The Trump administration is moving to allow year-round sales of gasoline with higher blends of ethanol, a boon for Iowa and other farm states that have pushed for greater sales of the corn-based fuel

Having corn products in your gas tank is absurd.  Greenies put it there and Big Corn keeps it there. If alcohol is needed in fuel, it is most efficiently made from sugar cane.  And the nearby Caribbean is a historic source of cane sugar

President Donald Trump is expected to announce he is lifting a federal ban on summer sales of high-ethanol blends during a trip to Iowa on Tuesday.

The long-expected announcement is something of a reward to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman led a contentious but successful fight to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The veteran Republican lawmaker is the Senate’s leading ethanol proponent and sharply criticized the Trump administration’s proposed rollback in ethanol volumes earlier this year.

At that time Grassley threatened to call for the resignation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s chief, Scott Pruitt, if Pruitt did not work to fulfill the federal ethanol mandate. Pruitt later stepped down amid a host of ethics investigations.

A senior administration official said Monday that the EPA will publish a rule in coming days to allow high-ethanol blends as part of a package of proposed changes to the ethanol mandate. The official spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of Trump’s announcement.

The change would allow year-round sales of gasoline blends with up to 15 percent ethanol. Gasoline typically contains 10 percent ethanol.

The EPA currently bans the high-ethanol blend, called E15, during the summer because of concerns that it contributes to smog on hot days, a claim ethanol industry advocates say is unfounded.

In May, Republican senators, including Grassley, announced a tentative agreement with the White House to allow year-round E15 sales, but the EPA did not propose a formal rule change.

The senior administration official said the proposed rule intends to allow E15 sales next summer. Current regulations prevent retailers in much of the country from offering E15 from June 1 to Sept. 15.

Lifting the summer ban is expected to be coupled with new restrictions on trading biofuel credits that underpin the federal Renewable Fuel Standard, commonly known as the ethanol mandate. The law sets out how much corn-based ethanol and other renewable fuels refiners must blend into gasoline each year.

The Renewable Fuel Standard was intended to address global warming, reduce dependence on foreign oil and bolster the rural economy by requiring a steady increase in renewable fuels over time. The mandate has not worked as intended, and production levels of renewable fuels, mostly ethanol, routinely fail to reach minimum thresholds set in law.

The oil industry opposes year-round sales of E15, warning that high-ethanol gasoline can damage car engines and fuel systems. Some car makers have warned against high-ethanol blends, although EPA has approved use of E15 in all light-duty vehicles built since 2001.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers, many from oil-producing states, sent Trump a letter last week opposing expanded sales of high-ethanol gas. The lawmakers called the approach “misguided” and said it would do nothing to protect refinery jobs and “could hurt millions of consumers whose vehicles and equipment are not compatible with higher-ethanol blended gasoline.”

The letter was signed by 16 Republicans and four Democrats, including Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, a key Trump ally. New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, whose state includes several refineries, also signed the letter.

A spokeswoman for the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol industry trade group, said allowing E15 to be sold year-round would give consumers greater access to clean, low-cost, higher-octane fuel while expanding market access for ethanol producers.

“The ability to sell E15 all year would also bring a significant boost to farmers across our country” and provide a significant economic boost to rural America, said spokeswoman Rachel Gantz.

SOURCE




UN: It's Climate Doomsday, and We Mean It This Time

As if we needed just one more apocalyptic warning to finally believe these Chicken Littles.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced in a new report that the world has just 12 years to make drastic and changes — “unprecedented in terms of scale” — to reduce global warming or we will suffer an irreversible climate catastrophe. As if we needed just one more apocalyptic warning to finally believe these Chicken Littles.

Remember, this UN report comes just 12 years after Al Gore declared we had 10 years left to save the planet. And 36 years after the UN itself said we had 20 years.

This latest doomsday scenario claims that if the nations of the world don’t take major steps to reduce carbon emissions, we will miss the last opportunity to reduce rising temperatures, basically signing humanity’s death warrant.

No really; they mean it this time!

The New York Times is appalled … at President Donald Trump. “A day after the United Nations issued its most urgent call to arms yet for the world to confront the threat of climate change, President Trump boarded Air Force One for Florida — a state that lies directly in the path of this coming calamity — and said nothing about it,” the Times harrumphed in an editorial masquerading as a news report.

The UN report calls for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over the next 10 years. In order to reach this goal, of course, governments must make “rapid and far-reaching” changes to their energy industries by switching to renewable energy sources and phasing out global coal production, while forcing automotive companies to ramp up production of electric cars. Several nations already want to ban combustion engines by 2040; California Democrats do too.

It’s a long shot that the nations of the world can reduce carbon emissions by one million tons a year, so the UN report conveniently notes that a brief overshoot of the temperature goal will still put us on track to save the planet, so long as everyone sticks to the overall plan.

This latest climate report follows the leftist game plan to use climate change as a path to global socialism, to bring sovereign governments and the international economy to heel under a Marxist cabal that would dictate what countries can manufacture and what people can purchase and how, or if, they travel.

The climate alarmism of the Left goes back decades, and it has always been tied to forcing people to change their behavior in a manner that suits the leftist worldview.

In the 1970s, we were told that overpopulation and a coming ice age would deplete our resources and cause massive starvation. The solution was for First World middle- and upper-class people to stop having children and consuming resources. In the 1980s, global warming became the new culprit with the claim that our coastal cities would all be underwater by the turn of the century. The cure? Massive price and tax hikes for First World energy producers and consumers to convince them to reduce their “carbon footprint.”

Why should the United States pay such a high price for global warming? Of all the nations that are signatories to the Paris climate accord, America is the only one that has actually reduced carbon emissions. And, of course, we’re the only signatory to withdraw, just as Trump promised. Yet most of the solutions that scientists propose to “fix” the problem disproportionately target the capitalist U.S., leaving communist China — the world’s largest polluter — alone.

In every instance, a large number of climate scientists have, either willingly or without realizing it, tried to advance the agenda of the Left. Some have admitted to manipulating data to enhance the danger. Others simply trash the reputations of any colleague who dares question the gospel of global warming. Reasoned debate and research, the backbone of good science, has no room when the real goal is to force a particular outcome or behavior upon the people.

Everyone suffers in this climate of fear. When UN panels, universities, and hustlers like Gore lay out doomsday scenarios and use cooked data to warn of “last chances” and “tipping points” to stop the apocalypse, how is the public supposed to know what is true and what is false about global warming? Environmentalists appear puzzled that people aren’t more concerned about the issue. Perhaps they would be more attentive if they weren’t being lied to so brazenly.

SOURCE





Stopping 'Catastrophic' Global Warming Is Impossible, UN Report Shows, So What's The Point?

Assume for the sake of argument that everything environmentalists say about global warming is true. If that's the case, then there is no chance of stopping it. That's what the latest UN report on global warming clearly demonstrates.

The headlines in stories reporting on the UN's latest climate change report all say something along the lines of: "Urgent changed is needed to prevent global catastrophe."

If global temperatures climb more than 1.5 degrees Celsius — compared with preindustrial temperatures — all hell will break loose, the UN says. There will be catastrophic flooding, drought, more weather extremes. Hundreds of millions will be susceptible to poverty by midcentury. Even at 1.5 degrees, terrible things will happen.

To be clear, we are highly skeptical of these doom-and-gloom scenarios. Past predictions of global warming catastrophes have failed to emerge. In the U.S., for example, there's been no trend toward more extreme weather, drought or flooding, even though the planet has already warmed 1 degree Celsius. This year's tornado season, in fact, has been the mildest on record. What's more, environmentalists have issued these "point of no return" warnings for decades, only to revise them once the supposed deadline passes.

Global Warming Is Inevitable

But even if the alarmist predictions are true, there's nothing that can plausibly be done at this point to stop it. That's the real message of the annual UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

The chart contained in the "Summery for Policymakers" shows projected changes in global temperatures over the next 100 years. It also shows that temperatures will top the supposed 1.5-degree limit by around 2040, even if the world makes drastic reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions within the next two decades.

How drastic?

The UN's forecasts all assume that the entire world become entirely carbon free by 2055 … at the latest. That's just 37 years from now. It also assumes that the world makes massive reductions in other greenhouse gases, such as methane.

Here's an example of what the UN says would have to happen within the next 12 years to meet that goal. Keep in mind, this is the low end of the UN's proposed changes:

* 60% of the world's energy would have to come from renewable sources by 2030, and 77% by 2050. (The Department of Energy forecasts that renewables will account for just 27% of the U.S.'s electric power generation by 2050.)

* Coal use would have to drop 78%, oil 37% and natural gas 25% — compared with 2010 levels — within 12 years. (Last year, global coal demand increased, and use of natural gas has massively climbed in the U.S.)

* There'd have to be a 59% increase in nuclear power by 2030, and a 150% increase by 2050. (Good luck getting environmentalist to buy into that).

* Farmers would have to figure out how to cut methane emissions by 24% by 2030, (and still feed a growing worldwide population).

Even those massive reductions won't produce enough CO2 reductions it. So, the UN assumes the world will also remove massive amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere. That's despite the fact that nobody knows how to do that today.

Unprecedented, Or Wishful Thinking?

The UN itself admits that achieving anything like these levels of greenhouse gas reductions "would require rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure, and industrial systems."

It goes on to say that such an undertaking would be "unprecedented in terms of scale." And it would require a "significant upscaling of investments." In other words, massive amounts of money.

To say that changes of this magnitude within that time frame are unrealistic would be putting it mildly.

The last big attempt to get the world to cut CO2 emissions turned out to be a farce. As the UN itself admitted, the CO2 reduction pledges made by the 195 countries that signed on to the Paris Accords won't come anywhere close the level of CO2 reductions it says are needed to avoid "catastrophe."

And countries aren't even living up to those pledges.

In the EU, carbon emissions started climbing again last year. Germany is way off its carbon reduction goals, despite plans to spend $580 billion to overhaul its energy system. A recent report showed that only nine of 195 countries have submitted their CO2 reduction plans to the UN.

Does anyone honestly believe that these countries will suddenly decide to entirely decarbonize their economies in three decades?

Adapting To Global Warming

So, if the chances of avoiding a climate "catastrophe" are gone, what should be done?

Sure, we can research carbon removal technology. And, as the U.S. has shown, a free-market economy — simply by encouraging cost cutting and efficiency — can generate CO2 reductions without the heavy hand of government.

But in our view, the most prudent course of action isn't to wreck the global economy in hopes that it might make a small difference in the climate 100 years from now. The more reasonable approach is to adapt to whatever changes do occur.

Even if the horror stories told by environmentalists come to pass, mankind can and will adjust.

After all, the human race has shown the ability to survive in the most extreme climates. And it's done so with far less technological sophistication. We've learned to live in deserts. And in the Arctic. In hurricane alleys and earthquake zones. The idea that we won't be able to handle changes caused by a slightly warmer planet over the next millennium is ludicrous.

Meanwhile, if the environmentalists' horror stories don't come true, we won't have wasted trillions upon trillions of dollars tilting at windmills.

SOURCE







Four Reasons Why ‘Climate Change’ Is A Flat-Out Hoax

First, a disclaimer: I am not a climate scientist.  In fact, I am not a scientist of any kind.  But I do have a degree in electrical engineering, which I mention only to point out that I am at least as qualified as the next non-scientist to form rational opinions about global warming claims.

In obtaining my degree, I took enough classes in chemistry, physics, and geology to develop a keen appreciation of the scientific method, the best way ever devised for winnowing the truth from fakery and deception.

If taking the scientific method into account, no intelligent person can fail to see that the constant drumbeat of wild and hysterical claims about the climate are insults to the search for Truth.

Following are four reasons why I will bet my life that “climate change” is the greatest scientific and political hoax in human history.

1. Rampant scientific fraud

Ordinary people like me don’t understand climate science, but we can spot cheating a mile away. Without the assistance of a complicit Western media in burying multiple indisputable cases of outright scientific fraud, man-made global warming theory would have been blown out of the water years ago.

One of the most brazen instances of inexcusable scientific misconduct is documented by photographic evidence gathered during a three-month investigation by a veteran meteorologist.

As reported in this PDF, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) placed hundreds of official global warming thermometers in locations entirely unsuitable for gathering natural temperatures:

* Adjacent to hot engines of parked vehicles

* On asphalt-covered roofs

* Near hot exhaust vents of air conditioning units

* On heat-retaining airport tarmacs and paved parking lots

* Next to heat-retaining rock formations and brick buildings

Global warming is measured in tenths of a degree, so every artificial upward nudge creates a deceptive picture of actual temperatures.

To avoid artificially elevated readings, NOAA’s own official site location standards require that thermometers be placed at least 100 feet from any paved or concrete surface, and in a level, open area with natural ground cover.

Those standards were clearly subverted, and every voter should demand to know why.

No supporter of man-made global warming theory who sees the photographs in the PDF linked to above – all of which have been downplayed, or outright ignored, by the complicit Western media – can fail to ascertain that the theory they support is being kept on life support by scientific fraud.

2. The duping of Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Public

As reported in Forbes, the following unguarded statement was made by one of the climate crisis industry’s loudest drum-beaters, the late Dr. Steven Schneider, lead author of numerous alarming U.N. climate reports and former professor of climatology at Stanford:

We need broad-based support to capture the public’s imagination, we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts.  Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.

In other words, one of the climate crisis lobby’s most loyal sycophants told his like-minded colleagues that they not only must conceal evidence that casts doubt on global warming theory but also craft their research in dishonest ways designed to create terror in the minds of a trusting public.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that dishonesty and concealment of contrarian views have no place in legitimate science.

3. A long trail of wildly inaccurate predictions

As reported by Fox News, a 2015 report published in the journal Nature Climate Change compared 117 computer model projections during the 1990s with the amount of actual warming that occurred.

Of the 117, only three were roughly accurate, while 114 over-estimated the recorded warming. (The lopsided results suggest that those doing the modeling may have been guilty of using an unscientific technique known as garbage in, garbage out.) On average, the computer models predicted twice as much warming as that which actually occurred.

The wildly inaccurate predictions reported by Nature Climate Change were not alone.  In a terrifying May 11, 1982 prediction trumpeted in the Western media, Mostafa Tolba, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) decreed that an environmental “tipping point” was closing in: “Earth faces environmental disaster as final as nuclear war by the end of this century unless governments act now.”

That bone-chilling assessment was seconded seven years later, in July 1989, by another senior U.N. climate official, Noel Brown, who warned: “Entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by 2000.”

When that tipping point came and went 19 years ago, others were concocted, including one by NASA scientist Dr. James Hanson, who declared in January 2009, “President Obama has just four years to save Earth.”

As one frantic tipping point after another falls by the wayside, a new one is invented, each of which is breathlessly reported by the complicit Western media.

4. Intentional concealment of inconvenient parts of climate history 

In serving as willing propagandists for the climate crisis industry, Western media portray every severe weather event as the “worst ever,” which they are now doing regarding the drought in the Southwestern U.S. and the flooding caused by Hurricane Florence.  What the alarmists try to hide from voters at all costs are inconvenient parts of Earth’s climate history, such as these:

* Ancient mega-droughts were infinitely worse than anything people living in modern times have seen. Example: Around the year 850 AD, a mega-drought in what is now the Desert Southwest lasted a staggering 240 years, and that catastrophic climate event was preceded by another mega-drought a half-century earlier that lasted 180 years.

Absent that kind of information, it’s no wonder so many otherwise intelligent Americans have been conned into believing that the current drought is the “worst ever.”

* The Great Hurricane of 1780 killed 20,000 people in the Caribbean.  On Sept. 8, 1900, a Cat-4 hurricane obliterated the island of Galveston, Texas, killing an estimated 10,000 residents.

In 1927, weeks of heavy rains along the Mississippi River caused flooding that covered 27,000 square miles, leaving entire towns and surrounding farmland submerged up to a depth of 30 feet and displacing 640,000 people, from Louisiana to Illinois.

The Yangtze River flood of 1931, one of the deadliest single events in human history, was responsible for a death toll estimated at 3.7 million.

Hurricane Florence and the flooding it caused were unquestionably devastating.  But the worst ever?  You decide.

You won’t hear a peep about past ecological disasters in the debate over global warming.  The climate crisis industry conceals inconvenient parts of Earth’s climate history that undermine its “worst ever” claims.

Bottom line: Listed above are four reasons – I have many more – why I will bet my life that “climate change” is a flat-out hoax.

SOURCE





Australia: Minister backs science on weedkiller use

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud has backed the government's pesticide regulator over concerns the world's most popular weedkiller is unsafe.

The Cancer Council wants an independent review into glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, after it was linked to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

But Mr Littleproud said the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority had determined the chemical was safe.

"The science of the independent regulator says this chemical is safe if you follow the instructions," the minister told Sky News on Tuesday.

"I just say to everybody use some common sense, follow the instructions and you'll be OK."

Debate over glyphosate was reignited in August after a Californian jury ordered agribusiness giant Monsanto pay $US289 million ($A399 million) in damages to a former groundskeeper dying of cancer.

Mr Littleproud said that case and others aired by the ABC's Four Corners on Monday highlighted excessive exposure.

"Home gardeners shouldn't get too worried about this, You're not going to get exposed to levels so long as you follow the instructions," he said.

The minister said farmers were using the chemical in a sensible way, adding agriculture had come a long way in how pesticides were used.

"I just say to everyone calm down ... and have faith that we have the best science in the world," Mr Littleproud said.

APVMA's review came after a 2015 report by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a World Health Organisation body, found glyphosate was "probably carcinogenic to humans".

Labor seized on the concerns, demanding a Senate inquiry into the independence and decision-making of the pesticides agency.

"This issue is too important to the agricultural community, to Australia's farmers, and to consumers to be left unresolved," opposition agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon said on Tuesday.

Labor also wants to investigate the impact of moving the regulator from Canberra to Armidale in northern NSW.

"There is no doubt the government's decision to relocate the APVMA has impacted on its operations," Mr Fitzgibbon said.

But Mr Littleproud accused the opposition of playing politics, saying the agency's most recent assessment was conducted before the relocation started.

National Farmers' Federation president Fiona Simson said the scientific evidence overwhelmingly proved the chemical was safe.

"There is simply no alternative that is as safe and as effective as glyphosate, for these purposes," Ms Simson said.

SOURCE 

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  

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