RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amac.us/newsline/society/democrats-latest-break-with-the-science/

Last week, the Biden administration announced what the New York Times called its “most aggressive move yet to protect federal land from oil and gas exploration,” not only banning drilling in 13 million acres of what the Times termed “pristine” wilderness in Alaska, but also canceling the remaining drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) issued by the Trump administration.

While “young environmentalists,” according to the Times, were still “angered” by Biden’s decision in March to allow the $8 billion Willow project to proceed, calling it a betrayal of the president’s campaign promise of “no new drilling, period” on federal lands and waters, the administration has stressed that its ban on other projects along with the lease cancellation will substantially “reduce the carbon emissions that result from burning oil and gas that are driving climate change.”

The legality of the administration’s cancellation of previous leases will undoubtedly be challenged in court. Beyond that fact, its anti-drilling policy ignores a vast array of problems resulting from the war on fossil fuels: rapidly rising energy costs, large subsidies to manufacturers of electric cars that few consumers want, increasing America’s reliance on oil imports from unreliable suppliers with despotic regimes like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, bans on fracking that leave oil-rich areas like western New York suffering from widespread unemployment, and so on.

Biden’s climate change rhetoric also ignores the continuing debate around claims that burning fossil fuels is causing a dangerous rise in world temperatures. (See, for instance, the distinguished climate scientist and former Obama energy department official Steven Koonin’s 2021 book Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, as well as several books by the head of the Copenhagen Consensus Bjorn Lomborg.) It also disregards the infinitesimal contribution that drilling in Alaska would make to world CO2 emissions – particularly in contrast with China, which keeps constructing many new (“dirty”) coal-burning power plants each year, even while pledging to start reducing its emissions “in the future.”

All this calls into question the boast made by Democrats, beginning with the first Obama administration, that they, unlike Republicans, believe in following “the science,” not just on climate change, but a whole host of other issues.

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

The electric vehicle honeymoon is over. Don’t expect the marriage itself to last much longer either.  

The mass conversion from internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEs) to electric vehicles was never more than a Democrat/environmentalist hallucination anyway. It was the most ill-conceived government policy objective in modern history.

The transition should have been a non-starter. It’s riddled with numerous deal killers. It’s like having a dozen fatal diseases all at the same time.

Any goal as massive as a total conversion from ICE vehicles to EVs requires careful planning and infrastructure preparation. It would necessitate a rapid doubling of electricity generation and grid expansion. In today’s world that’s impossible.

EV promoters could never deliver on their promises. Their grandiose assurances were nothing more than wishful thinking.

There was no market research. Hmm — I wonder why. There were no feasibility studies. Hmm — I wonder why. Did they actually believe everyone would tolerate spending hours to charge their vehicles rather than the minutes they were accustomed to?

https://www.climatedepot.com/2023/09/11/scientists-responds-to-critiques-of-new-study-reply-to-erroneous-claims-by-realclimate-org-on-our-research-into-the-suns-role-in-climate-change/

In the last month, we have co-authored three papers in scientific peer-reviewed journals collectively dealing with the twin problems of (1) urbanization bias and (2) the ongoing debates over Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) datasets:

Soon et al. (2023). Climate. https://doi.org/10.3390/cli11090179. (Open access)

Connolly et al. (2023). Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics. https://doi.org/10.1088/1674-4527/acf18e. (Still in press, but pre-print available here)

Katata, Connolly and O’Neill (2023). Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-22-0122.1. (Open access)

All three papers have implications for the scientifically challenging problem of the detection and attribution (D&A) of climate change. Many of our insights were overlooked by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their last three Assessment Reports (AR), i.e., IPCC AR4 (2007), IPCC AR5 (2013) and IPCC AR6 (2021). This means that the IPCC’s highly influential claims in those reports that the long-term global warming since the 19th century was “mostly human-caused” and predominantly due to greenhouse gas emissions were scientifically premature and the scientific community will need to revisit them.

So far, the feedback on these papers has been very encouraging. In particular, Soon et al. (2023) seems to be generating considerable interest, with the article being viewed more than 20,000 times on the journal website in the first 10 days since it was published.

However, some scientists who have been actively promoting the IPCC’s attribution statements over the years appear to be quite upset by the interest in our new scientific papers.

This week (September 6th, 2023), a website called RealClimate.org published a blog post by one of their contributors, Dr. Gavin Schmidt, the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA GISS). In this post, Dr. Schmidt is trying to discredit our analysis in Soon et al. (2023), one of our three new papers, using “straw-man” arguments and demonstrably false claims.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19962/climate-emergency-hoax

More than 1,600 scientists, including two Nobel laureates, have signed a declaration saying that “There is no climate emergency.” The declaration is unlikely to get any attention from the mainstream media, unfortunately, but it is important for people to know about: the mass climate hysteria and the destruction of the US economy in the name of climate change need to stop.

“Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific,” states the declaration signed by the 1,609 scientists, including Nobel laureates John F. Clauser from the US and Ivar Giaever from Norway/US.

“Climate policy relies on inadequate models
Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools. They… ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial… There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent.” — 1,609 scientists, There is no Climate Emergency, clintel.org.

“I was taught that you tell the whole truth [as a scientist]….” Koonin said. He noted as well the immorality of asking the developing world to cut down emissions, when so many do not even have access to electricity and the immorality of scaring the younger generations…. — Steven E. Koonin, former Undersecretary for Science at the U.S. Department of Energy; current professor at New York University, fellow at the Hoover Institution, and author of Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters. — Hoover Institution, August 15, 2023.

Of course it would be helpful to research what can be done to relieve the problems brought about by man, such as the “hole in the ozone layer,” which is now closing, but climate change is not an apocalyptic emergency and needs to be attended to without bringing devastation to the hundreds of millions of people already in extreme poverty.

The Biden administration, however, appears not to be concerned about the widespread poverty and massive starvation that will be caused by the unavailability of cheap and reliable energy in underdeveloped countries, or the inflation caused by the skyrocketing prices that are crushing Americans “barely able to afford one meal a day”.

These are man-made problems, created by importing expensive (nearing $100 a barrel again) — often dirtier — oil from adversaries of the United States, such as Russia and Venezuela, instead of extracting it far less expensively at home.

The Biden administration also does not seem concerned that it is killing wildlife, sea life and the fishing industry by installing offshore wind turbines along the Atlantic seaboard, or that mandating electric vehicles will throw virtually the entire auto maintenance industry out of work (EVs do not need routine maintenance), or that lithium batteries not only explode but cost thousands of dollars to replace. The administration even wants military equipment, such as tanks, to be electric, as if there were charging stations in the middle of foreign deserts in the event of a conflict. Moreover, according to NBC News, volcanoes, unimpressed with executive orders, “Dwarf Humans for CO2 Emissions.”

The Biden administration does not even bother to act on its own climate findings: In March, the White House released a report about the impact of climate change on the US economy. “Its findings undermine any claims of an ongoing climate crisis or imminent catastrophe” Koonin wrote in July. “The report’s authors should be commended for honestly delivering likely unwelcome messages…. Exaggerating the magnitude, urgency and certainty of the climate threat encourages ill-considered policies that could be more disruptive and expensive than any change in the climate itself.” — Steven E. Koonin, Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2023.

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