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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE

Democrats Introduce New Green New Deal Bill Calling Fossil Fuels ‘Racist’ By Bryan Preston

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/03/22/democrats-introduce-new-green-new-deal-bill-calling-fossil-fuels-racist-n1434177

The Hill reports that Rep. Always On-Camera (D-New York) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Not An Actual Cherokee) have introduced a new bill that would “invest” $500 billion to “create” “green jobs.”

Use of multiple scare quotes is intentional. Neither the race-hustling professor nor AOC know much about job creation, having never created any meaningful number of non-government jobs.

Government “investing” necessarily entails government taxing, or government just printing more money, which neither the Democrats nor The Hill note. Those green jobs supposedly already exist anyway; why else would John Kerry tell the Keystone XL pipeline workers whose jobs his boss destroyed to go build solar panels?

The so-called green economy also relies extensively on mining and minerals processing, which aren’t very clean processes. In fact, those technologies depend on rare earth minerals, which mostly cannot be mined in the United States due to environmental regulations. They’re mined extensively in China, which doesn’t regulate as heavily, leaving the mining operations dirtier.

Buried in the two leftists’ announcement is this little gem.

“The BUILD GREEN Infrastructure and Jobs Act will make the big federal investments necessary to transform our country’s transportation system, confront the racial and economic inequality embedded in our fossil fuel economy, and achieve the ambitious targets for 100% clean energy in America.”

“…confront the racial and economic inequality embedded in our fossil fuel economy…”

I’m sorry, but that’s insane. It’s so illogical it’s barely possible to critique it, but here’s a try.

Patrick Moore and the Agenda of Fear By Janet Levy

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/03/patrick_moore_and_the_agenda_of_fear.html

Politically motivated climate alarmists are using fear to gain control of human behavior and environmental resources and undermine free, prosperous societies. Dr. Patrick Moore, an ecologist and disillusioned cofounder of Greenpeace, exposes their agendas and false claims in his recent book Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom.

As a young scientist, Moore was committed to promoting conservation — the responsible use of the earth’s resources — and participated in Greenpeace’s initial campaigns against underground H-bomb testing, whale hunting, and polar bear culling. The disillusionment was gradual. Face to face with activists ostensibly seeking a balance between environmental, social, and economic priorities (“sustainable development”), he was struck by how the then-nascent concept took no consideration of any impact on humankind, and also by how it fiercely inculpated normal human activity. He parted ways with Greenpeace when it promoted “sustainable development” with a fear-mongering, anti-science, anti-human ideology designed to maximize fundraising. In a previous book, Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, he explains how the coup de grace came over Greenpeace’s fight for a ban on chlorine. Moore views chlorination of water as the biggest advance in public health.

His latest book gives example after example to demonstrate that the “climate crisis” is fake news driven more by ideology than real science. He demolishes fallacious doomsday prophesies one by one. A chief characteristic of these scares is that they conveniently use data related to invisible (CO2, radiation) or remote (coral reefs, polar bears, walruses) entities that average citizens cannot validate through independent observation. For explication, the public is forced to rely on activists, the media, scientists, and politicians — all of whom have huge financial or professional stakes in propping up dubious catastrophic scenarios.

Fauci Blames Coronavirus on Our Failure to Live in ‘Harmony With Nature’ “Living in greater harmony with nature will require changes in human behavior.” Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/fauci-blames-coronavirus-our-failure-live-harmony-daniel-greenfield/

“There’s a lot of folks who think that, due to climate change and due to the globalization in general, it is inevitable that we’ll deal with more and more viruses like this,” Dr. Fauci told Meet the Press.

The “lot of folks” in question include the patron saint of the pandemic.

In addition to appearing on every single news show on the planet, Fauci occasionally co-authors papers. But “Emerging Pandemic Diseases: How We Got to COVID-19” in the journal Cell is less of an academic paper and more of a survey and an advocacy editorial. It might not be all that significant except that its co-authors are David M. Morens, the Senior Scientific Advisor at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and Fauci who heads it.

If you didn’t know that its authors are prominent figures in the scientific community, you might mistake its contents for the ravings of hippies at an Earth Day rally a generation ago.

“There are many examples where disease emergencies reflect our increasing inability to live in harmony with nature,” Fauci’s paper insists. “Living in greater harmony with nature will require changes in human behavior as well as other radical changes.”

Biden’s ‘BackDoor’ Climate Plan Emails reveal the strategy behind the new regulation to come.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-backdoor-climate-plan-11616020338?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

“To sum up, Democratic AGs, green groups and a top Biden environmental regulator are colluding on a plan to impose the Green New Deal on states through a back regulatory door because they know they can’t pass it through the front in Congress.”

President Biden wants Congress to pass climate legislation, but that faces political obstacles. No worries—state Democratic Attorneys General are conspiring with green groups on a regulatory Plan B.

Climate activists have long sought to force CO2 emissions reductions under the Clean Air Act, but this has been tricky. The Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA (2007) ruled that the law’s general definition of “pollutant” covered greenhouse gases. But the Court didn’t tell the EPA how it should regulate CO2 under the law.

Massachusetts v. EPA set the ground for the Obama EPA’s “endangerment finding” in 2009 declaring that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health and welfare. Green groups then petitioned the Obama EPA to list CO2 as a “criteria pollutant” and set National Air Ambient Quality Standards (NAAQS).

The EPA dictates air quality standards for six “criteria pollutants” known to directly harm human health: nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, carbon monoxide, ozone and particulate matter. States must craft plans to meet the EPA standards if they are out of compliance.

How to End Biden’s Fake Climate Apocalypse If there’s no pushback against the Left, we’ll see a dramatic drop in our standard of living. Rael Jean Isaac

https://spectator.org/climate-change-global-warming/
With the wave of executive orders and legislation coming from the Biden administration, and the cultural antics of his woke supporters, Biden’s war on fossil fuels has received insufficient attention. Yet energy is the lifeblood of our economy, and making traditional energy sources vastly more expensive is the single most destructive aspect of Biden’s policies. If this country does not successfully mobilize against these policies, the vast majority will experience a dramatic drop in their standard of living.

Supposedly the assault on fossil fuels — via regulation; cancellation of pipelines; concocting a huge, wholly imaginary “social cost of carbon”; taxes; and solar and wind mandates — is necessary to save the planet from imminent catastrophe produced by man-made global warming.

But genuine climate scientists, as we know from those who dare to speak up, are amazed and horrified. Richard Lindzen, long at the top of the field as a former professor of atmospheric sciences at MIT, laments that the situation gets sillier and sillier. He told the recent CPAC conference (his message was read by the Heartland Institute’s James Taylor):

One problem with conveying our message is the difficulty people have in recognizing the absurdity of the alarmist climate message. They can’t believe that something so absurd could gain such universal acceptance. Consider the following situation. Your physician declares that your complete physical will consist in simply taking your temperature. This would immediately suggest something wrong with your physician. He further claims that if your temperature is 98.7F rather than 98.6F you must be put on life support. Now you know he is certifiably insane. The same situation for climate is considered “settled science.”

Bjorn Lomborg: Climate change and cancel culture – here’s how left uses fear to push costly, radical policies Yes, climate change is a real problem. However, it is typically vastly exaggerated

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/climate-change-fear-guilt-panic-policies-bjorn-lomborg

Across the world, politicians are now promising climate policies costing tens of trillions of dollars – money we don’t have and resources that are desperately needed elsewhere.

Yet, climate campaigners tell us, if we don’t spend everything on climate now, nothing else matters, because climate change threatens our very civilization. As President Biden says: climate change is “an existential threat”.

Yes, climate change is a real problem. However, it is typically vastly exaggerated, and the resulting alarmism is exploited to justify the wasteful spending of trillions.

Pointing this out will get you canceled. I should know, because I have personally been on the receiving end of this climate alarmism enforcement for years. I was recently scheduled to give a public lecture at Duke University when a group of climate-politicized professors – some who write for the UN Climate Panel – publicly asked Duke to cancel my appearance.

One of my presentation points was highlighting the latest full U.N. Climate Panel report that estimates the total cost of climate change. They found that unmitigated climate change in half a century will reduce general welfare equivalent to lowering each person’s income by between 0.2 and 2%.

Given that the U.N. expects each person on the planet to be much better off – 363% as wealthy as today – climate might cause us to only be 356% as rich by then. That is a problem, but certainly not the end of the world.

Why don’t most people know this? Because stories of catastrophe and human guilt garner more clicks and are better for weaponizing political arguments. Unfortunately, we’re unlikely to make good decisions if we’re panicked. 

Nolte: NY Times Spread Fake News that East Coast Beaches Would Be ‘Gone’ by 2020

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/03/12/nolte-ny-times-spread-fake-news-that-east-coast-beaches-would-be-gone-by-2020/

“[M]ost of the beaches on the East Coast of the United States would be gone in 25 years,” the fake New York Times told the world 25 years ago, all the way back in 1995.

Fact check: It’s 2021 and America’s East Coast beaches are doing just fine!

Here’s the relevant portion from the original Times’ article:

A continuing rise in average global sea level, which is likely to amount to more than a foot and a half by the year 2100. This, say the scientists, would inundate parts of many heavily populated river deltas and the cities on them, making them uninhabitable, and would destroy many beaches around the world. At the most likely rate of rise, some experts say, most of the beaches on the East Coast of the United States would be gone in 25 years. They are already disappearing at an average of 2 to 3 feet a year.

The date of the article is September 18, 1995. The headline reads, “Scientists Say Earth’s Warming Could Set Off Wide Disruptions.”

So here we are 25 full years later, a whole quarter of a century later, and the first prediction from these unnamed “experts” has not even come close to occurring, so why should we believe the dire predictions about the year 2100?

We shouldn’t.

Here’s something else that didn’t happen…

Despite these “expert” predictions, and despite the fact tons of leftists live on the East Coast, and despite the fact leftists claim to believe Global Warming is real, in 1995, there was no panicked exodus by those who live on the East Coast. If you believe Global Warming is real… If you believe the “experts”… Why would you not immediately sell your beach house before the rising tide destroyed your multi-million dollar investment?

(Ideological) science is real! By John Klar

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/03/ideological_science_is_real.html

The supposedly rationalist mantra of the secular Left, displayed on yard signs and media posts, that “science is real” begs the question.  Science itself is morphing into an ideological magic show, where facts are twisted (or simply ignored) in favor of preconceived conclusions themselves embraced very unscientifically.  Real science is valid — but fake ideological claims feigning scientific bona fides are now all too real.

The bizarre politicization of COVID offers the most recent example.  Condemning the naming of the virus based upon its geographic origin was a boldly partisan move — “real science” has done this routinely for years.  Instantly, America was split politically over a disease — where was the real science to bind us?  Where was the real science behind shutdowns, restrictions on speech and worship liberties, providing vaccines to young blacks (low risk, scientifically) in priority to old whites (scientifically at very high risk)? And what in this surreal world is the “scientific” justification to divide Americans into the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated for travel and other rights? — both groups can spread the virus with equal ease.  Or so the science tells us.

Where is the “science” in renewable energy programs?  How is it scientific to estimate future reductions in CO2 emissions by excluding the costs of CO2 and ancillary pollutants generated in the manufacturing, transport, installation, and disposal of solar panels?  Scientifically, rooftop solar applications are the most expensive (financially and environmentally), and do not eliminate the need for a grid. Scientifically, Vermont is one of the worst states in the nation to go solar, it has so little sun — but it leads the renewable energy charge, in the name of “real science.”

Similar avoidance of real science obtains to the EV Car program.  However, what both of these “programs” offer is huge expansion of government, real suffering for the poor due to regressive regulatory structures, gargantuan profits for the renewables industry, and a false sense of moral accomplishment in proponents.  These are ideological, political goals being achieved at the expense of (while in the name of) “real science.”  This makes them triply scientifically suspect.

Here Come Climate Reparations Democrats create a fund to offset the damage from their policies.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/here-come-climate-reparations-11615506577?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Believe it or not, some Western Democrats are starting to push back against the Biden Administration’s climate assault on their constituents.

“We write to follow up on President Biden’s Executive Order 14008 addressing the climate crisis,” New Mexico Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján wrote last week to White House climate czar Gina McCarthy. That’s Mr. Biden’s order in January suspending new oil and gas leases on federal lands.

Although a short-term leasing “pause is fully appropriate in the new Biden administration, an extended and indefinite suspension would have significant impacts on our workforce and state funding for education,” the Senators explain, noting that oil and gas generate over $3 billon annually in revenue for their state and 40% of its budget.

The Democratic Senators urged the Biden Administration to resume leasing and, in a separate letter to Interior Acting Secretary Scott de la Vega, for career officials to be allowed to continue approving routine permits. They also asked that “states like New Mexico receive robust federal assistance in the ongoing transition to a zero-carbon economy.”

Climate Policy: Covid on Steroids? By Joel Kotkin

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2021/03/09/climate_policy_covid_on_steroids_767399.html

For most people around the world, the Covid-19 pandemic seems a great human tragedy, with deaths, bankruptcies, and fractured mental states. Yet for some, especially among the green Twitterati and in some policy shops, the pandemic presents a grand opportunity to enact permanent lockdowns on economic growth, population growth, and upward mobility.

Pointing to reductions in greenhouse gases due to the lockdowns, some see the pandemic’s wreckage of much of the economy – including the mass destruction of businesses and family budgets – not as a plague of its own, but, as a British Climate Assembly put it, as a “test run” for a new climate-driven economy.

“We have an “incredible responsibility” to “actually converge the solutions – at least the financial solutions – to coronavirus to the financial solutions for climate,” hyperbolized former UN Climate Chief and UN Paris pact architect Christiana Figueres, “because what we cannot afford to do is to jump out of the frying pan of Covid and into the raging fire of climate change.”

President Donald Trump may have been responsible for the vaccine success of Operation Warp Speed, but now his fast-track approach, ironically, is being adopted by climate campaigners in a drive to change our entire economy in short order. After all, they argue, the lockdowns demonstrated that governments can impose without constitutional constraint virtually any restrictions to address a perceived crisis. And the pandemic, by killing much of the economy – particularly travel – temporarily succeeded in reducing greenhouse gases by as much as 7 percent worldwide and 12 percent in the U.S.