A bit of NYT foot shooting
They claim that global warming is making vacations more difficult and then admit that vacationing is in fact at a record high
Is This the End of the Summer Vacation as We Know It?
This year, everything from scorching heat to fires, floods, tornadoes and hail storms driven by climate change have disrupted the plans of travelers around the world. A summer getaway remains a powerful desire, but it’s at a tipping point.
Record temperatures off the Florida coast have made the ocean feel like bath water in recent weeks.Credit...Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA, via Shutterstock
You can’t escape the orange. That’s what travelers this summer have been reckoning with — swaths of tangerine, traffic cone and burnt sienna on maps indicating record high temperatures around the globe. Four concurrent heat domes from the southern United States to East Asia descended on millions — Phoenix residents enduring 31 days of 110-degree-plus temperatures. Italians in more than a dozen cities under extreme weather warnings. And in South Korea, at least 125 people were hospitalized for heat-related conditions at the World Scout Jamboree.
In Florida, it got so bad in June that Jacki Barber, 50, a clinical social worker and eighth-generation Floridian, canceled a beach trip to St. Augustine. “The water temperature was like 89 degrees,” Ms. Barber said.
“We’re used to hurricanes ruining plans, tropical storms, even just bad thunderstorms,” she said. “But I don’t recall ever looking at anyone and saying ‘It’s too hot to go to the beach.’”
As the summer travel engine kicked into high gear this year, it wasn’t just the scorching heat affecting carefully laid plans. There were also fires, floods, tornadoes and hail storms. Eight inches of rainfall left parts of Vermont coping with catastrophic floods. Tens of thousands of people, including thousands of tourists, had to evacuate islands in Greece because of wildfires. (Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday offered a free weeklong stay in 2024 to those travelers affected — in spring or fall.) The popular music festival Awakenings canceled a date in the Netherlands because of concern over hail, lightning and thunderstorms.
Increasingly dangerous weather now hits classic summer destinations, with conditions growing more erratic, expensive and deadly. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States has experienced four climate disasters since May, each causing over a billion dollars in damages. The National Park Service estimates that more visitors have died of heat-related causes since June than do in an average year. The indirect toll is almost certainly higher: A recent study found that summer heat waves killed 61,000 people in Europe last year.
Summer trips have long been treasured. Sure, airport lines are longer and hotel rooms go quicker, but school’s out, the sun’s out and beaches beckon. Summer travel cuts across social class; whether you go to a state fair or Sardinia, you cash in precious vacation days. You suntan, you eat more indulgently and reach for your wallet with less angst. Travel helps you hide from reality, or at least pause it for a bit.
But even if the idea of a summer getaway remains culturally resilient, is it still practical? Where to go is certainly less obvious — you can’t hide from reality when reality is 100-degree seawater, or a raging wildfire.
For decades, science has confirmed that unabated climate change will cause more misery, more hardship and cost millions of lives in the years to come. We’re getting a taste of the results this summer. Our relationship to travel has reached a tipping point. What happens when we can’t just vacation through it?
Strong demand, migrating patterns
Despite all the crises, global arrivals — the total number of tourists who cross a border — are projected to be up 30 percent from last year, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, a research division of the media company. The World Tourism Organization reports that travel to Europe is now at 90 percent of prepandemic levels.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/travel/summer-travel-climate-change.html
************************************************Are the Greens more interested in trans rights than saving the planet?
July 2023 could soon be declared as the hottest month on record. Few doubt that climate change is real and that it is in our interest to do something about it. So, of all the parties competing for votes next year, you might imagine that the Green party of England and Wales would be single-minded in the goal of championing planet-saving research and promoting ways in which we can all do our bit. This is a golden chance for the party to welcome anyone who shares those objectives.
Alas not. The Greens have swallowed transgender ideology, and purged dissenters with enthusiasm. Deputy leader Zack Polanski has suggested that anyone who takes a contrary view to the party’s policies on trans rights – specifically those members who claim that trans women are men and trans men are women – should not have a place in the Greens. He is unequivocal:
‘I’m really clear that if you want to misgender someone then that is transphobic, and transphobia is not welcome in the Green party.’
No one, it seems, is safe in the Green party if they don’t toe the line on gender. Emma Bateman, the ex co-chair of the party’s women’s committee, is one of those who have fallen foul of the Green party’s trans police. According to Bateman, her decision to question whether trans women are female has landed her in hot water – and led to her ultimately being given the boot.
No one is safe in the Green party if they don’t toe the line on gender
Bateman told The Spectator that, after being suspended several times, the party expelled her in January 2023. She has appealed a second time, but she is realistic in her expectations. She told me:
‘I expect that if my appeal succeeds, and I am un-expelled … there will be other complaints in the queue that will be swiftly be acted upon.’
Few would criticise Bateman for walking away, but she is a campaigner with principles. Today she has put her name to the newly-launched, Green Declaration for Women’s Sex Based Rights. She is not alone in sticking her head above the parapet, risking the wrath of Polanski and his acolytes.
Alison Teal, former Green Sheffield councillor, who is currently on a ‘No Fault Suspension’ from the Greens said: ‘The systemic harassment, discrimination and silencing of advocates for women’s rights within the Party, including via the complaints system, and on social media, is deeply concerning.’
Imogen Makepeace, a Lewes District Green party councillor echoed that view: ‘Committed GPEW members, like Alison Teal and Emma Bateman, passionate and dedicated to action on climate change, are being all too frequently disenfranchised from their party. This is a bizarre, Kafkaesque situation in what’s supposed to be an open and democratic party.’
So, what is in this declaration? The authors explained that it came in the wake of the Labour Women’s Declaration. Both documents are plain common-sense statements that everyone once took to be self-evident. Maybe they still do, but too few have been willing to risk opprobrium and make it clear that women and girls are subject to discrimination and oppression on the basis of their sex. That is the reason why sex is a protected characteristic in law. The Green Declaration rightly declares that women and girls have the right to organise themselves, as a sex, across a range of cultural, leisure, sporting, educational and political activities. The declaration adds,
‘Women and girls have the right to discuss policies which affect them, without being abused, harassed or intimidated. We reject all attempts to undermine or limit the rights of women to self-organise and we call on, and expect, the [Green party of England and Wales] and the wider green movement to actively support these essential freedoms.’
Well said! The Greens were already on notice that the women are not going away. Bateman is taking the Green party of England and Wales to court over her treatment she has suffered. Legal action has also been launched by Shahrar Ali, a former deputy leader of the Green party, and Dawn Furness, co-chair of the party’s women’s committee.
The Greens need to wake up to reality – and quickly. Let’s hope that sense prevails, and the Greens stop going after women and get back to protecting the environment.
*************************************************
Warren Buffett Shuns ESG, Invests in Fossil Fuels
Warren Buffett, the “Oracle of Omaha,” is a certified genius when it comes to investing. His investment firm, Berkshire Hathaway, founded in 1965, has increased in value nearly 3,500,000 percent.
In other words, Buffett’s investing acumen has led to “a compound annual gain of roughly 20.1%. During the same period, the S&P 500 has gained 30,209% including dividends, for an annual gain of 10.5%.”
I think it is safe to say, given his investment record, that Warren Buffett understands macroeconomic trends, the intricacies of the market, and the consequences of government economic policies to a great extent.
Therefore, I also think it is worthwhile to watch what Buffett is doing in terms of his investments, especially as the U.S. economy continues to sputter along and everyday Americans continue to struggle to make ends meet. By viewing Buffett’s investments, we can surmise where he thinks the U.S. economy is headed and which companies he thinks will benefit in the future.
Late last month, Berkshire Hathaway purchased $123 million worth of shares in Occidental Petroleum. Even more interesting, over the past 18 months, Buffett has bought $13 billion worth of Occidental shares, bringing his total investment in the oil-producing giant to more than 25 percent.
Buffett has also been busy gobbling up shares of oil-producer Chevron. Berkshire Hathaway currently holds close to $26 billion in Chevron stock.
At his recent annual meeting, Buffett made it clear that he thinks oil production remains central to U.S. prosperity. “In the United States, we’re lucky to have the ability to produce the kind of oil we’ve got from shale,” he said. He also declared, “We do not think it’s un-American to be producing oil,” and vowed, “We will make rational decisions” in reference to fossil fuel investment.
Moreover, Buffett seems to be suspicious of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, which seeks to divest in fossil fuel companies while promoting nebulous social justice causes, even when these efforts reduce returns for investors.
In fact, Buffett has referred to ESG as “asinine,” and believes it belies Berkshire Hathaway’s sole purpose: increasing returns for clients.
Generally, Buffett opposes ESG because he subscribes to the time-tested view that the primary and overriding objective of any company should be to increase profits.
As he recently said, “This is the shareholders’ money. Many corporate managers deplore governmental allocation of the taxpayers’ dollar, but embrace enthusiastically their own allocation of the shareholder’s dollar.”
However, he also is on record saying that he believes ESG’s obsession with fossil fuel divestment is a misguided decision that will hinder economic development, particularly in the nations where affordable and reliable energy is most needed.
To be fair, Buffett does hold vast investments in so-called green energy companies. Yet, even he has admitted he invests in green energy because of government intervention, not because it is a sound investment. “On wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit,” Buffett admits.
And, to be clear, Warren Buffett is not a conservative, nor a Republican. He is a longtime Democrat.
But, like so many on the left these days, Buffett believes in some ways, like when it comes to climate change, that many on the left, particularly those on the far-left, have gone too far.
Buffett describes progressives pushing ESG as “unrealistic visionaries desiring an instantly new world.”
Make no mistake, his assessment of these people, from Larry Fink to Janet Yellen, is perfectly fitting.
*************************************************
Green madness, UK style
Judith Sloan
It’s a bit hard to take the recent utterances of Michael Gove, UK’s Minister of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (I’m not making that up) too seriously. He’s now telling everyone that tackling climate change should not be treated as a religious crusade and that the UK has gone a bit too far with the net-zero dogma. Let’s not forget that he was the man who convinced the then prime minister, Theresa May, to legislate the net-zero target in the dying days of her leadership.
And just recently, Gove refused to approve the demolition of the Marks and Spencer store on Oxford Street to be replaced with a new, state-of-the-art edifice, on environmental grounds! That’s right, repurposing the existing building would be better for the planet.
The stand-out feature of the list of extreme and zany green measures in the UK I am about to provide is that they have largely been undertaken by a conservative government. To say that it beggars belief is to understate the astonishment we should all feel.
It’s hard to know quite how this collective insanity gripped so many conservative politicians, including Boris. After all, the UK’s emissions are trivial and anything it does won’t have the slightest impact on the world’s climate. It’s not as if the UK stands so tall in the global pecking order that other countries would take any notice of what its government gets up to.
After the surprise retention of Boris’s seat in north London, there is no doubt that some Tories are now thinking that the way to win the next election is to campaign against any extension of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to the middle and outer suburbs of London as well as walk back from the net-zero commitment.
The true believers within the Conservative party will quote meaningless survey results that point to the public’s continued support for net zero. That’s until they are asked a question about bearing the cost of measures undertaken in the name of net zero. At that point, support falls off a cliff.
But let me run through some of the lunatic policies that litter the net-zero landscape in the UK. Getting rid of gas/oil boilers to heat homes is top of the list. By 2025, the plan is that it will be illegal for any new boilers to be installed. The alternative is expensive heat pumps, which run on electricity but don’t actually work well when the temperature is too low. This is complete insanity, particularly as a number of rural folk must continue to rely on oil boilers for many years to come. In any case, there are not enough installers for the heat pumps and given the cost-of-living pressures that UK householders are facing, it’s hardly surprising that the pace of new installation has been snail-like.
(I did read a priceless story about a bloke with a heritage-listed house – several hundred years old – looking into the option of installing a heat pump only to have it knocked back by the heritage authorities as being incompatible with the historical characteristics of the house, which must be preserved!)
Then there is the crazy idea of rating properties according to their emissions and then insisting that all rental properties meet an EPC of at least C. What you ask is an EPC? It’s an Energy Performance Certificate which necessarily involves paid certifiers. Even at the moment, landlords who wish to rent out a property with an EPC of E, F or G have to apply for a specific exemption.
The current plan is that from 2025, all new tenancies can only be signed for properties with an EPC of at least C and from 2028, for existing tenancies. Needless to say, achieving a ‘better’ EPC requires considerable outlays by the owner which will necessarily translate into higher rents.
In light of the housing affordability crisis affecting many parts of the UK, the policy looks particularly cack-handed and that’s being kind. There are also plans afoot to restrict the sale of homes to those with an EPC less than C, but the timing of this move is still uncertain.
Then there’s the UK government’s continued support for wind and solar power. Solar in the UK? Surely, you’ve got that one wrong, Judith. But, no, a relatively large solar installation is planned for the Thames estuary. Because the wholesale price being offered is so high, it doesn’t really matter that no power will be generated for great slabs of the year. The eye-watering guaranteed price is 100 pounds per megawatt hour or around 190 in real Aussie dollars. That’s close to double the current wholesale price here and that’s highway robbery.
Having decided that the political angst generated from onshore wind turbines was not worth the candle, the Tories decided a while ago that the way forward was to locate these expanding turbines off the coast in windy places. Of course, the investors in these monstrous towers, that can be clearly seen from the coast, needed to be ‘incentivised’ with guaranteed cash flows courtesy of electricity customers and the compulsory green levies.
But as they say, all good things come to an end at some stage, and a large project off the coast of Norfolk operated by Swedish company, Vattenfall, has now been pulled because of rapidly rising costs. According to the company spokesman, ‘the incentives offered no longer reflected the current market conditions. It simply doesn’t make sense to continue with this project’. The Swedish government this week also turned down another Vattenfall wind farm proposal off its own coast because it is ‘against the national interest’ and will ‘damage the environment’!
The new renewable energy requires new transmission lines. And like in Australia, there is fierce opposition to the construction of huge pylons through England’s pristine countryside. The government’s latest wheeze is simply to compel landowners to provide the required easements, which is a very strange way of gathering voters for the conservative side of politics.
There is also the proposed banning of petrol/diesel cars – timing now a bit uncertain – and the ongoing subsidies being thrown at electric vehicles. Did I mention the piles of taxpayer money being thrown at batteries and the development of hydrogen?
And then along comes Sir Tony Blair, former Labour PM, who weirdly has started telling everyone that the burden of net zero shouldn’t be shouldered by households and that anything that the UK does won’t be shifting any climate dial given what China is up to. It’s pretty clear that this message hasn’t been received by the current leader of the opposition, Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer. (Even Labour types can’t get enough of the Sir thingy.)
But the real tragedy is that Blair’s message has never sunk into the thick skulls of very many Tory politicians, including its chain of recent leaders. Perhaps the ULEZ extension will be a wake-up call: fining Mrs Postlethwaite over ten quid for driving to church each Sunday won’t be a good look.
The fear with all these hare-brained, freedom-sapping and highly regressive schemes is that some federal or state politicians in Australia will decide to copy them.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/08/green-madness-uk-style/
***************************************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
*****************************************
Jim Hansen and his twin
No comments:
Post a Comment