RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/09/the-wef-and-the-climate-cult/

One should never underestimate the Left’s propensity for projecting its sins upon its victims; nor, when the Left does manage to admit the destructive effects of their regressive ideology, to proclaim these disastrous consequences as fundamental transformational and “liberation.” To avoid such a fraught misunderstanding, one must ever remember the Left perverts the purported rationale of every entity captured in their “long march” through the institutions.

To wit: The World Economic Forum (WEF).

One would think an organization comprised of the uber rich global elitists would be assiduously focused on increasing wealth. The rationale would be their own greed; and the need to spread wealth to meet rising global expectations of material prosperity that, as history shows, when unmet lead to revolutions – revolutions which confiscate the wealth of the rich and often their lives. Yet, to spread material wealth is rarely the goal of the rich. Their goal is to amass wealth; then, having amassed it, to protect it from the masses. However, in a contradiction Karl Marx would appreciate, in spreading their wealth to increase the masses’ material prosperity, they will also be increasing the masses’ expectations. In an age of instantaneous global communication among the masses, these expectations will rapidly and exponentially rise. There is every reason to believe they will not be met; and revolutions and/or chaos will ensue as the masses demand their “equitable” share of prosperity.

Thus, for the WEF, what to do if one doesn’t necessarily want to share their pile to spread the wealth and only exacerbate rising expectations among the masses that can’t be met; and, when unmet, spur nothing good for rich elitists?

For the first time in human history, the goal is not to increase material prosperity but to cap and curtail it. By making diminished expectations a virtue, the WEF hopes to coercively redistribute other people’s wealth to manage mass expectations, prevent governmental confiscations and preclude revolutions. In sum, the WEF goal is not creation of prosperity, but the management of scarcity. In this, they have found a willing partner in the apocalyptic climate cult, which is more than happy to scare and coerce people into latching onto their mutual, radical, socialist agenda.

But, one may ask, how can the ostensible “titans” of capitalism become strange bedfellows with socialist environmentalists? Because both want to control you for their own purposes; and, for now, those purposes coincide. One need look no further for proof than the ESG movement among multinational corporations. Someday, likely sooner rather than later, when these two colluders’ interests no longer mesh, it will be interesting to see which side is the rider and which is the tiger.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-cancels-anwr-oil-drilling-leases-deb-haaland-energy-russia-24a5c647?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Oil prices have climbed this week after Saudi Arabia and Russia extended their production cuts. The Biden Administration’s response? Restrict U.S. oil and gas development.

The Interior Department on Wednesday canceled seven oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and moved to limit development on 13 million acres in the state’s National Petroleum Reserve. “President Biden is delivering on the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in history,” Secretary Deb Haaland boasted.

Its climate agenda is also the most lawless and economically destructive in history. The 2017 GOP tax reform mandated two lease sales within the Coastal Plain of ANWR. The first occurred in January 2021, and the second is required to be held before Dec. 22, 2024.

Mr. Biden on his first day in office imposed a leasing moratorium in ANWR. Now Ms. Haaland is revoking seven ANWR leases issued by the Trump Administration in January 2021. She claims to have “the authority to cancel or suspend oil and gas leases issued in violation of a statute or regulation,” and that the ANWR leases include “fundamental legal deficiencies.”

https://prospect.org/environment/2023-09-06-energy-insufficiency-blocpower/

For years, Donna Hope has helped landlords make their buildings greener. Two years ago, she told herself, “I’m going to walk the walk.”

The boiler at her two-family property in New Rochelle, New York, had just conked out. Hope inherited the cream-yellow house from her parents, and now leases out both units. When I visited in August, pear trees in the yard were dripping with ripe fruit.

Hope has degrees in civil and environmental engineering, and has made a career helping business owners comply with environmental laws, including work in the sustainability offices of two New York City mayors. So, she figured, why not switch to electric heat pumps? She reached out to several contractors, and to BlocPower, a green loan provider that also offers engineering and project management.

For over a decade, BlocPower has received glowing press for its promise to make clean energy affordable for poor households and small businesses. It emphasizes air-source heat pumps, the focus of a growing drive to electrify buildings, as well as insulation and other repairs necessary to make the heat pumps work. The idea is to bring decarbonization to people who can’t afford to buy the equipment outright.

To customers, it advertises itself as a “turnkey” provider, offering no-money-down financing, auditing buildings, and bringing in quality contractors. To governments, it has pitched itself as able to build community trust and convince building owners to use existing decarbonization incentives, while stretching every public dollar by combining it with private capital.

BlocPower’s lease is a separate payment from a customer’s electricity bill, but the company says customers will see such high savings from more efficient power use that the lease will more than pay for itself. The commitment, then, is to save customers money, reduce local and global air pollution, and deliver returns for its investors—a win-win-win.

“I knew of BlocPower and their rise to fame,” Hope said, through mutual acquaintances with CEO Donnel Baird. She loved what she heard, and selected BlocPower as her project manager.

That’s where Hope’s troubles started. After facing a bevy of problems with the system, Hope reported her concerns to an adviser with the state energy agency, NYSERDA, and requested an inspection. Today, she told the Prospect, she is considering suing BlocPower for the retrofit they financed, which has saddled her with a 15-year lease for equipment she fears has been damaged, and a long-term relationship with a firm she distrusts. “God knows I’ve had my share of shifty contractors,” she said. “This has been one of the most egregious.”

I FIRST WROTE ABOUT BLOCPOWER IN 2021, when the company invited Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Michael Regan to tour a Bronx church it had retrofitted. In January of this year, I published a deeper dive on its business model.

On average, BlocPower says, its customers save 20 to 40 percent on their annual heating and cooling bills by switching to heat pumps. But it offers no financial guarantee, and multiple HVAC contractors told the Prospect that such high average savings are unlikely.

Long popular in the Southeast, heat pumps have recently taken off in colder states like Maine as an electric-powered replacement for burning heating oil. But in states like California and New York, where electricity is expensive and most households rely on gas, it can be tough for conversions to create value at the kitchen table. Heat pumps can also be harder to install in the older, more run-down buildings BlocPower says it targets.

Baird is forthright about the challenges of retrofitting low-income buildings, which often need structural repairs. “We hope to fix neglect WHILE making buildings green. Most times it works,” Baird recently wrote on LinkedIn. “In 5-10% of our projects the Electrification has NOT gone well.”

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/09/05/the-political-exploitation-of-children/

In its wisdom, one of those unelected and unaccountable United Nations committees decided last week that children should have the right to take national governments to court for failing to tackle climate change.

Like many other international bodies and NGOs, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is effectively using children to voice its own political concerns. In its new report, it praises ‘the efforts of children’ for drawing ‘attention’ to ‘environmental crises’. It claims that it is children rather than adults who possess the kind of wisdom necessary to tackle the problems facing the planet. And it calls for the legal affirmation and validation of the authority of children. ‘[Children’s] demands for urgent and decisive measures to tackle global environmental harm should be realised’, it states.

In the view of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, adults are the problem and children are the solution. Its approach is therefore fully in line with the cultural trend of adultifying childhood, which reverses the roles of adults and children. Children are deemed wise and considerate, whereas adults are presented as selfish and indifferent to others.

Of course, the Committee on the Rights of the Child is not really interested in what children think. It is simply ventriloquising children to advance its own beliefs. The report claims that children complained of ‘the negative effects of environmental degradation and climate change on their lives and communities’, and that they ‘asserted their right to live in a clean, healthy and sustainable environment’. The report quotes the children it ‘consulted’ as follows:

‘“The environment is our life.” “Adults [should] stop making decisions for the future they won’t experience. [We] are the key means [of] solving climate change, as it is [our] lives at stake.” “I would like to tell [adults] that we are the future generations and, if you destroy the planet, where will we live?!”’

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/09/04/the-green-movement-is-a-disinformation-campaign/

The planet is on fire – and it’s all our fault. That has become the abiding mantra of the climate movement. This summer, wildfires from Greece to Hawaii have been portrayed as nature’s punishment for mankind’s polluting activities. Each disaster has been treated as a portent of the End Times. Reining in human development, we’re told, is the only way to avert an even more serious catastrophe. But is there any truth to these apocalyptic claims?

Journalist and best-selling author Michel Shellenberger recently joined Brendan O’Neill to discuss all this and more in a special live episode of The Brendan O’Neill Show. Below is an edited extract from their conversation. Watch the full episode here.

Brendan O’Neill: The recent wildfires across Europe and America are held up by many as proof that Mother Earth is punishing mankind. Is this another example of disinformation from the climate-change lobby?

Michael Shellenberger: In this case, the word ‘disinformation’ is certainly accurate. It is a type of organised lying that needs to be disproved.

There has been a concerted effort since the 1990s to convince people that climate change is making natural disasters worse. Yes, there is some evidence that climate change is causing more heatwaves and changes to precipitation. But a disaster is defined by two things: deaths and costs. And we’re not seeing an increase in either. In fact, deaths from extreme weather events have actually drastically declined over the past century. Only a few hundred people now die each year from natural disasters in the US, for example. So the climate movement is undeniably a disinformation campaign.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/09/the_hidden_energy_crisis.html

America is wrestling with the worst energy crisis in its history, a period of high prices and limited supply.

America is wrestling with the worst energy crisis in its history, a period of high prices and limited supply. According to the Brookings Institution, in 2022, the average U.S. residential retail electricity price was 15.12 cents/kWh, an 11% increase from 13.66 cents/kWh in 2021. In the first three months of 2023, the average U.S. residential monthly electricity bill was $133, or 5% higher than for the same time in 2022. There is confusion with savings or cost expectation of solar and wind conversion, also government decisions have impacted the natural gas and energy supply. While electric vehicles are a much-touted solution for replacing oil, gasoline or diesel fuel contains 40 times the energy as a state-of-the-art battery. Questionable efforts are being made by utilities and government leadership to address our energy future. Critical solutions have been avoided and hidden. Fossil-fuel plants are closing faster than green alternatives can replace them. Producers of oil and gas can’t keep up with the confusion in supply. Fantasy thinking has taken hold of President Biden and Democrat leaders. Progressives and their media followers are guilty of denial concerning the reality of how to solve a potential climate/energy crisis.

Energy and climate change are complicated. Credible scientists challenge whether there is a climate crisis. The three U.S. electric grids are old and at capacity, and many power plants are outdated. California is one example of the problem. New plants have not been brought online due to environmentalists and demonization by politicians; some have even been targeted for shutdown.  Renewable energy has been identified as having benefits and can supply up to 35% of energy demand but is unreliable since it requires wind, sun, or flowing water.  It also creates energy storage and environmental issues. The Biden administration and Governor Gavin Newsom in California have embarked on plans to eliminate the use of gas and replace all transportation vehicles, garden tools, stoves, dryers’ etc. using electrical energy.  This approach will place an overwhelming timeline and demand on existing energy resources.  It will require a huge investment in new power plants, including the potential of nuclear.  This investment will create significant upward pressure on the cost of energy and create blackouts from poor planning

https://www.theepochtimes.com/science/over-1600-scientists-sign-no-climate-emergency-declaration-5482554?utm_

International scientists have jointly signed a declaration dismissing the existence of a climate crisis and insisting that carbon dioxide is beneficial to Earth, contrary to the popular alarmist narrative.

“There is no climate emergency,” the Global Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL) said in its World Climate Declaration (pdf), made public in August. “Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.”

A total of 1,609 scientists and professionals from around the world have signed the declaration, including 321 from the United States.The coalition pointed out that Earth’s climate has varied as long as it has existed, with the planet experiencing several cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age only ended as recently as 1850, they said.

“Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming,” the declaration said.

Warming is happening “far slower” than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The Real Reason Behind the ‘Climate Emergency’ Push

“Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools,” the coalition said, adding that these models “exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases” and “ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.” For instance, even though climate alarmists characterize CO2 as environmentally-damaging, the coalition pointed out that the gas is “not a pollutant.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/climate-brainwashing/

Hammering K-12 school children nonstop about the dangers of climate change in every class, even math, art and gym, is child abuse.

Barely one-third of fourth graders can read or do math at grade level, according to the latest national scores, but climate activists are demanding kids hear about global warming in every class. New Jersey mandates it, and now Connecticut is following suit as the school year opens. In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams is requiring every public school participate in Climate Action Day.

The climate push is nakedly political, spearheaded in New Jersey by the governor’s wife, first lady Tammy Murphy, a founding member of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project. Lessons link urban heat islands to tree placement inequities, redlining and racism.

New York City holds out activist Greta Thunberg as a climate hero and role model, telling kids to “get involved in the global student climate action movement” and “get to know community leaders and register to vote.” Everything short of pre-enrolling kindergarteners in the Democratic Party. Parents should be outraged.

Climate change is the Left’s religion. The messaging is as heavy-handed as catechism in a religious school.

It’s also scary. Children are being told that global warming is killing their favorite animals. At Slackwood Elementary School in New Jersey, first graders are taught that transportation, heating, and raising livestock are “making Earth feel unwell.”

The reality is that these children are too young to comprehend the trade-offs of moving to zero carbon immediately. A first grader doesn’t know Mommy can’t afford an electric vehicle — average price $53,000.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/08/29/hurricane-season-means-a-surge-in-category-5-climate-lies/

We’re about half way through the 2023 hurricane season, predicted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasters to be a near-normal year, and it’s been rather quiet. But with a few storms brewing this week in the Atlantic, we expect to hear the usual shrieking from politicians, activists and the media, blaming the weather on man-caused climate change. Our suggestion is to pay no attention to the eco-screamers’ lamentations.

On Sunday, the National Hurricane Center issued advisories for a hurricane and a tropical storm in the Atlantic Ocean, and an advisory for a tropical storm in the Eastern Pacific. Of the three, the Atlantic storm Idalia seems to be the most dangerous. It could make landfall as a hurricane on the Gulf coast of Florida on Wednesday.

That could mean a life-changing disaster for thousands of Floridians. The climatistas, though, see opportunity in crisis. They never let a serious calamity go to waste. Before the weekend was over, the press was linking Idalia to “climate change,” which is of course code for “man-made global warming,” as if there had never been a hurricane before humans began burning fossil fuels.

The alarmist community has long insisted that weather is not the same as climate any time anyone ever pointed to mild summers and colder-than-usual winters as evidence that the global warming theory was bunk. But when it’s convenient for spreading fear, the same crowd takes isolated weather events and claims they are evidence that human activity is warming the planet.

Even in 2023, truth is still important to some of us, and the facts show that the global warming zealots are false prophets. Inconvenient to their con are data that show that death and destruction from climate-related disasters have fallen sharply over the last century. Annual fatalities from floods, droughts, wildfires, storms, and extreme temperatures have tumbled by nearly 98% over that era, from nearly 500,000 in the early 1920s to fewer than 12,000 in 2022. The details don’t fit the narrative, but when did that ever matter to the political left that continues to feed the fiction that man is setting his planet on fire?

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2023/08/28/the-morning-briefing-climate-cult-tyrants-are-still-worse-than-covid-tyrants-n1722563

Freedom-loving Americans have had a rough go of it since the first arrival of the Wuhan Chinese Bat Flu on our shores. The Trump/Fauci alliance made things bad enough, but the tyrannical flex got really bad when Joe Biden was installed in the presidency. As we have seen in recent weeks, the COVID fetish Left is attempting to relive its glory days of oppression.

With the stink of the pandemic government heavies still lingering so strongly, the Climate Cult thugs have been hoping to keep their campaign of error and terror continuing unabated without anyone noticing. We do occasionally discuss them here in the Briefing, but it’s time to check in again.

There is, of course, a lot of overlap between the COVID tyrants and the climate tyrants. The lefties do often like to specialize, however. The climate commies have been grifting in that lane for so long that they don’t really need to pay attention to any opportunities that may come along on the COVID panic front.

John Kerry — America’s Ugliest Trophy Wife — is tasked with demonizing anyone who questions the Climate Cult orthodoxy, and Ben wrote about his latest antics:

The corporate state is intent, apparently, on ramping up its propaganda against so-called “climate deniers,” presumably to set the rhetorical groundwork for more extreme legal and social action against them in the future. So it dispatched something called its “climate envoy,” John Kerry, to Scotland with that aim.