RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-myth-of-clean/

‘Clean’, like ‘smart’, has become the prerequisite for all technology. Both are myths.

Smart technology is surveillance technology. It is not smarter because of its inherent qualities, but because it sends and receives data that allows it to be ‘smarter’ in manipulating users. The smart part of smart technology comes from human beings. So does the stupid part when people sacrifice their privacy and independence for the benefits of technology being shaped to them.

Clean energy is even more of a myth. The Inflation Increase Act doles out another stream of billions toward the inefficient forms of energy generation that the government has been subsidizing for over 50 years because some Madison Avenue ad agency branded them ‘clean’.

Energy is inherently clean and dirty. Making the inherent forces of the universe useful requires mining metal, cutting down trees, and turning fossil fuels into plastic to assemble machines. Once those machines are running, they will shed heat because ‘clean’ or ‘dirty’, that is how the second law of thermodynamics works. Not even Al Gore can evade entropy and not even the shiniest solar panel, sleekest wind turbines or smoothly humming Tesla will prevent energy from being wasted as it is transferred, stored or used to do one thing or another locally or nationally.

The only truly energy efficient energy comes from bioluminescent creatures like fireflies. We didn’t make them and despite all the boasts from technocrats, we can’t duplicate them.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dont-believe-the-hype-about-antarcticas-melting-glaciers-ice-sheet-climate-change-global-warming-sea-levels-greenland-iceberg-ocean-11663618509?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Alarming reports that the Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking misrepresent the science under way to understand a very complex situation. Antarctica has been ice-covered for at least 30 million years. The ice sheet holds about 26.5 million gigatons of water (a gigaton is a billion metric tons, or about 2.2 trillion pounds). If it were to melt completely, sea levels would rise 190 feet. Such a change is many millennia in the future, if it comes at all.

Much more modest ice loss is normal in Antarctica. Each year, some 2,200 gigatons (or 0.01%) of the ice is discharged in the form of melt and icebergs, while snowfall adds almost the same amount. The difference between the discharge and addition each year is the ice sheet’s annual loss. That figure has been increasing in recent decades, from 40 gigatons a year in the 1980s to 250 gigatons a year in the 2010s.

But the increase is a small change in a complex and highly variable process. For example, Greenland’s annual loss has fluctuated significantly over the past century. And while the Antarctic losses seem stupendously large, the recent annual losses amount to 0.001% of the total ice and, if they continued at that rate, would raise sea level by only 3 inches over 100 years.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/09/19/democrats-are-astroturfing-climate-alarmism-among-latinos-as-families-suffer-from-record-inflation/

Latina mothers care about economic opportunity and the fact that the American Dream is slipping away under Joe Biden’s disastrous leadership.

The Latino Victory Project, a left-wing super PAC co-founded by Eva Longoria, is dumping $5 million into a campaign to promote climate hysteria among Latinos. The project is called the “Vote Like a Madre” campaign, which is an odd campaign name from a party that is fighting to erase “madres,” preferring the genderless title “birthing people.”

The “Vote like a Madre” campaign encourages Latina moms to make a “pinky promise” to their children that they’ll only vote for candidates with “bold plans to fight climate change.” The campaign conveniently omits the fact that progressive climate change policies are responsible for the record-high gas and food prices and other economic woes that Hispanics rank as their No. 1 voting issue.

A long A-list of celebrity Latinas, like Jennifer Lopez, America Ferrera, Dr. Luz Towns-Miranda, Jessica Alba, and Rosario Dawson are participating in the hashtag. However, this astroturfing climate campaign isn’t just relying on celebrity endorsements.

The “Vote Like a Madre” campaign is also paying smaller Latina social media influencers, particularly those in swing states Nevada and Arizona, to promote the illusion that Latina mothers are worried about climate change.

The Latino Victory Project has hired a New York City-based company called “People First” to recruit social media influencers to participate in the “Vote Like a Madre” campaign for pay or perks. “If you are interested in participating in this campaign, please answer the following,” writes People First Digital Relational Organizer Logan Smith in an email obtained by The Federalist, “[c]onfirm that you are a Latina,” “[s]tate whether you live in Arizona or Nevada (if you live in another state, please send a screenshot of your audience location analytics, as we can only work with creators with a large audience in Arizona or Nevada),” and “[s]tate whether you are a mother, an aunt, and/or a grandmother.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/09/19/how-global-warming-is-a-lot-like-get-trump/

“Meanwhile, President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party, and much of the media want the country to believe that, led by “MAGA Republicans,” the dark night of fascism continues to descend on the U.S. They are partly right. There is a distinct whiff of fascism in the air. But it’s the Democrats who released the stench with their efforts to crush dissent and establish single-party rule over constitutional governing.”

Brilliant author Tom Wolfe wrote more than 45 years ago that “the dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.” While still relevant to our present times, it’s the sort of observation that can also be applied to a couple of other events playing out in our world today.

First up, global warming. We’ve been hearing the shrill warnings, a constant wave of hysteria for more than three decades. Because of man’s use of fossil fuels, we’ve been told the polar ice caps would melt, glaciers would collapse en masse, snow would stop falling, rising sea levels would flood coastal regions, and droughts and floods would be the rule rather than rare exceptions.

It’s hard to even recall a time when this alarmist or that climatista wasn’t trying to convince the world that we have only eight or 10 or 11 or maybe “zero” years, possibly even less than 100 months, to change our fossil-fuel-burning ways before Gaia would see to it that we begin to suffer and perish.

In fact, we shouldn’t even be here today. In 1989, the Associated Press reported that “a senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.” 

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/09/in_the_climate_change_church_the_woke_play_pope.html

The cult of global warming wants all your money.  The more enthusiastically you pay for skyrocketing food and fuel costs — part and parcel of the World Economic Forum’s dreams for a centrally controlled economy — the more piously you can demonstrate that the good “green” spirit has filled you to the brim with virtue.  Are you worthy of Mother Earth’s blessings?  That depends!  Do you drive an electric vehicle?  Are you committed to the eternal gospel that all hydrocarbon molecules are evil and that free market economies cause inclement weather?  Do you regularly condemn “climate skeptics” as charlatans deserving of censorship, persecution, and even death for their lies?  You don’t doubt the prophecies of Klaus Schwab, Barack Obama, George Soros, Al Gore, or any of the other church elders, do you?  To question the climate change prophets is to blaspheme!  To question man-made global warming is to sin!  To question that the “science is settled” is to invite an apocalyptic hell dooming the planet!  Disciples, commit yourself to the climate change church, do what you’re told, preach the “green” dogma to wayward doubters, and without exception, always…penitently…obey!

Climate change zealotry is a scam.  That so many hundreds of millions of human beings around the world have allowed themselves to get caught up in the greatest, most diabolical con game of all time is endlessly vexing.  There is no better example of how dangerous a mind virus can be.  When people are shamed into turning off their critical thinking skills and blindly accepting an idea on faith alone, the damage is never less than immense.  

I don’t know how many times I’ve had some version of this conversation with otherwise rationally thinking people: So you agree that power corrupts and that governments routinely lie?  Oh, of course.  And you recognize that the U.S. government, like all others, has spread waves of propaganda at different points in history to affect public opinion, justify wars, win elections, increase budgets, avoid responsibility for heinous crimes, etc.?  Isn’t that obvious?  Right, okay, but on this one issue — that man’s use of cheap and abundant supplies of hydrocarbon energy, which has raised the global standard of living exponentially over the last century like no other time in human history, is coincidentally so dangerous that it must be regulated and controlled by a handful of wealthy global economic elites who promise to save the planet only if we do as they say and obey — you believe that those same liars are telling the truth?  Of course!  Who could make up such a lie?  It’s backed up by science!  Right. 

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/09/15/new-epa-regulations-are-bureaucratic-overreach-at-their-worst/

The use of “chemicals” always sounds bad, especially if they have unpronounceable laboratory names. Nobody really wants chemicals in their food, water, house, clothing, or landfills. But what is a chemical? Look it up and you’ll find that any substance consisting of matter is a chemical, including every liquid, solid, and gas. That means any pure substance or any mixture, natural or manmade. The only things that are not chemicals are those not made up of matter: things like light, heat, sound, or ideas.  

When someone calls for eliminating chemicals, therefore, it is vital to define very precisely what they seek to ban. Even manmade chemicals include practically everything in our consumer world, so specifics are essential. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is ratcheting up its two-year plan to ban the manufacture, use, and disposal of PFAS, short for perfluoroalkyl substances and polyfluoroalkyl substances. Those sound horrible. Most people probably wouldn’t want to be even near anything sounding like that, so banning them sounds right. But what exactly are they?

Beginning with everyday products coated with Teflon, PFAS are a broad range of compounds that prevent sticking and that repel moisture. That includes most plastics, nonstick cookware, water-resistant clothing, and products that resist grease, water, and oil, such as pizza boxes, tents, sleeping bags, and even dental floss. But that’s not all. PFAS are also in photographs, computers, printers, cell phones, cars, air conditioners, laundry detergent, shampoo, lotion, soap, makeup, carpets, prescription bottles, glass and windows, and hundreds of medical devices, from implants and catheters to surgical mesh and sterile containers. These chemicals are central to the function of fire extinguishers and firefighting foam (which airports are required by law to use) and are important components of windmills and solar panels. PFAS are everywhere.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/09/14/electric-cars-are-not-zero-emission-vehicles/

“In reality, electric cars emit substantial amounts of pollutants and may be more harmful to the environment than conventional cars.”

While praising California’s decision to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, Governor Gavin Newsom declared that this will require “100% of new car sales in California to be zero-emission vehicles” like “electric cars.” In reality, electric cars emit substantial amounts of pollutants and may be more harmful to the environment than conventional cars.

Toxic Pollution

The notion that electric vehicles are “zero-emission” is rooted in a deceptive narrative that ignores all pollutants which don’t come out of a tailpipe. Assessing the environmental impacts of energy technologies requires measuring all forms of pollution they emit over their entire lives, not a narrow slice of them. To do this, researchers perform “life cycle assessments” or LCAs. As explained by the Environmental Protection Agency, LCAs allow for:

the estimation of the cumulative environmental impacts resulting from all stages in the product life cycle, often including impacts not considered in more traditional analyses (e.g., raw material extraction, material transportation, ultimate product disposal, etc.). By including the impacts throughout the product life cycle, LCA provides a comprehensive view of the environmental aspects of the product or process and a more accurate picture of the true environmental trade-offs in product and process selection.

LCAs are subject to multiple levels of uncertainty, but an assessment published by the Journal of Cleaner Production in 2021 shatters the notion that electric cars are cleaner than conventional ones, much less “zero emission.” The LCA found that manufacturing, charging, operating, and disposing of electric vehicles produces more of every major category of pollutants than conventional cars. This includes:

an increase in fine particulate matter formation (26%), human carcinogenic (20%) and non-carcinogenic toxicity (61%), terrestrial ecotoxicity (31%), freshwater ecotoxicity (39%), and marine ecotoxicity (41%) relative to petrol vehicles.

Foreshadowing that result, a 2018 report by the European Environment Agency warned that studies on the “human toxicity impacts” of electric vehicles were “limited” and that electric cars “could be responsible for greater negative impacts” than conventional cars.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/09/09/californias-net-zero-energy-model-is-already-a-disaster-so-why-would-the-rest-of-the-u-s-copy-it/

When it comes to “net-zero” energy policy, the commentary coming from the Biden administration these days is truly dizzying. Americans are now being told that California’s crazy energy policies would be a good model for the rest of the nation. Have these people seen what’s going on there?

California’s plan to ban all gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 and replace them with electric vehicles “could be” a model for the rest of the nation, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm recently said.

She didn’t mean that as a warning, but you should know: It is one.

“I think California really is leaning in. And of course, the federal government has a goal of — the president has announced — by 2030 that half of the vehicles in the U.S., the new ones sold would be electric,” Granholm added.

Get that? She’s saying the federal government, already trying to destroy the auto industry and ruin the oil industry through insane regulations and restrictions that have pushed energy costs to prohibitive levels, hasn’t gone far enough.

Cali’s nuttiness has only just begun under far-left Gov. Gavin Newsom, but already it’s wreaking havoc on the state’s economy. No sooner had California issued its new rules moving the state toward all electrical vehicles than it was slammed with record heat. The state then told EV owners not to charge their cars.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/09/news_flash_there_is_no_climate_change_emergency.html

There is no climate change emergency, human-caused or otherwise, according to over 1,100 objective, truth-seeking scientists and professionals from over 35 countries.  Many of the scientists are climatologists, environmental scientists, pollution meteorologists, and climate researchers who fully support the findings of the Global Climate Emergency Group (GCEG) in its recently released report, entitled “World Climate Declaration: There Is No Climate Emergency.” 

The significance of this report cannot be overstated.  It directly refutes the climate emergency claims of many of the world’s so-called “elites,” the World Economic Forum, elements of the United Nations, America’s Democrat party, and other promoters of climate change catastrophe.  Further, the findings of the report strongly negate efforts to do away with fossil fuels and charge full steam ahead to deploy electric vehicles as quickly as possible and spend many billions of dollars on near-term green energy projects, etc.

Dr. Michael Rectenwald, noted author and former professor at New York University, recently reported that various Democrats are pressuring the Biden administration to declare a climate emergency.  These people believe (or knowingly falsely state ) that failure to do so will result in excess carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions killing every living creature on Earth in just a few years.  For example, Representative Alan Lowenthal, a California Democrat, is quoted as saying, “We have a few years left, and that’s it.  The planet is dying.”

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/green-parties-facing-reality-check/

How pleasant it is to watch an idea fall apart. Especially when it is an idea held by people you don’t particularly care for. In recent years all of the democracies have been plagued by green parties. The kindest interpretation of them is that they provide a wake-up call of some sort: a reminder that we should be kind to our planet, that sort of thing. But in every country they got too free a ride. They ended up preaching catastrophism to a supplicant media. And they ended up demanding that we all get off fossil fuels yesterday without any satisfactory explanation of how we were meant to keep the lights on today. That pleasant period for them came to a halt this year, when that old friend of conservatives — reality — kicked in.

When Vladimir Putin chose to invade Ukraine in February, one of the things that was finally brought to greater public attention was Europe’s reliance on Russian gas. In recent years countries such as Germany were very happy to rely on Russian gas for their energy needs. At the same time they were thrilled to be able to cover themselves in a green veneer by shutting down their nuclear and coal-fired power stations.

Four years ago, at the United Nations General Assembly, the then-president Donald Trump spoke about the dangers of such reliance. As he put it:

Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course. Here in the western hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers.

But the Germans, and everybody else, knew better.