RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2022/06/green-doctors-suitable-cases-for-treatment/

On climate, a lot of medicos are out there on the nuttiest end of the doom spectrum. But I had no idea their hysteria could even out-do and embarrass Greenpeace, The Guardian and Tim Flannery’s Climate Council.

Last month three anaesthetists published a peer-reviewed paper in Australasian Anaesthesia  discouraging birthing mothers from using nitrous oxide for pain relief. The trio warn, “While it may be innocuous for the pregnant woman and unborn baby, that is certainly not the case for the environment.”

About 200,000 Australian pregnant women per year choose the help of nitrous oxide.[1] The learned paper wants them to use more climate-friendly pain-killers, and/or epidurals, hypnobirthing, massage, acupuncture, and Tens — elaborate equipment called “Transcutaneous electric nerve stimulator”. They’re all costlier, but hang the expense.

I hasten to add that two of the trio of authors are females, albeit gung-ho for purported planetary healing. Dr Alice Gynther is from Western Health Melbourne and Fiona Pearson from Sunderland Royal Hospital UK. The lone male Forbes McGain of Western Health is a stalwart of Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA). I’ll chart DEA’s extremism later in the course of my obstetric odyssey.[2]

These three mothers’ helpers write

By educating medical staff and pregnant women about the carbon impact of N2O, ensuring that it is delivered and used as efficiently as possible and considering the use of more carbon-friendly alternatives, we can reduce GHG emissions from the labour ward and help to mitigate the effects of climate change. Ensuring that midwifery, obstetric and anaesthetic staff are aware of the environmental impact of N2O is crucial…

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=93183ec05c

What I call the “energy storage conundrum” is the obvious but largely unrecognized problem that electricity generated by intermittent renewables like wind and sun can’t keep an electrical grid operating without some method of storing energy to meet customer demand in times of low production. These times of low production from wind and sun occur regularly — for example, calm nights — and can persist for as long as a week or more in the case of heavily overcast and calm periods in the winter.

If the plan is to power the entire United States by wind and solar facilities, and if we assume that wind and solar facilities will be built sufficient to generate energy equal to usage over the course of a year, we then need to do a calculation of how much storage would be required to balance the times of excess production against those of insufficient production in order to get through the year without blackouts. The challenge of getting through an entire year could require far more storage than merely getting through a week-long wind/sun drought, because both wind and sun are seasonal, producing much more in some seasons than others.

Previous posts on this blog have cited to several competent calculations of the amount of storage needed for different jurisdictions to get through a full year with only wind and sun to generate the electricity. For the case of the entire United States, this post from January 2022 describes work of Ken Gregory, who calculates a storage requirement, based on the current level of electricity consumption, of approximately 250,000 GWH to get through a year. If you then assume as part of the decarbonization project the electrification of all currently non-electrified sectors of the economy (transportation, home heat, industry, agriculture, etc.), the storage requirement would approximately triple, to 750,000 GWH.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-censorship-phase-two-gina-mccarthy-social-media-biden-white-house-11655156191?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Progressives first demanded that social media platforms silence critics of climate alarmism. Now White House national climate adviser Gina McCarthy wants them to censor content on the costs of a force-fed green energy transition.

A few years ago, Facebook enlisted third-party “fact checkers” to review news stories about climate. That didn’t satisfy Democratic Senators who howled about a “loophole” for opinion pieces. Facebook then began appending fact-checks to op-eds, including by our contributors Bjorn Lomborg and Steven Koonin, that criticized apocalyptic climate models and studies. The goal was to restrict readership.

Now progressives are moving to censorship phase two, which is shutting down debate over climate “solutions.” “Now it’s not so much denying the problem,” Ms. McCarthy said in an Axios interview last Thursday. “What the industry is now doing is seeding doubt about the costs associated with [green energy] and whether they work or not.”

Ms. McCarthy cited the week-long power outage in Texas in February 2021. “The first thing we read in the paper was” that the blackouts occurred “because of those wind turbines,” she said. “That became the mantra.” In fact, most of the media immediately blamed climate change and fossil fuels.

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

What a surprise!  Carbon-based energy is much more important than we were led to believe.  A slight reduction in domestic resource development has sent seismic shock waves throughout our economy.  Bottom line: Folks are often willing to go along with calls for sacrifice… unless and until they are made to really suffer.

Michael Crichton’s next-to-last novel, State of Fear, is about politically motivated weather exaggeration.  The real meat, however, is in his epilogue.  It is there that he explains how the perceived intelligentsia is particularly susceptible to fads and hoaxes.  His prime example is Eugenics, the early 20th-century movement to prevent the further “mongrelization” of the human race and the increase in the numbers of “inferior” beings.  Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood to further this cause. Adolf Hitler went even farther in his pursuit of the same goal. These so-called smart people were either unaware of, or failed to grasp, the basic biological principle of hybrid vigor (heterosis).  It so happens that reproductive mingling between previously isolated gene pools tends to produce healthier, more vital individuals by bringing new DNA combinations into the mix. 

The obvious question is: how will this all play out?  The corrupt news media will likely go even farther in its over-the-top hysterical portrayal of ordinary weather events, trends, and hiccups.  As in Crichton’s novel, what used to be a typical seasonal phenomenon – hurricanes — are now being portrayed as cataclysmic events, even though the last 140 years have seen no significant trend up or down in frequency.  And yet, the EPA claims the opposite, even though most of its sources show stability instead.  That’s what you get when you rely on corrupt government scientists.  Meanwhile, the damage being done by suppressing the use of carbon-based energy will continue, though defections from this dogma have begun, out of obvious necessity.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/06/13/is-it-unethical-to-buy-a-vehicle-powered-by-a-lithium-battery/

With numerous State Governor’s having issued executive orders to phase out the purchasing of gasoline driven cars within the next decade or so, and the automobile manufacturers efforts to phase into only manufacturing EV’s here’s some food for thought about the lack of transparency about “Clean Energy Exploitations”.

The top image below is an oil well, where 100% organic material is pumped out of the ground, taking up around 500 to 1000 square feet. Then it flows in pipelines safely transporting the oil to refineries to be manufactured into usable oil derivatives that are the basis of more than 6,000 products for society, and into transportation fuels needed by the world’s heavy-weight and long-range infrastructures of aviation, merchant ships, cruise ships, and militaries.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-crusade-for-green-energy-oil-venezuela-saudi-arabia-solar-panels-cost-emissions-11655038751?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

President Biden’s energy program is crystal clear: an all-of-government assault on the domestic fossil-fuel industry to further a green agenda. But its economic and political fallout is a muddled contrast. The Biden plan distorts or undermines so many other domestic and international priorities that it is in dire need of a midcourse correction.

The administration’s efforts, led by climate czar John Kerry and propelled by the progressive wing of Mr. Biden’s coalition, have included curtailing new leases for drilling, preventing new pipeline development, and expanding the areas off-limits for production. The Securities and Exchange Commission has discouraged new financing of fossil-fuel projects. New automobile mileage standards and increased mandates for ethanol blending in gasoline are part of the program. Pressure to phase out coal-fired electricity production and thwart new mining projects also contribute to the higher prices deemed the best tool to force the transition to a green-energy infrastructure.

To avoid the political brunt of historically high consumer energy prices, the administration apparently is considering allowing more exports of oil by Iran, as it is for Venezuela. It is also tolerating the somewhat inconsistent application of oil and gas embargoes on Russian supplies and increased purchases by China and India.

Despite the urgent global need to displace supplies of Russian oil and gas, encouraging domestic production of these fuels isn’t part of the administration’s response to Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. And pressure on domestic production undermines other administration initiatives, such as rebuilding the manufacturing sector, creating jobs, strengthening supply-chain resilience, and weakening dictatorial adversaries such as Iran and Venezuela.

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.

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. 

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.