https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-9-4-the-competition-over-how-to
It was back on June 4 that I posed the eternal question, “Will The Democratic Candidates Ever Notice That The Climate Change Thing Is Over?” That post noted that the Democratic candidates for President had begun a kind of bidding war over who could put forth the most extreme proposal to shackle the American economy in the name of climate salvatio n, while at the same time “out in the rest of the world” they were “laugh[ing] at this spectacle.” Among the data points cited in that post were that China was seeking reductions in the price of coal in order to spur consumption of electricity, and that in Australia a national election had just been lost by the party that made a principal issue out of its opposition to a huge new coal mine in Queensland.
In the three months since early June, things have only gotten sillier.
The Statistical Review of World Energy 2019 from the BP oil company came out. A summary of it in Forbes on June 28 noted: “Coal consumption in most of the developing world continues to grow. Asia Pacific increased consumption [in 2018] by the most overall, but its 2.5% growth rate lagged Africa’s (+3.9%) and Central and South America (+3.7%).”
The annual Google billionaires’ climate summit was held in Sicily at the beginning of August. From euronews: “114 private jets flew into the Italian Verdura Resort, according to the Italian press, and many of the elite guest list arrived in multi-million pound yachts. With stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Barack Obama and Prince Harry in attendance, reports Jim Dobson at Forbes, they were hardly going to be hitch-hiking. . . .”
With the Australian election won by pro-development forces, the giant ($16.5 billion) Carmichael/Adani coal mine project in Queensland resumed its march toward final regulatory approval.
In late August former President Barack Obama plunked down just under $15 million for a beachfront mansion in Martha’s Vineyard, maybe 10 feet above mean high tide, revealing just what the ex-Pres really thinks of his own rhetoric about impending climate-induced sea-level rise.