Sunday, July 23, 2023
Fox host Stuart Varney challenges Morano over heatwave-climate link
Stuart Varney: Marc Morano from the Climate Depot joins me now. We just heard in Phoenix, they had 19 straight days above 110 degrees. Now, wait, you’re a climate skeptic, is this not the result of climate change?
Marc Morano: “This is not outside the normal bounds of hot summer weather. Yes, it’s a record year. It could be one of the hottest, but here’s the thing. Joe Biden’s EPA has a chart of the heatwave index going back to the 1930s. The 1930s are probably 8 to 10 or 12 times hotter in the United States than anything we’re currently seeing.
Morano: 75% of all state temperature records were broken before the 1950s — these records still stand. Now. This is a way that statistics — when you heard things like CNN or New York Times or others have said this is the ‘hottest’ in Earth’s history. Those claims were based on climate models, which even the NOAA –National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration — backed away from. They are weaponizing hot summers, heat waves to turn it into some kind of call for climate action. This is not outside the bounds of normal weather, I’m sorry.
*****************************************************
Biden Administration Rule Would Ban Nearly All Portable Gas-Powered Generators
After seeking to reduce the use of gas stoves, the Biden administration is pushing a proposal to ban the sale of almost all portable gas generators—which some experts have said would be disastrous for the millions of Americans who rely on such generators during power outages.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has proposed a policy (pdf) that would remove nearly all existing portable gas generators from the market. The new rule restricts the amount of carbon monoxide that generators can emit by forcing these generators to switch off when they reach a certain level of emissions.
Smaller gas generators would have to cut carbon monoxide emissions by 50 percent, and larger generators would have to cut emissions by up to 95 percent. Nearly all models currently available are expected to not be in compliance with the new standard.
Once the proposed rules come into effect, manufacturers would have to comply with them in just six months, a process that usually takes several years. The rules would also ban manufacturers from stockpiling noncompliant generators before the new standards are enacted.
Generator Manufacturers Speak Out
In a June 28 press release, Susan Orenga, executive director of the Portable Generator Manufacturers’ Association, pointed out that CPSC’s proposal will “create a shortage of essential portable generators during regional and national emergencies because it will prevent the sale of portable generators that are currently available on the market.”
“Furthermore, the timing of the CPSC’s proposed changes are particularly concerning, given repeated warnings that two-thirds of North America is currently facing an energy shortfall this summer during periods of high demand,” she said.
Nearly 5 million households across the United States use gas powered generators during power outages, and they are particularly important during hurricane season, when powerful storms often knock out electric utilities.
In May, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. warned that two-thirds of North America could face blackouts and brownouts between June and September if there are “wide area” heat waves, wildfires, and droughts, and the agency attributed some blame for the problem to the Biden administration’s push for renewable energy.
The CPSC proposal came after the Department of Energy unveiled its Energy Policy and Conservation Program in February, which aims to establish new standards on consumer cooking products, including gas stoves. The rules are expected to ban the sale of at least half of U.S. stove models.
The Department of Energy is also focusing efforts on mandating standards for dishwashers.
In a bid to improve efficiency and cut energy usage, the agency has proposed new regulations for power and water usage for standard-size and compact dishwashers during their regular cycles.
“This Administration is using all of the tools at our disposal to save Americans money while promoting innovations that will reduce carbon pollution and combat the climate crisis,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a statement about the regulations.
Emission Harms and Safety Standards
The CPSC is justifying its proposed new rules by arguing that carbon monoxide (CO) emissions have been extremely harmful to human health.
“From 2004 through 2021, there were at least 1,332 CO-related consumer deaths involving portable generators, or an average of about 74 lives lost annually, with thousands of non-fatal poisonings of consumers per year,” the CPSC report reads.
“Fatalities have increased in recent years. For example, for the three most recent years for which complete data are available (2017 through 2019), generator-related CO deaths have averaged 85 per year.”
CPSC expects the proposed rule to prevent 2,148 deaths over 30 years.
In its press release, the manufacturers association points out that more than 300 portable generator models across 35 brands already comply with a voluntary safety standard and implement a carbon monoxide detection and automatic shutoff feature.
Such voluntary standards prevent more than 98 percent of fatalities that could have resulted from the misuse of portable generators, it stated.
Ms. Orenga said, “[The CPSC proposal] could lead to higher costs for consumers and create unintended consequences of more safety concerns of fires and burns, as we do not believe that the CPSC has adequately evaluated the safety hazards of their newly proposed rule.”
In a July 6 letter to the chairman of the CPSC, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) mentioned another potential consequence of the proposed rule: “Engine-driven portable welders are a vital piece of equipment for construction workers across the country. These welders are not consumer products, but rather industrial machinery used on construction sites.”
Finalizing the CPSC rule in its present form “will not only have a detrimental effect on manufacturers of these products and their suppliers, but also negatively impact the welders who rely on this equipment,” he wrote.
*****************************************************
When super-fit cyclist Andrea Sechi collapsed and died from a heart attack in Sardinia last weekend, it was instantly blamed on global warming
In defiance of the facts
Within hours of his death, Andrea Sechi was being held up as the latest climate change martyr. While riding his racing bike along the southern coast of Sardinia with friends last Saturday, the keen amateur scientist had collapsed and, though efforts were made to revive him, he died at the roadside.
First to report the incident was a popular local news website. Since Mr Sechi was only 48 years old and seemingly super fit, and as the island was in the grip of a heatwave, they declared that his fatal heart attack was 'probably linked' with the freakishly high temperatures.
And as the mercury soared across southern Europe, turning dramatic TV heat maps from dark red to black and starting a stampede for alarmist headlines, the news that a weekend cyclist had fallen victim to global warming was seized on by foreign news outlets and internet doom-mongers.
This hasty assumption was perhaps inevitable. For here was a human story that perfectly played into the narrative of the moment, which held that Armageddon had reached our very doorstep.
That, with the politicians still wringing their hands over how to reduce carbon emissions, the continent had already been plunged into a lethal, and perhaps irreversible catastrophe.
However, there is a rather inconvenient problem with using Mr Sechi's death to support this frightening conjecture.
Though the heat has been unbearable in parts of Sardinia in recent days, and one can well imagine it killing people who are frail or elderly, his family assure me it played no part in his death.
Indeed, they are deeply upset that his misfortune has been cynically 'weaponised, as his brother, Stefano, puts it, by those seeking to sensationalise the heatwave's impact.
'It did get very hot later that day, but my uncle was riding at 8.30am when the temperature was only around 22c, normal or even a bit chilly for this time of year,' says the cyclist's niece, Laura Sechi, adding that he was being fanned by a stiff sea breeze.
'The doctors have told us it was most likely not caused by the heat. Andrea probably suffered a heart attack or a brain haemorrhage, but the Italian media just published what they wanted. They should have got their facts straight. It adds to our pain.'
*****************************************************
Australia: Power bills are up but Labor is going to do more damage the energy sector
Say what you like about a Labor government but, good or bad, they don’t normally waste their time in office. Unlike the Coalition, they’ve got a bevy of friendlies in the public service to help get things done, plus an increasing number of virtue signalling corporates to sell their message, campaigning millions from their union mates and a largely compliant media that gives them the sort of positive coverage rarely afforded their Liberal counterparts.
And nowhere is this more evident than in dealing with the so-called climate emergency. The front line in the war against emissions thus far has been energy. For almost two decades, we’ve been fed an official line that renewables would make our power bills cheaper. At the election last year, the now Prime Minister even put a figure on the savings – $275 per household per year. How’s that going? Because if you’re paying the same bills that I am, they’re only going up.
But if you think the climate attacks on energy are bad, just wait for what’s coming next as the Albanese government prepares to inflict the same transformations on other parts of our economy that have already been wreaked on the energy sector.
And you will pay the price, either as taxpayers, consumers or both – that’s been estimated to cost Australia $1.5 trillion by 2030, says expert group Net Zero Australia comprised of energy specialists at the Universities of Melbourne, Queensland and the USA’s Princeton.
Last week, with all the fervour of a TV evangelist, Energy Minister Chris Bowen announced that the Climate Change Authority was now working on “sectoral net zero plans”, for the manufacturing industry, the built environment, agriculture and land, transport, and resources. These will be part of what he declared would be Labor’s “strong” 2035 emissions reductions targets, on top of the already legislated 2030 targets most energy engineers think can’t be met.
Naturally enough, this was rapturously received by the Clean Energy Council whose climate zeal happily coincides with the multibillion-dollar subsidies they’ve received for the past 15 years. Just as in energy, in these further sectors, there will soon be small armies of regulators to impose this climate socialism, plus plenty of businesses already trying to work out how they can pass the costs onto consumers.
So far, the brunt of the climate pain has been felt via power bills. It’s only now, with the coal-fired power stations that still provide more than 60 per cent of our electricity coming to the end of their lives, and with their zero-emissions replacements still largely a pipe dream, that the extent of the climate con is becoming apparent. The question is, will Australians wake up before it’s too late or will we allow government to do to agriculture, transport, mining and everything else what they have done to our energy sector and power bills?
And for what? Even if we did dramatically wind back our standard of living to save the planet, has Canberra forgotten that Australia emits less than 1.3 per cent of global CO2 emissions and let’s not also forget, that China, our main strategic competitor, has emitted more CO2 in the past decade than Britain has since the Industrial Revolution.
So what’s ahead of us as the Albanese government pushes ahead with its plans to reduce our animal herds because of their methane gasses, move us all into electric cars or onto public transport, scrap manufacturing jobs, even tell us what sort of stoves we can have?
In Britain, trying to accelerate decarbonisation has led a nominally Conservative government to ban all petrol and diesel car sales from 2030 and to decree that future domestic heating must be provided through less effective heat pumps rather than gas boilers. Here in Australia, the Victorian government is considering a ban on all gas cooktops and heaters.
Some years ago, Barnaby Joyce was ridiculed for talking about the $100 Sunday roast; and my former boss Tony Abbott for predicting the demise of Whyalla as a steel town. Yet this is precisely where we’re headed if agriculture and manufacturing must be “net zero” by 2035, given that most agricultural emissions come from herd animals and, thus far, it’s simply impossible to make “green steel” at a price anyone would pay. And no one should underestimate the quasi-religious zeal that Minister Bowen and the green acolytes who now populate so many of our institutions bring to their climate goals. Just have a look at the Voice where the Yes push is driven by so many corporates and governments despite more and more voters saying they reject it.
So far, the Albanese government’s climate convictions have been quite impervious to the reality that we still rely on fossil fuels to keep the lights on. But that same climate evangelism will lead to herd limits, car bans, manufacturing shutdowns, and mandatory changes in your home unless someone in authority is prepared to shout “stop this madness” while we still can.
***************************************
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
*****************************************
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Jim Hansen and his twin
No comments:
Post a Comment