RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/green-rope-a-dope-china-watches-as-america-greens/

If this is what we are being told we must do for the ‘Great Reset,’ it’s time to unset it.

The color green has long been associated with envy, but increasingly it’s becoming a pigment of mass delusion. Amid near-hysterical reporting about the climate, the U.S., and much of the West, is embracing willy-nilly policies likely to weaken our economy and boost China’s ascendancy at the expense of democracy and market economies.

In essence, China is adopting a version of the great Muhammad Ali’s “rope-a-dope” boxing strategy, which had the opponent wear himself out by launching harmless punches as Ali lounged on the ropes. Then, as the rival began to weaken, Ali would seize the moment and pummel him.

Much the same is happening with the emerging climate agenda. Under Paris and other accords, China, as well as India and other developing countries, essentially have been given a pass not to achieve “carbon neutrality” until 2060. The argument is largely (at least formally) that the West is responsible for the heavily hyped climate “apocalypse” because of its longer history of industrial growth, although neither China nor India seems eager to de-industrialize, cut itself off from medical advances, or otherwise halt its progress toward Western levels of prosperity.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-energy-transition-a-leap-into-the-dark/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=corner&utm_term=first

Not for the first time, it strikes me that the transition away from fossil fuels may be moving rather more quickly than the technology upon which it is supposed to rely.

The Wall Street Journal:

Summer is around the corner, and we suggest you prepare by buying an emergency generator, if you can find one in stock. Last week the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) warned that two-thirds of the U.S. could experience blackouts this summer. Welcome to the “green energy transition.”

We’ve been warning for years that climate policies would make the grid more vulnerable to vacillations in supply and demand. And here we are. Some of the mainstream press are belatedly catching on that blackouts are coming, but they still don’t grasp the real problem: The forced transition to green energy is distorting energy markets and destabilizing the grid.

Progressives blame the grid problems on climate change. There’s no doubt that drought in the western U.S. is a contributing factor. NERC’s report notes that hydropower generators in the western U.S. are running at lower levels, and output from thermal (i.e., nuclear and fossil fuel) generators that use the Missouri River for cooling may be affected this summer.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/05/29/why-does-boston-buy-natural-gas-from-russia/

Europe is vulnerable and needs our natural gas; prices are absurdly high and going higher. Yet, everyone in the oil and gas industry is afraid to invest any money, even if they have financing available. Who wants to start a 10- to 20-year natural gas project, whether it’s a gas field, pipeline, or LNG (liquified natural gas) terminal, when the current administration is saying it will shut you down in 10 years?

“You’ve got six years, eight years, no more than 10 years or so,” says climate envoy John Kerry. “No one should make it easy for the [natural] gas interests to be building out 30- or 40-year infrastructure.”

In the meantime, India has relaxed its environmental regulations and plans to double its use of coal. China has cut coal import tariffs to zero to ensure energy security and lower costs.

The United States has an abundance of coal and natural gas. Yet, natural gas is actually imported, at great cost, to Boston’s LNG facility from Russia, Canada, and the Caribbean due to the lack of pipeline capacity. In late January natural gas from the Algonquin City Gate Hub (near Boston) sold for over $20 per million BTUs, and more than $23 on the futures market. Natural gas from nearby Pennsylvania cost just $4 in January.

Plenty of cheap natural gas is available in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, a few hundred miles away; and pipelines to supply New England are mostly built, but have been shut down by environmental lawsuits and regulatory hurdles. Because of the regional dearth of natural gas pipelines, and its high price, many in New England are burning oil for heat and electric power plants, and burned more coal in 2021 than in 2020.

One of the many ironies is that carbon dioxide emissions—the bogeyman of radical environmentalists—have decreased where there is sufficient natural gas to replace coal. But any additional gas for New England, as noted, must come from foreign sources.

https://nypost.com/2022/05/24/hsbc-banker-stuart-kirk-suspended-for-climate-change-remarks/

Last Thursday, something extraordinary happened: A senior HSBC banker, Stuart Kirk, told the world that climate change, though real, is not something financial markets need worry about. “Unsubstantiated, shrill, apocalyptic warnings are ALWAYS wrong,” one of Kirk’s presentation slides read.

The reaction was instantaneous. Christiana Figueres, former head of the United Nations climate secretariat, denounced Kirk’s remarks as “abhorrently outrageous,” words that might well describe Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine — but a banker’s presentation analyzing climate financial risk for what it is?

Four hundred years ago, people were burnt at the stake for believing the wrong things about religion. Today, they get fired for questioning the climate-change catechism.

Figueres demanded HSBC immediately cleanse itself of Kirk’s remarks and fire the climate heretic. “I do not agree — at all — with the remarks made at last week’s FT Moral Money Summit,” bank chief executive Noel Quinn duly declared, avoiding any mention of Kirk by name. “I am determined that our team won’t be distracted by last week’s comments.” On Monday, it emerged HSBC had suspended Kirk

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/05/a_climate_change_class_action_lawsuit_is_it_viable.html

A few days ago, I suggested that a climate change class action lawsuit should be filed against those parties that clamor to destroy the economy via a Green Agenda that seeks to ban fossil fuels. Some commenters raised an interesting point: How do you prove damages? I think it’s possible and would serve as a good basis for any legal complaint.

The Green Agenda is supported in part or full by the following parties: federal, state, and local governments; universities; Green NGOs; foundations; corporations; renewable proponents/owners; and entrepreneurs. A court could determine if these entities are correct that anthropogenic climate change really will destroy the planet and mankind along with it.

To date, there’s never been an open evaluation of this issue, which traces directly to the UN IPCC Reports and the reports’ subsequent use to justify destroying the present universe of fossil fuel energy that supports our economy. With witnesses battling it out in a single forum, the court could assess whether it’s more likely than not that the world faces catastrophic destruction.

If there is no proven scientific basis for the Green Agenda, then it should be abandoned. Those harmed by the Green Agenda should be awarded the assessed value of the damages suffered.

If you the internet for “A Climate Change Class Action Lawsuit,” you can find my article buried deep in Google. Every other site pulled up refers to lawsuits brought against governments for failing to implement the Green Agenda quickly enough to save the planet or against corporations accused of working to destroy the planet. This Green Agenda litigation is sufficiently well-established to suggest that there’s no reason not to bring a case that asserts the opposite charge: That the Green Agenda is destructive because the risk to the climate is non-existent. It just won’t be a Green lawyer bringing the case.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/19/putins-useful-idiots-how-us-climate-extremists-are-funding-russias-agenda/

The desolation of U.S. energy security has bolstered Vladimir Putin’s dangerous geopolitical aims.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is illuminating an ugly truth: the anti-fracking war on America’s energy security is being waged by well-funded, radical U.S. environmental groups, as well as interests tied directly to Vladimir Putin. For years, the U.S. government has investigated Russian financial ties to environmental groups that push for ending U.S. fossil fuel production and have successfully shut down fracking sites and pipelines, to the detriment of U.S. workers and consumers.

Who benefits? Putin, because the desolation of U.S. energy security has bolstered state-owned Gazprom and his dangerous geopolitical aims.

Before the war on Ukraine, the U.S. Congress began exposing connections between Russia and little-known foundations that donate to major environmental groups such as Sierra Club and National Resource Defense Council (NRDC). The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works released a 2014 report noting a small group of rich Americans was controlling environmental groups and collaborating with questionable offshore funders to maximize support. In 2017, two congressmen called for further investigation of the connection between these funders and Russia.

https://spectator.org/blog-weaponizes-sixth-grade-arithmetic-against-climate-change-fanatics/

On May 9, the Wall Street Journal published an article warning that traditional power plants are being retired more quickly “than they can be replaced by renewable energy and battery storage.” The Journal’s belated discovery that the war on fossil fuels threatens a future of rolling blackouts would come as no surprise for those who have read Francis Menton’s brilliant, deceptively simple blog, the Manhattan Contrarian.

Menton says his entire contribution to the global warming debate boils down to being one of the few people willing to do basic arithmetic. Menton dismisses the idea that his background — majoring in math and economics in college and pursuing a career at the major New York law firm Wilkie, Farr & Gallagher — prepared him for taking on the consensus that achieving zero net emissions is a workable target. Menton told The American Spectator: “The impossibility of [an all-renewable future] is really just arithmetic, the kind you learn by sixth grade. Maybe you want a spreadsheet program to help you but in terms of the math, it’s nothing you didn’t learn in elementary school.”

Menton put that math to use when he attended a public hearing May 3 called by the New York Climate Action Council. The hearing, which invited public comment, concerned the “Draft Scoping Plan,” which lays out the state’s plan for achieving the net-zero emissions target established under New York’s 2019 Climate Act.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/05/organic-bs-john-stossel/

Activists have convinced Americans that “organic” food is better — healthier, better-tasting, life-extending.

As a result, poor parents feel guilty if they can’t afford to pay $7 for organic eggs.

This misinformation is spread by people like Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director of the Organic Consumers Association. She says organic food is clearly better: “The nutrition is a huge difference.”

But it isn’t. Studies find little difference.

If you still want to pay more for what’s called “organic,” that’s your right. But what’s outrageous is that this group of scientifically illiterate people convinced the government to force all of us to pay more.

Congress has ruled that GMOs (genetically modified food) must be labeled. Busybodies from both parties supported the idea.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/05/a_climate_change_class_action_lawsuit.html

The UN IPCC and associated green activist groups; Federal, state, and local entities; universities; foundations; non-profit groups; and many corporations argue that the world will be destroyed without policies designed to turn on their heads the current energy system and American economy. However, the green agenda that is designed to eradicate fossil fuels will inflict enormous economic damage on America’s ordinary citizens and overall economy—and will do the same to other countries as well. This is true even though the “climate change” models have never been fully and objectively vetted, so there is no solid evidence to justify these upheavals.

Nevertheless, American Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency and, indeed, almost every federal agency and their federally funded cohorts in many state agencies are committed to decarbonization. This is true for a commitment that they admit that they do not know how to implement, as to which they cannot ascertain the final cost, and they’re unable to determined the overall consequences of their policies.

Daniel Yergin, in his The New Map, explains that the current energy system took 100 years to develop. To turn it on its head within a few decades is simply not possible. He predicts that we will move towards decarbonization, though at a slower pace than currently targeted. Further he claims that the “climate change” debate is over, even if the green winners are found to be grossly wrong and trillions of dollars are wasted. But should we accept that a debate that never really took place is over?