‘Green’ policies spark wildfires -- and a climate emergency
The Canadian fires “spilling smoke all the way down the East Coast highlight how backward policies delay or even prevent forest restoration work that would cut wildfire risk,” points out Tate Watkins at Reason. “Pollution standards and excessive red tape” plus “potential litigation from environmental groups” discourage proven ways to prevent forest fires, such as “controlled burning and mechanical thinning” that “make forests resilient by removing fuel in methodical, deliberate ways before it goes up in smoke in much more intense wildfires.” So now “fire-prone areas can be left at risk for years.” And smoke from wildfires is exempt from EPA emissions standards, but not smoke from controlled burns. Yet “the EPA is considering tightening its restrictions — despite warnings it “would further stifle the controlled burning needed to slash wildfire risk.”
Eye on DC: Just Say No to Climate ‘Emergency’
“Progressive lawmakers are once again calling on President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency,” notes Merrill Matthews at The Hill, grabbing “sweeping new executive powers” to (for example) “block crude oil exports.” Yet this “isn’t really about Canada’s wildfires,” as claimed, but bypassing “the Republican House of Representatives and perhaps a few reluctant Democratic senators” on climate. It’s a pattern “we’ve seen on several occasions,” like Biden using “the national health emergency over COVID-19” to justify loan and rent moratoria. Yet “these same progressives” shout “that democracy is on the verge of collapse.” No: the real threat to democracy is “the effort to create a much more powerful executive who can ignore the duly elected representatives of the people.”
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More om Canada's Fires
If you are living in eastern Canada or the northeast of the United States, you are experiencing quite smoky/hazy skies, the result of fires in Canada.
The fires have spread from northern Alberta eastward into other provinces, including Quebec, generating alarming press coverage. A headline from the Washington Post claimed "‘Unprecedented’ Canadian fires intensified by record heat, climate change."
Fires in the northern latitudes of Canada are quite different from fires in other parts of the world, including the western United States. The lower latitude fires are often the result of grass and brush that grows lushly in the spring and early summer and then dry in the heat and aridity of late summer and early fall.
Northern fires peak in the spring. For example, May is the peak month in Alberta. That is because in the high latitudes, after long, cold winters, there is plenty of dead fuel from the previous year that dries out in the several weeks between the melting of winter snow and the beginning of spring rains and new growth.
According to Canada’s Department of Natural Resources, fires have been occurring for thousands of years in the boreal forests of eastern Canada - not exactly unprecedented. In addition, they call fire a primary change agent that is as crucial to forest renewal as the sun and rain -perhaps not a calamity either.
It appears that 2023 is on pace to be a year with unusually high numbers of fires. Yet the previous year was one of historically low numbers. The Canadian National Fire Database (2023) provides facts to dispute the idea of climate change-driven increases in fires in Canadian fires. According the CNFD, there has been a significant and continuing decline in the number of fires and no discernible trend in the area burned.
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Canada-s-Fires.html?soid=1101509381788&aid=HhQf2uVErkM
*************************************************Bank of England's credibility and UK economy at risk from Net Zero radicalism
Net Zero Watch has called on MPs to reject Megan Greene from joining the Bank of England’s rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee and warned that her green activism risks undermining the credibility of the Bank's neutrality in setting interest rates.
According to media reports, Ms Greene has called for the bank to create “preferential” interest rates to help speed up the push for Net Zero, despite acknowledging that such a move could threaten its independence.
In an article published before her nomination, Megan Greene warned that central banks needed to “go further” to help combat climate change and to “give banks preferential (negative) rates if they direct the funds toward green investments”.
Any private bank or investment company that deliberately conspired to put capital in jeopardy would be in breach of its fiduciary duties. If it goes down that route the Bank of England would be in breach of that very duty.
Lord Frost, the former Cabinet minister told the Sunday Telegraph that the UK would be “deranged” to adopt Ms Greene’s idea, adding: “It is deeply troubling that a prospective member of the Monetary Policy Committee should have advocated such a collectivist and socialist approach.”
In 2021, Rishi Sunak gave the Bank a new mandate to fight climate change and help to achieve the Govt’s Net Zero policy, a move that has since been widely criticised for distracting it from and failing in its key role of combating inflation.
Former Chancellor George Osborne and his old sparring partner, Ed Balls, Labour's former Shadow Chancellor, have both called for the mandate to be cancelled so that the Bank can focus on its core mission.
The House of Commons Treasury Committee will hold a hearing this morning during which MPs will assess whether Megan Greene has the required personal independence and appropriate professional competence for the role.
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Poland to take 2035 fossil fuel car ban to top EU court, minister says
Photo of cars driving with Polish flags on National Independence Day in Warsaw.
Poland will appeal against European Union rules to end the sale of fossil fuel cars across the bloc from 2035 to the top EU court within days, the country's climate minister Anna Moskwa said on Monday.
A package of EU regulations approved earlier this year aims at launching a new carbon market to rein in emissions from buildings and transport, cutting carbon emissions from passenger cars and vans to zero from 2035.
Poland has been the only country consistently opposing the proposal and voted against the rules, arguing they lacked a proper analysis of market and social consequences of the ban.
"We don't agree with this and other documents from the Fit for 55 package and we're bringing this to the European Court of Justice. I hope other countries will join," Moskwa told Radio Zet on Monday.
"We will file the motion in the coming days."
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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