spread through the EVs onboard.
Hastening the transition to electrics will further expose hazards within the existing technology. Manufacturers may be tempted to shorten recharging times to entice buyers but would put the driving public at greater risk. Minimizing fire hazards translates into delays drivers will experience whenever venturing beyond the normal range, requiring the next recharge.
Newsmax compares the costs of owning and operating an EV with a comparable SUV. It reached the conclusion that combined costs of purchasing the new vehicles (with EV subsidy) and subsequent operating expenses favor a conventional model by more than $13,000 over a six-year period. The figure doesn’t account for increases in electricity rates that may accompany the enormous increase in power demand with 50 million EVs taking to the highways. Rates applicable to charging stations away from home would be higher.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/04/electric_cars_not_ready_for_showtime.html
************************************************Germany's 'Renewable Energy' Policy: Who's Laughing Now?
In 2019 Germany announced an ambitious "climate change" goal: by 2022, it would close its last nuclear power plant and by 2038, stop burning coal altogether. The Wall Street Journal called it at the time the "world’s dumbest energy policy," but the Germans said it was all part of the Energiewende (German for 'energy turnaround') the ongoing transition to a low carbon, environmentally sound, reliable, and affordable energy supply. Then an event occurred in 2022 which demonstrated how much Green energy was politics. Russia invaded Ukraine.
The repercussions of the invasion rippled like hydrostatic shock through the whole fabric of the European "climate change" agenda. At a stroke the war made natural gas from Moscow on which Germany was dependent politically toxic and killed sacred cows like the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline overnight. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, addressing Germany’s parliament, promised he would "create strategic energy reserves while shifting energy purchases away from Russia." Germany took steps to revive its nuclear power industry by extending the life-span of its remaining nuclear power plants. Even coal was back on the table for Europe, as politicians mooted keeping anything that could produce power going. "All options must be on the table," said the German Economic Affairs and Energy Minister.
But sheer habit and inertia die hard. From the start the Green agenda fought back. John Kerry warned the Russian invasion of Ukraine would worsen climate change. "The top White House climate official said a negative impact of a Russian invasion of Ukraine would be that it sidelines efforts to curb emissions worldwide." Despite the fact that fuel was a basic necessity and Europe's immediate problem was how to get energy from anywhere, such was the power of Green that U.N. Secretary General António Guterres specifically warned against quickly replacing Russian oil if it would "neglect or kneecap policies to cut fossil fuel use."
Trapped between Scylla and Charybdis, Europe's compromise strategy was to "diversify gas supplies to reduce reliance on Russia in the short term... but ultimately to boost renewables and energy efficiency as fast as technically possible." In effect Europe would try to solve the energy shortage caused by its renewables policy without politically abandoning the climate change ideology.
The first step to walking this tightrope is European energy rationing. Although no specifics have been announced, proposals include include lowering speed limits and introducing car-free Sundays in large cities. Rationing is being sold as both good for the planet and bad for Putin -- a win-win. "This point is about trying to bring down demand for fossil fuels — this is our true and effective weapon against Vladimir Putin,” a Cambridge University academic said.
But on the supply side there were few quick fixes to the problem of storing the output of wind and solar energy, even assuming that enough could be generated by these means. "The ability to cheaply generate, transport and store a clean replacement fuel like hydrogen to power trucks, cars and airplanes remains years away... [the] chief technology officer of the offshore wind unit at Siemens Gamesa, said that companies like his 'are now forced to do investments based on the prosperous future that we are all waiting for'."
A similar challenge faces the electric grid for it to universally replace the internal combustion engine. By dint of emergency efforts Europe hopes to have a hydrogen infrastructure in place by 2030 -- eight years from now -- a gargantuan task. Green requires a complete overhaul of how people live -- digitalization, smart grids and meters, flexibility markets, the electrification of transport, charging points -- the works. All of it is necessary to store wind and solar power and get it to the consumer.
However exhilarating this transformative vision is, not every country is willing to put all its eggs into the Green basket. Britain and France, perhaps harboring secret doubts, plan to invest in small, new technology nuclear reactors. The normally left wing Guardian ran an op-ed proclaiming "we need to revive the U.K.’s nuclear industry." But even with a change of heart plants take time to build and in the short term Europe has no choice but to import fossil fuels from non-Russian sources, principally the U.S. and the Middle East if it is to avoid economic catastrophe.
From Angola to the U.S. gas is heading for Europe. "Toby Rice, who runs the U.S. largest natural gas producer EQT, told the BBC the U.S. could easily replace Russian supply... He estimated the U.S. has the potential to quadruple its gas output by 2030... U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm urged the country's fuel industry to pump more oil. 'We are on a war footing. That means you producing more right now, where and if you can'." Energiewende may not be "world’s dumbest energy policy" but only because it can repudiate itself.
The nearly comic irony of progressives being in the "drill baby drill" situation is hardly ever pointed out, it being considered bad form to do so. But it may be useful to recall that Germany's delegation at the U.N. General Assembly once laughed during then-President Trump's speech when he suggested that Germany was becoming “totally dependent” upon Russian energy, as shown in this video from the Washington Post. With the benefit of hindsight there's no denying that mistakes were made regarding Russia's suitability as a Green energy partner. Even Mitt Romney pointed out the growing threat posed by Putin during his 2012 presidential campaign against Obama but he too was laughed to scorn. It's fair to say that nobody's laughing now.
https://the-pipeline.org/germanys-renewable-energy-policy-whos-laughing-now/
************************************************States Should Decouple From California’s Oppressive Emissions Policies
In a “let them eat cake”-style speech given last month, President Joe Biden suggested that if motorists switched to electric vehicles, they could spare themselves from high gasoline prices.
And while this claim itself may be dubious and indicative of how out of touch he is with real-world family budgets, at least he used the word “if,” suggesting that consumers should have a choice in the matter.
But soon, that choice could be taken away for many Americans if state lawmakers fail to take action. The long-time goal of the left is to ban the sale of vehicles with internal combustion engines in favor of electric vehicles. The total cost of vehicle ownership would rise substantially, while available consumer options will drop precipitously.
It is not widely known, but about one-third of all U.S. states are legally bound by their own prior actions to adhere to whatever “emissions standards” the California Air Resources Board puts in place, and California has already taken significant steps that will drive up costs of purchasing and operating a vehicle.
The same kinds of policies that have driven gasoline prices to $6 and $7 per gallon in the Golden State may be coming to a state near you—and it’s going to be much more costly than prices at the pump.
California is the only state in the country that may promulgate their own vehicle emission regulations, and 16 states have statutorily adopted—or plan to adopt—the California Air Resources Board agenda: New York (implementation 1993), Massachusetts (1995), Vermont (2000), Maine (2001), Pennsylvania (2001), Connecticut (2008), Rhode Island (2008), Washington (2009), Oregon (2009), New Jersey (2009), Maryland (2011), Delaware (2014), Colorado (2022), Minnesota (2025), Nevada (2025), and Virginia (2025).
In 2020, with more than 40% of the EVs in America registered in his state, and believing that every state shares his “green” zeal, California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order to the California Air Resources Board that will phase out and eventually ban the sale of new internal combustion engines vehicles. Under the order, only zero-emission vehicles may be sold by 2035.
Motorists in all impacted states should be troubled by the nature of Newsom’s executive order. Lawmakers are essentially stripped of the right and responsibility to represent their own constituents in a manner that best reflects conditions in their respective states, while consumers would be deprived of more affordable vehicle purchase options.
These California regulations have the potential to ban the sale of traditionally powered internal combustion engines vehicles in all 16 states. In New England, New Hampshire (not beholden to the California Air Resources Board) would become the major beneficiary of this mandate, as New England residents and businesses would flock to the Granite State for its lower vehicle costs and larger array of options, crushing vehicle dealers in neighboring states.
But there is a way out of these self-inflicted wounds. By repealing statutory requirements to follow California’s increasingly costly standards, state lawmakers would save their own drivers by maintaining market demand levels of more and lower cost vehicle purchase options.
In early March, my organization, the RI Center for Freedom and Prosperity, signed onto a coalition letter along with organizations from 14 of the 16 impacted states.
Led by the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, we also conducted a press conference with five other New England states, calling on our state legislatures to decouple our “emissions” policies from the increasingly radical and costly standards that California is setting.
Significant discrepancies exist between extreme California-type emission reduction plans and the problems they would produce in other states.
Unlike California, about two-thirds of the 16 impacted states deal with harsh winter months that produce heavy snowfalls. Newsome’s ban would eliminate the option of powerful and reliable internal combustion engines vehicles specifically designed for these conditions, as opposed to electric vehicles that do not perform well in cold-weather climates.
Think of the inanity of electric-powered, heavy-duty snow-plow trucks, without the power to push tons of snow—while also requiring a multi-hour recharge session, multiple times per day, in contrast to a five-minute gasoline fill-up.
EVs for consumer use also suffer from limited suggested mileage ranges per year. This means that they are better suited as a second around-town vehicle, an expensive one at that, and are not likely to perform well as the family or commercial workhorse vehicle.
Most importantly, if state lawmakers fail to take action, vehicle purchase prices will soar, while passenger safety will plummet. The manufacture of EVs and zero-emission vehicles is a far more expensive process, generally increasing purchase prices by tens of thousands of dollars per vehicle, if not more.
On top of their very high purchase prices, also to be factored in is the “electricity” cost of charging EVs and the purchase and installation of a home charging station, which can amount to another multi-thousand-dollar expense.
And, according to ValuePenguin insurance, EV models are about 23% more expensive to repair and insure as compared with internal combustion engine models, not to mention the significantly higher cost of replacing an EV battery.
Today, only the most affluent Americans can afford EVs. Even with government subsidies, it is difficult to imagine how low-middle-income families could ever afford to comply with these EV mandates.
Also, high fuel-efficient and electric vehicles normally use significantly lighter weight materials, meaning they are far less likely to sufficiently protect passengers in the event of a crash.
With inflation at a 40-year high, supply chain delays, and COVID-19 still impacting everyday life, it is clear that real-world events have put enormous financial and health strains on much of our population. The theoretical fears over global warming are not a top-of-mind concern for most citizens, according to most polls. These costly California vehicle bans are the wrong idea at the wrong time.
Further, these California Air Resources Board EV mandates are highly regressive in that they would harm lower-income and rural residents much more significantly than their more affluent urban and suburban peers.
People drive out of necessity. Higher vehicle costs would have to come out of other areas of household budgets, leading to difficult choices for families already struggling to make ends meet.
It will also mean that small businesses that transport goods or provide remote services will have higher operating costs. Those increased expenses would ultimately be passed along to consumers through higher prices, putting even further upward pressure on inflation, as America is currently seeing via increased grocery item and other product prices.
Now is the time for lawmakers to give motorists a break by decoupling their states from California’s harsh emissions regime and its vehicle bans.
Such foresight would demonstrate that public officials put the well-being of their constituents ahead of an unachievable environmental agenda pushed by extremist advocacy groups and unelected bureaucrats—who live in another state.
It is not government of, by, and for the people to be beholden to one-size-fits-all policies devised in another state, or by political decisions made decades ago.
In circumventing the local democratic process that reflects the unique circumstance of each state—via blind obeisance to California—these 16 states are defying the concept of state sovereignty.
State lawmakers must reconsider whether or not it is in their constituents’ best interests to remain tethered to California’s increasingly extreme and costly emissions standards. It is America’s design that each state should be free to craft its own policies.
And ultimately, in a free market approach, Americans should be allowed to choose what kind of vehicle or transportation option makes best sense for them—whether a conventional car, an EV, public transit, or something else. Expanded choices are welcomed, however, mandates that limit choice are highly offensive.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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13 April, 2022
An unlikely coalition is challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) revised fuel economy rules
At issue is a revised fleetwide. corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard of 55 miles per gallon in model year 2026. The shortened timeline for the much higher fuel economy forces automakers to reduce their fleets’ carbon dioxide emissions by 22.6 percent more than previous rules required.
Sixteen states, plus groups representing the fossil fuel and ethanol industries in 15 states, are challenging the Biden EPA’s emissions rules. They argue the EPA’s new standards effectively mandate a national transition from internal combustion powered vehicles to electric vehicles starting in 2026.
Farmers, Drillers, Attorneys General
A mix of corn and soybean growers associations from the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, and South Dakota joined with Diamond Alternative Energy in one of the lawsuits filed to block the EPA’s new rules.
In addition, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit on behalf of Texas, joined by the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah. Arizona filed a separate lawsuit to block the rules.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), along with additional petitioners such as the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance, a nationwide coalition of 39 associations representing the oil and gas industry, also filed a lawsuit to block the new standards.
Essentially an EV Mandate
The lawsuit filed by representatives of various states’ biofuel associations argues the new standard is an unauthorized de facto mandate forcing people to use electric vehicles.
“Through the final rule, EPA seeks to unilaterally alter the transportation mix in the United States, without congressional authorization and without adequately considering the vast greenhouse gas reduction benefits provided by renewable fuels,” the complaint states.
CEI and its co-petitioners make a similar argument in their filing by lead attorney Devin Watkins, saying the rules exceed the agency’s authority.
“EPA is trying to transform the motor vehicle market from gas-powered to electric vehicles by making gas-powered cars more expensive,” Watkins’ petition states.
Ambitious or Unworkable?
The EPA’s new standard and timeline are unrealistic because the mass adoption of electric vehicles and construction of the infrastructure needed to support and power them won’t magically appear overnight, says Paul Driessen, a senior policy advisor with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, which co-publishes Environment & Climate News.
“It’s vital to remember that President Joe Biden, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and other climate-focused activists aren’t talking about just replacing current fossil fuel vehicle use or electricity generation,” said Driessen. “They also want to convert home and office heating, cooking, and water heating to electricity; convert factories from coal and gas to running on wind- and solar-generated electricity; and have massive battery modules as backup power for windless, sunless days.
“That means nearly doubling existing U.S. electricity generation, and doing all of it with intermittent, unreliable, weather-dependent power generation systems,” said Driessen. “It means millions of onshore and offshore wind turbines, billions of solar panels, billions of 1,000-pound battery modules, and thousands of new transformers, covering tens of millions of acres, all powered by wind and sunshine, and all connected via thousands of miles of new transmission lines to power users all across America.”
‘It Is a Pipedream’
Electrifying the transportation system and in fact the entire U.S. economy is a fool’s errand, doomed to fail while placing an unnecessary burden on the public, says Driessen.
“They expect, hope, and fantasize this will somehow work, that a massively stressed power grid never built or tested before will be able to handle huge, sudden electricity surges and cutoffs due to wind and sunlight cooperating with demand only incidentally, failing minutes, hours, or days at a time and crashing repeatedly and catastrophically,” said Driessen.
“It is a pipedream that has failed everywhere it’s been tried on much tinier scales than what they intend to impose on us,” said Driessen. “Think of Texas two winters ago, and South Australia a few years ago, multiplied a thousand times over. We’re going to be asked to accept having electricity for every aspect of our industry, hospitals, and lives, when it’s available instead of when we need it.”
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Lithium an obstacle to electric car uptake
Lithium — a mineral that is key for electric car batteries — continues to rise in price, jeopardizing the ongoing transition to renewable energy outlined by Western governments.
The cost of lithium has skyrocketed more than 250 percent over the last 12 months, hitting its highest level ever, according to an industry index from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. While the cost of manufacturing a lithium-ion battery for an electric vehicle (EV) has fallen sharply over the last decade, the decline has slowed in recent months due to rising lithium costs.
The average cost of an EV battery pack fell to $157 per kilowatt hour, a measure of energy capacity, in 2021, the Department of Energy said in October. That means a typical EV battery is between $6,000 and $7,000, a BloombergNEF analysis showed.
Battery costs would need to come down to $100 per kilowatt hour for overall EV prices to compete with traditional internal combustion engine cars, according to Bloomberg. The price of lithium will play a large role in achieving that goal.
“It’s like being in a hot real-estate market,” Lithium Americas CEO Jon Evans told The Wall Street Journal. “There’s a mad scramble.”
Lithium Americas has proposed to mine lithium on a dormant volcano in Nevada. However, the firm has yet to mine any lithium due to pushback from environmentalists and ongoing lawsuits related to allegations that the federal government approved the company’s mining permit too quickly.
If the mine begins production, it could help reduce U.S. reliance on foreign lithium and increase supplies at a time when demand for the mineral is surging.
The U.S. has roughly 750,000 metric tons of lithium that can be mined, but it produces very little and imports tens of thousands of metric tons worth from Argentina, Chile, China and Russia, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS report withheld specific U.S. data to avoid disclosing propriety information belonging to companies like Lithium Americas.
Converting and processing lithium into the actual components of an EV battery may also prevent prices from falling, Bloomberg reported. China currently dominates the battery processing market, and it is responsible for about 80 percent of global battery chemical refining capacity.
Meanwhile, Western leaders have vowed support for aggressive measures to push consumers toward purchasing EV’s as their next new vehicle. In the U.S., President Joe Biden outlined a plan for 50 percent of new car purchases to be zero-emissions by 2030.
https://principia-scientific.com/how-one-rare-mineral-can-ruin-the-electric-vehicle-market/
**************************************************Left-Wing Bitish Labour Party Comes Out Against Eco-Warrior Oil Blockades Amid Fuel Shortages
Britain’s left-wing Labour Party has come out against blockades of oil depots by eco-warriors amid a growing cost of living crisis and widespread reports of fuel shortages across the country.
The energy crisis in the UK, spurred on by a combination of the war in Ukraine, sanctions on Russia, two years of coronavirus lockdowns, and the government’s green agenda failures have seen widespread reports of petrol stations throughout the country running dry.
To add insult to injury, far-left eco-warrior groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil have taken to glueing themselves in front of oil depots in order to further disrupt the supply chain.
Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, which has attempted to distance itself from the more radical elements of its leftist base, has actually condemned the actions of the climate change radicals and called on the government to crack down on them.
While Sir Keir infamously ‘took the knee‘ in his parliamentary office in support of the often violent Marxist Black Lives Matter movement, the Labour leader wrote of the oil depot blockades: “The government must stop standing idly by and immediately impose injunctions to put an end to this disruption.”
“On the Conservatives’ watch, drivers are being hammered by rising petrol prices and now millions of motorists can’t access fuel,” Starmer added, despite many in his own party supporting the same — if not more stringent — green policies enacted by the government which have forced the country to be reliant on foreign powers for energy.
Eco-extremists in Britain have a history of blocking motorways, junctions, and city centre intersections. However, in recent weeks, emergent groups such as Just Stop Oil have taken to blocking oil depots and terminals in protest against the government finally admitting the need for new fossil fuel projects in the UK.
Starting on Sunday, two members of Just Stop Oil chained themselves to pipes of the Grays oil terminal in Essex — the third largest in the country — for nearly 40 hours.
Justifying their actions, one of the activists said: “We need a meaningful statement that we will have no new fossil fuel projects. It’s that simple.”
The other Just Stop Oil radical stressed how difficult it has been for them personally, saying: “It’s fucking rough up here. We’ve been up here over 30 hours, haven’t fucking slept, haven’t felt safe, had a fucking panic attack a while back, it’s really uncomfortable.”
After 40 hours of disruption, a “cutter” team was finally dispatched to break their chains and remove the activists.
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Biden Wants to Regulate Everything -- Even Your Air Conditioning
President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi want to regulate any gadget or appliance with an electric switch that turns on in your house or your driveway. New Department of Energy rules will dictate the amount of water that comes out of your showerhead, how much warm air comes out of your heater and how much cool air comes out of air conditioners. There is even talk about gadgets monitoring your home's temperature in the winter and summer months.
How is any of this the government's business?
The latest shower regulations are especially aggravating. The new water-efficient heads make you stand in the shower much longer to get wet and wash your hair because the water pressure is low. It's a drip, drip, drip policy.
This is all reminiscent of the low-flush toilets mandated during the Bush and Obama years. These were designed to save water, but there was so little water flow that you had to flush two or three times. So it ended up not saving water at all.
Light bulbs, swimming pools, refrigerators and freezers are all subject to the same regulatory schemes.
Last week, the Biden regulators announced fuel efficiency requirements for cars, minivans and light trucks of 49 mpg by 2026. New cars are already more fuel-efficient than ever before, and the Trump rules had the requirement rising to 32 mpg over four years. That wasn't enough progress for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. "Mayor Pete" hates any car with a combustible engine. At his press conference announcing the strict mileage rules, he assured us this would save motorists money.
But if it's such a great financial benefit, Pete, why do you have to mandate it?
But here's the other part of the story that the greenies won't tell: The new rules won't reduce pollution levels much. This is because the higher fuel standards can raise the price of a new car by $1,000 to $3,000. So to save money, families keep their older gas guzzlers on the road longer. Congrats to the White House: Your new pollution standards may actually mean higher, not lower, tailpipe emissions.
It gets worse. The primary way auto companies comply with strict fuel standards is by making cars lighter. Get the family out of a minivan and into a Ford Fiesta. But our friends at the Competitive Enterprise Institute note that lighter cars are more dangerous and lead to more fatalities. So the Biden administration is willing to spill more blood on the highways to save gas. What humanitarians!
The new draconian fuel standards are higher than what former President Barack Obama requested and even higher than what the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency recommended. And under the rules, auto companies that fail to meet the standards can buy emission credits for tens of millions of dollars from other auto companies -- like Tesla.
What's the real goal here? Obviously, make fuel standards so unachievable that everyone has to buy an electric car. But, of course, many low and middle-income families can't afford the higher costs for Tesla, so they will henceforth ride on one of Pete's electric buses.
How is this progress?
These rules are designed to save the planet, but most people just want to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and they want to choose their car rather than having Biden choose for them.
If it seems like Big Brother is watching you, you're not paranoid. He is looking over your shoulder. So keep your showers short and your air conditioner off, and stop driving around in that gas-guzzling family car.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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12 April, 2022
Dummy's electric car deception
On Thursday, President Joe Biden told Americans he was going to be “honest” with us and assured us that we would save $80 a month if only we bought a new electric car.
Oddly, he somehow forgot to mention how long it would take to pay off that car to get to the point where that “savings” would finally kick in.
Speaking from the South Court Auditorium at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., Biden gushed about the technology of the “next generation of electric vehicles” and claimed that they would be a boon for Americans.
Under his “plan,” Biden crowed,”a typical driver will save about $80 a month from not having to pay gas at the pump.”
What a wonderful savings. That is a whole $960 a year. But there is a big problem with realizing this fantastic savings Biden has “planned” for us.
One has to buy and pay off a new car before any “savings” it might offer can be realized.
According to NBC News, the average purchase price of an electric vehicle in February of this year was $60,054.
But, according to the New York Post, it was even higher.
Citing Kelly Blue Book, the Post reported that “the average price of a new electric vehicle in February was $64,685.” (NBC cited data from “Edmonds,” but we think they meant Edmunds.)
That is a huge hike over the average prices that everyday Americans are paying for cars today, the Post said, adding that the cost of an electric car is:
“nearly 2.5 times the average price of a new compact car ($26,196), almost twice the average cost of a new compact SUV ($33,732), and 52 percent more expensive than the average sports car ($42,555).”
Also, just going by Biden’s “savings,” if you spent at least $60,000 on your electric car, your $960 annual savings would take 62 years, six months, and two weeks to get to the break-even point on the price of that car.
The inconvenience of charging an electric vehicle was also ignored Biden’s “savings” calculation. A depleted battery will leave you searching for a charging stations that are not only much fewer in number than gas stations, but also leave you at the mercy of charging speeds that could mean hours of waiting until you are back on the road.
Then we have to figure in the geopolitical costs. EVs are manufactured using many of the rare earth elements that come from China. Greater manufacturing and use of EVs necessarily enriches China, the most oppressive nation on earth.
There is also the dirty secret that neither Biden, nor any other greenie Democrat wants to talk about:
Pervasive use of EVs means not only higher taxes, but brand new taxes imposed on many of us.
Drivers pay a per-gallon gasoline tax to pay for the roads. If fewer people are buying gas and paying that tax, governments will look for new revenue sources.
One proposal has that revenue coming from a mileage tax. And with a tax like that, we are giving the government a brand new way to tax us — not to mention track us with the government-owned devices installed in our cars to tally the miles we drive.
https://principia-scientific.com/american-governments-electric-car-con-trick-exposed/
*************************************************‘It’s A Huge Problem’: California’s Sky-High Electricity Prices Bring A Shock To Biden’s EV Dreams
California electricity bills are among the highest in the nation and are set to continue skyrocketing, putting state and national green ambitions in the spotlight.
The state’s largest energy providers reported average monthly bills dwarfing those of other states in 2021, E&E News reported. If prices keep rising, as current projections say they will, electric vehicles will continue to be more expensive than traditional gas-powered cars.
The surging prices could act as an impediment for the electric vehicle industry in the state. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order in 2021 banning new traditional gas vehicles by 2035 while President Joe Biden outlined a nationwide goal of having electric vehicles account for half of total car sales by 2030.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has repeatedly said Americans should buy electric vehicles to avoid the fluctuating costs of gasoline.
“It’s a huge problem,” Severin Borenstein, the director of the Energy Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, told E&E News.
“Or we’re gonna mandate electrification and then there’s just going to be huge political blowback,” he added. “Mandating electrification when you’re charging people 30 or 40 cents a kilowatt-hour is going to be immensely expensive.”
Borenstein added that consumers may be discouraged to transition to electric vehicles if they hear about the high charging costs via word of mouth, according to E&E News.
The California Public Utilities Commission noted in a May 2021 industry report that it is “cheaper to fuel a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle than it is to charge an EV.”
Southern California Edison Co. (SCE), Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) and San Diego Gas & Electric ( SDG&E) — the state’s three largest utility companies which provide more than 65% of California residents with power — said their average March bills were $149, $165 and $150 respectively, according to E&E News.
That means SCE, PG&E and SDG&E customers paid 33 cents, 30 cents and 38 cents per kWh respectively in March. The average price of electricity nationwide was estimated to be 10.59 cents per kilowatt hour in 2020, the latest federal government data showed.
The 2021 monthly bill average, meanwhile, is estimated to have been $136, $133 and $150 for SCE, PG&E and SDG&E customers, E&E News reported. Prices are only projected to go up from there, hitting $162, $164.50 and $221.50 per month for the three respective companies in 2030, according to state data.
“If you want people to make big investments in electrification, there needs to be some kind of a payoff for them,” Mark Toney, executive director of the Utility Reform Network, recently said at a public forum, according to E&E News. “And the payoff has got to be that we make electricity rates look very affordable by comparison to the alternatives.”
Toney said California lacks a strategy for showing the positive impacts of electrification for consumers.
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Wind Projects Rejected in California and Ohio, NBC Reports ‘At Least 40’ Communities Have Rejected Big Solar Since 2021
You won’t read about this in the New York Times or the Washington Post. And you surely won’t see it reported by National Public Radio. But the rejections of big renewable projects are continuing all across the country and it appears that rejections of Big Solar projects are exceeding the Big Wind rejections. More on that in a moment.
First, the wind rejections. Last month, the Bureau of Land Management rejected an application for a 144-megawatt wind project that was proposed to be built in Lake and Colusa counties, which are located northwest of Sacramento. According to an article written by Elizabeth Larson of Lake County News, the BLM’s “denial was based on potential resource conflicts and the inadequacy of the information provided to the BLM to address these conflicts and to move forward with the environmental review.”
Larson also quoted Bob Schneider, a member of the Protect Walker Ridge Alliance, who said, “Molok Luyuk or Condor Ridge, also known as Walker Ridge is a special and spiritual place that tells a story of plate tectonics, diversity of plants and animals, Native American habitation over thousands of years.” Larson also reported that the same area had been targeted for a 60-megawatt wind project in 2010 by a Canadian company, AltaGas Income Trust. But that project was canceled in 2013.
The rejection is only the latest in a long string of rejections of Big Wind in California, including the unanimous vote last June by the Shasta County Planning Commission to reject the proposed 216-megawatt Fountain Wind project, which aimed to put up to 71 turbines standing 679 feet high near the town of Burney.
It's notable that these rejections are occurring in California, which has some of America’s most-aggressive decarbonization policies, which include a requirement for 100% zero-carbon electricity and an economy-wide goal of carbon neutrality by 2045.
But it’s not just California. Earlier this month, according to Farm and Dairy, the Ohio Power Siting Board rejected two separate applications for “rehearing regarding the board’s decision to deny an application filed by Republic Wind to construct a 200-megawatt wind-powered electric generating facility in Seneca and Sandusky County.”
The rejections in California and Ohio are the latest examples of the years-long battle over wind energy siting. Adding these examples to the Renewable Rejection Database shows that at least 325 government entities from Maine to Hawaii have rejected or restricted wind projects since 2015. These rejections are occurring at the same time the wind industry is hoping to get yet another extension of the production tax credit, the lucrative federal subsidy that has driven the growth of wind energy over the past two decades. According to Axios, the proposed federal budget just released by the White House for 2023 does not include an extension of the tax credit.
While wind projects continue to face lots of local friction, the bigger news is the surging number of rejections of Big Solar. On March 8, David Ingram of NBC News published a piece titled “County by county, solar panels face pushback.” But Ingram buried the lede. His article began by quoting an academic from a large state university who said it was “kind of funny” that there was local opposition to big renewable projects.
But Ingram buried the lede. In the 13th paragraph of his article, Ingram finally got to the point. He wrote, “NBC News counted 57 cities, towns, and counties across the country where residents have proposed solar moratoriums since the start of 2021, according to local news reports, and not every proposed ban gets local news coverage. At least 40 of those approved the measures. Other localities did so in earlier years.”
Ingram explained that the land-use “battles have played out state by state and county by county, forcing communities to consider just how much they are willing to sacrifice to decarbonize the economy. They have also triggered a hunt for new locations to put millions of more solar panels.” He continued, “Local governments in states such as California, Indiana, Maine, New York, and Virginia have imposed moratoriums on large-scale solar farms, as a national push for cleaner energy has collided with complaints about how the projects affect wildlife and scenic views.”
I emailed Ingram three times asking to see the list of communities that have proposed solar prohibitions. He did not reply. Nevertheless, Ingram deserves credit. He’s doing the kind of analysis that has not been done by media outlets like the Washington Post and NPR, whose reporting, as I point out in a piece published earlier this month in Quillette, has been atrocious. In particular, the reporting done by Julia Simon, a reporter for NPR, has been, as I explained, “propaganda masquerading as news.”
Furthermore, if Ingram’s numbers are correct, solar rejections and restrictions may be happening more frequently than wind rejections. As I reported in January, at least 31 wind projects were rejected in 2021. If 40 Big Solar projects have been rejected since the beginning of 2021, that means that solar projects are meeting even more friction than wind projects.
The bottom line here is that the rejections of wind and solar are continuing apace and they provide yet further proof that land-use conflicts are the binding constraint on the expansion of large-scale renewables. Of course, that fact is seldom, if ever, mentioned by the academics and NGOs who are promoting the all-renewable mirage. As Ingram points out, a recent report by the research firm Wood Mackenzie and by the Solar Energy Industries Association listed “siting restrictions” as a key limiting factor on growth.
Thus, it is clearer than ever before that the expansion of the renewable industry in the U.S. depends on its ability to capture ever-increasing amounts of land in rural communities. And those communities are fighting back.
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XR activists meet in Hyde Park as they prepare to cause more mayhem
Extinction Rebellion activists have gathered in London this morning as they prepare to bring more chaos to the capital later this week after blocking two major bridges on Sunday.
The climate demonstrators - who have promised a week of action as they continue their calls for no new investment in fossil fuels - gathered at The Albert memorial in Kensington Gardens on Monday morning dressed in doctors' scrubs and holding signs saying 'the Earth is in a critical condition'.
Earlier today, the activists met in Hyde Park to hold 'non-violent' direct action training, while others carried out a 'mass outreach' in central London which included the presence of a papier mache elephant at Kensington Gardens.
They were also seen carrying out a demonstration in south Kensington on Monday afternoon.
There are no planned 'actions' - potential roadblocks - until Wednesday this week, with more planned for the Easter weekend, according to the group's website.
Over the weekend, the activists attempted to bring London to a standstill by carrying out roadblocks, including the blocking of Lambeth and Vauxhall Bridges on Sunday afternoon.
Crowds were seen sitting in the middle of the road, waving multicoloured flags bearing the group's 'extinction' symbol and placards that read 'there is no planet B' and 'we want to live', and listened to music and speakers in sunny weather.
Demonstrators did, however, allow ambulances and fire engines to cross the bridges, with organisers parting the crowd by shouting 'blue light'.
Extinction Rebellion have billed the latest protests part of 'the final push in the plan to end fossil fuels'.
On their website, the group said: 'Come to London from April 9 to April 17 and be ready to continue in civil resistance on at least the following three weekends.
'This is a crucial moment. Our reliance on fossil fuels is funding wars, driving the cost of living scandal and leading to climate breakdown. This is why we are demanding an immediate end to all new fossil fuel investments.'
The group have said similar action to block 'areas of the city for as long as possible' is planned every day for a week or more.
They have pledged that 'our disruption will not stop until the fossil fuel economy comes to an end, ' according to the Extinction Rebellion website.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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11 April, 2022
The US And EU Have Unsustainably Plundered Natural Resources For Decades, Study Shows
This is all just opinion. How do they define "sustainable"? If it is minerals such as coal or elements such as aluminium, the world is virtually swimming in the stuff. What is mined is simply a response to price. If there is a shortage the price will go up and less accessible sources of the product will be brought into use.
Both Britain and Germany are almost floating on coal and aluminium is famously the most abundant element in the earth's crust. Asking how much use of a resource is sustainable is like asking how long is a piece of string
In an analysis looking back over almost 50 years of natural resource extraction across the world, researchers found the United States and high-income countries in the European Union drove the lion's share of global excess resource use beyond thresholds of environmental sustainability.
"The results show that wealthy nations bear the overwhelming responsibility for global ecological breakdown, and therefore owe an ecological debt to the rest of the world," explains economic anthropologist Jason Hickel from Spain's Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
"These nations need to take the lead in making radical reductions in their resource use to avoid further degradation, which will likely require transformative post-growth and degrowth approaches."
In a previous study, Hickel attempted to quantify responsibility for the climate crisis at the national level, by analyzing how much countries across the world exceeded their fair share of a safe threshold of carbon dioxide emissions.
In the new work, Hickel and fellow researchers applied the same kind of methodology to resource extraction, which is broadly considered to be a key starting point for where environmental degradation begins.
"Global material use has increased markedly over the past half century, to the point where, as of 2017, the world economy is consuming over 90 billion tonnes of materials per year," the team writes in the new paper.
"However, not all nations are equally responsible for this trend; some nations use substantially more resources per capita than others."
To identify where countries fall in terms of over-extraction responsibility, the team developed a "sustainability corridor", representing a safe or sustainable global limit for annual resource extraction (measured in billions of tonnes, or gigatonnes) for the period 1970 to 2017, then calculated how much nations over- or under-shot that threshold each year based on their population size.
The results show that almost 2.5 trillion tonnes of materials were extracted and used globally in the study period, with close to half of that amount (1.1 trillion tonnes) being in excess of the safe, sustainable corridor.
High-income countries (per World Bank classifications) were collectively responsible for 74 percent of that excess use, despite representing only 16 percent of the global population.
This excess resource exploitation was led by the US (which was responsible for 27 percent of the excess), and followed by EU countries and the UK, which together accounted for 25 percent of global excess resource use.
An interactive website developed by the researchers lets you easily explore the results of the analysis, comparing individual countries (such as China, which accounted for 15 percent of the excess), or wealth level categories of countries (which reveals lower-middle income and low-income countries never ever breached their fair share of resource use in the period, unlike high income and upper-middle income nations).
Aside from highlighting the global inequality of resource over-exploitation, the results also make clear that consumption of raw materials needs to sharply decline if the world is to have any chance of addressing ecological crises.
"High-income nations need to urgently scale down aggregate resource use to sustainable levels," the authors of the study write. "On average, resource use needs to decline by at least 70 percent to reach the sustainable range."
According to Hickel, it's a question that might require some reframing what the global economy really ought to be.
"The 'economy' is our material relationship with each other and with the rest of the living world," he tweeted shortly after the study came out.
"We have to decide whether we want that relationship to be based on extraction and exploitation, or on reciprocity and care."
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Are Britain’s heritage railways running out of steam? Vintage train operators warn coal stocks are dangerously low after Ukraine invasion cuts off supply
The closure of British coal mines, along with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, have plunged British heritage railway operators into uncertainty over coal supply sources.
Ffos-y-fran, near Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, was the last coal mine to supply steam trains with lumped coal, but this source has been stymied with the pit winding down production as it prepares to be permanently shuttered, according to the Guardian.
Paul Lewin, of Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railways, said: 'UK coal for steam trains has now gone and our next supply source was to be Russia, which is now off the table for totally understandable reasons. 'It is a very serious problem.'
The UK's 150 heritage rail companies, operating 560 miles of track between them connecting to 460 stations, will be forced to operate fewer but longer trains while at the same time slashing capacity at times when demand is lower.
Australia and Colombia, meanwhile, have been identified as candidates for coal imports going forwards - with the fuel source still an important input not only in the heritage railway sector but also in the cement and steel industries.
However, finding an international supply of coal with the characteristics needed to serve Britain's 19th century relic steam trains could prove challenging, according to James Shuttleworth of West Coast Railways, the company that provided the steam trains the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter films.
Mr Shuttleworth told the Guardian: 'You need coal that burns with a high calorific value for steam trains like ours and UK mines provided that.'
'It was absurd to close every British mine at a time when our steel and cement industries also still need coal and to rely, instead, on imports. 'We are paying the price for that decision today.'
Worth an estimated £500million annually to the UK economy, mainly through the tourism they drum up, Britain's heritage railways take millions of tourists on trips every year.
Heritage steam trains range from Jacobite engines operating on the Network Rail track from Fort William and Mallaig, Scotland, to privately owned trains that go up and down tracks of only a mile or two in length.
Chris Austin, secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on heritage railways, said: 'Heritage railways are worth protecting because they are popular.
'They are relaxing to travel on and the journeys provide educational experiences.
'For good measure they produce relatively little carbon dioxide compared with the emissions produced by an average holiday jet flight.
'They are also especially important to the nation because railways were Britain’s gift to the world.
'They were invented and developed here and exported all over the globe.
'They changed the world and are linked tightly to our history.'
Smokeless fuels are being trialled in some parts of the heritage railway sector, blended up from a mix of anthracite, coal dust and molasses.
It is unclear so far how viable this smokeless concoction could be, with concerns raised as to the substance's effect on delicate parts of the locomotives, like their fireboxes and boiler tubes.
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Environmental group calls for deflating tires of SUVs to combat climate change: target ‘wealthy areas’
A radical environmental group raised a few eyebrows on Twitter after encouraging people to let the tires out of SUVs in an apparent bid to combat climate change.
The group, Adbusters, tweeted step-by-step instructions for the provocation on Wednesday, calling it a "gentle escalation" or ramping up the urgency about climate change.
"Wedge gravel in the tire valves, leaflet the SUV to let them know the tires are flat and why it was done, and walk away. It’s that simple," the group tweeted. "If we organize, we can hit enough SUVs in particular neighborhoods to spark reporting and spread the metameme."
The group said climate change was the "biggest crisis we’ve faced as a species, and we are failing the test at every step," adding: "it’s time for us to carefully escalate our methods in a non-violent manner to convey the seriousness of this crisis in tangible ways."
They argued that targeting SUVs – which they said were playing a big role in carbon emissions – was a good way to "hurt the automotive industry where it hurts."
"Start by targeting wealthy areas – our goal isn’t to disrupt workers – and avoid targeting vehicles with disabled stickers or hangers," they said.
Many Twitter users ridiculed the proposed action as dangerous. One user said someone who tried such an action risked getting shot.
Another user quipped that taking air our of SUV tires was a "great way to meet your medical insurance deductible."
"You should do this in Texas and report back if you can," another Twitter user wrote.
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British minister blasts 'selfish' petrol protests: As fuel blockades threaten fresh misery over Easter getaway, Home Secretary hits out at eco-zealouts for making life miserable for 'hard-working people'
Priti Patel last night condemned 'selfish' eco-zealots inflicting fuel shortages on motorists. On the tenth day of the hugely disruptive protests, the Home Secretary branded the activists 'fanatical, and frankly dangerous'.
They have been holding up fuel supplies by targeting three crucial depots in Warwickshire, Hertfordshire and Essex.
And yesterday protesters also blocked two central London bridges in a series of 'exceptionally dangerous' stunts.
The mayhem comes ahead of a record 21.5million motorists preparing to take to the roads this coming Easter weekend.
A furious Miss Patel said: 'Hard-working people across our country are seeing their lives brought to a standstill by selfish, fanatical and frankly dangerous so-called activists.
'Keir Starmer's Labour Party repeatedly voted against our proposals that would have given the police extra powers to deal with this eco mob. The police have my full backing in doing everything necessary to address this public nuisance.'
In a sign of the havoc, nearly a third of drivers surveyed in the Midlands and the South East reported a lack of fuel at forecourts. Diesel was in especially short supply.
Ministers had planned to introduce new powers to help police tackle eco-protesters but the measures were blocked in the House of Lords in January. At the time, Miss Patel accused Labour of siding with 'vandals and thugs'.
Proposed measures had included an offence of 'locking on' in a bid to stop protesters resorting to the common tactic of chaining themselves to buildings and vehicles.
New stop and search powers were also proposed to allow police to detain protesters arriving carrying bike locks and other equipment designed to make themselves difficult to remove.
Ministers are expected to try to revive the measures in the next Queen's Speech.
The Metropolitan Police reopened both London bridges by 8pm last night, making 38 arrests. Essex Police said the depot protest tactics were becoming 'exceptionally dangerous' and putting activists and officers at 'unacceptable' risk of harm.
Assistant Chief Constable Glen Pavelin said: 'We cannot stand by while criminal acts are being committed, and lives are being put at risk, in the name of protest.'
The force has made 338 arrests since the protests began on April 1.
Warwickshire Police has detained 180 people and its assistant chief constable, Ben Smith, said: 'While we will always recognise and respect the public's right to peaceful protest, we will take action against anyone who breaks the law or causes significant impact on the local community.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10705605/Priti-Patel-blasts-selfish-petrol-protests.html
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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10 April, 2022
Earth's CO2 levels to hit alarming milestone
For comparison. The global temperature has been plateaued since 2015. NOAA anomaly figures below:
2015,0.93
2016,0.99
2017,0.91
2018,0.82
2019,0.95
2020,0.98
This is an amusing article. The steady rise in CO2 despite all the Greenie hoo-ha speaks of some natural process. And the major point is that temperature has not tracked CO2 levels. Temperature changes have been very erratic, with the last few years showing no trend.
As David Hume pointed out long ago, constant conjunction is needed for a cause-effect relationship to exist -- and that has been notabley absent for the supposed temperature/CO2 relationship. That relentless CO2 rise makes Warmist claims absurd
Monthly average carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are very likely to hit or even exceed 420 parts per million during the month of April, according to readings at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.
Why it matters: This is a new record high for human history, and very likely the highest level seen in 4.1 million to 4.5 million years.
Scientists tell Axios that the sustained year-to-year growth rates in CO2 concentrations are unprecedented.
Driving the news: The amount of CO2 in the air continues to increase as people burn fossil fuels and chop down rainforests for agriculture, among other activities.
Observations made in the relatively pristine air atop Mauna Loa have taken place since 1958, starting out at 316 ppm.
Context: The data plotting the increase in CO2 is known as the Keeling Curve, named after Charles Keeling, who started and maintained the observations.
Charles Keeling's son Ralph continues his father's legacy by extending the data. Ralph Keeling told Axios the first few days of April have shown CO2 levels at or above 420 ppm, and based on month-to-month growth rates, this will be the first month to eclipse this milestone.
"I think it's virtually a done deal," he said of the monthly average, noting it will increase further in May.
What they're saying: "CO2 is still rocketing up. If you look at the record, it's just relentless. So as much as people have been working hard and need to be working hard to slow the growth rate, we have to be honest that we haven't done much yet to actually curb the build-up," Keeling said.
Pieter Tans, who tracks greenhouse gases for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the speed of the CO2 increase is striking. Tans said CO2 will be "over 420 ppm" during April.
Coming out of the last ice age, he said, CO2 went up by about 80 ppm during 6,000 years. Yet now it's increasing by more than 2 ppm "every single year."
The 400 ppm milestone was eclipsed less than a decade ago, in 2013, and 440 ppm isn't far off, he warned. He described the growth rate as "an explosion" from a geological perspective.
https://www.axios.com/earth-co2-levels-alarming-milestone-1e58b5a7-5c27-4d94-bd02-8a9bc1dc2a99.html
********************************************3 Recent Examples of Government’s Environmental Extremism
Environmental extremism in government is increasingly becoming unhinged, both domestically and internationally.
Here are three recent examples of this extremism:
1. John Kerry, the Biden administration’s special presidential envoy for climate, has made alarming remarks regarding climate change and the war in Ukraine.
As reported in National Review, “Kerry fretted that the conflict [in Ukraine] might distract from the threat of climate change, and expressed his ‘hope’ that ‘[Russian President Vladimir] Putin will help us to stay on track with what we need to do for the climate.’”
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., rightly put this extremism in perspective, “Is he unaware that widespread war is now possible in Europe for the first time in 77 years? This man is not the secretary of defense; he’s not the secretary of state. John Kerry has a made-up position as international climate scold.”
Americans should be shocked by Kerry’s statement. After all, a leading Biden administration official went on the world stage and suggested that climate change regulation is on par with, or more important than, a war in Europe. Worse still, he publicly hoped for help from the war’s instigator (Putin) for his climate crusade.
2. Last week, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack rejected an effort to increase domestic food production to mitigate the threat of a global food shortage due to the war.
As background: Ukraine is a critical exporter of key agricultural commodities to certain countries, especially in North Africa and the Middle East. The war threatens Ukraine’s ability to export available food and to plant and harvest future crops.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., the U.S. Department of Agriculture pays American farmers to not farm their land under the Conservation Reserve Program.
Naturally, agricultural groups requested that Vilsack allow the farming of land idled by the Conservation Reserve Program, but he rejected the idea, arguing that doing so would cause “a significant and detrimental impact on producers’ efforts to mitigate climate change and maintain the long-term health of their land.”
So instead of making it possible to increase food production to address a potential global food crisis, Vilsack appears to be more concerned with climate change.
Claims from the Biden administration that land under the Conservation Reserve Program is “marginal,” and not likely to help with crop production, ignore that about 25% of the idled land is considered prime farmland. Further, even for “marginal” land, farmers, not federal bureaucrats, are best positioned to know whether farming the land is appropriate because they care the most about “the long-term health of their land.”
3. Looking abroad, the International Energy Agency’s new report, “A 10-Point Plan to Cut Oil Use,” misses the point 10 times.
To address the possibility that Russia would stop exporting oil and natural gas to Europe, the report doesn’t discuss the obvious solution: increasing oil and gas production. That’s because the solution wouldn’t align with the International Energy Agency’s goal to achieve a “pathway towards zero emissions by 2050.”
Instead, according to the International Energy Agency, the public needs to change how they live. In fact, the report explains, “Most of the proposed actions in the 10-Point Plan would require changes in the behavior of consumers, supported by government measures.”
Here are just five of the 10 recommendations:
* Reduce speed limits on highways by at least 10 kilometers per hour.
* Work from home up to three days a week where possible.
* Car-free Sundays in cities.
* Alternate private car access to roads in large cities (this recommendation would restrict the number of days that can be driven in large cities).
* Use high-speed and night trains instead of planes where possible.
The report doesn’t argue against the extremist policies that got Europe into this mess and instead seeks to fundamentally alter peoples’ way of life. It presumes that the public needs to change and stop enjoying ordinary things like going to work or driving on Sundays.
The International Energy Agency’s report is an example of environmental “gaslighting.” It shames the public into believing that the harm imposed upon them by government policies is their fault and not the result of environmental extremists wielding power.
Nobody should feel guilty for enjoying the benefits arising from human ingenuity and energy abundance. Society should continually seek improved standards of living, not impoverished ones, and policymakers who think otherwise need to stop imposing their dour ideology on the public (even as they likely don’t follow what they preach).
Policymakers should stop treating environmentally extreme policies from the Biden administration and certain international circles as anything other than an extremist ideology whose first victim is common sense.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/04/07/3-recent-examples-of-government-environmental-extremism
****************************************************Woka-Cola and Bill Nye Teach World to Greenwash
Jeffrey Clark
Bill Nye the Science Guy went from pushing climate change to helping sell more Cokes for possibly the largest plastic polluter in the world, Coca-Cola.
If there were a greenwashing awards show, Bill Nye would be its host and Coca-Cola would be the winner.
Greenwashing is when companies attempt to trick “consumers into thinking they are helping the planet by choosing” certain products, according to the BBC. The Coca-Cola Company’s (Coca-Cola’s) YouTube channel posted a video on April 5 called The Coca-Cola Company and Bill Nye Demystify Recycling.
The short video featured Nye as a cutesy character made out of recycled plastic and donning a Coca-Cola themed red and white bowtie. He beamed, “When we use recycled material, we also reduce our carbon footprint. What’s not to love?” Nye all but preached from Coca-Cola’s woke pulpit: “By closing the loop [through recycling] we can create a world without waste. But with refreshing taste!” And according to Nye, the world can thank none other than “the good people at the Coca-Cola Company [who] are dedicating themselves to addressing our global plastic waste problem.”
Bill Nye As it turns out, there is quite a lot “not to love” about Coca-Cola’s propaganda short.
The Coca-Cola Company was the world’s worst plastic polluter for the fourth year in a row in 2021, according to the environmental group Break Free From Plastic’s annual report. Not that anyone would know that from Coca-Cola’s short ad.
Nye also failed to mention that most plastics are thrown away, not recycled. The Environmental Protection Agency reported in 2018 that the recycling rate was a measly 8.7 percent.
Nye’s video partnership with Coca-Cola is just one small part of the company’s overall extreme green agenda. Coca-Cola linked to an environmental, social and governance (ESG) report on its website under the tab Sustainable Business. The Great Reset author Longtime talk radio host Glenn Beck explained that ESGs are like Chinese Communist Party-style social credit scores for businesses. Creating “A World Without Waste” is just one of Coca-Cola’s six stated goals, which include reaching “net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,” according to the beverage company’s 2020 ESG report.
That same report revealed that The Coca-Cola Foundation spent $4.7 million on social justice related issues. The company paid out a whopping 519 grants in the year 2020 alone, including one $25,000 grant to the radical Ackerman Institute for the Family to support “transsexual and gender expansive children” in the New York area.
Almost makes a guy want “to buy the world a Coke,” right, Coca-Cola shareholders? Not that they or Bill Nye necessarily need the money, that is. Nye has a net worth of $8 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
If only climate hypocrisy could be packaged, bottled, sold and recycled, but then The Coca-Cola Company would probably try to sell that, too.
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Australia: "Climate 200" organization faces accusations of white privilege after rejecting former Tibetan refugee
Climate 200 is facing accusations of white privilege after the campaign funding group twice knocked back a Tibetan human rights advocate seeking support for the upcoming election.
Kyinzom Dhongdue, a refugee and former MP in the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan parliament-in-exile, is running on a platform advocating a hardline stance against Chinese interference and strong action on climate change in the Sydney seat of Bennelong.
Ms Dhongdue said she believed her repeated requests for endorsement were rejected in part because she did not fit the Climate 200 mould of a white, upper middle class candidate.
“If you look at Climate 200’s candidates they are a predominantly white, upper middle class cohort of candidates,” she said. “The knockback, it really exemplifies the lack of representation, which is primarily why I’m running, to promote representation and diversity.”
Liberal MP Dave Sharma, whose father is an Indian migrant, said he was not surprised Climate 200 turned down Ms Dhongdue. He believes the decision exposes the hypocrisy of a movement run by elites and bankrolled by millionaires.
“Climate 200 is the party of white privilege – just look at the candidates they are running, and their leader, Simon Holmes a Court – so the fact they turned down a candidate of diversity does not surprise me,” Mr Sharma said. “It also reveals the hypocrisy of a movement which claims to be ‘grassroots’. It is run by elites and for elites, with no interest in people who have done genuine community service.”
Mr Sharma is facing a challenge from independent Allegra Spender in the Sydney seat of Wentworth, which he holds on a margin of 1.3 per cent. He is the first MP of Indian-origin; Dave is short for his birth name Devanand, after popular Bollywood star Dev Anand.
Ms Spender comes from Liberal pedigree. She is the daughter of the late fashion designer Carla Zampatti and politician John Spender, who spent 10 years as the Liberal member for North Sydney. Sir Percy Spender, her grandfather, served as a cabinet minister under Robert Menzies and Arthur Fadden.
Mr Holmes a Court, the Climate 200 founder, is the son of Australia’s first billionaire, Robert Holmes a Court. He is supporting more than a dozen candidates and hoping to raise a war chest of $20m.
While claiming not to be a formal political party, the group uses a centralised funding money and campaigns on similar policies, centred on climate and integrity.
Nearly all of its lower house candidates are women seeking to unseat Liberal men.
Monique Ryan is running against Josh Frydenberg in Kooyong; Zoe Daniel against Tim Wilson in Goldstein; Nicolette Boele against Paul Fletcher in Bradfield, Sophie Scamps against Jason Falinski in Mackellar; and Kylea Tink against Trent Zimmerman in North Sydney. Independents Zali Steggall, Andrew Wilkie and Rebekha Sharkie, from the Centre Alliance group formed by Nick Xenophon, are also receiving its support.
Ms Dhongdue said she was first knocked back by Climate 200 because she wanted to run for the Senate. However, Climate 200 is supporting David Pocock’s tilt to take Liberal Zed Selselja’s ACT Senate seat and the Tasmanian Senate campaign by Leanne Minshall of the Local Party.
Ms Dhongdue then decided to run as MP in Bennelong and approached Climate 200 again, but was told it was no longer supporting new candidates so close to the election. It has since confirmed another three candidates.
Ms Dhongdue has spent years in Canberra advocating for Tibet, and has built relationships across the political spectrum. When asked by The Weekend Australian, a number of politicians vouched for her character.
She is now running in Bennelong for the newly registered minor party Democratic Alliance. Headed by China critic Drew Pavlou, the Democratic Alliance’s other candidates include Hongkonger Max Mok and Uighur-Australian woman Intezar Elham.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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8 April, 2022
Disaster prophecies that never come true
In the latest ‘now or never!’ since the ‘last now or never!’ the United Nations has warned the world that it is once again ‘now or never!’ to avoid disastrous Climate Change.
Forget Prince Charles’ warning back in July 2009 that we had just 96 months to save the planet.
Ignore former British PM Gordon Brown’s prediction, just three months later, that we had fewer than 50 days to avoid disaster.
And never mind French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius who, standing beside then American Secretary of State John Kerry, told the world on May 13, 2014, that ‘we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos’.
The irony of that particular Chicken Little routine was that Fabius was scheduled to host the 21st Conference of the Parties on Climate Change on November 30 the following year – 65 days after the world, by his reckoning, would have ended.
I was going to quip that you couldn’t make this stuff up, but it seems like they do.
Anyway, enough joking around. This is it. Seriously. They’re not even kidding this time. Honestly. Like, for real guys. ‘It’s now or never!’
Yes, I know that’s what American defence chiefs were warning back in 2004 when they predicted European cities would sink beneath rising seas, and that Britain would be plunged into ‘a Siberian climate’ by 2020.
But it wasn’t like they got everything wrong.
Their predictions of widespread rioting across the world by 2020 did come to pass. And if you overlook the fact that the rioting was caused by the death of George Floyd and the imposition of compulsory injections – rather than the complete collapse of the ecosystem – you’ll see just how prescient the defence chiefs were.
You can’t expect climate catastrophists to get it right all the time. Or any of the time. It’s not like they’re astrologers.
The important thing to worry about is that things are now a lot more worrying than the last time we were warned to worry, and so there is now good reason to be worried.
We have this week reached a tipping point that is even pointier than every other tipping point so far reached; which is to say we will soon be at a point of no return that is well past the point of no return that we were last warned there was no returning from.
The latest UN climate panic comes in the form of what media outlets called ‘a massive 3,000-page document’ published Monday.
It’s unlikely anyone will read all 3,000 pages, but no one should need to. The sheer size of the document – let me remind you, it’s ‘massive’ – tells you everything you need to know.
Things are bad.
And if the thickness of the report does not convince you that things are dire, environmentalists at the UN can make their next dossier of doom and gloom run twice that length. It’s only trees, after all.
Let me remind you just how massively bad things are.
Back in 1972, the then UN Under General Secretary Maurice Strong warned we had ‘only 10 years to stop the catastrophe’.
In 1982, which was the deadline for stopping the catastrophe, the head of the UN Environment Program Mostafa Tolba told us we had just 18 more years before we would face an environmental catastrophe ‘as irreversible as any nuclear holocaust’.
Just eight years later, he was insisting we needed to fix global warming by 1995 or we would ‘lose the struggle’.
The great climate doomsday of 1995 failed to materialise, as did the climate Armageddon of 2000. But the flurry of final warnings, last chances, and tipping points continued; every prediction more hysterical than the last.
UN Climate Panel chief Rajendra Pachauir, who was no doubt surprised to still be here in 2007, warned that ‘if there is no action before 2012, that’s too late’. He further insisted that ‘what we do in the next two to three years will determine our future’.
Our betters spent the next two or three years jetting around the globe, holding lots of conferences and summits, which must have saved our bacon since not only did we survive the predicted 2012 apocalypse, but we hung on grimly until 2019 at which point the UN informed us we had just 11 years to prevent irreversible damage from climate change.
To emphasise just how serious things were, they invited a Swedish school girl to berate them for robbing her of her dreams, or something. These days she’s performing Rick Astley covers for adoring fans.
Now, just three years into that 11-year do-or-die period, we are being told that it’s ‘now or never’.
One could be forgiven for thinking that when the world doesn’t end as these activists predict, they simply change the date and call it science.
The UN report, the most comprehensive report since the last most comprehensive report, says emissions must be curbed by 2030 or things will be even worse than the last time we were told they couldn’t possibly be any worse.
The report says that people must change their diets and their lifestyles which, as we already know, means eating bugs and walking.
And if we fail to heed the latest hysterical shrieks from those who warn of rising sea levels while purchasing beachside mansions, we can be sure there will be even shriekier histrionics in the future.
This is it. Our final, cataclysmic warning. Until the next one. And probably the one after that.
When the UN insist that it is ‘now or never’ for climate action, what they really mean is that they want now and never-ending emergencies as a pretext for herding us around the room. First here and then there, but never to an exit.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/04/the-ipcc-say-the-world-is-ending-again/
***********************************************The Green U.S. Supply-Chain Rules Set to Unspool and Rattle the Global Economy
Making a box of Cocoa Puffs is a complicated global affair. It could start with cocoa farms in Africa, corn fields in the U.S. or sugar plantations in Latin America. Then thousands of processors, transporters, packagers, distributors, office workers and retailers join the supply chain before a kid in Minnesota, where General Mills is based, pours the cereal into a bowl.
Now imagine the challenge that General Mills faces in counting the greenhouse gas emissions from all of these people, machines, vehicles, buildings and other products involved in this Cocoa Puff supply chain – then multiply that by the 100-plus brands belonging to the food giant.
Thousands of public companies may soon have such a daunting task to comply with a new set of climate rules proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Hailed by prominent environmental groups as a long sought victory, the sweeping plan released in late March would force companies to grapple with the unpredictable impact of climate change by disclosing reams of new information to investors. What are your company’s climate risks, such as severe weather, and the possible financial impacts? How have the threats affected your business strategies and what’s the plan to avoid the dangers? The most consequential and controversial piece of the SEC’s proposed regulations would require corporations to calculate their total greenhouse gas footprint, including from the supply chain.
The regulations also carry political weight for Democrats in the runup to the midterms in November. The Biden administration and centrist Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia are trying once again to breathe life into clean energy legislation that died earlier this year amid a feud between them. If this latest effort at compromise fails – with Manchin reportedly looking for federal support for fossil fuels as well as renewable energy – then much of President Biden’s ambitious climate agenda will be left riding on the SEC proposal.
SEC head Gary Gensler says shareholders are demanding climate risk disclosures to make smarter investment decisions and hold companies accountable for “greenwashing” their operations. The regulations will also provide investors in the Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) movement more leverage in their ongoing campaigns to pressure companies to reduce their carbon footprints.
While many companies like Walmart and business groups like the Chamber of Commerce generally support the idea of required climate disclosures, they object to what they see as the SEC’s heavy-handedness in standardizing rules across the economy. The Chamber is calling for flexibility so companies can customize their climate disclosures based on what’s relevant to their businesses and investors.
The biggest beef from companies is the rule that would require them to calculate and disclose supply chain emissions, called Scope 3.
Big companies have thousands of suppliers operating in hundreds of countries, making the task of coming up with a reasonable accounting enormously complicated. First of all, many suppliers of products and services are private companies not under the control of the SEC. They may refuse to cooperate in a count because of the costs and the implications that they might have to change their business practices to reduce emissions, said Professor Gerald Patchell, who has analyzed the problems of supply chain reporting.
Another obstacle is that many smaller suppliers, like General Mills’ cocoa farmers in Africa, don’t have the capacity to measure the emissions from their own fertilizers, tractors and farming practices. So companies will have to rely on broad country or industry averages that likely don’t reflect the actual emissions created by the suppliers, according to researchers.
“The data that companies will be asked to collect from thousands of suppliers is mind-boggling and certainly unprecedented,” said Patchell, who researches environmental policy and business. “It’s an idealized concept of what can actually be done by a company.”
The upshot is that regulations meant to bring clarity to investors on climate risk may end up providing highly unreliable emissions disclosures, leaving them “worse off,” wrote SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, a Trump appointee who voted against the 500-page proposal. It “forces investors to view companies through the eyes of a vocal set of stakeholders, for whom a company's climate reputation is of equal or greater importance than a company's financial performance."
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"FOSSIL" FUEL ROUNDUP FROM AUSTRALIA
Three current reports below:
"Green" Steel to be produced in Australia
Gupta is a smart cookie. He revitalized British steel now he is re-energizing Australia's oldest major iron mining site. "Green" steel is made without using coal
GFG Alliance executive chairman Sanjeev Gupta has launched a rallying cry for Australia to place itself “at the heart of a new industrial revolution’’, based around the use of renewable energy and hydrogen to produce steel, rather than simply shipping our vast reserves of iron ore offshore.
Mr Gupta also on Thursday announced an expansion of GFG’s magnetite iron ore concentrate production at its Whyalla operations, with the first phase of a two-stage expansion project almost finished.
Mr Gupta will tell an American Chamber of Commerce in Australia (AmCham) lunch in Adelaide on Thursday that GFG is aiming to increase magnetite production by more than 10 per cent to 2.5 million tonnes per year, up from about 2.2mtpa, which could lead to more exports to its European steelworks.
GFG currently produces both hematite and magnetite iron ore, with the 6.3mtpa of hematite produced each year exported, while the magnetite product is used in the Whyalla steelworks.
Mr Gupta said GFG subsidiary SIMEC Mining was about to complete the construction phase of a “two-phase debottlenecking process’’.
The expansion would also feed into GFG’s “Greensteel” ambition, which aims to produce carbon neutral steel by 2030 (CN30) with the aid of renewable energy and potentially hydrogen.
Mr Gupta said magnetite iron ore was suite for use in the Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) process, which was at the heart of the Greensteel program.
“Our purpose is to create a sustainable future for industry and society and that starts right here with magnetite - a critical enabler of our global Greensteel strategy,’’ Mr Gupta said.
“Thankfully it’s an iron ore we have in abundance right here in Whyalla.
“Combined with renewables, particularly solar from our Cultana Solar Farm, our port, a skilled workforce, and supportive community and government, we are in a unique and enviable position to create a world leading Greensteel hub and help fulfil our CN30 mission. That’s exciting!”
Mr Gupta also reiterated his call for Australia to ramp up its manufacturing capabilities, particularly in the steel sector,, saying the events of the past couple of years had thrown into sharp relief how “flimsy and fragile our supply chains really are ... and that we’ve become too dependent on others’’.
“Globalisation versus the need for self-sufficiency now requires a major rethink... At times like these...sovereign manufacturing capability moves from important to critical... Which is exactly the opposite to our thoughts and deeds for the last three decades,’’ he said.
“So, home grown is once again about to become the new mantra... at a time when so many countries have been desperate to farm out their manufacturing capabilities, to where it’s apparently cheaper, or easier... or both.
“And now, we’re worried all over again, that we’ve let too much experience and expertise simply evaporate.’’
Mr Gupta said there was a recognition now that countries needed to have their own manufacturing capabilities, and luckily, Australia had the right blend of raw materials and abundant renewable energy resources for this to be achievable in the steel sector.
“Australia exports enough iron ore to produce 500 million tonnes of steel, over a quarter of the world’s annual needs,’’ he said.
“Yet less than 1 per cent of this is processed into steel right here ... domestically. And with global steel consumption set to double in the next 30 years, could there be a better time for Australia to claim its place as a modern, efficient, low-carbon, global steel power?’’
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New Coking coal mine under construction
Private equity-backed Pembroke Resources has broken ground on the construction of its Olive Downs coking coal mine in Queensland’s Bowen Basin, as global coal markets face the threat of fresh disruptions on the back of European threats to ban the import of Russian coal.
Olive Downs should begin exporting hard coking coal within two years, according to Pembroke chief executive Barry Tudor, with construction of the $900m mine to ramp up following a formal groundbreaking ceremony on Friday.
“The high-quality steelmaking coal that will be produced from our mine will contribute to national and state economies as well as much-needed infrastructure around the world, delivering economic benefits and jobs from the grassroots to a global scale,” Mr Tudor said.
Olive Downs is primarily a coking coal mine, with more than 90 per cent of its product destined for steel mills. It is likely to sell some thermal coal as a by-product of mining higher-grade coking seams, like most metallurgical coal mines in Queensland.
While few analysts see this year’s extraordinary run in coal prices as likely to be extended indefinitely, the outlook for Pembroke is far brighter than when the mine won most of its approvals in 2020, when premium coking coal prices were trading at around a quarter of their current value of around $US420 a tonne.
JPMorgans analysts recently tipped average prices of about $US281 a tonne in 2023, when Olive Downs enters the market.
The first stage of the $900m project will see it export about 4.5 million tonnes of coal a year, but Pembroke plans to eventually expand output to up to 15 million tonnes a year.
Pembroke Resources is backed by private equity investors Denham Capital, and Olive Downs’ construction was last year backed through a $175m lending facility from the federal government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.
The Queensland Labor government approved a mining lease for Olive Downs just ahead of the 2020 state election.
The price of Australian premium coking coal soared to about $US670 a tonne in mid-March on the back of fears about disruptions to supply in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but has since fallen to levels closer to $US400 a tonne as the speculative trading frenzy subsided.
But the market still faces the threat of major disruptions in the wake of threats by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to ban the import of Russian coal into the EC in the wake of news that Russian troops had committed war crimes against civilians in Ukraine.
The EC is yet to formalise the ban, which would not take immediate effect in any case, with buyers likely to get a window to wind down deliveries under existing contracts and seek alternative sources of supply.
But Russia supplied about 45 per cent of Europe’s coal needs in 2021, including about 20 per cent of its coking coal imports.
With Russian production making up about 15 per cent of the total seaborne market last year, second only to Australia, European bans could force the second major reshaping of global trade flows in the last two years, following China’s effective bans on the import of Australian coal.
But, while a ban on Russian coal could create short-term volatility in the market, analysts expect the country’s exports to find buyers outside Europe just as Australian shipments did in the face of China’s bans.
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Scarborough gas venture wins key approvals
Woodside has received key federal and state approvals for the $16 billion Scarborough gas project off the coast of Karratha.
Woodside has received key federal and state approvals for a gas project off the coast of Karratha.© Rebecca Le May/AAP PHOTOS Woodside has received key federal and state approvals for a gas project off the coast of Karratha.
The Woodside-BHP joint venture has secured the pipeline licence needed to build and operate in Commonwealth waters, Woodside announced on Wednesday.
Minister for Resources Keith Pitt said it's estimated the project will have a peak construction workforce of more than 3000, and 600 jobs when operational including around 230 in the Pilbara.
"Given the current uncertainty around the world, and an energy crisis throughout Europe, it's projects like this that build Australia's capacity to ensure long-term energy and national security," he said.
"It will also support our international neighbours to secure their own energy needs."
Approval was also granted for the Scarborough Field Development Plan that will enable Woodside to begin operations from petroleum production licences WA-61-L and WA-62-L.
Woodside CEO Meg O'Neill said the pipeline licence and field development plan are among the final federal and state government approvals required to develop the liquefied natural gas (LNG) resource.
The approval milestones follow final investment decisions made in November 2021 to approve the Scarborough and Pluto Train 2 developments.
The Scarborough field, 375 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia, is estimated to contain 11.1 trillion cubic feet of gas.
The development will include the installation of a floating production unit with eight wells drilled in the initial phase, and 13 drilled over the life of the field.
The gas will be transported to Pluto LNG through a new 430km trunk line.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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7 April, 2022
This nixed natural-gas project shows you just how absurd Biden’s energy policy is
As gas prices rise and Vladimir Putin escalates his war on Ukraine, Democrats’ political fortunes fall. That’s why President Joe Biden announced last week he’ll increase domestic production to combat what he calls “Putin’s price hike” at the pump by imposing “fees” (read taxes) on US energy companies for unproductive wells leased on public lands.
This political gamesmanship will stop neither soaring gas prices nor the Russian president, however, and may well accelerate Democrats’ death spiral heading into the midterms. Because Biden isn’t at war with Putin, he’s at war with domestic energy production — and has been since Day One of his administration, when he canceled the Keystone pipeline to bring Canadian oil to the United States.
Keystone’s fate sent a chilling message to anyone contemplating a costly infrastructure project: This administration prioritizes a radical green agenda over American energy independence.
But Keystone was only the first Biden action that significantly undermined investments that would have increased both domestic supply and exports abroad. Right now, millions of gallons of natural gas could be streaming out of the central Pennsylvania town of Wyalusing, then shipped out of a new export facility in Gibbstown, NJ. Instead, environmental extremists emboldened by the administration’s heavy-handed regulation spent the last year and a half shutting down this critical project.
Wyalusing is a case study in everything that has gone wrong with US energy policy under Biden. In 2018, New Fortress Energy applied to build a $800 million natural-gas processing plant there to purify and liquefy millions of gallons of gas from the Marcellus Shale, which would then move by rail and truck to the export facility in New Jersey. The target operation date was the first half of 2022.
In other words, Wyalusing should be coming online right now and, through Gibbstown, helping increase US exports to Europe — just when they’re needed most to counter Putin’s iron grip on natural-gas supplies to our NATO allies.
Instead, New Fortress Energy announced last month it will suspend the long-delayed project indefinitely after fanatical environmental groups — including PennFuture, the Clean Air Council and the Sierra Club — obstructed it through repeated legal action against both Wyalusing and Gibbstown. New Fortress decided to cut its losses after a long fight: It was easier to placate these organizations by allowing the necessary permits to expire than risk the ongoing expense and reputational damage they threatened.
Biden policies designed to make getting natural gas to market more difficult also influenced this decision. A key sticking point for the green groups was the proposal to move most of the liquified natural gas from Wyalusing to Gibbstown by rail — necessary thanks to obstructions and legal hurdles that routinely target any pipeline project.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Department of Transportation to begin the process of allowing natural-gas transport by rail. But Biden rescinded it via his own executive order, putting all LNG-by-rail regulations under review. That considerably complicated the Wyalusing project and gave more legal ammunition to green groups. It’s also depressed demand for the necessary specialized rail cars, which are therefore in short supply.
So rather than having significantly increased energy supplies to boost exports in the Ukraine crisis, Pennsylvania remains limited to current capacity, which clearly won’t be enough to replace Russian supplies. A sad irony is that the same environmental groups making it harder to transport US energy are raising global emissions by forcing European consumers to rely on Russian gas exports — which emit more than 40% more pollution than the cleaner US gas exports to Europe we should be accelerating.
More US natural-gas production is essential to ensuring affordable and reliable fuel during the energy transition, strengthening our allies’ energy security and reducing global greenhouse-gas emissions. The path forward is clear: Biden should immediately release new energy-infrastructure guidelines to include extending permits for projects delayed by legal action, facilitating logistic projects to include both pipelines and rail and expediting export facilities.
In its desperation to lower domestic gas prices, the administration is reportedly considering replacing Keystone by moving the additional Canadian oil that would have come by pipeline by rail — the very means of transportation its environmentalist proxies used to target Wyalusing.
This is verging on the absurd. If Biden is serious about supplying Americans with plentiful, affordable energy and defeating Vladimir Putin in the energy war, he can start in Pennsylvania, where the attrition of energy projects is happening in real-time due to his policies. It’s going to take years to wean Europe off Russian natural gas, making it all the more urgent to expedite — not harass out of existence — projects like Wyalusing.
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The 1.5-Degree Goal Is All But Dead
The world’s most ambitious climate goal—to keep the planet’s average temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above its preindustrial level—is still technically feasible. Technically. There is not yet so much greenhouse-gas pollution in the atmosphere that avoiding 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming has become impossible, on paper.
But it is now, in practice, probably impossible to achieve.
On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations–led panel of scientists and scholars charged with summarizing the world’s understanding of global warming, released its newest report. Unlike its previous reports, which focused on the physical and social consequences of climate change, this missive looks at how humanity can reduce its carbon pollution and avert climate collapse. If most IPCC reports present a warning, this week’s is more of a “how to avoid the apocalypse” guide.
It is also the final report in the IPCC’s current eight-year cycle of consensus reports. After this report (and a final “synthesis” report due later this year), the IPCC will not publish a major new document for years. This is the last report before the 1.5-degree-Celsius scenario becomes completely impossible.
So it’s worth looking at that goal—and how it attained significance. In 2015, as part of negotiations over the Paris Agreement, the world’s countries set a new goal of holding global warming to “well below 2 degrees Celsius” and preferably aiming for 1.5 degrees Celsius. (These translate to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit and 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively.) The agreement also asked the IPCC to write a new report on the benefits of the 1.5-degree goal.
Just by itself, enshrining the 1.5-degree goal in international law represented a victory for the small island nations, such as Kiribati and the Solomon Islands, which have historically called for the most aggressive climate policy because rising sea levels could wipe them off the map. But the political potency of the goal exceeded even their dreams. When the IPCC published its 1.5-degree report three years later, it detailed the dire famines, droughts, and disasters that would accompany even that level of warming. It inspired a new round of global climate concern. The aggressive climate action of the past few years—Greta Thunberg’s protests, Wall Street’s calls for corporate sustainability, even Europe’s Green Deal—would have been unimaginable without the 1.5-degree report.
So it is charged, to say the least, to suggest that such a goal may now be impossible. That’s partly because achieving 1.5 degrees has never seemed particularly likely: The 2018 report shocked readers to some extent because it recognized that, in order to avoid climate catastrophe, the world needed to replace its energy system at an unprecedented pace. Decarbonization, too, has always required looking to the fantastic, the miraculous: Phasing out fossil fuels is both so difficult and so non-optional that any savvy realism must more closely resemble Marquez than Mearsheimer.
But while the eyes search for divine assistance, the feet must stay on solid earth. And allowing a fantasy of 1.5 degrees to outlast its feasibility could curdle hope into bad assumptions, foolish thinking, or worse.
“It’s still technically possible to meet the 1.5-degree limit,” Peter Erickson, the climate-policy program director at the Stockholm Environment Institute, told me, but “the window even for technical feasibility is rapidly shrinking.” Since the initial report was published in 2018, global emissions have continued to rise, so it will be harder to achieve 1.5 degrees now than it was even when that report was written. “Even of the scenarios they evaluate, only a third of them are able to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius with any confidence,” he said.
Oliver Geden, a senior fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and one of the lead authors of the new IPCC report, agreed. “I would say it’s plausible to talk about it. I think it’s not plausible to say that, given what we know right now, we won’t [exceed] it,” he told me.
Even though the goal remains possible, the report makes clear that enough fossil-fuel infrastructure to blow past the goal has already been built. The world can emit as much carbon dioxide as it produced during the 2010s—about 400 gigatons—before it uses up the rest of its 1.5-degree budget, the new report finds. But the world’s existing fossil-fuel infrastructure, as already built and financed, would generate another 660 to 850 gigatons of emissions. Meeting the goal will require taking coal, oil, and natural-gas capacity offline before it was designed to shut down.
The question that really matters, both Erickson and Geden said, is not technical feasibility but political will and institutional capacity. So although the new IPCC report repeatedly finds that the 1.5-degree goal is technically feasible, it also establishes that the pace of institutional change required to achieve such a technical transition would have no historical precedent.
Only a few countries have successfully moved away from a single fossil fuel in a single economic sector at the pace with which the entire world would need to eliminate all fossil fuels in all sectors, Erickson said. And even these examples are not necessarily encouraging. During the 1970s oil crisis, the United States accomplished one of the fastest energy transitions in history when it stopped burning petroleum to generate electricity. But it replaced that oil with domestically mined coal, a far dirtier fuel. More recently, the U.S. rapidly phased out its coal capacity, but it replaced that fuel not with zero-carbon energy, but with climate-polluting natural gas.
The report praises a few examples of successful transitions, citing 24 countries that have successfully reduced their greenhouse-gas pollution for more than 10 years. But they’re almost all wealthy industrialized countries, including the U.S., some Northern European nations, and former Soviet states. “The former Soviet bloc is no model for decarbonization by any stretch,” Erickson said, because the lower emissions of those states accompanied a collapse in economic productivity.
To its credit, the original 1.5-degree report recognized that humanity was unlikely to keep global temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius for the entire century. Instead, most of its scenarios envisioned that the world’s temperature would overshoot that goal, and then humanity would bring the temperature back in line by removing massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere after 2050.
To attempt anything more ambitious than that baseline, carbon-removal scenario, the countries of the world would have to marshal real political momentum for emissions reduction. “I don’t see political momentum” for that kind of change, Geden said.
But as humanity keeps putting off the task of reducing its emissions, the amount of carbon that needs to be removed keeps growing. That could produce its own political issues, Geden said. The contours of UN climate talks “will change dramatically if you start assuming net negative [emissions] are possible. You could open up a new round of entirely magical thinking,” he said. India, for instance, has already reasonably insisted that the world’s most developed countries go carbon-negative before other countries do. But if you assume truly massive amounts of carbon removal are possible, then countries could simply assume that greater and greater amounts of carbon-dioxide removal will kick in as the century progresses.
At the same time, the structure of international politics has changed since the 1.5-degree report first came out. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has fractured international economic cooperation in a way that was not expected in 2018, and both the war and the Western response seem likely to alter the fossil-fuel system. The IPCC has modeled dozens of different scenarios of future emissions, Erickson noted, but none that assumes the creation of a new major geopolitical rivalry foresees a path to the 1.5-degree goal.
All of this has made Geden wonder if a more measured goal makes more sense. “Is it 1.5 at any cost?” he asked. “Or do we want to do 1.6? Is that a new aim because it’s also ‘well below 2 degrees Celsius’?”
Erickson said that advocates and politicians should keep the new goal in mind, but not base their entire strategy on it. “‘1.5 or Bust’ is not a recipe for success, or equity, or for frankly reducing the worst impacts of climate change. And maybe that’s a straw man, but you know, there are groups that are building their campaign strategies around that goal,” he said. “It’s a painful conversation. It still seems like we should do everything we can. But to the extent that we foreclose backup strategies in the singular pursuit of 1.5 degrees Celsius, that could be problematic.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/04/un-ipcc-1-5-degree-report-global-warming/629486/
*****************************************************What is carbon capture and storage, and could it help halt the climate crisis?
These new technologies fall into two broad camps. Firstly, through catching concentrated industrial emissions at their source, preventing them from entering the atmosphere at all. This is usually known as carbon capture and storage (CCS).
And secondly, through technologies which suck greenhouse gas emissions directly out of the air, removing them at very low concentrations. This is usually known as greenhouse gas removal (GGR) or carbon dioxide removal (CDR).
There is a consensus that investing and utilising these technologies needs to be rapidly scaled up to have the impact required to keep the targets of the Paris climate agreement in sight - and prevent average temperatures rising 1.5C above what they were in the pre-industrial era.
But there are also widely-held concerns that industries and processes which already emit greenhouse gases could, or already are, using the burgeoning technology as a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card, in which they pin their future carbon reduction targets on installing or investing in GGR or CCS technology.
According to the International Energy Agency the strengthening of climate goals and new investment incentives "are delivering unprecedented momentum for CCS, with plans for more than 100 new facilities announced in 2021".
The agency said these technologies "will play an important role in meeting net zero targets, including as one of few solutions to tackle emissions from heavy industry and to remove carbon from the atmosphere".
But despite being "encouraging", the numbers of projects in the offing are inadequate and "fall well short of delivering the 1.7 billion tonnes of CO2 capture capacity deployed by 2030 in the net zero by 2050 scenario", the IEA said.
Professor Richard Templar, director of innovation at the Grantham Institute for climate change and the environment at Imperial College London, told The Independent new technologies have a long way to go, but he emphasised the important role they will play.
He said: "So far CCS and GGR have contributed very little indeed to tackling climate change. There are a small number of demonstrators for both technologies around the globe, testing the techniques, and informing future development of the approaches.
"In principle CCS and GGR could make significant contributions to tackling climate change, but we should have been developing these techniques with greater intent 10-20 years ago."
His colleague at Imperial, Dr Piera Patrizio, a research associate at the university’s Centre for Environmental Policy, told The Independent: "CCS is currently underused globally. Just 0.1 per cent of all global emissions are currently captured and stored, and researchers argue that CCS must be rapidly scaled up to mitigate emissions from energy intensive sectors."
She said the effectiveness of the technology had long been proven, pointing out that "in North America several thousand miles of high-pressure CO2 pipeline have been transporting millions of tonnes of CO2 since the 1970s," and that "geological storage has been safely operated in the North Sea by Norway for 20 years".
In both CCS and GGR techniques the CO2 is separated and captured from either the gases generated by a manufacturing process or from the gases in our atmosphere.
This CO2 must then be permanently stored deep underground, where it will mineralise - turn into rock.
An example of this process already successfully in operation is in Iceland, where the world’s largest "direct air-capture" machine, called Orca, takes carbon from the air and turns it into stone in just two years.
According to geological surveys there is plenty of subterranean capacity for injecting carbon, so the limiting factor is the manufacture and operation of such technology.
Even though it is the biggest in the world, Iceland’s Orca machine is capable of sucking up just 4,000 tonnes of CO2 a year – a tiny fraction of global emissions, which totalled 31.5 billion tonnes in 2020.
But experts say incentives must be put in place to expand this kind of technology, as the rate at which humans are causing emissions goes far beyond what can be absorbed through natural processes.
Dr Tilly Collins, a deputy director at the centre for environmental policy at Imperial College London, told The Independent: "A multifaceted approach [including new technology] is critical to addressing climate change as the carbon we have released over the past 150 years exceeds that which biological systems can absorb over the urgent timescale we face.
“Improving biological carbon absorption and storage through planting forests, improving grasslands, and restoring peatlands will also contribute and have the additional benefit of being potential win-wins by supporting biodiversity."
She also said long-term lock-downs of carbon from forest expansions will be enhanced by the growth in timber technologies for building and use as renewable feedstocks for chemical industries.
The IPCC’s report is expected to make a powerful case for strengthening measures to slash emissions from all sources, while also putting forward the best use of technology to remove pollutants.
How this is then interpreted by governments and organisations with historic connections to emissions-intensive commerce and industry remains a significant concern.
Professor Templar said: "We are in the midst of humanity’s biggest, self-inflicted challenge – the most rapid heating that the planet has ever experienced.
"We know that in order to cool the planet down we need to do two things. First and foremost to stop putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Second, to remove CO2 already in the atmosphere and any that we really cannot help releasing. The avoidance of emissions is the single most important thing we need to do, but we now cannot avoid the need to also remove CO2 from the atmosphere. We need both."
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Australia: The despised coal is still the lowest cost power source
We are continuously fed the narrative that wind and solar are cheap and reliable when the opposite is true. Their capital costs are enormous and ultimately come out of the pockets of ordinary citizens
There is a transition underway in our electricity sector.
Fundamentally, the people financing, regulating, designing, and operating these systems, are driving a public relations campaign promoting renewables as cheap and effective. Activism disguised as leadership is bringing about significant changes in the electricity system, changes that are having far-reaching consequences on the Australian economy and security.
Until recently, economists, engineers, and CEOs could be relied on to objectively consider all sides of a problem, making fact-based decisions for the best outcomes for their clients and shareholders (and themselves). But the much-vaunted ‘transition’ in the electricity sector has seen the share price of our two ASX-listed electricity retailers (AGL and Origin) shrivel.
In February 2021, AGL announced the write-down of AUD $1.9 billion of wind power contracts. AGL paid too much for long-term fixed-price contracts with wind developers and Origin had a similar write-down for the same reasons in July 2021. Combined, these two companies supply over 50 per cent of the Australian retail electricity market.
Further afield, Germany’s wind and solar gamble is failing too.
As Michael Schellenberger notes, Germany spent US$36 billion on wind and solar in the five years prior to 2019 while emissions flat-lined and prices skyrocketed. The Ukraine situation has exposed the weakness of Germany’s energy security and in the UK, Matt Ridley exposes a similar illogical political love affair with wind turbines.
Domestically, government bureaucrats are amplifying the problem.
Queensland’s state-owned CleanCo rewarded its CEO with $674,000 last year for overseeing a multi-million dollar loss. Queensland has to date guaranteed the income of fifteen wind and solar projects (2,266 MW). That is almost one-third of the state’s coal-fired power capacity contributing less than 10 per cent of the state’s electricity supply. Meanwhile, Queensland’s Stanwell operating over 3,300 MW of coal-fired generators returned a net profit after tax of $375 million (a plant breakdown caused a net loss of $266 million for CS Energy, the other state-owned generation company).
Origin CEO Frank Calabria recently expressed his intention to close Australia’s largest coal-fired generator, Eraring in New South Wales, and replace its 2,800 MW output with gas ‘operating over days and weeks’, batteries, hydro, and virtual power plants. That doesn’t sound cheap to me. Ex-Macquarie Bank chief Nicholas Moore (YouTube 28min), cited Lazard as evidence that wind and solar are cheaper than gas; he did not explain why subsidies remain critical to development of wind and solar projects.
Across Australia, every energy minister is promoting emissions reductions targets, wind and solar targets, or both, all underwritten by taxpayers. Politicians, desperate to bolster woke credentials and shore up falling polls, are eagerly handing over taxpayer dollars to so-called ‘green’ industries on top of the myriad of subsidies still on offer for wind and solar projects.
This casual disregard for our critical infrastructure has been abetted by the bureaucrats appointed to regulate and coordinate the electricity sector.
The previous CEO of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), Audrey Zibelman, said AEMO staff prioritise decarbonisation over keeping the lights on (podcast 24min). The current CEO, Daniel Westerman, fresh from ramping up wind and solar farms in America, is pushing for the Australian grid to be made ready to accept 100 per cent wind and solar by 2025. The Chair of the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC), Anna Collyer, describes her organisation as ‘striving for Net Zero’.
The heads of our mostly foreign-owned electricity network companies encourage the push for more wind and solar, as this requires massive upgrades to the grid. Since they receive a regulated return, more transmission means more guaranteed income, even as network productivity declines year on year. Engineer’s Australia, the peak body overseeing Australian engineering competencies and registrations, had Al Gore as keynote speaker at the Climate Smart Engineering Conference in November 2021. CEO, Bronwyn Evans, is signatory to a IPCC capitulation statement.
Despite the contrived support for all things green, opposition is mounting around Australia to new transmission lines and land-hungry renewables. Even the ABC can’t always ignore the negative impacts and growing ire of those affected by encroaching solar farms, wind farms, and transmission lines. Amongst the ABC’s activist headlines, the occasional piece on environmental destruction makes an unusual appearance alongside quotes from experts opining on the low cost of wind and solar.
The 1,000 MW MacIntyre Wind Farm in Queensland will need 180 towers for $2 billion ($2,000/MW). The 750 MW Kogan Ck coal-fired power station was built in 2007 for $1.2 billion ($1,600/MW). Kogan Ck coal mine is not linked to a port and is therefore not subject to export coal price changes, making its fuel costs amongst the lowest in the country. According to AEMO data, Kogan Ck offers its output in three bands: 300 MW at $36/MWh, 150 MW at $49/MWh, and the rest at $56/MWh.
The low cost of coal-fired generation is confirmed elsewhere. AGL’s FY21 annual report states total fuel costs for coal at $18.3/MWh and running costs at $11.5/MWh for a total of $29.8/MWh – comparable to Kogan Ck. Meanwhile the same annual report shows green compliance costs at $26.4/MWh and renewable Power Purchasing Agreement (PPA) costs at $52.9/MWh. Origin’s FY21 annual report shows renewable PPA costs much higher than coal at $95.3/MWh, and fuel costs (coal and gas) at $47.9/MWh. South Australia, the unashamed leader in shutting down fossil-fuelled electricity, has retail electricity rates 50 per cent higher than Queensland and New South Wales.
Our electricity system is in unchartered territory with wind and solar growth tenfold the global average.
We are continuously fed the narrative that wind and solar are cheap and reliable when the opposite is true.
Wind and solar are forced into the market despite the market desperately signalling oversupply with negative prices. Our industry and political leaders subscribe to every green woke agenda, neatly dovetailing with a lost and confused media, while our critical electricity system requires daily intervention to keep the lights on.
Wishful thinking implies a kind of innocent naivety. Does anybody think this is innocent?
https://spectator.com.au/2022/04/tenewables-the-pandemic-of-wishful-thinking/
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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6 April, 2022
Report: Biden Desperate for Oil from Canada, Just Not Thru Keystone XL Pipeline
President Joe Biden is desperate to increase oil imports from Canada as the nation continues to struggle with high fuel prices — but is determined not to resurrect the Keystone XL pipeline, whose permit Biden canceled on his first day in office in 2021.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Biden administration is seeking to increase Canadian oil imports through rail, which is dirtier and riskier for the environment than pipelines, as Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has admitted.
The Journal reported Monday:
Biden administration officials are seeking ways to boost oil imports from Canada, people familiar with the situation say, but with one big caveat—they don’t want to resurrect the Keystone XL pipeline that President Biden effectively killed on his first day in office.
The people said deliberations are in early stages and that no clear-cut solutions have emerged....
Canada has ample reserves under its soil to meet U.S. demand, said Kevin Birn, an analyst with S&P Global Commodity Insights. It just doesn’t have enough pipeline capacity to pump it here, he said.
The Keystone XL pipeline was first shelved by the Obama administration despite passing an environmental review. President Donald Trump revived it, allowing construction to begin and creating thousands of jobs. But President Biden canceled it, in a symbolic gesture of support for environmentalists who want to wean the U.S. economy off fossil fuels due to climate change.
The Biden administration has defended its decision on Keystone XL by claiming that it would not have been completed on time to address the present fuel crisis. It has not answered the criticism that canceling Keystone XL sent a signal to oil and gas producers about the intention of the administration to limit future exploration and development, which it then duly did.
As Breitbart News noted at the time, Biden’s decision cost thousands of existing jobs and tens of thousands of future jobs — many of which were the “good, paying, union jobs” that Biden repeatedly promises will emerge from the “green” economy.
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Technology and Growth Are the Cures to Climate Doomsday
Stephen Moore
I guess you could mark me down as a “climate change skeptic.” I’m not a climate scientist, so I have no expertise on what is happening with the planet’s temperature or severe weather events that can wreak havoc on life and property.
I am skeptical that “collective action” through governmental policies will make planet Earth a more hospitable place. Is this the same government that can’t balance its budget, control its borders, stop the crime spree across America and has allowed a 10% inflation tax, among other foibles?
Now, these same politicians will, like Moses, stop the oceans from rising? Fat chance. And they accuse the United States of being religious zealots.
But I do have faith in free markets and the technological advances that for thousands of years have moved us away from the Hobbesian nightmare of humans living in dank caves with life on Earth being “nasty, brutish, and short.”
Deaths from hurricanes, landslides, tornadoes, earthquakes, droughts, floods, food and energy shortages, severe heat and cold and other disruptions from Mother Earth have fallen sharply over the past century. The property damage from acts of nature as a share of our GDP continues to drop yearly.
For example, more accurate weather reporting prepares people for deadly weather events. Building technologies make mankind smarter about weather- and earthquake-proofing homes, buildings, bridges and other structures to protect against collapse and rubble. The real “green revolution” on agriculture output has dropped rates of famine and hunger to all-time lows. My mentor, the late, great economist Julian Simon, taught us that the “ultimate resource” to save us from Armageddon is the human mind.
Hence, I was thrilled when CNN reported that scientists had invented a new technology that flies planes into clouds and injects them with silver iodide to make more rain and snow.
The technology could be a cost-effective way to alleviate severe droughts, which have afflicted the western U.S. in recent years.
If you’re a green climate change activist or scientist, you have to be thrilled, right?
It turns out the climate change industrial complex isn’t ecstatic. As CNN notes, some climate scientists complain that the technology could be “getting in the way of nature.” Read that sentence again because it is so rich with irony. Isn’t the entire climate change movement about altering Mother Nature?
This reaction also makes one wonder whether something is going on here in the climate change industrial complex beyond stopping the warming of the planet. Climate change has rapidly evolved into a multitrillion-dollar global industry.
Inexpensive and non-life-altering solutions aren’t part of the plan, just as the folks who said that we were running out of oil attacked the shale revolution, which proved them so tragically wrong.
There are thousands of other examples of new technologies beyond the rainmaking breakthroughs just mentioned. They have already invented or will invent in the years and decades ahead technologies to make our planet warmer, colder, drier, wetter, sunnier or in whatever direction we want to turn the dial. None of these require draconian laws and mandates to destroy our modern-day energy sector and replace our power supply with 19th-century windmills.
We have the supposed greatest minds in the world who have allegedly come to a solution to save the planet dramatically by hitting a “reset” button on energy by turning to some of the most inefficient sources. That’s the best they’ve got?
I was struck by this disdainful comment by UCLA climate scientist Donald Swain regarding the rainmaking machine: “Resources are much better invested in climate solutions already guaranteed to make significant and equitable impacts.”
The professor seems to be saying that it makes far more sense to eliminate 80% of the world’s cheap and abundant energy sources than to bring power to the world’s poorest regions and institute an inexpensive and promising technology that could cut the number of droughts by half or more.
It almost seems they don’t want these innovative and nonintrusive solutions to work. Free markets and technology may help save the world from doomsday, but they won’t overturn a century of progress in human welfare and won’t make the green energy lobby rich.
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You’ll Miss Fossil Fuels When They’re Gone
What would a world without oil and gas look like? We’re getting a preview: surging prices for food and other everyday goods. Oil and natural gas aren’t needed to only generate energy. They’re also critical for an array of products including face masks, diapers and vegan leather.
Consider fertilizer, which is produced using hydrogen from natural gas (the molecule CH4). Natural gas accounts for about 75% to 90% of fertilizer production costs. Russia and Belarus are large producers, and uncertainty about sanctions has reduced their exports. But skyrocketing natural-gas prices in Europe have also pushed fertilizer producers such as Norway’s Yara and Hungary’s Nitrogenmuvek to curtail production. Some suspended operations last fall when Russia slowed natural-gas deliveries.
As a result, fertilizer prices last month hit a record. Many farmers are scaling back land in cultivation. Some say they plan to use less fertilizer, which could reduce crop yields. Others are switching from planting corn and wheat to soybeans, which require less fertilizer.
The fertilizer shortage couldn’t have come at a worse time. The war is disrupting grain shipments from Russia and Ukraine, which account for a quarter of global wheat exports. Wheat prices last month hit a record. While Americans will have to pay more for cereal and pasta, Africans could experience severe food shortages.
At the same time, food manufacturers report that the cost of plastics for containers and packaging is soaring. Plastics are made from oil and natural gas, which are in short supply globally.
Hydrocarbons known as natural-gas liquids are used as feedstock for petrochemical plants. Ethane (C2H6) is isolated from natural gas and then processed into ethylene, which is converted through a chain of chemical reactions into polyethylene—the most common plastic in use today, found in shopping bags, water bottles, catheters and even bulletproof vests.
U.S. shale fracking produced a gusher of natural-gas liquids including ethane. As a result the cost of plastic feedstock plunged and petrochemical investment exploded. Ethane prices today are about half of what they were in 2011, though they crept up this past year as demand increased. In 2018 the American Chemistry Council estimated that 333 chemical-industry projects valued at more than $200 billion had been announced since 2010.
With so much gas from shale fields, the U.S. in 2015 became the world’s top exporter of ethane, surpassing Norway. Ethane exports have increased to 508,000 barrels a day from nothing in 2013 and have become a major feedstock for petrochemical plants in Canada, China, Europe and India.
One little-appreciated fact is that some cheap plastic products imported from China are made from ethane fracked in the U.S. Overseas petrochemical plants also use the petroleum-based hydrocarbon naphtha as a feedstock. Russia is a major exporter of naphtha, but fracking has made low-cost American ethane more globally competitive.
Another common byproduct of natural-gas processing and oil refining is polypropylene. There’s a good chance you’re wearing something with polypropylene. It’s in iPhone cases, fitness apparel and female sanitary products. Early in the pandemic, Exxon Mobil tapped its petrochemical supply chain to ramp up polypropylene production for face masks.
Polypropylene is also often used in appliances, medical sutures, food containers, furniture and plastic drinking straws. Progressives in places like Seattle and San Francisco have banned single-serve plastic straws. Yet they mandated face masks, which are made from the same raw material. Surgical masks are now among the most common kinds of litter in California, especially near schools.
The inconvenient truth for progressives is that petrochemicals are ubiquitous and indispensable. Replacing oil and gas as an energy source poses enormous technological challenges. Replacing them as a product feedstock would be next to impossible. As much as progressives loathe fossil fuels, they can’t live without them. Drive an electric car or ride a bike? Streets are paved with asphalt, which is made from petroleum bitumen. The cost of asphalt, by the way, is also soaring in tandem with oil prices.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted how even a modest decline in the supply of oil and gas can send prices for energy and raw materials soaring. Government policies that restrict oil and gas production won’t only increase energy prices. They will raise prices and lead to shortages across the economy. Welcome to the wonderful world without oil and gas.
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Greens have blocked the building of badly needed dams in Australia
While it was very pleasing to this old water conservation enthusiast to hear PM Morrison announce a 5.4 billion funding for the Hells Gate Dam in Queensland, I believe it is important we put this announcement in an historical context and understand where it fits in relation to overcoming our now urgent water shortages. Yes, I know there are floods across Australia and many of our dams are spilling, but this old Bushy also knows that we have had eleven years of above-average rainfall and the next inevitable drought cannot be far away and when it does things will be different.
Therefore, it is important to note that this announcement by the PM comes 46 years after the last major dam announcement, which was Wivenhoe Dam in Queensland, commenced in 1975. During the intervening period our population has grown by eleven million people. Those eleven million people require one million three hundred thousand megalitres of water each year just for municipal use, so it is not difficult to see that despite present flooding we will be in huge trouble come the next inevitable drought. It is also important to highlight that total dam capacity is not as important as annual dam yield. That is the average water that can be released from the dam while maintaining storage capacity for future dryer years. While this yield will vary from dam to dam, and from year to year, it is reasonable to suggest that in most years it would not be above 40 per cent of total capacity. So just to supply the municipal needs of our increased population since the building of Wivenhoe we would need to have a dam or dams with total capacity of over five million megalitres, plus our increasing agricultural needs.
Obviously, these dams have not been built and just to add to our water plight, over two million, four hundred thousand megalitres of our stored water has been given to the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, who is flushing this valuable resource to the sea. Again, I know we are presently awash with water, but a couple of years into the next drought many areas of southern Australia will be out of water; including Sydney and likely, Snowy Hydro. Why? Because we stopped building dams over forty years ago and our need for water has not stopped growing. Our forebears knew what to do but it seems we lost both plans for our future and interest in our future.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/03/those-damned-dams/
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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5 April, 2022
Boris Johnson plans seven new nuclear reactors as he drops wind plans
Boris Johnson has shelved plans to double or even treble the number of wind turbines in the countryside and approve plans for up to seven new nuclear reactors instead.
The Prime Minister is said to have rejected ambitious targets presented by Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng to double the UK's onshore output to 30GW by 2030.
Instead, Tory opposition in the party's shire England heartlands and within the Cabinet means that new atomic power sites in rural areas are likely to get Government backing.
The decommissioned power station at Wylfa, on Anglesey, has been suggested as a possible location for the first of a series of small reactor plants.
Mr Johnson is expected to finally unveil his much-delayed new energy strategy on Thursday without any hard targets for onshore wind. But it is expected to lift a moratorium in place since 2015 to allow them to be built were there is local support.
It came after Transport Secretary Grant Shapps publicly opposed new wind farms yesterday in favour of new nuclear sites.
Asked if planning laws should be relaxed to allow for more onshore wind, he told Sky's Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme: 'I don't favour a vast increase in onshore wind farms, for pretty obvious reasons - they sit on the hills there and can create something of an eyesore for communities as well as actual problems of noise as well.
'So I think for reasons of environmental protection, the way to go with this is largely, not entirely, but largely off-sea.'
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Debunking the media's lies about ESG social credit scores and the Great Reset
We’re used to legacy media misleading, concealing, and even downright lying about the important issues facing America — especially when it comes to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores and the Great Reset movement. And on many occasions, we don’t respond with a detailed response. After all, most Americans don’t read or watch legacy media outlets anymore.
However, sometimes, we come across something so dishonest that we simply can’t stay quiet, because if we were to, our heads would probably explode. (And we happen to be very fond of our heads, thank you.) On March 18, the Idaho Statesman — the largest newspaper in Idaho — published one of those truly blood-boiling articles we just can’t ignore.
In the piece, which was written by the paper’s opinion editor Scott McIntosh, the author promotes one false claim after another about ESG scores, their use, and the Great Reset movement — all in an attempt to discredit us and the countless other people in Idaho working to protect the rights of American families and businesses.
Don't miss out on content from Dave Rubin free of big tech censorship. Listen to The Rubin Report now.
(It’s worth noting that we submitted this article to the Idaho Statesman for publication last week, but McIntosh declined to publish it. McIntosh didn’t give us a reason for the decision, but we suspect it’s because he doesn’t like it when others reveal how dishonest the Statesman has become. Shocking, right?)
By the way, if you think this article doesn’t apply to you because you don’t live in Idaho, think again. ESG is an international phenomenon that affects every single American, regardless of the state you live in.
ESG metrics are a kind of social credit scoring system, similar to the model now being used in China. Their purpose is to create a new framework for evaluating businesses, banks, investors, and governments, so that instead of just looking at profits, losses, debt, employee satisfaction, and other traditional economic metrics, an organization is evaluated for its commitment to battling climate change and devotion to social justice causes, including, for example, the racial composition of a company’s workforce.
ESG systems already have awards and punishments tied to them. Companies with “good” ESG scores are often rewarded with lower lending rates, better bond ratings, and other advantages. Some companies with “bad” ESG scores are forced to pay more for loans or denied access to banking services altogether.
And you don’t need to take our word for it, either; there are plenty of industry and academic reports showing the impacts of ESG, including a recent detailed report by Morningstar’s Sustainalytics, which regularly promotes ESG metrics.
According to McIntosh, who claims to have been “honored” for his “watchdog reporting” by the Idaho Press Club and the National Newspaper Association, worries about ESG social credit scores are “dubious” and have become the “latest boogeyman for ... far-right conspiracy theorists like Beck.”
Among the many supposedly “dubious claims” cited by McIntosh as proof of why you can’t trust people like us is a line from a resolution recently proposed by Idaho lawmakers that reads, “ESG standards are designed to create a ‘great reset’ of capitalism and to revamp all aspects of our society and economy, from education to social contracts and working conditions.”
If passed, the resolution McIntosh cites would require Idaho legislators to develop and propose a bill in 2023 to stop banks and other financial institutions from using ESG scores to discriminate against businesses and individuals.
According to McIntosh, that line in the resolution is an example of the many “conspiracies” surrounding ESG. Ironically, McIntosh is right — but not in the way he thinks. There are many conspiracy theories about ESG scores and the Great Reset. Some come from uninformed people on the right, but even more come from dishonest “journalists” like McIntosh.
You see, what “watchdog” McIntosh didn’t tell his readers is that the text he used as one of his proofs of the “right-wing” conspiracy theory of the Great Reset is actually a quote from one of the world’s most influential advocates of ESG, Klaus Schwab, the head of the World Economic Forum (the people who host that lavish conference in Davos every year).
In June 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Schwab and long list of leaders from corporations, activist groups, government agencies, banks, and Wall Street firms launched a campaign to transform the global economy called the “Great Reset” — their words, not ours.
In an article highlighting the campaign, Schwab wrote, “The world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions.”
Boy, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
I wonder why McIntosh didn’t explain to his readers that the resolution clearly identifies Schwab as the source of the quote, or why he didn’t cite the entire statement by Schwab, which ends with, “Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”
McIntosh goes on in his article to say that ESG is just a “product of the exercise of individual and economic rights, giving investors an option of where to put their dollars” (a talking point used by countless banking lobbyists to defend ESG).
You see, there’s nothing to worry about, Watchdog McIntosh promises. ESG is just the “free market”!
This popular myth from people trying to obscure the truth about ESG is not only a lie, it’s the epitome of hypocrisy, because the very same politicians and activists defending ESG are also the ones who often advocate for bigger government, more regulations, and more taxes — the opposite of free-market economics.
ESG systems are designed to force businesses and consumers to adopt the values, ideas, products, and services the wealthy elites imposing social credit scores are calling for, and those elites regularly work hand in hand with government and central banks to advance ESG goals.
For example, the World Economic Forum and U.S. State Department entered into a special partnership in November at a COP26 climate change event.
In 2020, the Federal Reserve hired BlackRock, the world’s wealthiest asset manager and a leading proponent of ESG, to help the Fed purchase corporate bonds — purchases that directly benefited BlackRock.
The SEC proposed mandated ESG disclosure rules this month, and the European Union is now on the verge of mandating ESG metrics for many companies in the EU.
Of course, many corporations are happy to go along with the ESG movement. They, like everyone else on Wall Street, are benefiting from trillions and trillions of dollars promised by banks and investors to support “sustainable” causes. And investors like BlackRock are happy to spend the money, since they’ve become rich in the wake of the recent spending sprees by governments around the world and their affiliated central banks.
ESG systems aren’t merely focused on big businesses, either. Companies like Bank of America have already developed individual ESG scores for investors, and FICO analysts admit that ESG will likely be used in the future by financial institutions to determine credit risk for individuals and small businesses.
ESG systems are the greatest threat to freedom since the fall of the Soviet Union. Anyone who tells you otherwise is ignorant or lying — and we're not sure which is worse.
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Climate policies cripple the West
Notwithstanding all of the advances in renewable energy we are told about, when Ukraine’s brave President Zelensky looked to Australia for help, he asked us to send coal, not solar panels.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shown that insane climate change policies will create conflict even if climate change itself does not. European climate policies have left it hopelessly dependent on Russian oil, gas and coal. Each day Europe pays Russia more than $1 billion (or perhaps now the equivalent in roubles) for the fossil fuels it says it has consigned to history. For all the righteous condemnation of Putin’s actions, Europe is funding this war.
Europe has more gas reserves than Australia, yet has become energy-dependent because of their climate policies. And their naivety and vulnerability has only encouraged Vladimir Putin to break all international norms and invade another country.
Before we feel too superior, Australia is headed down this European, primrose path. We have subsidised renewables so much that our power prices at times turn negative, forcing our coal-fired power stations into an early retirement. We have banned fracking over vast swathes of the continent such that we have gone from being self sufficient in petroleum 20 years ago, to producing less than half of our needs today.
It is not climate change that has weakened our national security. Climate change policies have weakened our national security. Anyone with the malice to invade Australia today, would not need so much as a map but a weather forecast. Pick a cloudy and windless day. We would be ripe for the taking.
Russia’s aggressive acts, and China’s aggressive intent, should wake us all up from this climate change slumber. Less than six months ago the Western world turned up at Glasgow and parked more private planes there than you would see at a Russian oligarch conference. The self-proclaimed, righteous leaders of the woke, Western world debated how they would change the temperature of the globe.
Boris Johnson claimed that ‘what we want to do is move beyond hydrocarbons completely in the UK and do it as fast as possible’. Just months later Boris said that he wants to ‘remove barriers’ to increased North Sea oil and gas production to help end reliance on Russian gas. His government is fast tracking final permits for six North Sea drilling sites.
Even for Boris, this backflip is quite the acrobatic feat.
While the green fools of the West were distracted at Glasgow, Russia and China banned the export of fertilisers. They probably knew something of what was to come. Now we are unprepared.
As President Biden said after attending Nato meetings in Europe this week, ‘With regard to food shortages, yes we did talk about food shortages. And it’s going to be real’. Unfortunately the President offered no solutions. Perhaps we should start by better understanding where food comes from.
If you have ever attended a climate change rally you may have noticed young people holding signs saying, ‘You can’t eat fossil fuels’. If you spot these signs, you have also identified those in the crowd who have not studied agricultural science.
Nearly half the world’s food comes from natural gas. Natural gas makes almost all of the world’s ammonia, after hydrogen is first extracted. Ammonia is what makes most of the world’s fertilisers. On some estimates, 45 per cent of the world’s food comes from ammonia-based fertilisers.
The Ukraine conflict, and Western restrictions on gas developments, has forced the price of gas up. So the price of fertilisers has gone up too and food prices are following. Fertiliser and wheat prices are three times higher than in 2020.
Relief may not come soon because China produces 30 per cent of the world’s ammonia and Russia 10 per cent. They are the world’s two largest producers and they are no longer selling their product to others.
Pat Conroy is such a fool that before the last election he claimed that the global hydrogen market would be worth $215 billion by this year. He seemed oblivious to the fact that almost all of this hydrogen is made from natural gas – the very substance he wants to eradicate. That is not going to change anytime soon as new ways of making hydrogen remain too expensive, not to mention water intensive.
It is now clear that the best description of the net zero charade comes from the words of Admiral Ackbar, of Star Wars fame: ‘It’s a trap!’ China and Russia have been encouraging us all down the net zero path so that we can’t make much anymore or even feed ourselves. We may close their McDonald’s stores, they can respond by making it prohibitive for us to grow cattle.
To defend ourselves against Russo-Chinese aggression, we do not need anymore naive climate change policies from people who do not know how their food is grown. Instead we need the opposite of woke. Let’s task our engineers to find more coal, more gas and more oil so the democratic world can be sovereign again and collectively defend our freedoms.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/04/gullible-net-zero-fools-cripple-the-west/
**************************************************There Is No Evidence Bleaching Threatens Great Barrier Reef
The Washington Post (WaPo) published an article today discussing the fact that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR) recently suffered its “sixth massive bleaching event,” blaming it on climate change. The evidence that long-term climate change, as opposed to a short-term fluctuation in ocean temperatures, is to blame for the present bleaching event is limited. Also, the WaPo presents no evidence of a tipping point. Indeed, based on past bleaching events, reports of the extent of the current bleaching are likely overstated. What is clear from the history of the GBR is that most of the coral that suffered bleaching are likely to recover.
In a WaPo article titled, “Climate warming has dealt yet another blow to the Great Barrier Reef,” Darryl Fears writes:
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is experiencing its sixth massive bleaching event as climate change has warmed the ocean, raising concerns over whether one of the world’s natural wonders is nearing a tipping point.
Reef managers confirmed Friday that aerial surveys detected catastrophic bleaching on 60 percent of the reef’s corals....
Unusually high ocean temperatures, up to 7 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, probably triggered the event. It is the sixth massive bleaching the reef has suffered in two decades, and the fourth since 2016. Back-to-back bleaching events in 2016 and 2017 affected two-thirds of the world’s largest reef.
Data does not support WaPo’s claims about the extent of previous bleaching events in the GBR. Although some scientists widely quoted in corporate media reports on the 2016 bleaching event claimed 93 percent of the GBR suffered bleaching in 2016, subsequent research from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) showed just 22 percent of the reef had bleached with AIMS estimating more than 75 percent the bleached coral would recover. As discussed in Climate Realism, AIMS’ survey determined there was “minimal impact” from the 2016 bleaching with hard coral across 85 percent of the reefs expanding year over year.
Indeed, rather than recent bleaching events indicating corals might be approaching a tipping point for the collapse of the reef, AIMS’ survey showed, as late as August 2021 corals were at a historic high for numbers. AIMS reported “Hard coral cover increased across all three regions (Northern, Central, and Southern) and most reefs surveyed had moderate or high coral cover. Overall, 59 out of 127 reefs had moderate (>10% – 30%) hard coral cover and 36 reefs had high (>30% – 50%) hard coral cover.”
Citing AIMS’ data, in late-July the United Nations World Heritage Committee (WHR) rejected calls to list the GBR as “in danger.” The WHR’s decision came despite last minute pleas by climate alarmists to ignore AIMS’ report and list the GBR as being threatened with extinction due to climate change.
The present bleaching may be due to unusual temperature conditions in the oceans surrounding Australia. However, climate change can’t have been responsible for the six bleaching events that occurred over the past 20 years because there has been no long-term temperature increase in the seas around Australia.
As discussed by meteorologist Anthony Watts, reporting on recent research, Bill Johnston, Ph.D., a former New South Wales Department of Natural Resources research scientist, Johnston compared temperature data from 1871 to recent data derived from 27 Australian Institute of Marine Science data loggers in a reef area where recent bleaching events occurred.
Johnson concludes:
No difference was found between temperatures measured at Port Stephens and Cape Sidmouth by astronomers from Melbourne and Sydney using bucket samples in November and December 1871 and data sampled at those times from 27 AIMS datasets spanning from Thursday Island, in the north to Boult Reef in the south. Alarming claims that the East Australian Current has warmed due to global warming are therefore without foundation.
If there has been no long-term average warming of the seas containing the GBR, warming can’t be threatening the GBR’s survival.
Indeed it would be surprising if warmer waters did pose a threat to the GBR or other coral reefs around the world. Coral have existed continuously for the past 40 million years, adapting to often abrupt and significant temperature shifts repeatedly. Historically, coral have thrived during periods when ocean temperatures were significantly warmer than they are today.
Most coral require warm water, not cold water, to thrive and survive. They are unable to live and colonize outside of tropical or subtropical waters. As a result, as the Earth has modestly warmed, coral are extending their range toward the poles while still thriving at and near the equator.
Coral reefs are natural marvels, providing unique habitat for abundant sea life and contributing the health of the oceans. No coral reef is more justifiably famous than the GBR. Fortunately, as recoveries from previous bleaching events show, contrary to the demise of the GBR implied by WaPo as a result of the recent bleaching which it blames, without providing a scintilla of evidence, on human caused global warming, the majority of the corals bleached this year is likely to recover.
Fears should stop promoting climate fear and put the present bleaching in the wider context of history and science. Corals have proved adaptable and resilient across the millions of years of their existence. There is no reason for believing they can’t adapt to modest warming, should it continue.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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4 April, 2022
WaPo Rehashes Tired Allergy-Climate Change Connection, Misses the Bigger Good News
The Washington Post (WaPo) published a story today, titled “Climate change is making pollen season even worse across the country,” claiming the modest warming experienced over the past century is worsening allergy seasons. This may be true but misses the bigger picture. The extended pollen season is a result of a longer and more productive growing season for plant life. Despite the implications for allergy sufferers, enhanced plant life is a clear net benefit – not harm – of climate change.
The WaPo’s story’s author, Kasha Patel, writes:
Across the country, pollen season is starting earlier and intensifying because of rising global temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations. Previous research showed that pollen season lengthened by 20 days over the past three decades across North America, while pollen concentrations increased by 21 percent. The most affected places were the U.S. Southeast and Midwest.
WaPo’s story is perfect example of seasonal group think. Patel is recycling a story peddled by dozens of corporate media outlets over the past few weeks as spring and the corresponding allergy season has taken hold across the nation. You can find similar stories going back each spring over the years ever since climate change became the mainstream media’s go-to disaster story. For example, just two weeks ago, Climate Realism responded to a story making almost identical claims written by Seth Borenstein for the Associated Press.
“Climate change has already made allergy season longer and pollen counts higher, but you ain’t sneezed nothing yet,” wrote Borenstein.
The anecdotes in the two stories differ, but the message is the same: Climate change is making people with allergies sneeze and cough more.
As Climate Realism has noted on multiple occasions in the past when climate alarmed media mavens have raised the specter of worsening allergies, bad news for allergy sufferers is good news for the planet. NASA’s satellite measurements, for instance, show the “longer, warmer growing seasons caused by climate change,” along with more atmospheric carbon dioxide, are spurring a tremendous greening of the Earth. NASA reports these factors have produced a 10 percent increase in global plant life across the past 20 years.
“The Sahara Desert and other desert regions are shrinking and being filled with life,” notes the Climate Realism article, commenting on NASA’s report. “Areas with existing plant life are becoming more lush with vegetation.”
The downside of lusher, more abundant plant growth is that the increased pollen emitted means harder times for allergy sufferers. Despite this, expanding, more verdant ecosystems are good for pollinators, animals, and humans alike.
Focusing on a drawback of a greener world, worsening allergies, while ignoring its broad benefits of more trees, shrubs, grasses, flowers, and food crops, represents poor journalism. Global greening has contributed to the largest decline in global hunger in history, and the greater plant growth not only removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but the allergy causing pollen it emits is great for pollinating insects like bees, and birds. Most people, including many allergy suffers I suspect, would likely agree that harsher allergies, while unwelcome, are a small price to pay for a more fecund world. Perhaps, if Patel or the WaPo write on this topic again, they might provide a balanced examination of the benefits as well as the costs resulting from longer growing seasons.
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Study Finds Warmer Climate Periods Didn’t Lead To More Conflict
An analysis of 1,000 years of European wars finds that more war and conflict are not linked to warm climates.
One of the scare stories used by the global warming alarmists is the claim that climate extremes produced by ‘man-made climate change’ will lead to greater strife and more bloody wars.
But that assumption is not holding up so well according to the results of a new study by Carleton et al: “A Song of Neither Ice nor Fire: Temperature Extremes had No Impact on Violent Conflict Among European Societies During the 2nd Millennium CE“.
The authors looked at the last 1,000 years of bloody conflict across Europe and compared how well they matched up to the climate extremes between the years 1005 – 1980 A.D.
The authors compared a well-known annual historical conflict record to four published temperature reconstructions for Central and Western Europe.
What did the authors find? Did they find these warm climate periods led to bitter conflicts and so we’ll be sorry if we keep driving SUVs?
The results surprised the usual doomsayers. Warmer climate periods did not lead to more conflict and wars.
The authors sum up their findings: Our results indicated that none of the temperature reconstructions could be used to explain variation in conflict levels.
It seems that shifts to extreme climate conditions may have been largely irrelevant to the conflict generating process in Europe during the second millennium CE.”
https://principia-scientific.com/study-finds-warmer-climate-periods-didnt-lead-to-more-conflict/
************************************************Climate Change Benefitting -- Not Harming -- Health
The London-based charitable foundation, Wellcome, published a report claiming climate change poses a global public health threat. This is false. Contrary to the Wellcome’s report, data show deaths related to extreme weather events and non-optimum temperatures have declined substantially during the recent period of modest warming.
The authors of the Wellcome report, titled “Explained: How climate affects health,” write:
"Climate change is a global health problem already impacting millions of people around the world.... Extreme climate and weather events, such as droughts, floods and heatwaves, are increasing in severity and frequency across the world. These changes are harming our health on a large scale."
The report then goes on to assert deaths and illnesses related to extreme weather and non-optimum temperatures are rising due to climate change.
Wellcome’s claims are refuted by available data. Even the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) admits is there is little or no evidence for an increase in extreme weather events.
Official data from the IPCC and various U.S. government agencies presented in Climate at a Glance: Drought, Climate at a Glance: Floods, and Climate at a Glance: U.S. Heatwaves show these weather events have not been worsening, neither becoming more frequent nor more severe. Data suggests some extreme weather trends have even moderated in recent decades.
Since, as demonstrated in the articles discussed above, weather is not becoming more extreme, it is impossible for Wellcome to logically imply that an increase in extreme weather events is causing an increase in deaths.
Indeed, data spanning 100 years of “global warming” back to 1920 presented in Climate Realism, here, for example, show deaths resulting from climate related events have fallen to a historic low, and now nearly approach zero.
Summarizing the data Lomborg writes;
"Back in the 1920s, the death count from climate-related disasters was 485,000 on average every year. In the last full decade, 2010-2019, the average was 18,357 dead per year or 96% lower. In the first year of the new decade, 2020, the preliminary number of dead was even lower at 8,086 — 98% lower than the 1920s average.
But because the world’s population also quadrupled at the same time, the climate-related *death risk* has dropped even faster. The death risk is the probability of you dying in any one year. In the 1920s, it was 243 out of a million people that would die from climate-related disasters.
In the 2010s, the risk was just 2.5 per million people — a drop of 99%. Now, in 2020, the preliminary number is 1 per million — 99.6% lower."
Wellcome’s scary claim that adverse temperature related deaths are increasing is equally false. Data demonstrate premature mortality linked to extreme temperatures have also declined dramatically.
On July 1, 2021 The Lancet published what is arguably the largest study ever to examine excess mortality associated with temperature. The study’s authors, 68 scientists representing universities and research institutes in 33 countries spanning all regions of the world, came to two very clear conclusions: Cold temperatures contribute to far more deaths each year than warmer temperatures; and deaths associated with extreme temperatures, hot or cold, are declining.
The authors wrote, “[i]mportantly, cold-related death decreased 0.51 per cent from 2000 to 2019, while heat-related death increased 0.21 per cent, leading to a reduction in net mortality due to cold and hot temperatures.”
Because cold related deaths outnumber deaths tied to extreme heat by 10 to 1, the study found hundreds of thousands fewer people have died in response to non-optimum temperatures each year as the earth has warmed in recent decades.
This study confirms what research previously published in The Lancet, the Southern Medical Journal, and other outlets, has consistently shown: Cold is the biggest temperature related killer, not heat, and as he earth warms the number of deaths related to extreme temperatures is falling dramatically.
Wellcome uses inferences, innuendo, and cites anecdotal cases to claim human health and welfare is suffering as a result of anthropogenic climate change. Wellcome’s alarming report may play well to its donor base or to its target audience in the alarmist press and activist community, reinforcing as it does the false narrative that climate change is making everything worse, but is fails to tell the truth.
A foundation truly concerned about helping “everyone to benefit from science’s potential to improve health and save lives,” would follow the science and be more attentive to the data. If Wellcome did so, it would likely redirect its resources and grants to research into the causes and consequences of pandemics, human addictions, cancers, vector-borne diseases, or other issues which demonstrably adversely impact the health of millions of people each year, rather than squandering valuable resources promoting false climate change-health harm scare stories.
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Coal mine expansion approved in Australia
Whitehaven Coal has received approval to expand a major coal mine in NSW’s Narrabri after a review by the state’s Independent Planning Commission which has imposed 152 conditions on the project including new measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The approval was immediately slammed by critics concerned the mine extension was at odds with urgent climate change goals, with the Australia Institute branding the decision “reckless and dangerous” given the nation’s need to cut pollution.
The Sydney-based coal miner has been operating Narrabi since 2012 where it employs 500 people and previously held a licence to produce 11m tonnes a year of coal until 2031.
The new expansion extends the life of the mine until 2044 and allows an extra 82m tonnes of thermal coal to be extracted after the IPC approved its plan.
“The Commission finds that, on balance, the application is not inconsistent with ecologically sustainable development principles, and that the project would achieve an appropriate balance between relevant environmental, economic and social considerations,” the IPC’s statement of reasons said.
The NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment had spent more than a year reviewing the project and gave the green light in January 2022 for the scheme which will extract coal to the south of the existing mine.
The IPC said it took into account the NSW government’s policies on mining and emissions reductions and objectors’ concerns on greenhouse gas emissions, including the increased methane that is predicted to be released beyond 2030.
“The Commission has set strict performance measures to curb the intensity of the mine’s Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions, which Whitehaven must comply with during the life of the mine,” the IPC said.
“Whitehaven will also be required by the Commission to complete an Emissions Minimisation Plan to investigate and implement innovative, economically-feasible ways to further reduce the mine’s Scope 1 emissions, including through deploying existing, emerging and future technologies.”
The Australia Institute slammed the IPC’s decision.
“The IPC claims that approving new coal production out to 2044 is ‘not inconsistent’ with net zero emissions goals or the Paris Agreement,” said Rod Campbell, research director with the Australia Institute.
“This will be a particularly dirty coal mine with massive direct methane emissions, so the NSW government cannot hide from the fact these emissions will be its responsibility.”
Activists Lock The Gate Alliance said it was “incensed” by the decision.
“We know that Whitehaven has no problem violating the conditions placed on its mining operations. The conditions imposed by Commissioners are cold comfort and hold no credibility,” Lock The Gate spokeswoman Georgina Woods said.
The IPC said Scope 3 emissions, pollution by Whitehaven’s coal customers, would add to climate change but said the pollution would be covered by international environmental pacts such as the 1.5 degree target outlined in the Paris climate accord.
“The Commission acknowledges that while the project’s Scope 3 emissions would contribute to anthropogenic climate change, they are more appropriately regulated and accounted for through broader national policies and international agreement such as the Paris Agreement,” the IPC said in its statement of reasons.
A number of submissions raised fears that the Narrabri extension would be inconsistent with the NSW government’s emissions reduction targets for 2030 – where it targets a 50 per cent but below 2005 levels – and a long-term net zero goal for 2050.
However, the IPC said the coal mine was consistent with broader goals and said Whitehaven was required to “continually investigate” technologies to cut fugitive methane emissions.
“The Commission is of the view that the project is not inconsistent with the NSW Climate Change Policy Framework, the Net Zero plan or Australia’s current obligations under the Paris agreement in respect of Australia’s current nationally determined contributions.”
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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3 April, 2022
More people may be hospitalized with low sodium levels due to climate change
This must be about the most twisted piece of reasoning I have seen. In plain language, hyponatremia is a low level of salt -- common table salt (NaCl) -- in the blood. It is very rare. We mostly have excess salt in our diet.
People who work hard and sweat a lot can lose too much salt. But salty food soon fixes that. Marathon runners can be endangered if the large amounts of water they drink while running contains no salt but people involved with that are aware of the danger and act accordingly. "Sporting" drinks generally contain salt
The main cause of hyponatremia is hospitalization. Hospitals have absorbed the "dangers" of salt and keep it out of the food they give to inpatients.
But aside from that, people run no risk of being low on salt
A new study has found that more people become hospitalized due to hyponatremia in temperatures above 15 degrees Celcius.
With climate change expected to increase temperatures across the world, the study predicts that an increase of 2 degrees Celsius could increase cases of hyponatremia by 13.9%
The human body needs sodium for various body functions — from conducting nerve impulses to regulating heart rate, digestion, brain activity, and blood pressure.
A person with mild hyponatremia may have no symptoms but if sodium levels drop too low or too fast, symptoms might include difficulty concentrating, headaches, and nausea. In more severe cases, symptoms can include confusion, seizures, and coma.
Seasonal changes in temperatures have also been linked to an increase in the prevalence of hyponatremia
In a recent study, researchers at the Karolinska Institute quantified the effect of outdoor temperature on the risk of hospitalization with hyponatremia.
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House Democrats Block American Energy Again
Democrats in the House of Representatives blocked Republican efforts to move ahead with consideration of the American Energy Independence from Russia Act on Thursday that would have reopened U.S. energy projects to combat the rising cost of fuel caused by the Biden administration's anti-fossil fuel agenda.
218 Democrats voted against considering the proposal offered on the House floor by Rep. Michelle Fischbach (R-MN), defeating the House GOP's plan for the fourth time and stopping the Republicans' plan to to bring relief to Americans who saw gas prices hit their all-time average high in March.
The legislation offered by Republicans would have green-lit the Keystone XL pipeline project, stripped restrictions on liquified natural gas exports, jumpstarted oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters, protected energy development from further attacks by President Biden, and required plans to replenish oil drawn from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Speaking on the House floor Thursday, House Republicans made the case for the legislation initially drafted by Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Bruce Westerman (R-AR).
"We should restart construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, overturn Biden's energy leasing moratorium, and expedite permits for pipelines and natural gas exports," said Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO). "We need the American Energy Independence from Russia Act."
"Biden continues to wage war on our domestic oil and gas industry that provides sustainable, reliable energy to the American people," said Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK). "This week, Biden doubled down his attack by releasing a budget that includes an astonishing $45 billion in tax hikes on the American energy producers."
"In his budget, President Biden has chosen to put solar panels ahead of natural gas, he has chosen to put windmills ahead of coal, he has chosen the Green New Deal ahead of Pennsylvanians," noted Rep. John Joyce. "Now, the president has decided to recklessly release oil from our strategic reserves without a concrete plan to refill them."
Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-IN) pointed out that, "Instead of turning to America's own energy sector to meet our energy needs, this administration is asking countries like Iran and Venezuela to compensate for the ban on Russian imports and ignoring America's energy producers. In doing so, they are prioritizing oil produced by dictators over American energy producers who support jobs and businesses here at home," he added.
"This is a self-imposed tax on all Americans. For those of us that have come from energy producing states, we know we can do better," reminded Rep, Blake Moore (R-UT). "It's past time we get back to what we were doing in 2019 when the United States was a net-exporter of energy — It's better for our economy and our environment when we produce domestically. In Utah we understand this because we do this," Moore said.
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UK: Boris Johnson to ‘bet big’ on nuclear energy despite Sunak’s reservations
Rishi Sunak is Chancellor of the Exchequer (Treasury secretary)
Boris Johnson wants his promised energy security strategy to “bet big” on nuclear despite Rishi Sunak’s reservations – but he has cooled on more onshore wind turbines in England amid a Conservative backlash.
The prime minister is determined to press ahead with plans to build up to eight new nuclear power stations even though the chancellor has concerns about the cost, projected to reach more than £13bn.
It is understood the energy strategy, expected to be announced next week, is likely to contain targets for nuclear but will not put a figure on the cost.
Johnson will also commit to a “stretching” target on offshore wind, according to a Whitehall source. But he is now said to be less enthusiastic about the possibilities of onshore wind in England, believing Scotland offers a better landscape for new turbines.
One ally of the prime minister said he would “not really [be] pushing for onshore wind in England” although it would “be in the strategy as an option where people want it, which realistically means in Scotland”.
Johnson and Sunak are understood to have discussed the new strategy this week, which was commissioned to ensure security of supply amid soaring gas prices fuelled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The document was delayed owing to a row over the scale of its ambitions on nuclear, but is now likely to be published at the end of next week.
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Washington State Plans to Outlaw Most New Gas-Powered Cars
SB 5974, which was recently signed (pdf) by Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee, establishes that “all publicly owned and privately owned passenger and light duty vehicles of model year 2030 or later that are sold, purchased, or registered in Washington state be electric vehicles” and creates an “interagency electric vehicle coordinating council.”
During the bill signing this week, Inslee said that the measure is climate-related and will “move us away from the transportation system our grandparents imagined and towards the transportation system our grandchildren dream of.”
Reports indicate that electric vehicles are cost-prohibitive for many Americans, with an average price for an electric car hovering around $50,000. According to local media, just 1.3 percent of cars on the road in Washington state are battery-powered.
Jeremy Horpedahl, an economist at the University of Arkansas, said the 2030 target is “overly ambitious.”
“A better approach would be to gradually encourage consumers to switch to electric vehicles and for private enterprise to build the charging infrastructure with incentives,” he told The Center Square, adding that consumers shouldn’t be forced to purchase electric vehicles.
“But whatever the ideal approach is, using economic incentives to encourage” electric vehicles is “far better than a strict mandate that bans fossil-fuel automobiles,” Horpedahl concluded.
Republicans in the state Legislature said they were cut out of negotiations over the transportation package. The bill, they argue, is not realistic.
“They want to force everybody into an electric vehicle for whatever reason they deem fit,” said Yakima Republican Sen. Curtis King, the ranking member of the Senate Transportation Committee, according to the Yakima Herald. “They want to take the choice away from the people because they think government knows more than anybody else.”
“There’s a lot more to it than just having the cars available,” Rep. Andrew Barkis, another Republican, told the paper. “We’ve got a long way to go for power supply and infrastructure and everything that goes along with it.”
There have also been concerns raised about electric vehicles’ spent lithium-ion batteries. According to the International Energy Agency, a predicted 23 million electric vehicles sold in 2030 could produce 750,000 tonnes of retired batteries by 2040.
It comes as AAA data shows that as of Friday, gas prices across the United States have remained close to historically high levels. The average price of a gallon of regular gas costs about $4.21 per gallon, AAA data shows, while Washington state averages about $4.72 per gallon
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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1 April, 2022
Antarctic Sea Ice Minimum Is Nothing Unusual
It’s another climate calamity. Greenpeace has said this year’s decline in the extent of Antarctic sea ice was unprecedented since measurements began.
It goes to show that some climate watchers have no idea about natural variation, seeing every change as being due to creeping climate change.
Such is the case with reporting of recent data from the National Sea Ice Data Center, which shows that this year Antarctic sea ice reached the lowest extent in the satellite record (post-1979).
The previous record was set in March 2017, at 2.1 million square kilometers, but by 20 February this year, it was 1.98 million square kilometers.
The extent of Antarctic sea ice is very sensitive to atmospheric and oceanic conditions. It will grow when it’s cold enough and because there are no land barriers the ice is thin meaning it can be moved easily by winds, covering a large area.
This year the record low was partly due to strong winds pushing ice away from the Ross Sea. This is not due to global warming, it’s natural variability, or in other words, weather.
This year’s record low occurred in a similar way as the 2017 low. Both times there was an earlier than average maximum sea-ice extent, followed by a rapid decline.
Since 2017 the sea-ice extent stayed well below average for two years, returning to near-average in 2020.
You only have to take a quick look at the data to realize that Antarctic sea ice has a lot of year-to-year variabilities. See figure 1 from the journal Nature.
The highest Antarctic sea-ice minimums were reached in 2008 (3.69 million square kilometers) and 2013 (3.68 million square kilometers) but in 2015 and 2016 the minimum dropped considerably.
With this much variability, it is hardly surprising a record low has been attained this year.
Such interannual variability contradicts the predictions of some climate models that it should decrease in response to increased greenhouse-gas emissions.
Global warming could have a role in this new record, but it is far too early to tell. I expect that next year the extent of sea ice reverts back to average.
https://climatechangedispatch.com/antarctic-sea-ice-minimum-is-nothing-unusual/
***************************************************Chile’s Economic Destruction is a Preview of what’s in Store for Biden’s America
For some years now, we have followed the work of Douglas Pollock, a civil industrial engineer from the University of Chile, who shows what happened in his country when it followed the sort of climate and energy policies now being promoted by President Joe Biden. Pollock has written widely in his country, and spoken at conferences around the world to explain the devastating economic impact of Chile’s wrong-headed policies. His efforts to warn institutions about the unnecessary harm that fighting climate change is causing resulted in his views being banned in Chile and throughout Latin America. Thankfully, Americans can still hear his cautionary tale. “Please don’t follow Chile!” warns Pollock. “Chile is no longer the thriving country it was until the early nineties.”
In his presentation at the Dec 3, 2019, conference of the Arlington Heights, Illinois-based free-market think tank, The Heartland Institute, Pollock gave a Chilean history lesson that should send chills down the backs of anyone concerned about the long-term impacts of Biden’s climate change plans. Held in Madrid in conjunction with the 25th Conference of the Parties (COP25) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Heartland’s event gave Pollock the opportunity to demonstrate what happens when a country goes hog-wild on climate policy. He showed a slide that said, “Chile has become the world’s most important emerging country for its outstanding climate behavior,” and so he won the UN’s “Champion of the Earth” award in December 2017. Chile is “the cuddliest cuddly toy to the UN,” said Pollock. “What an honor!” he concluded sarcastically.
Pollock explained that things started to go awry in Chile when, between 2006 and 2010, ministries of energy, environment, and a superintendent of the environment were formed. Then sensible and cost-effective energy sources started to be curtailed, while wind and solar power were boosted. In particular, Pollock spoke about two major energy projects (see table below), a 540 MW coal station, canceled in 2010, and a 2,750 MW hydro project, canceled in 2016. After three years of bureaucracy, the coal project had already passed all environmental reviews but was canceled by then-President Sebastián Piñera. The hydroelectric project was by far the world’s most efficient. Yet, after seven years and $250 million in bureaucratic machinations and trials, it too was finally repealed by then-President Michelle Bachelet.
Pollock said, concerning the hydro project:
“If it had been built, since 2018, that single plant would represent today more than 45% of the national hydroelectric generation, and more than 55% of the entire generation would come from hydroelectricity, the cheapest, the cleanest, the most stable, and fortunately the most abundant [energy source in Chile].”
Instead, Bachelet announced the construction of two power plants—wind and solar—as indicated in the table below, boasting that they would supply 70% of the power for Santiago’s subway. Concerning the project, Pollock cited the president:
“She said, ‘[This is the only project like this] in the entire world.’ She was right because I don’t know of any other country on planet Earth having done such nonsense. Electricity costs for the subway rose 210% from $47.6 to $100 per MWh.”
Even worse, in 2021, the 210 MW Cerro Dominador combined concentrated solar power and the photovoltaic plant was commissioned, the electricity from which, Pollock forecasted, would cost 25 times as much as the canceled 2,750 MW hydro project. Overall, he explained, the new wind and solar projects were expected to produce electricity eleven times more expensive than the canceled conventional power plants.
With these sorts of decisions, it is not surprising that, as illustrated by the following graph from the International Energy Agency, Chile, in 2019, had one of the highest industrial electricity rates in the world, not a particularly attractive calling card for businesses.
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Australia: Carbon farming under scrutity
Carbon farming is when the government pays farmers to plant trees etc. It can include reverting cleared land to native bush and conversion of crop-land to grass cover
Energy Minister Angus Taylor says significant criticisms of the nation’s carbon credits scheme – a rort, according to former senior government advisory chairman Andrew Macintosh – are “completely unfounded” and a direct attack on farmers, traditional owners and public servants.
In a speech to the Carbon Market Institute on Friday, Mr Taylor will accuse the Australian Conservation Foundation of “backing away” from the claims made by Professor Macintosh.
Separately, a flagged veto on some native forest regeneration carbon projects will begin next Friday, the government will announce. Under those changes, the agriculture minister will be able to stop projects if they are deemed to have an adverse impact on agricultural production and regional communities.
These native forest regeneration projects, along with other methods, generate ACCUs after being registered with the Clean Energy Regulator.
But the ACCU scheme has come under considerable criticism including from Professor Macintosh, a law academic at the Australian National University who has chaired the government’s Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee – the body tasked with ensuring the integrity of carbon offset projects.
Professor Macintosh told the ABC’s 7.30 program last Thursday that the nation’s carbon market had “degenerated to become a rort”. “Payments are being made to people to not chop down forests that were never going to be chopped down, to grow forests that are already there, to grow forests in places that will never sustain permanent forests,” he said.
But Mr Taylor will say many of those allegations – now being investigated by the ERAC and the regulator – had already been considered and “were not supported by evidence”.
“Many of (the market’s) participants are feeling aggrieved by accusations which do not appear to be substantiated by the academic papers,” he will say.
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The unsustainable secret of almost half of Australia’s ‘sustainable’ funds
Is it ethical to invest in fossil fuels? Turns out almost half of Australia’s sustainable fund managers think so. Morningstar analysed the assets of 155 sustainable funds and found 74 of them had fossil fuel investments.
The bulk of these (65) had what Morningstar considers low exposure, meaning 7 per cent or less of their assets is invested in oil, gas or thermal coal.
But some had much more.
The worst offenders were Patrizia Low Carbon Core Infrastructure Fund with 47 per cent, followed by JP Morgan Global Macro Sustainable (20 per cent) and Maple Brown Asset Management Responsible Investment (18.70 per cent).
The data exposes the often ugly complexities of the responsible investment movement.
Unlike Europe, there is no ‘green taxonomy’ in Australia, meaning there is no accepted list of sectors that responsible investors are permitted to include in sustainably branded funds. This has allowed the ‘ethical’ tag to be slapped across some of the most environmentally degrading tactics, such as drilling in the Arctic Ocean.
None of the worst offenders fully disclosed their portfolio holdings. This means clients have limited ability to see exactly where their money is going. Most product disclosure statements have vague commitments to “take into account” environment, social and governance (ESG) factors or tout their membership of responsible investment bodies.
There are three possible explanations for why investment managers would stack ‘sustainable’ funds with uniquely unsustainable energy sources.
At this rate, it seems almost anything can be called sustainable. And that’s simply not sustainable.
The first two are rooted in the idea that investing in fossil fuels is, in fact, a sustainable practice. While this may sound counter-intuitive, it’s worth considering.
Exploring, extracting and exporting fossil fuels is a capital-intensive business. The divestment movement has worked to push up the cost of capital, making it harder for these companies to access both debt and equity to finance new projects. The Russia-Ukraine war and the resulting new focus on energy supply constraints and dependency on producers such as Russia might change this.
But ‘engagement’ via investor activism has increasingly become the strategy du jour, with the aim to use the power of the dollar to agitate for change. This has seen fossil fuel companies pen ‘climate plans’, setting out the blueprint for how they will survive in a green energy future.
The question is – can you really engage a pure-play fossil fuel producer into changing its stripes?
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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For the notes and pix appearing in the sidebar of the original blog see HERE
Most pictures that I use in the body of the blog should stay up throughout the year. But how long they stay up after that is uncertain. At the end of every year therefore I intend to put up a collection of all pictures used my blogs in that year. That should enable missing pictures to be replaced. The archive of last year's pictures on this blog is therefore now up. Note that the filename of the picture is clickable and clicking will bring the picture up. See here (2021). See also here (2020)
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