Pesky snowpack in Montana

It takes months to fully clear winter’s snow at Glacier National Park’s Going-to-the-Sun Road, located in northern Montana, and the last big hurdle is an area known as ‘Big Drift’ where the pack reaches 40-80 ft annually.

The pack is at the higher-end of that range this year, but as weather.com and the National Park Service (NPS) desperately reassures us — this is still within the norm and a trend of increasing snowpack (which has been the case over the past few years) in no way disproves our beloved global warming theory.

But isn’t this the same NPS that for almost two decades warned the world that glaciers at Glacier National Park would be gone by the year 2020? The same NPS that went to the trouble of erecting signs across all of its visitor centers to serve as some 2020 doomsday countdown? Embarrassingly for these spineless, bandwagon frauds, that deadline of doom is about to uneventfully pass and the service has rather sheepishly pulled all ‘2020 signs’ from its displays after the computer models it relied upon from the early 2000s, which convincingly foretold of unending glacial retreat, turned out to be catastrophically inaccurate.

The ‘Big Drift’ is located just east of Logan Pass, at an elevation of 6,646 feet, where crews arrived on Friday to tackle the monster snowpack.

And while the AGW cabal continue to erase their past prophetic failures from the history books, one of their most infamous was that “snow would become a thing of the past” — and yet here we are:

Those extreme-environmentalists and disproven-scientists behind Montana’s snow-less predictions should have taken that Going-to-the-Sun Road a long time ago–because it’s the Sun and the Sun alone that changes Earth’s climate.

Every great civilization of the past acknowledged the Sun’s power, and they all worshiped it as a God. The Egyptians called it “Ra”, the Minoans “Ariadne”, and the Romans “Sol”.

Today, we humans consider ourselves the most powerful body in the solar system. Perhaps our recent technological advances and achievements have given rise to a sense of all-conquering self-confidence. But the Sun, as we call it, ended every one of those great civilizations of the past, and it will take down our modern one, too–and not in some raging fiery explosion but by a mere dimming of its energy known as the Grand Solar Minimum.

The COLD TIMES are returning, the lower-latitudes are once again REFREEZING, all in line with historically low solar activity, cloud-nucleating Cosmic Rays, and a meridional jet stream flow.

Even NASA agrees, in part, with their forecast for this upcoming solar cycle (25) seeing it as “the weakest of the past 200 years,” with the agency correlating previous solar shutdowns to prolonged periods of global cooling here.

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UK: Electric cars are only cost-effective after five years – even with a £6,000 subsidy

The biggest stumbling block for drivers is the price of a new electric car

It takes almost five years to recover the higher purchase price of an electric car in savings from lower running costs, even with a proposed new subsidy, new research has found.

Last week it emerged that the Prime Minister is mulling a plan to give petrol and diesel car drivers up to £6,000 if they make the switch to an electric vehicle.

But even with this incentive, it would take on average four years and nine months for drivers to get a financial benefit from switching, according to research by price comparison website GoCompare. On running costs alone, electric vehicles work out £680.55 cheaper per year.

The biggest stumbling block is the price of a new electric car. For example, a brand new Ford Fiesta – the most popular car in Britain – costs £15,770. An electric alternative such as the Reanult Zoe – one of the cheapest electric vehicles on the market – is £25,000, leaving drivers £9,320 out of pocket, or £3,320 worse off after the £6,000 subsidy....

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Black vs. Green: Black Americans Fight Climate Measures That Increase Energy Costs

While I don’t often find myself agreeing with Jesse Jackson, I applaud his support of a pipeline to bring affordable natural gas to the predominantly minority and low-income farming community of Pembroke Township, Illinois.

As a black conservative who opposes Jackson on issues from racial preferences to economic policy to protecting our ballots from needless risks under the guise of voting rights, I think he’s courageous for breaking with the liberal establishment and radical environmentalists to help this struggling community benefit from affordable energy.

Rising above the political fringe, Jackson said about hooking up the rural community south of Chicago to natural gas: “This is our work – fighting poverty and connecting people.”

President Donald Trump has prioritized both increasing the supply of domestic energy and building out pipelines and other infrastructure to deliver it. Doing so creates jobs and ensures access to the most affordable energy available. This is especially important for low-income households where high energy bills raise the prospect of “energy poverty” – having to forego even the most basic necessities such as food and new clothing to keep lights on and homes warm.

With around 70% of black households having just a single parent, the affordable energy issue should be important to the reverend and the president.

But this pro-energy/pro-people agenda is criticized by environmentalists and their liberal allies. They seem to think no price is too high when it comes to fighting “climate change.” They are happy to block projects involving fossil fuels like natural gas, oil and coal – even if it is to the detriment of black Americans who have supported them politically.

Pembroke Township is far from alone. There are many minority and low-income communities that would benefit from affordable fossil fuel energy. Yet the necessary infrastructure to provide them with reliable, abundant and cheap fuel is often blocked by activists – sometimes under the pretenses of “protecting” them! 

In some cases – like the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) that would run from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina – critics have effectively prioritized scenic trails for affluent hikers over jobs and upward mobility for struggling black families. Even liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sided with the ACP in a recent decision that gave the U.S. Forest Service the authority to allow the ACP to run underneath the Appalachian Trail.

But troubles remain for the ACP in Buckingham County, Virginia. Environmentalists have recruited local black community leaders to help block a proposed ACP pumping station based on “environmental justice” claims. I imagine that, if the ACP is killed and those same black leaders later go looking for help for their community, their environmentalist “friends” will be long gone.

That’s why Jackson’s voice in Pembroke Township is so important. While supporting an alternative energy approach, he also thinks it must be balanced against the needs of people – especially when natural gas is the most affordable option. “When we move to another form of energy, that’s fine by me, I support that,” he said, “but – in the meantime – you cannot put the black farmers on hold until that day comes.”

Even Al Sharpton – whom I agree with less than Jackson – supports natural gas, saying that “people in communities of color should not pay the brunt of suffering through cold winters.”

Yet some on the left would apparently rather dictate to black people than listen to them.

Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, gets to the root of the problem. He said liberals pay too much attention to environmental activists while taking the black community for granted. “People are debating these issues in some instances without consultation with the leaders of the African-American communities and neighborhoods affected by these issues,” he said.

Not in our name. Not when the stakes are our economic survival.

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Australian Bushfires: Fire experts downplay reduction burns

I would like to know what else is as effective

NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro wants landowners to have more access to national parks for hazard reduction burns but fire experts warn that while prescribed burning can reduce bushfire risk it is not the solution

In a late submission to the Berejiklian government's bushfire inquiry, Mr Barilaro - who is also the minister for disaster recovery - said "now is the time for significant change and action" over fires. "We cannot afford to be complacent or waste the opportunity for reform," Mr Barilaro said.

His submission, one of 1000 made to the six month state-based inquiry into the devastating bushfire season that killed 25 people, also calls for cattle grazing to be used as a fire prevention method.

Mr Barilaro's submission said hazard reduction and traditional ecological burns are "under-utilised" and burn activities should be "prioritised to a level appropriate for the risk".

"Where there is great risk due to weather, fuel load, population etc the intensity of the burn activities should increase," the submission stated.

It also says "inadequate access to public land, including wilderness areas of national parks, creates unnecessary barriers to bushfire prevention activities".

However a separate, national inquiry into the recent bushfire season, the Royal Commission into National Natural Hazard Arrangements, heard on Tuesday from three top fire analysts who said that reducing fuel loads needed careful planning to ensure hazards did not actually increase if landscapes became more fire prone.

"One of the primary motivations for changing fire behaviour by manipulating fuel is to increase the potential for active suppression of the fire," Ross Bradstock, head of the University of Wollongong's Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, said.

"So by reducing fire intensity, for example, and reducing the rate of spread [and] reducing ember propagation, you are increasing the chance that people can get in there and work safely and suppress the fire."

Professor Bradstock said there was clear evidence "the more you treat, the lower the risk" of house loss from fire, with the greatest benefit coming from burning near residential areas rather than in distant bushland. The practice, though, was more expensive given the resources needed to ensure fires remain controlled.

"If you want the most cost-effective strategy for protecting those assets or mitigating risk to those assets, then treatment in close proximity appears to be the best option at this stage based on the evidence," he said.

The royal commission heard that while hazard reduction burning was an important approach to curbing fire risks, it also needed significant funding commitments.

Kevin Tolhurst, an associate professor with the University of Melbourne's Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, said "a lot of case studies [show] that areas that have been burnt one or two years previously, have a dramatic impact on the spread of fire."

Over time, though, the bush grows back and "by the time you get to 10 or 11 years, the effect is largely gone".

David Bowman, a professor with the University of Tasmania's School of Natural Sciences, said some landscapes, particularly tall, wet forests, were not amenable to fuel-reduction efforts and yet, with the wrong weather conditions, "could burn terribly intensively".

"So prescribed burning is generally, we're talking about grassy systems, savannas, woodlands and dry sclerophyll forests, where we have this classical accumulation of fuel that can be burnt and maintained in different states and quite simple vegetation structures," Professor Bowman said.

SOURCE 

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