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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE

In the Realm of the King of Lies Peter Smith

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2022/06/in-the-realm-of-the-king-of-lies/

“Snow is a thing of the past. ‘Drowning’ Pacific Islands. More widespread and intense droughts, floods, famines, bushfires, cyclones. Millions of climate refugees. Like so much of the state-sponsored COVID hysteria, not a word of it is true or ever likely to be, And yet that is what we are expected to swallow day after day after day.”

Did you know that the Australian government is still running TV ads spruiking vaccinations against COVID? I didn’t until recently. Presumably, it’s to do with the limited number of programs I watch. I must have inadvertently diversified my viewing. In the space of a few days, I’ve seen repeats of two nauseous ads. One, encouraging very healthy-looking people to “boost [their] happiness”, or so we’re told. The other, encouraging vaccinations, “which have been rigorously tested,” for children from five to eleven years; “to protect them, other kids, their families and everyone else”.

Leaving aside the fact that normal people have moved on, I was struck by the continuing implicit lie. The lie is that healthy people and children are at any material risk from COVID. They are not, and never have been from the very start. Giving novel medicine to those at no risk from a disease, particularly children, seems to me to be shockingly neglectful of doing no harm.

The only people at material risk from the virus are those who are obese in addition to having other underlying illnesses. And where is the proof that the vaccines have helped them? I haven’t seen it. How many obese people with co-morbidities have been saved by the vaccines? Maybe none. We know the vaccines don’t prevent infection or transmission. Just maybe they’re totally ineffective in saving lives. Not true? OK, show us the studies.

You might query my take on things. You might say ‘how could governments, drug companies, the medical profession, get away with such outrageous lying?’ Well, then, you haven’t been paying attention. We now live within a house of lies.

‘Climate primitives’ are destroying our standard of living By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/06/climate_primitives_are_destroying_our_standard_of_living.html

Australian commentator Andrew Bolt has come up with a great term for the green fanatics who are shutting down energy production from dependable fuels with no reliable alternatives.  They reject modern agriculture because it uses chemicals derived from hydrocarbons, but offer no prospect of feeding the earth’s hungry billions. Bolt’s latest column (paywalled) the Herald Sun in Melbourne (he also appears on Sky News) has come up with an apt term for such people: “Climate primitives.”

Logo for The Bolt Report on Sky News

Because of the paywall, I must limit myself to fair use excerpts, but the logic of what he says is strong enough that readers can grasp the essence.

Congratulations! We’re now becoming one of those primitive societies that our earth-worshipping Left dream lived in “harmony” with nature. (snip)

… like pre-colonialism Tasmanian Aborigines, who for some bizarre reason gave up fishing 4000 years ago, even though it often meant going hungry in winter.

Or like people living in parts of Nigeria who won’t feed their growing children meat or eggs for fear the spirits will make them grow evil.

Joe Biden’s ‘Green Energy’ Dreams: Enriching Friends, Crushing the Working Class By Levi Russell

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2022/06/08/joe_bidens_green_energy_dreams_enriching_friends_crushing_the_working_class_836339.html

President Biden has moved on from making excuses for the massive inflation caused by his failed energy policies and perilously weak foreign policy to claiming that it is the price we must all pay for a “transition” to a new world order. This new order will give us slower but, allegedly, more stable economic growth and a complete abolition of all non-”green” energy. This commentary likely appeals to the climate hysterics in his party, but falls on deaf ears for the rest of us. 

As Jude Clemente pointed out last month, Biden’s policies and their catastrophic effects have likely ruined many Americans’ taste for a policy-driven transition away from conventional energy sources. The latest Gallup poll tracking Americans’ top issues of concern puts the economy at #1 (39%). Poor leadership in the government was the top non-economic issue at 20%. According to the poll, only 2% of Americans listed climate change and the environment as their top issue of concern.

As much as EPA Administrator Jennifer Granholm, whose husband runs a consulting firm for “green” energy companies, claims that she wants to make electric cars more affordable for Americans, she must realize that such a claim is nonsense. The EPA cannot make anything cost less. It can take money from poorer people and give it to richer people in the form of subsidies for EVs. It can make normal cars much, much more costly. Climate hysterics in the government know this and simply won’t admit it. 

Biden’s Flagrant Abuse of Emergency Powers Must Be Stopped By Dominic Pino

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/06/bidens-flagrant-abuse-of-emergency-powers-must-be-stopped/

The president is misusing the Defense Production Act and harming the economy by pretending green energy is essential to our national defense.

In a spate of executive actions on Monday, President Biden invoked his authority under the Defense Production Act (DPA) to declare that a variety of green-energy-related materials were “essential to national defense,” and that as a result, the government would be stepping in to increase their production.

Biden’s actions are an abuse of presidential power, and they have the potential to cause serious harm to the American economy in the long run.

In five separate presidential memoranda, Biden said he was using his authority under Section 303 of the DPA to mandate that the government stimulate the production of materials critical to the green-energy sector, including: electrolyzers, fuel cells, and platinum group metals; solar photovoltaic modules and module components; transformers and electric-power-grid components; electric heat pumps; and insulation.

Per the Congressional Research Service (CRS), Section 303 grants the president much broader authority than the section of the law Biden invoked last month in an effort to address the nationwide baby-formula shortage: It allows the government to make purchase commitments for the resources named, directly subsidize their production, and install and purchase equipment used for their production in either government or privately owned facilities. To unlock those considerable economic powers, the law says that the president has to determine that the resource is “essential to national defense,” that U.S. industry won’t produce enough of the resource in a timely manner, and that the actions taken are “the most cost-effective, expedient, and practical alternative method for meeting the need” for the resource.

The World Health Organization’s Climate Neurosis The global health shop says eco-anxiety is an urgent problem.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-whos-climate-neurosis-world-health-organization-climate-change-mental-health-depression-11654637336?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Measles cases are spiking globally. More than 1,000 monkeypox cases have been reported in 29 countries, and children around the world are developing hepatitis for unknown reasons. And what is the World Health Organization focused on? Climate change, naturally.

The WHO on Friday published a report on the potential mental-health impact of climate change, and better see your psychiatrist before it’s too late. “There are gaps in understanding the impact of climate change on mental health and psychosocial well-being, but current knowledge is sufficient to act!” the 16-page report says. When do knowledge gaps ever stop climate lobbyists from demanding that governments grab more power?

Colorful graphics explain that “witnessing changes and damage to landscape and ecosystems” and “awareness of climate change and extreme weather events and their impacts” could lead to strained social relationships, anxiety, depression, intimate partner violence, helplessness, suicidal behavior and alcohol and substance abuse, among other things.

Yes, the WHO has found a way to link climate change to every social problem under the sun. If rising sea levels, warmer temperatures, wildfires and hurricanes don’t destroy civilization, anxiety about apocalyptic predictions will.

More On Energy Fantasy Versus Reality In Woke-Land Francis Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2022-6-5-more-on-energy-fantasy-versus-reality-in-woke-land

It’s official: the world is committed to rapidly reducing CO2 emissions. Just look at the the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, or President Biden’s April 22, 2021 press release, or California’s SB 100 climate act, or New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, or Germany’s Energiewende, or the UK’s Net Zero pledge, or any of many other such pledges.

And essentially all of woke corporate America is on board with the program. Consider the tidal wave of so-called “ESG” investing, focused on re-organizing corporate activities to reduce carbon emissions. Super-woke banking giant JP Morgan is leading the charge. From a recent JP Morgan press release:

JPMorgan Chase aims to finance and facilitate more than $2.5 trillion over 10 years – beginning this year through the end of 2030 – to advance long-term solutions that address climate change and contribute to sustainable development. . . . This long-term target complements the firm’s Paris-aligned financing strategy and will help accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy by encouraging actions that set a path for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

And yet, somehow it just doesn’t seem to be happening. Australia’s ABC notices the disconnect in a June 3 piece with the headline “Climate scientists warn of increased climate change events as carbon emissions fail to drop.” Key point:

Emissions across the globe continue to rise despite nations committing to cut them.

Our Fossil-Fuels Future By Robert Zubrin

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/06/our-fossil-fuels-future/

Alex Epstein explains why the world needs more fossil fuels.

Alex Epstein, author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, has delivered another knockout punch against Green ideology. Aptly entitled “Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas — Not Less,” Epstein’s new work includes the comprehensive factual case for fossil fuels as he presented it in his earlier book. He then proceeds to eviscerate the mental framework behind the war on fuel.

Epstein begins his discourse by identifying the “knowledge system” being used to perpetrate the anti-carbon crusade. He then very reasonably states that any judgment regarding the positive or negative nature of any phenomenon, including fossil-fuel use, should include consideration of both its pluses and minuses. He then describes the extraordinarily positive impact of fossil-fuel use on the development and maintenance of modern civilization. In particular, he focuses on the unprecedented gains in health, productivity, education, mobility, safety, life spans, leisure time, living standards, environmental quality, and practically any other index of human well-being one could mention. He does this with the help of a series of graphs, as follows.

In figure 1, he shows that, far from causing a climate catastrophe, fossil-fuel use has virtually ended climate catastrophes, with the number of climate-related deaths falling 98 percent in the last century. Epstein says this is due not to any marked improvement in the climate but rather to increased societal resiliency as a result of our growing fossil-fuel-enabled technological powers. For example, deaths due to extreme temperatures have been greatly reduced through effective home heating and air conditioning, and deaths due to famine have been virtually eliminated both by the abundance produced by fossil-fuel-driven fertilized and irrigated agriculture and by modern society’s fossil-fuel-enabled ability to rapidly transport food around the world. In addition, he says, CO2 enrichment of the atmosphere has accelerated the rate of plant growth worldwide. This is true, as shown by NASA satellite data. He could also have mentioned that warming has expanded the growing season, as shown by EPA data. (Climate alarmists never mention this, either, even though it is the strongest proof of the reality of warming. Guess why not.)

The Climate Cult and Their Green Lethargy Future Environmentalists have waged war on fossil fuels, the Industrial Revolution, and capitalism in general. Their “solutions” will make us all poorer, more vulnerable, and less free. By Thaddeus G. McCotter

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/03/the-climate-cult-and-their-green-lethargy-future/

When I was in Congress, I once went on a fact-finding trip to Pakistan. At the time, the country was being wracked by a terrorist bombing campaign intended, in large part, to destabilize the government of President Pervez Musharraf. What I found, however, was that President Musharraf was facing another threat to his rule. 

During a brief stay in Islamabad, my hotel room suddenly went dark one evening. It wasn’t terrorism. It was a rolling power blackout. Earlier, I had heard firsthand accounts of the dissatisfaction this caused Pakistanis, including how the rolling blackouts facilitated extremism’s spread and tactics. The blame for the blackout was placed squarely on Musharraf. As I looked out my window across an eerily darkened capital city, given all the challenges facing them, I couldn’t help but pity the Pakistani people for having to endure yet another tribulation: having to live with such a substandard power grid.

Now, the Pakistani people can pity me.  

Per Fox News, the apocalyptic climate cult is bringing their rolling blackouts to Michigan to benight the state whose ingenious, hardworking people and the unparalleled industrial prowess they built and operated had once put the world on wheels and kept the world safe. 

Green Energy Chickens Coming Home to Roost Never in history has a civilization willfully embarked on destroying its own material foundations. Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/green-energy-chickens-coming-home-roost-bruce-thornton/

This year will graphically demonstrate the malign consequences of the misguided efforts to replace cheap, reliable fossil fuel energy with unreliable, inefficient “renewable” energy like wind and solar. Never in history has a civilization willfully embarked on destroying its material foundations, based solely on a hypothesis rather than scientifically established fact.

The first red flag alerting us to this feckless policy appeared during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Much of Europe––the most aggressive nations in replacing fossil fuels with wind turbines and solar panels––has grown dependent on Russian exports to make up for the energy lost from shutting down nuclear and coal-fired power plants. Since directly helping Ukraine by fighting is politically impossible, sanctions were imposed on Russia’s oil and gas industries.

But sanctions severe enough to concentrate Putin’s mind carried a political cost as well as an economic one. So Europe is still buying Russian energy, postponing tougher sanctions until the end of the year. The result has been the embarrassing and dishonorable spectacle of European countries helping to finance Russia’s brutal war crimes. Indeed some have accepted Putin’s condition that purchases be made in rubles, thus mitigating the damage to Russia’s economy.

Here at home, warnings of electricity blackouts across the country this summer have not slowed down many states’ increased efforts to shutter electrical plants powered by coal, natural gas, and nuclear fission. In New York, Governor Kathy Holchul has announced the state’s commitment to enforcing a requirement that new power plants must achieve “zero on-site greenhouse gas emissions for new construction no later than 2027.” This policy of wishful thinking follows New York’s Climate Act of 2019, which requires that all power generation comes from “green” sources by 2040, including 70% from renewable energy by 2030.

Green Rope-a-Dope: China Watches as America Greens By Joel Kotkin

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/green-rope-a-dope-china-watches-as-america-greens/

If this is what we are being told we must do for the ‘Great Reset,’ it’s time to unset it.

The color green has long been associated with envy, but increasingly it’s becoming a pigment of mass delusion. Amid near-hysterical reporting about the climate, the U.S., and much of the West, is embracing willy-nilly policies likely to weaken our economy and boost China’s ascendancy at the expense of democracy and market economies.

In essence, China is adopting a version of the great Muhammad Ali’s “rope-a-dope” boxing strategy, which had the opponent wear himself out by launching harmless punches as Ali lounged on the ropes. Then, as the rival began to weaken, Ali would seize the moment and pummel him.

Much the same is happening with the emerging climate agenda. Under Paris and other accords, China, as well as India and other developing countries, essentially have been given a pass not to achieve “carbon neutrality” until 2060. The argument is largely (at least formally) that the West is responsible for the heavily hyped climate “apocalypse” because of its longer history of industrial growth, although neither China nor India seems eager to de-industrialize, cut itself off from medical advances, or otherwise halt its progress toward Western levels of prosperity.