https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2022/10/26/joe_toomeys_searing_indictment_of_president_bidens_energy_policies_861133.html With the midterm elections just two weeks away, it seems almost too easy to pick on President Joe Biden. His approval ratings are bad (about 38% of those polled approve of his job performance) and candidates from his own party are staying away from him. As ABC News reported recently, “Democrats in make-or-break races are […]
https://issuesinsights.com/2022/10/27/a-nuclear-meltdown-at-the-new-york-times/
Even for a news outlet whose analyses of cutting-edge technologies are often flawed, a recent New York Times article by Farhad Manjoo, one of the paper’s in-house columnists, was exceptionally misguided. Titled “Nuclear Power Still Doesn’t Make Sense,” it is, in fact, the article itself that doesn’t make sense.
Manjoo does recognize that nuclear power is important now, citing the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: “Germany, which shut down many of its nuclear plants in the past decade while building natural gas pipelines to Russia, now faces a deep energy crunch. It has had to burn more coal to keep the lights on,” which is also true of other European countries.
But his article’s basic thesis is that renewables have made continuing reliance on nuclear energy unnecessary, given its costs, lead times, and safety issues. That assertion is wrong on two counts: Intermittent sources of energy (wind and solar) cannot adequately provide continuous generation; and nuclear is only too costly and cumbersome because for 50 years, public opinion and policy have essentially shut down all but relatively meager private research and development in the field.
By analogy, if the Food and Drug Administration had decided decades ago to stop approving new drugs, how much would pharmaceutical companies have invested since then? And if the FDA were to resume approvals now, would we say it’s too late, and people who are ill should just get by with herbs and acupuncture?
Let’s consider Manjoo’s misapprehensions one by one.
First, wind and solar are not zero-emission technologies or resource efficient, nor do they offer reliable, continuous generation of power. A single wind turbine needs about 1.5 acres of area and its components require the mining and production of thousands of tons of materials, including some of the elements in short supply due to their use in batteries.
https://www.aier.org/article/fake-science-fuels-climate-extremism/
“Follow the science,” we are told, especially the junk science that climate alarmists invent. I recently debunked a piece of junk climate science whose alarmism was featured in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNN, CBS, and elsewhere. The junk science was produced by the Federal Reserve. Fed officials claimed that warming will cut economic growth by a third, but my simple statistical analysis showed their results were within the margin of error and that minor improvements and new data flip their result!
Mainstream economics shows that warming will have minor economic effects compared to the economic growth we expect over the next century. That is a problem for the climate lobby, which unfortunately includes the Fed. Since economic growth will swamp the economic effects of global warming, the Fed set out, it seems, to prove that warming will reduce growth. The fact that Florida, on average 26 degrees warmer than Michigan, has grown faster didn’t faze them.
The Fed isn’t the only institution to fall into chicanery. The study was published in a peer-reviewed academic economics journal, given wide media coverage, and cited in a congressional report to justify the Green New Deal. Bogus research makes big splashes. But when it is debunked, there isn’t a ripple.
The best economic model, validated by a Nobel Prize for William Nordhaus, shows that if nothing is done to reduce emissions, warming will reduce world GDP by about three percent by the year 2100. If global GDP continues to grow at the rate it has been growing, then the world in 2100 will be five times richer than it is today. A three-percent reduction in GDP would make us 4.8 times richer instead of 5.0 times. Not exactly catastrophic! Mainstream economics doesn’t deny climate change and accepts that some policies to mitigate it might pass a cost-benefit test. But it does not predict a climate apocalypse, even if we do nothing.
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/juststopoil-waxwork-king-charles-chocolate-cake-madame-tussauds/?utm_source=
The JustStopOil activists are on the loose around Europe again. This time they’ve chosen to stop off at Madame Tussauds in London — the museum of life-sized wax replicas of famous celebrities and icons.
So, who did they set their sights on? Kylie Jenner? Taylor Swift? Or any of the other gas-guzzling, private plane flying celebs? Nope. This time twenty-year-old Eilidh McFadden and twenty-nine-year-old Tom Johnson covered a waxwork model of King Charles III with chocolate cake.
Perhaps in their simple minds, this gesture made sense. Two fingers up to the Establishment and all that. But the new king is known for his extensive environmental campaigning. He even — to the dismay of many — attended the UN’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow last year.
In a statement the protesters said: “We are here because we seek to protect our freedoms and rights, because we seek to protect this green and pleasant land which is the inheritance of us all.
“The science is clear. The demand is simple: just stop new oil and gas. It’s a piece of cake.”
Clever huh? Well, King Charles is so committed to going green that he converted his beautiful old Aston Martin DB6 to run on wine and cheese.
Remember last year when I warned that the next steps would be climate change passports and climate lockdowns?
Wow, this is absolutely INSANE.
I am not allowed to have more than 19C indoors (that is 66 Fahrenheit), and not only that, I must turn off the heating completely between 11pm and 5am! What are they thinking, am I supposed to freeze at night?
Well, that is the point. They know people need more heating at night when it is colder, so of course they just completely ban people from heating at all in the night.
Remember when we had to lockdown to save grandma? Now they are letting her freeze at night instead.
And the authorities will also be doing controls to make sure people follow the temperature limits. Welcome to 1984.
They say that the levels of energy use in public buildings and residential blocks will be MONITORED to see that the measures are being implemented.
So I am currently living in what is essentially a climate lockdown. The state is dictating what temperature you are allowed to have indoors. Imagine telling someone this a few years ago…
I was ATTACKED for this.
A few months ago a think tank called ISD and funded by none other than Bill Gates and George Soros wrote a defamatory hit piece wanting me deplatformed for spreading “climate misinformation”. Guess what part of that so called “misinformation” was?
They claimed that people warning about things like climate lockdowns were spreading “conspiracy theories”. Yes, really.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/western-worlds-energy-folly-in-a-new-york-nutshell-europe-renewables-grid-reliability-green-fossil-fuels-emissions-wind-solar-11666374183?mod=opinion_trending_now_opn_pos3
The latest report from New York state’s grid operator is a master class in everything wrong with the Western world’s approach to climate change.
That is: everything wrong with an approach that consists of throwing money at green business interests in defiance of any practical consideration. If you think something else is going on, such as abating climate change, think again.
To meet a legislated goal of emissions-free electricity by 2040, New York will need up to 45 gigawatts of what it delicately calls DEFRs, or dispatchable emissions-free resources. Not only is that more than the state’s total current generating capacity of 37 gigawatts, these DEFRs, which are carbon-free like wind and solar yet not interruptible like wind and solar, don’t exist and have no prospect of existing in the next decade. Starting very much sooner than 2040, New York’s real choice will be Third World electricity reliability vs. paying fossil-fuel operators large fees to keep their plants up and running in a highly inefficient part-time fashion.
Many involved in the state’s energy “transition” might question whether purging the last 10% or 5% of fossil fuels from the system is worth the exorbitant cost. Don’t expect anyone to admit the bigger problem: The transition won’t likely do much to reduce global emissions.
This is the great unmentionable. When New Yorkers use less coal, oil or gasoline because of environmental mandates, the market price transmits the benefit to other global users, who then use more. Even more unspeakable is the corollary: Emission-spewing activities simply relocate from one part of the world to another. China’s emissions growth, from half the U.S.’s to almost 300% of the U.S.’s in 30 years, is partly the product of a transplant of emissions from the U.S. and Europe.
If pressed, Biden officials will privately revert to gobbledygook about carbon taxes that appear immaculately without anyone having to advocate them. The media fill the gap with wishful thinking and Soviet econometrics, confusing inputs with outputs. Yes, world-wide investment in renewables in the past two years has exceeded investment in fossil fuels. Supposedly this proves fossil fuels are on their way out. No, it proves fossil fuels are a better deal, consuming less investment to meet their share of the world’s growing power needs.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/lincolnbrown/2022/10/21/climate-protesters-glue-themselves-to-a-floor-hilarity-ensues-n1638863
“Failing to plan is planning to fail.” I forget where I first saw that line. I think it was on a sign on a wall in some place I worked in college, and variations of it have appeared in countless places over the years. As ubiquitous and pedantic as it may be, the saying is true, as a group of climate protesters in Germany have discovered. And they paid the price for not thinking ahead.
On Wednesday, nine climate activists calling themselves members of Scientist Rebellion broke into the Autostadt Museum, in Wolfsburg, Germany, across the street from the Volkswagen plant. According to the Daily Mail, They proceeded to super glue their hands to the floor of the Porsche exhibit because you know, all of the cool activists are gluing themselves to things these days.
One may assume that they would sit until Volkswagen agreed to lobby for decarbonization in the transportation industry and the German government agreed to lower the speed limit. The Blaze stated that the protesters said that Volkswagen supported their right to protest, but that apparently was as far as the company was willing to go.
For a group of people who call themselves scientists, how is it that they forgot about that little thing called biology? The human body needs to eat, drink, and, of course, relieve itself. But there they sat, amid a leftist version of the game Twister (Right hand, glue!), and as the old song goes, eat, nor drink, nor potty had they none.
They griped that they had not been given bowls into which they could urinate and defecate, and they could not order the food they wanted since people were allowed to leave the museum but not return. They had to rely on whatever Volkswagen provided. Furthermore, Volkswagen had the audacity to turn the heat and lights off. Volkswagen owns the building, and Volkswagen pays the bills. Volkswagen gets to turn the lights off if it wants.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/10/how_much_more_evidence_does_the_press_need_that_global_warming_is_otherwise_known_as_the_weather.html
For 150 years, there has been exponential growth in the use of coal, oil, crude oil, gasoline, propane, and heating oil. There has been a massive increase in the use of cars, trucks, CO2, methane, the population, and numerous other things we are told cause an existential threat of rapid warming of the Earth.
If all of the things that we are told cause warming actually did that, we would not see the record cold temperatures throughout significant portions of the U.S. in October 2022.
Such as here:
Cold blast to bring record-breaking temperatures to large part of U.S. this week
The chilly temps could affect more than 60 million people as far west as Colorado and south into Florida, according to the National Weather Service.
High temperatures in Midwestern, Northeastern and even Southeastern states are expected to be 10 to 25 degrees below average, with low temperatures near freezing possible as far south in cities like Atlanta and Jackson, Mississippi.
How many pieces of scientific data are necessary that show the climate has always changed cyclically and naturally before this fraud ends, or before the media asks questions and does research instead of just repeating talking points?
John Kerry, Al Gore, Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others should be asked the simple question: How do we have record cold temperatures after 150 years of the exponential growth of natural resources if that causes warming?
If there is no correlation, there is no causation.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19008/green-energy-profiteering
When governments limit drilling and mining for hydrocarbons in the ground, they manufacture scarcity.
When only certain wealthy individuals and companies can afford artificially expensive hydrocarbon energies as regular business costs, then budding entrepreneurs and small firms can no longer compete. Those at the peak of society’s wealth pyramid have a much easier time staying on top when the same natural sources of hydrocarbon energy once used to amass fortunes are now denied to those who would do the same.
A war on “fossil” fuels is a superb tactic for protecting private market share. It is a profitable ideological cause for fattening government revenues. And it is a constant source of income for environmental “nonprofits” and other special interests….
Can plastics, heating oil, and most synthetic materials found around a home be magically manufactured without petroleum?
Can the global population stave off famine and starvation if farmers are forced to overhaul agricultural and livestock production methods in order to abide by “green” laws limiting the use or release of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen, and phosphate — molecules and compounds essential to basic farming and high crop yield fertilizers?
Ideology hijacks the market’s natural direction toward an objective and transparent “meeting of the minds.” There is an unspoken but unmistakable fraud. Until governments, including hostile adversaries such as Russia and the United States, conspired to limit the use of hydrocarbon energy and “go green,” the idea that anybody could turn a profit from the wind or sun would have seemed as absurd as a vendor selling rocks freely available all around us.
Are electric vehicles as powerful as their internal combustion engine counterparts? Can wind and solar energies really provide nations with reliable power grids robust enough to avoid rolling blackouts? Can plastics, heating oil, and most synthetic materials found around a home be magically manufactured without petroleum?
Can the global population stave off famine and starvation if farmers are forced to overhaul agricultural and livestock production methods in order to abide by “green” laws limiting the use or release of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen, and phosphate — molecules and compounds essential to basic farming and high crop yield fertilizers?
In free markets, commodities bought and sold possess perceived value. When a buyer and seller reach an agreed upon price for any product, there is a “meeting of the minds.” The value of any natural raw material is proportional to its scarcity. The more of it there is, and the more easily it can be obtained, the less value it holds. A vendor who sells ordinary rocks cannot make a living when his product is found freely all over the ground. If he transacts in gold or silver, diamonds or rubies, however, his hard-to-find “rocks” are worth a small fortune. If only there were a way to turn ordinary rocks into valuable commodities!
There are, in fact, two well-known ways to do so. An unscrupulous vendor could simply paint ordinary rocks gold and pretend that common minerals are rare, and an unsuspecting customer might never be the wiser. Through fraud, the seller can hijack the perceived value of his goods and undermine the agreed “meeting of the minds” between himself and any deceived customer. His “precious” rocks actually hold no value but provide him with ill-gotten gains. Over time, however, this type of fraud does not last. More discerning customers eventually catch on to the ruse, and that information is shared among prospective buyers. And unless he is quick to move on to a new town with new buyers yet to be deceived, old swindled customers are likely to end his livelihood or much worse. Engaging in illicit fraud comes with serious personal risks.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2022/10/garbage-in-climate-science-out/
EXCERPT
“The world has less than a decade to change course to avoid irreversible ecological catastrophe, the UN warned today.” — The Guardian, Nov 28, 2007
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” — Yogi Berra
If your model’s initial assumptions are incorrect, how can you rely on it to make any prediction worth the effort of consulting? Not that peddling shoddy science bothers the swollen ranks of climateers. And why should they fret? Climate fear is a growth industry, meaning careers will advance so long as their rubbish in/garbage out findings are questioned.
Global extinction due to global warming has been predicted more times than the Labor Party has claimed it can cool the planet with a new tax. But where do these predictions come from? If you thought it was just calculated from the simple, well known relationship between CO2 and solar energy absorption, you would only expect to see about 0.5o C increase from pre-industrial temperatures as a result of CO2 doubling, due to the logarithmic nature of the relationship. [1]
The runaway 3-6o C and higher temperature increase model predictions depend on coupled feedbacks from many other factors, including water vapour (the most important greenhouse gas), albedo (the proportion of energy reflected from the surface – e.g. more/less ice or clouds, more/less reflection) and aerosols, just to mention a few, which theoretically may amplify the small incremental CO2 heating effect.
