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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE

The EV Graveyard

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/09/24/the-ev-graveyard/

Last week, the House approved a resolution to block the Biden administration’s emissions rule that would require more than half of the automobiles sold in the new-car market to be electric by 2032. The 215 representatives who voted for the bill, including eight Democrats, are far more in tune with most of the country than the White House. The “deplorables” and “bitter” clingers of the industrialized world are rejecting electric vehicles.

Nationwide, the inventory of unsold EVs had grown by nearly 350% over the first half of 2024, creating “a 92-day supply — roughly three months’ worth of EVs, and nearly twice the industry average,” says Axios, which is 54 days for gasoline-powered vehicles.

Ford, which lost nearly $73,000 on each EV it sold in the second quarter of 2023, continues to yield to reality, now ditching its plans to build a large electric SUV. This “course change,” says Just the News, “comes amid lower-than-expected demand for electric vehicles.”

The company has also “pushed back to 2027” plans for “another electric vehicle project for a pickup truck.”

“Based on where the market is and where the customer is, we will pivot and adjust and make those tough decisions,” said John Lawler, Ford’s chief financial officer.

And here’s the market’s message:

“Of the U.S. consumers planning on purchasing a new vehicle in the next 24 months, only 34% intend to purchase an EV, down 14% from 48% in the 2023,” says Ernst & Young’s Mobility Consumer Index, “a global survey of almost 20,000 consumers from 28 countries.”

Climate Hysteria and the End of Hope We are a civilization embracing suicide. by Mark Tapson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/climate-hysteria-and-the-end-of-hope/

Recently the reliably Left-wing rag The Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece that wrestled with a question no one in history ever thought to ask themselves until our own time, when it has become a common refrain among young generations: Is it morally right to bring children into a world so fraught with dangerous uncertainty?

“Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question” is an excerpt from a new book by Jade S. Sasser, an associate professor in the – wait for it – Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies at UC Riverside. The book is called Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question: Deciding Whether to Have Children in an Uncertain Future.

Yes, climate anxiety is a thing. Psychotherapist Natacha Duke describes it thusly: “Also known as ‘eco-anxiety,’ ‘eco-guilt’ and ‘eco-grief,’ climate anxiety is characterized by a chronic fear of environmental doom that’s often paralyzing and debilitating.” It is one of the most effective and widespread psyops of our time, having traumatized an entire couple of generations into believing that we must take immediate, radical action to completely dismantle the capitalist, systemically racist, heteronormative, fossil-fueled power structures and exploitative mentality that purportedly have driven us to the brink of planetary annihilation.

The Times excerpt centers on a series of interviews Sasser conducted in 2021 and 2022 with millennials and members of Generation Z, “all of them people of color. Some of them identify as queer… which shapes their sensitivity to discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.” All were college-educated, most having taken environmental studies classes. At least two of them have degrees in sustainability, whatever that means.

Call It Greenflation — And Kamala Wants More Of It

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/09/23/call-it-greenflation-and-kamala-wants-more-of-it/

Every American should see (and share) the chart before they vote in November.

For families struggling to make ends meet, Kamala Harris claims she has a plan to lower energy costs. What she will deliver is more pain. Just ask anyone paying energy bills in a state her party controls.

On Harris’ campaign website, she pays lip service to reducing energy costs, but then rattles off a long list of plans to tackle the “climate crisis.”

We already know you can’t have one with the other.

At a congressional hearing last week, members of the House Budget Committee heard from witnesses about how Biden-Harris policies have fueled today’s energy crisis. One of the witnesses, Diana Furtchgott-Roth of the Heritage Foundation, presented lawmakers with a chart that deserves to be seen by anyone and everyone paying utility bills.

The chart ranks states based on the cost of electricity, as well as the cost of a gallon of gas.

Looking at the chart, you immediately notice something. Of the 16 states where electricity costs are higher than the national average, Republicans control only two. All the rest are either completely or partially run by Democrats.

Liz Peek: Why is Kamala Harris keeping voters in the dark on her energy agenda?

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/4888721-kamala-harris-energy-policy

Almost nothing could be more important to the future of American workers than access to affordable energy. This is why Vice President Kamala Harris needs to come clean about her energy policy. 

Kowtowing to the climate zealots currently running unchecked in the Biden-Harris White House will lead to soaring electricity costs and clobber our country’s ability to compete in the industries of the future such as artificial intelligence.  

Harris has reversed herself on a number of issues, but none as critical as her stance on energy and on fracking.  

While in 2019 she promised to ban fracking, today her campaign says she’s changed her mind. She hasn’t explained why she flip-flopped. She doesn’t need to; we know she needs to win the Pennsylvania’s electoral votes to win the election, and fracking is a large source of employment and revenues in the Keystone State. Therefore, Harris is playing nice and not threatening to put some 400,000 workers out of the job.  

Conservatives don’t believe Harris. Apparently, neither do progressives. Green New Deal enthusiast Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), recently said, “On climate, on abortion, on racial, LGBTQ issues, we are absolutely in agreement on her agenda.” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said that in walking back many of her progressive positions, Harris was just “doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.” 

In her debate with Donald Trump, Harris touted the record oil production that has occurred during the Biden-Harris administration. And it is true: output recently reached a new high of 13.2 million barrels per day, finally topping the 13 million per day peak recorded when Trump was president. That achievement, however, comes in spite of her and her boss’s efforts, not because of them. 

The Green Agenda Would Punish Lower-Income Households the Most, Environmentalists Admit By James Lynch

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/the-green-agenda-would-punish-lower-income-households-the-most-experts-say/

The costs of rapidly transitioning the world economy from natural gas to green energy sources over the coming decades will fall onto lower-income households the most, a reality that even proponents of many of those environmental policies now acknowledge.

The governor of the Bank of Italy, Fabio Panetta, acknowledged the potential negative impacts of a transition to “net-zero” carbon emissions while addressing an international energy conference on Monday.

“In fact, most climate change mitigation policies, such as carbon pricing, put pressure on the energy bills of businesses and households,” said Panetta, a former member of the European Central Bank governing council. “The consumption baskets of less affluent households are heavily weighted toward energy goods. They will therefore be disproportionately affected by the gradual increase in energy costs required for the transition.”

European and American consumers felt the burden of higher energy costs when oil prices spiked two years ago during the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine and inflation reached levels not seen since the 1970s. Inflation remains a top issue for American and European voters, as incumbent parties across Europe face difficult election prospects because of populist backlash.

“It is quite telling that a [former] member of the European Central Bank Governing Council who believes all of the fictitious asserted benefits of reducing carbon dioxide emissions feels compelled to warn just how expensive and devastating to consumers — and especially lower income consumers — carbon dioxide reductions will be,” said James Taylor, president of the Heartland Institute, a free-market think-tank.

Warming Alarmists Again Give Away Their Real Objective

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/09/13/warming-alarmists-again-give-away-their-objective/

What do the climate activists really want? Do they have nothing more in mind than a noble crusade to prevent the burning sky from falling on us? Or is the global warming scare just another piece of the revolution? It’s of course the latter. We know this because they’re constantly telling us it is.

The most recent admission comes from Los Angeles Times environmental reporter Rosanna Xia, whose exhausting essay under the headline “To fix climate anxiety (and also climate change), we first have to fix individualism” was posted on Wednesday – yes, Sept. 11.

Xia dwells a great deal on “climate anxiety” caused by environmental events that have afflicted the planet since its creation but are now blamed on human progress through the combustion of fossil fuels. She worries “we’ll never go back to normal” without defining sufficiently “normal” – maybe because in a world that has never stopped changing there is no normal. She is angry, frustrated, helpless and exhausted. Earth is so doomed that she questions “whether I could ever justify bringing my own children into this world.”

And the answer to all this? Diminish individualism and elevate the collective.

Xia approvingly quotes Sarah Jaquette Ray, whom she identifies as a “an environmental humanist who chairs the environmental studies program at Cal Poly Humboldt,” which tells us a lot about the state of academia.

Mark P. Mills The Political Cost of the Energy Transition Elected leaders will pay a price for green policies that hit citizens in the pocketbook.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-political-cost-of-the-energy-transition

For physicists, energy is about the laws of nature; for engineers, it’s about manufacturing prowess. For citizens, however, energy is generally about money. Energy purchases are unavoidable—whether directly, by paying our electric bills or for gas in our cars, or indirectly, by paying for the energy costs embedded in food, vacations, and everything else. Politicians often use “pocketbook” language when talking to voters because they know how important lowering everyday costs are for most Americans. But does anyone believe that there won’t be a political cost from the embrace of “bold” energy policies that are sharply raising citizens’ energy bills?

To understand where current federal energy policies are taking the nation, we can look to the states, the “laboratories of democracy,” and especially to a group of them eagerly following California’s lead, putting into effect massive changes to energy policies.

Consider New Jersey. As its website brags, it has “one of the most ambitious Renewable Portfolio Standards in the country.” Earlier this summer, headlines featured news about citizens shocked at soaring electric bills, thanks to a state-approved price hike. And that’s just for starters. Early in August, PJM, the grid administrator that manages electricity for a 13-state region that includes New Jersey, reported the results of its auction for supplying next year’s wholesale power: the bids came in nearly ten times as high as last year.

Climate Indoctrination Accelerates As The Narrative Breaks Down

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/09/06/climate-indoctrination-accelerates-as-the-narrative-breaks-down/

The global warming alarmist cabal continues to spin its many yarns and press forward with its propaganda program. Maybe the zealots are becoming desperate because they see the facts aren’t lining up with their hyperbole.

Following the get-’em-while-they’re-young school of thought, the climate agitators are targeting kindergarteners. NASA’s Climate Kids webpage, for instance, says “global warming will affect everyone on Earth.” While admitting that “fossil fuels have changed the course of human history,” NASA also says “these good things come at a cost. The cost is pollution, the destruction of landscapes and natural habitats, oil spills in the ocean, and nasty fracking chemicals in the ground. Global warming will be the biggest problem of all.”

On another of the “Kids” pages, NASA claims that in an era of “rising” global temperatures, “almost all climate scientists agree that a big cause of that is the burning of fossil fuels. The warming could lead to rising sea levels, droughts, flooding, and more severe weather. It is a challenge that we will have to deal with in the coming years.”

Remember, this proselytizing is intended to program kindergarteners. And it’s only the beginning. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is also dedicated to “educating” kids about “human-induced climate change” and making sure that they are afraid to burn fossil fuels.

This is the same NOAA that, according to the Daily Caller, “House Republicans are pressing … for answers about a signature dataset frequently cited as evidence that climate change is intensifying.”

Don’t Be Fooled: Kamala Is A Zero-Carbon Green Radical Francis Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-9-2-economic-policy-is-the-key-to-growth-or-decline

What is Kamala Harris’s position on any important policy issue? It’s not so easy to figure out. She studiously avoids interviews and reporters’ questions. Go to Harris’s official campaign website, and it’s almost entirely about raising money, without a word about what she stands for. Back when she was in the Senate (January 2017-January 2021), and a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President in 2019-20, she made many definitive statements on various subjects (all in accord with the radical left wing of the Democratic Party). Now, it’s silence. Unidentified campaign spokespeople imply that her previous positions are no longer operative; but what is the new position?

The Climate Of Lies Keeps Getting Hotter

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/08/16/the-climate-of-lies-keeps-getting-hotter/

The New York Times recently published a long story warning that the planet’s climate tipping points are frighteningly near. The “great systems in the natural world,” the reporters say, “might be pushing toward collapse” due to man’s use of fossil fuel. Maybe so. Or the changes we’re seeing in the climate might be entirely natural.

But that won’t sell papers to a readership that suffers from a chronic and intellectually stunting case of confirmation bias.

The Times wants us to worry about the mass death of coral reefs, the abrupt thawing of permafrost, the collapse of Greenland ice, the breakup of West Antarctic ice, a sudden shift in the West African monsoon, loss of the Amazon rainforest and the shutdown of Atlantic currents.

And ​​when might disaster be visited on all these hot spots? Well, says the Times, it depends on a number of variables and in some cases the timeline is just “hard to predict.”

Or maybe impossible. But again, a story with that angle won’t stir up the true believers who beg to be stirred up. Only alarmist articles will do that.

We pick on the mighty New York Times here, but it’s the legacy media’s great pleasure to spread misleading information and conjecture about the climate. 

About the only truth we can know about the claims surrounding anthropogenic global warming is that it’s “political, not physical, science.”