RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/07/the_primal_scream_of_climate_change_fanatics.html

In 1968, Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb, which became a bestseller.  The premise of the book was that worldwide famine was going to destroy humanity.  According to the professor, this frightening scenario was scheduled to happen in the 1970s and 1980s, due to overpopulation, as well as other major societal upheavals.  Hmmm…sounds as though he was giving mankind about 12 years before Armageddon would occur.  Whom does that remind you of?  Anyway, his solution was immediate action to limit population growth!  We know how well that worked out!

During the 1970s, we entered a period of academic conjecture on a subject that came to be known as global cooling.  This theory was based on studies that suggested that a buildup of glaciers was occurring and could cause imminent cooling of the Earth’s surface, leading to another Ice Age.  Glaciers are made up of fallen snow that, over many years, compresses into large, thickened ice masses.  Presently, glaciers occupy about 10 percent of the world’s total land area, with most located in polar regions like Antarctica, Greenland, and the Canadian Arctic.  Glaciers are remnants from the last Ice Age, when ice covered nearly 32 percent of the land and 30 percent of the oceans.  At 10 percent, we’re doing well.

As we moved into the 1980s, another climate scare was taking root.  Acid rain gave new meaning to the term “the sky is falling.”  According to the alarmists of that era, there was a form of precipitation that contained an acidic quality with elevated levels of hydrogen ions.  They claimed that the acid rain was having harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and our infrastructure.  Nothing much was said about walking in the rain or drinking rainwater.  After a series of studies and the emergence of a new term called the “ozone hole,” life went on pretty much the same as always.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/06/disentangling_the_renewable_energy_scam.html

The solar energy industry is telling its pals in Congress that it are willing the lose most of its subsidies.  The current subsidy for solar is 30% of the construction cost.  To that subsidy, an additional 10% subsidy is available due to special fast depreciation for solar energy plants.  The 30% subsidy is scheduled to ramp down to 10% by 2022 and thereafter remain at 10%.  This is not a consequence of declining costs of solar that makes the industry no longer in need of such a large subsidy.  Solar electricity is a mature industry, and cost declines are moderate.  The real reason the solar people are happy with a lower subsidy is that the 30% investment tax credit (ITC) is not their most important subsidy.  The real subsidy is more complicated and better hidden.

The real subsidy is rooted in renewable portfolio requirements in about 30 states. These states require that a certain percentage of electricity come from renewable sources. The quota ramps over time. For example it might ramp from 20% now to 50% by 2030.  These quotas create a chain of events that guarantee solar and wind energy a market for years to come with a guaranteed profit. If that is not enough, the industry is trying to freeze the quotas into state constitutions so as to make it difficult for the electricity consumers to get out of the trap that has been set for them.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/06/28/science_as_political_orthodoxy_140663.html

There is an intellectual orthodoxy being imposed by the left, abetted by much of the news media. Certain viewpoints are forbidden — not simply regarded as wrong, but not permitted to be considered.

We can observe this attitude at our colleges, where speakers who challenge leftist premises have been forcibly silenced. But it is most entrenched in discussions about global warming, in which non-orthodox views are treated the way religionists treat challenges to biblical dogma. A striking example is provided by a recent New York Times front-page story. 

The print-version headline reads: “In Climate Fight, Trump Will Put Science on Trial.” On the continuation page, the headline is even stronger: “. . . Put Science Itself on Trial.” (The online headline is not quite so aggressive: “Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science.”)

The article presents what it calls the Trump administration’s “attack on science,” which will “undermine the very science on which climate change policy rests.” What exactly is being proposed? “[T]he U.S. Geological Survey …  has ordered that scientific assessments produced by that office use only computer-generated climate models that project the impact of climate change through 2040 rather than through the end of the century, as had been done previously.” Consequently, the reporter notes, “parts of the federal government will no longer be able to fulfill what scientists say is one of the most urgent jobs of climate science studies: reporting on the future effects of a rapidly warming planet.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/green-groups-fight-donald-trumps-oil-drilling-deregulation/

He’s cutting pointless red tape and they’re angry about it.

The Interior Department just revised a series of Obama-era regulations governing offshore oil and gas drilling — and environmentalists are hopping mad.

Recently, green groups including the Sierra Club and EarthJustice filed a lawsuit against Interior’s update. These groups claim the Trump administration is “softening” and “relaxing” safety standards.

That’s not true. The revision simply cuts redundant federal regulations, making it easier for private offshore companies to manage risks, and the department deserves applause for boosting workers’ economic opportunities.

As many as 90 billion barrels of oil and 328 trillion cubic feet of natural gas lie buried in the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf — the federally owned land beneath the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans and the Gulf of Mexico. To collect these energy riches, oil and gas firms use offshore rigs or platforms to drill wells into the ocean floor.

Interior’s update eliminates bureaucratic red tape around this process. The revision gets rid of redundant tests on wells and blowout preventers, the specialized valves that quickly seal wells to prevent oil spills. Without these repetitive tests, offshore workers have more time to focus on other, more effective safety measures.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/06/the_energy_solution_that_should_make_everyone_happy.html

Fake science is a plague that inhibits the advance of the economy and causes vast sums to be wasted going up blind alleys.  Fake science is promoted not solely by crackpots.  Scientists are in the game, too.  If I went through the long list of fake sciences, I’d probably offend every reader.  So I won’t.  For the argument here, I need to mention only global warming, nuclear radiation, and renewable energy.  Personally, I think global warming is fake science.  But whether it is or is not fake does not matter for my argument. What I am going  to suggest will solve the global warming problem if there is one.

Nuclear radiation has been the target of a long running scare story.  Yes, a big dose will make you sick or kill you.  But the evidence is that small doses are harmless or beneficial.  This is important because society will not accept nuclear power if it is terrified of nuclear radiation, even though the radiation emitted by nuclear power plants is microscopic.  The argument for the danger of low-level radiation is demolished easily.  You only need to observe that elephants are not suffering greatly from cancer, even though they have vastly more cells that are suspectable to radiation damage.  There are scientific studies that back up the elephant story completely.

Renewable energy is a crackpot invention of the environmental Left.  Supposedly, renewable energy uses sources of energy that will not run out, anytime soon, like the sun.  Renewable energy must not emit CO2, because that might cause global warming.  But the renewable energy proselytizers can’t stick to their story.  Hydroelectricity is obviously renewable, but it is excluded because the environmental Left hates dams.  Geothermal energy, using the heat in hot rocks underground to generate electricity, is considered renewable, even though the hot rocks frequently cool because the heat is used up.  The “fuel” runs out.  Wind and solar are loved by the environmental Left, even though they are expensive and brimming with serious problems.  Nuclear is hated and not considered renewable, even though it emits no CO2, the fuel is potentially inexhaustible, and there are no noxious substances coming out of smokestacks.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/06/solar_power_to_hit_the_wall_in_nevada.html

Solar power and wind power are the dominant methods of generating electricity that are acceptable to the extreme left. The left calls its acceptable methods of generating electricity “renewable energy.” The definition of renewable energy, enshrined in renewable portfolio laws in many states, tells us what the left likes and doesn’t like. It is very arbitrary. The general idea of renewable energy is that it doesn’t use fuel that could run out and it doesn’t emit CO2. But the left breaks its own rules as is convenient.

For example, nuclear power doesn’t emit CO2 and running out of fuel is strictly theoretical. Nuclear is also reliable with steady delivery of electricity. The prospects for new technology in the nuclear universe are very bright. Yet, nuclear is arbitrarily banned in renewable portfolio laws. Incredibly, most renewable portfolio laws effectively ban hydroelectric power too, because the environmental left does not like dams.

Geothermal power, utilizing hot rocks underground as a source of energy, is accepted as renewable, even though the “fuel” can and does run out as the rocks cool under the pressure of removing the heat to make electricity. Geothermal only works if rare good sites are found.

Solar power and wind power are loved by the left, but have the serious problem of erratic delivery of power. Wind dominates solar except in places with poor wind and good sunshine, such as Nevada, where I live. In states where a lot of solar has been installed, such as California and Nevada, solar is running into a wall that is related to  the time delivery of solar power versus when the electrical grid’s need for power.

Nevada has a renewable portfolio law that demands that by 2030 half the electricity come from renewable sources. The promoters of green power are even trying to put the renewable power quota into the Nevada Constitution. As a practical matter that quota requires greatly increasing solar electricity. Nevada does have fairly good geothermal resources, but those are expensive and slow to develop.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2019/06/now-they-want-to-fix-the-climate/

They have always been around, the weeping prophets and merchants of doom, as have their credulous followers. The descendants of Jeremiah and Nostradamus also claim to have had special insight and esoteric knowledge. They urge us to make sacrifices, change behaviour, go solar and wind, buy carbon-offsets to annul our sins of emission and restructure global energy in less than ten solar revolutions. Cometh the hour, cometh a saviour: the climate fixer.

Welcome to Warmerland, where tweets warn of the coming inferno of Hothouse Earth and twits churn out yet another “tipping point”. Our Deep Fry moment could occur as soon as April 1 next year or perhaps by 2030. The Doomsday Clock is showing two minutes to midnight, so don’t miss an update.

If, as some claim, “perilous tipping points are idestabilising our global climate system and making it more unpredictable”, it has not deterred them from making dodgy causal claims, as did Canadian prime minister Trudeau in early June:

We need to be taking real action to prevent climate change [and extreme weather]. That’s why we’re moving forward on a price on [carbon dioxide] pollution right across the country.”

Yet if the global climate is “destabilised” – and “more unpredictable” – how can one make predictions about it?  What is “stability” in such a chaotic system? Where is the science on tipping points? How and when will Canadians know whether it has been effective? What are Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s key performance indicators?

The inconvenient truth is taking “real action to prevent climate change”– in Canada, Australia or anywhere — is gesture politics, a waste of other people’s money and time in pursuit of a chimera.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/06/15/why-feel-good-policy-rarely-works-best/

Reprinted with permission from Pacific Legal Foundation’s Summer Sword & Scales.

Developing effective public policy is tough, thoughtful work. There is so much to consider: What is the problem? What can be done about it? Who is best equipped (and legally authorized) to do it? 

What is the likelihood of success? Time, study, and seriousness are the name of the game. 

That is, unless you’re a California state official. In that case, no hard thinking — or data — is needed. Just develop public policy based on what feels good. The California plastic straw ban is a prime example. 

In an effort to seem as ecofriendly as possible, California, along with several cities and localities around the country, have decided to outlaw plastic straws in bars and restaurants unless upon specific request. 

These sweeping policy decisions were not based on serious contemplation of the issue, studies looking into the best environmental practices, or considering reality. Instead, they were inspired by a report from a 9-year-old and a viral YouTube video featuring an injured sea turtle. 

Here’s the background: Eight years ago, a fifth-grader named Milo Cress began a campaign urging his hometown to “Be Straw Free.” He encouraged restaurants to ask customers before offering straws. As part of the campaign, Milo called a handful of straw manufacturers and asked them how many straws they sell. Then, based on that limited data, he extrapolated a claim that Americans consume 500 million plastic straws a day. 

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2019/06/a-remedial-les

I am a mathematics teacher in a well-to-do school.  Next year will be my fiftieth year in the profession.  I am well known around the school as someone who hasn’t fallen for the CO2 swindle, although I have no problem with the notion that the various climates around the earth are changing in various ways.  Being a mathematics teacher, the notion the mainstream media runs, that the earth has “a climate”, appals me.  How can we can “average” the multitude of climates around the earth and come up with “the climate”? It does not compute.

I often come across students and teachers who express concern over climate change and the need for humanity to do something about it.  I always begin such conversations with the question, “What’s the problem?”  They always, eventually, get down to the fact that it’s carbon “pollution” and how we must stop burning fossil fuels and embrace renewables in order to save the planet. Again, its the MSM spin. My next question is how much CO2 is in the atmosphere?  I have yet to come across anyone at school, when asked that question, who knows that it’s a bit above 400 ppm.  After informing them of this particular fact, I ask if they know how low the CO2 concentration can fall  before life on earth ceases.  Again, I have yet to come across anyone at school who knows that once it drops to about 180 ppm, we are in trouble.

My third question after that is this: if 400 ppm is too much and 180 ppm too little, how much CO2 is just right?  Again, no one has been able to answer this, as no one on the planet knows the answer.  I then try to present students (adults have usually stopped listening by that stage) with some perspective on 400 ppm. I ask them to think of a million molecules of atmosphere as a million one-dollar coins placed adjacent to each other in a square.  The square would be 25 metres by 25 metres, about the size of a school’s small gymnasium. The 400 ppm of CO2, if represented by those dollar coins, would make up a square 50 cm by 50 cm. What’s more, since humanity is responsible for only about three per cent of the CO2 in the atmosphere, the human contribution to those one million coins would be 12 coins.