RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/01/climate_authoritarians_and_the_lessons_of_history.html

To their own peril as well as everyone else, climate alarmists are increasingly embracing authoritarianism.

A rump group of the environmental movement has always been wedded to authoritarianism. Going back to the beginnings of the environmental movement, Progressive-era politicians such as President Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, the first head of the newly created U.S. Forest Service, believed democracy and markets were both ill-suited to manage natural resources. Progressives believed natural resources should be controlled, developed, and conserved by elite scientific managers and bureaucrats unbeholden to the wishes of the public.

Later, as detailed by Alston Chase in his powerful book In a Dark Wood, many Nazis were at least in part inspired by an expansive vision of environmental purity.

Although few if any progressives were full-on misanthropes, there have always been some of these within the environmental movement, pushing for increasingly extreme actions in defense of the environment and against human use of natural resources. The misanthropic wing of the movement has referred to humanity as “a cancer,” “a virus,” and “a parasite,” with some openly hoping for a killer virus to come along and wipe out most of humanity. Eco-philosopher Arne Naess, who coined the term deep ecology, said the ideal human population on Earth is 200 million, and he called for policies and personal actions to achieve that goal as soon as possible. Others have estimated the “optimal” human population as 1.5 to two billion people and claimed this justifies population engineering, including both “active” and “passive” means to get there.

 Now even the academic literature is embracing climate authoritarianism as the world’s allegedly last best hope to avert supposedly apocalyptic climate change.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/tyranny_in_the_name_of_climate_change.html

A recent paper published by Cambridge University Press titled “Political Legitimacy, Authoritarianism, and Climate Change” is raising serious and worrisome questions about the role of academia in our national political debate on climate change.

The paper was written by Ross Mittiga, who self-describes as an “assistant professor of political theory at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, specializing in climate ethics.” He also labels himself an “environmentalist, vegan, and occasional gadfly.”

Mittiga’s paper explicitly argues society must prioritize climate action over democratic principles and adopt an authoritarian government if society fails to politically act on climate change. Or, in the words of the political left: “my way or the highway.”

This is disturbing because it completely ignores the will of the people to self-govern, favoring a totalitarian approach in order to tackle what Mittiag deems a “climate crisis.”

Key points of the paper in the abstract:

Is authoritarian power ever legitimate? The contemporary political theory literature — which largely conceptualizes legitimacy in terms of democracy or basic rights — would seem to suggest not. I argue, however, that there exists another, overlooked aspect of legitimacy concerning a government’s ability to ensure safety and security. While, under normal conditions, maintaining democracy and rights is typically compatible with guaranteeing safety, in emergency situations, conflicts between these two aspects of legitimacy can and often do arise. A salient example of this is the COVID-19 pandemic, during which severe limitations on free movement and association have become legitimate techniques of government. Climate change poses an even graver threat to public safety. Consequently, I argue, legitimacy may require a similarly authoritarian approach. While unsettling, this suggests the political importance of climate action. For if we wish to avoid legitimating authoritarian power, we must act to prevent crises from arising that can only be resolved by such means.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/01/global_warming_traps_hundreds_in_the_snow.html

The United Nations warns that “a hotter future is certain” and considers climate change the greatest threat modern humans have ever faced. Before he was even elected, President Biden had a plan for curbing climate change that would also encompass environmental justice, whatever that is. Globe-trotter, or should I say globe-sailor, Greta Thunberg continues to scold that world leaders have stolen her dreams and her childhood by not conforming to green standards that have not been met since the Neanderthals.

Meanwhile, Mother Nature didn’t get the memo on global warming and dropped a storm on the Fredericksburg area. More than a foot of snow fell. Approximately 400,000 people lost power. A fifty-mile stretch of the I-95 freeway became impassable with snow and ice, trapping hundreds of people in their cars overnight.

Motorists turned on their engines to warm up, then turned them off to conserve gas as they waited for the roads to clear. There were as many as four inches of ice under some cars. Road crews are still working to clear the roads. Warming shelters have been set up. Thankfully, no deaths have been reported thus far.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/12/30/renewables-ueber-reckonings/

“Discredited climate hysteria and renewables are here to stay. Reckonings, not so much.”

A long overdue legislative enactment and signing provides occasion for two equally long overdue observations on an I&I editorial regarding “pesky climate models.”

Citing a study on pre-carbon dioxide concentration Arctic Ocean warming, your friendly neighborhood editorialists concluded, “(W)e’re confident that eventually the (climate alarmists’) story will collapse.”

Observation No. 1 is that the case for renewables, climate alarmists’ chosen solution, is also folding like a house of cards in a Richter 9.5 earthquake.

It’s not just that renewables are so intermittent and unreliable that they must be legislated and subsidized; eat up land; will require more storage than physically possible; have nearly bankrupted and blacked out Germany with little emissions improvement; and are doing the same to California and other jurisdictions adopting mandates. 

Despite these indisputable truths, the White House’s policy remains “a carbon pollution-free electricity sector” by 2035 and “net-zero emissions economy-wide” by 2050.

Yet three additional existential threats must and will lay the renewables narrative bare. The first was reflected in Joe Biden’s recent signing of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

Forty-five percent of the worldwide supply of solar-grade polysilicon stems from China’s Xinjiang region, where it is reportedly largely produced by enslaved Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Turkic Muslims. (China overall produces three-quarters of polysilicon and 95% of solar wafers.) 

https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/22/can-a-struggling-america-afford-costly-climate-hysteria/

Spiraling inflation and COVID’s economic dislocations threaten America’s wobbly economy. Yet the Biden Administration, to fight “climate change,” has imposed significant new regulatory costs, committed itself to massive spending increases, and seeks even more spending and new taxes, which together could bring us to an economic tipping point.

But rather than acknowledge the irreparable damage that onerous climate policies will certainly wreak, the administration forecasts untold devastation if the country does not buy its prophecies of environmental cataclysm.

The public is left to choose between unsustainable costs or existential climate doom, supposedly proven certain by “science.” But what does noncontroversial “science” really prove?

First, there is no doubt that greatly increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, absent extreme amounts of negative feedback, will elevate temperatures. No reasonable scientist disputes this bland statement.

But three questions are generally avoided, or dishonestly addressed, by demagoguing politicians and the credulous media. First, how great a temperature increase will be caused by doubling CO2? Second, even if we accept massive, debilitating costs to fight CO2 increases, will bearing those costs actually help us avoid the environmental Armageddon predicted, or, will the status quo persist in any event? Third, are there significant benefits from increasing CO2 that will substantially improve life for billions of impoverished individuals worldwide, with negligible costs?

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/12/18/biden-methane-rule-chokes-on-climate-change-fallacies/

With the Biden administration all but embracing the ludicrous benchmarks of the “Green New Deal,” it’s important to remember that this far-left environmental blueprint remains unpopular with many politicians and the public at large.

Biden himself is fresh from last month’s posturing with world leaders, celebrities, and activists at the U.N. sponsored COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow, where he made it clear the U.S. will take a back seat to no nation in strangling a domestic economy with feckless environmental hokum.  

The “big” announcement from COP26 this year was 100 countries pledging to reduce methane emissions by 30% below 2020 levels within the next decade. This global pledge spurred Biden’s most significant climate policy announcement yet, a new regulation out of EPA to limit methane emissions.

For anyone who has been paying attention, none of this should come as a surprise. Environmental groups and the mainstream media have been setting the stage for this policy announcement for months.

However, as is often the case with ballyhooed pronouncements on climate action, the alleged facts and research peddled as justification for draconian action are at best incomplete and at worst, shockingly deceitful. What is revealed is merely another example of the environmental left’s sustained assault on American oil and gas.

In response, our organization released an exhaustive policy brief that breaks down and exposes the ecosystem that allows the Biden administration to bog down the oil and gas industry with crippling restrictions, even as domestic energy prices soar and Biden begs OPEC to pump more oil our way.

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/the-climate-change-conformists/

Herman Melville spent several weeks as an involuntary guest of the Typee, Marquesan Islanders known for their fierce cannibalistic ways and their exquisite tattoos. It was 1842 and Melville was a rebellious twenty-two-year-old hand who had jumped ship from a whaling vessel. Several years later, in his first novel, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, Melville recounted his deep fear that his hosts would tattoo his face.

Facial tattoos were common among the islanders. Some Westerners got facially tattooed as well, but those were men who had relinquished their homes and become the original beachcombers, white men who belonged neither here nor there. Tattooing in general was hardly a respectable thing. Well into the middle of the twentieth century, tattoos were the distinguishing marks of sailors, ex-cons, prostitutes, and carnies. Then the markings began to creep over the shoulders, scapulars, and forearms of young people who just wanted to take a walk on the wild side.

By now, of course, tattoos are everywhere, and though far less common on the face, they’ve invaded that portion of the dermis too. We are told, to be sure, “face tattoos are for bold men,” and I’d say even bolder women.

Why did Melville find them abhorrent while today they are merely “bold”? Fashions change, of course, but this touches something deeper. We have as a culture undergone some profound shifts in our sense of bodily integrity and personal autonomy. “Transgressive” has gone from a term of condemnation to a way of praising those who defy the stultifying conformity of society.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/12/13/renewable-sustainable-dissecting-green-buzzwords/

Remember when Humpty Dumpty lectured Alice, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less”? With talk of climate change constantly in the news, marketing departments are increasingly getting in on that game. One in every six consumer products touts sustainability claims. So should you trust what is on the label? 

Some terms like “organic,” for farming practices, have been around long enough to have their own third-party certification programs. While not perfect, it’s at least a layer of scrutiny that is missing from newer buzzword claims.

One of those newer terms is “renewable.” The word invokes thoughts of clean energy and boundless resources. 

Reality check: “Renewable” only means a product has been sourced from something that cannot be depleted. Paper is often labeled renewable since trees and forests regrow and are replanted. But that doesn’t make products made from renewable resources automatically better than other products. 

Water cartons, for example, have been touted as a “renewable” alternative to plastic bottles. Alaska Airlines recently announced it would be getting rid of plastic water bottles and replacing them with boxed water. But there’s a catch.

The paper in cartons is renewable, but the cartons are not merely paper. After all, paper’s not waterproof. As any kid knows after taking a juice box apart, there are glued layers of plastic and aluminum needed to waterproof the product. 

Crucially, that means while the paper part of the carton is “renewable”, the cartons themselves are difficult to recycle. Cartons cannot be recycled in areas where 40% of the country lives. Carton production releases roughly the same amount of greenhouse gases as the production of a recycled plastic bottle. A carton is better off being incinerated, according to a study by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency. 

Does the “renewable” label mean the product is better for the environment? Not necessarily.