Monday, February 12, 2024
Britain’s Labour Party Moves Right on Climate
Politicians these days are tripping over themselves to abandon net-zero climate policies, and the latest is Britain’s prospective next Prime Minister, Keir Starmer
Sir Keir ditched a promise to spend £28 billion ($35.3 billion) a year on climate measures if Labour takes power. Labour leaders scaled back the promise last year when they said they’d ramp up to that level of spending gradually rather than opening the money faucet immediately. Now they say they won’t spend it at all.
Some party leaders have believed that promising an aggressive transition to net-zero carbon emissions is part of Labour’s path to victory. This might be true in some urban precincts and among the culturally left-leaning and younger cohorts in the Labour base.
But Mr. Starmer and cooler heads in the party realized many more swing voters would be turned off by a spending pledge in support of policies that threaten jobs in manufacturing and the North Sea oil patch. They also seem to suspect that British taxpayers, already paying a postwar high of 36% of GDP in taxes, wouldn’t tolerate higher levies for climate action.
Abandoning net zero isn’t easy for Mr. Starmer, since the media and political class have spent years promoting climate change as a crisis. He faces pressure to devise some alternative climate plan. If that relies on expensive mandates for households or businesses, the costs to the British economy could be larger than the £28 billion in direct taxpayer cash he has now abandoned.
A similar dilemma afflicts the ruling Conservative Party. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak scaled back an electric-vehicle mandate and abandoned an effective tax on natural-gas boilers used by homes for central heating and hot water. Yet political pressure, including from green Tories, has prevented Mr. Sunak from admitting openly that net-zero is a foolish goal for an industrial economy. So a bevy of other distorting subsidies and regulations remain.
Still, politicians have to start somewhere. Credit Mr. Starmer for staring down the green faction in his party and focusing instead on making his party a plausible alternative to the Tories, which voters seem to want.
***************************************************
Congress and Courts Enable Energy and Climate Fantasy and Tyranny
The left end of the political spectrum is relentlessly pursuing the transformation of America’s society, history, economy, speech, borders, governing systems, healthcare, energy and living standards. What it cannot secure via the ballot box and alliances with the legacy media and academic institutions, it works to impose through rule by unelected, unaccountable Executive Branch bureaucrats, collusive sue-and-settle legal actions, and court decisions that too often rubberstamp agency rules.
Instead of three co-equal divisions of government, the powers and functions of America’s Legislative and Judicial Branches have steadily been subsumed into an ever expanding, progressive and aggressive Executive Branch. Legislators and judges have acquiesced or actively participated.
The federal workforce has swollen to two million non-military employees, who “liberally” interpret, apply and enforce laws and policies. The Federal Register of regulations, explanations and justifications has ballooned from 50,998 pages in 1984, to a Jabba-the-Hutt 90,402 pages in 2023. Few can read, much less comprehend and comply with the intricate edicts.
Members of Congress want to be seen “doing something” to address perceived societal and environmental problems, often by holding hearings, enacting laws and spending money. However, instead of actually tackling difficult, controversial issues, they frequently make policy declarations, enact deliberately ambiguous statutory provisions, and rely on Executive Branch cohorts to interpret, stretch or even rewrite the vague language, thereby advancing agency powers and agendas.
Expanding this centralization of power even more significantly, the US Supreme Court rendered its landmark 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.
The “Chevron deference doctrine” holds that – when confronted with regulations that are based on ambiguous, or nonexistent, statutory text – lower courts should always defer to administrative agencies’ interpretation of the text, as long as the interpretation is “reasonable.”
Chevron deference has let federal agencies expand their domain and control in hundreds of instances, step by step, inch by inch. Affected citizens often have little or no recourse, as long as the impact of an individual rule can be viewed as small and the agency interpretation as not patently unreasonable.
In those situations, the 2022 Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. EPA is of little help, because it only addresses “major questions,” agency decisions that have “major” economic or political significance.
However, the Court recently heard oral arguments on two cases that give it an opportunity to end this wholesale deference to federal agencies. Both cases ask whether small fishing boats can be required to pay $700 per day to take federal agents along with them, to ensure the boats are following fisheries rules. Relevant law allows the government to require fishing boats to carry observers – but does not say the boats must pay for them, and Congress never appropriated any funds to cover observers.
So, on its own, the National Marine Fisheries Service decided it had the authority to compel boats to shoulder the cost. The case could have enormous implications for the perpetually expanding Deep State.
The Justices could rule in favor of NMFS, even though monetary impacts that are small by federal governing and budgetary standards are major, even potentially ruinous for fishing boats.
They could hold that the agency interpretation in this single instance was “unreasonable” – and overturn this single rulemaking out of thousands issued since 1984, while leaving the Chevron doctrine intact and available for future abuse.
Or they could overturn Chevron. Doing so would end the appalling deference to powerful government agencies; reduce the growing imbalance between the Executive and Legislative Branches; and make it harder for circuit and appellate courts to support activist regulators.
A reversal might even prod Congress to enact laws that tackle hard questions, use precise language, and tighten the reins on unelected regulators, especially when they serve presidents who want to “fundamentally transform” our energy use, immigration system, economy and military.
The third option would also help America curb climate and energy fantasy and tyranny.
It’s certainly true that most federal actions taken to “save our planet from the existential threat of manmade climate change” are “major” or “significant” in their societal, economic, ecological and national security impacts – and thus subject to the Supreme Court’s “major questions doctrine.”
However, that Court has not defined “major.” Moreover, even actions that most Americans would call “major” can end up being upheld, and agencies can claim significant actions are “minor” or simply ignore court decisions that don’t apply explicitly to the agency or action in question.
Even in the climate and energy arena alone, hundreds of “minor” decisions can coalesce into massive disruptions and costs. Questions of Chevron deference should examine the totality of impacts – and whether a decision can actually pass a rational, evidence-based “reasonableness” test. To cite just a few examples, is it reasonable to defer to federal agencies that:
Impose government-wide mandates to terminate America’s coal, oil and natural gas extraction and use, based on computer models whose scary forecasts: (a) are built on the assumption that climate change and weather events are driven by fossil-fuel-related carbon dioxide and methane, which together represent barely 0.042% of Earth’s atmosphere; and (b) are not supported by actual, real-world data on temperatures, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, droughts and sea levels?
Keep oil and gas locked in the ground before they have any workable plan for replacing feed stocks for plastics, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers and thousands of other vital products?
Compel families and businesses to replace gasoline vehicles and gas ovens, stoves, furnaces and water heaters with electric models – while regulators replace reliable, affordable fossil fuel power with intermittent, weather-dependent wind and solar power?
Close down coal and gas-fired generators before sufficient, reliable, affordable replacement electricity is available – and before a single project anywhere in the world has demonstrated that wind, solar and battery electricity alone can power even a small village?
Demand that families purchase supposedly energy- or water-efficient washing machines and dishwashers, even though the new machines must run longer or even twice to get clothes or dishes clean – thereby requiring more electricity and water?
Mandate electric vehicles before there are sufficient charging stations, electricity for those stations, or even metals and minerals to manufacture all the EVs, charging stations, wind turbines, solar panels and transmission lines?
Assert that wind, solar and battery power are clean, green, renewable and sustainable, while ignoring the monumental amounts of mining and processing – and attendant habitat and wildlife destruction, toxic air and water pollution, and child labor – involved in obtaining the metals and minerals for those technologies?
Insist that the United States slash or eliminate its fossil fuel use, while China, India and 100 other countries (including Germany) are extracting and burning more oil, gas and coal every year?
Courts must no longer view government actions in a vacuum. They are reasonable only in an alternative universe where individual and cumulative economic, ecological and social realities play no role. The era of Chevron deference to this federal agency climate and energy fantasy and tyranny must be ended.
****************************************************
UN Says Melting Arctic Ice Is Key Indicator of Climate Change—But It’s Not Melting
It’s bad news for polar bears, according to the most recent assessment report by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Because of increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions, modeling and simulations predict the Arctic will be without ice during the month of September by 2050.
“We project an ice-free Arctic in September under all scenarios considered,” a scientific report highlighting IPCC’s findings states. “These results emphasize the profound impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the Arctic.”
A similar prediction was made in 2013, but at that time, the prediction was for no ice by about 2033.
“All climate models are projecting an ice-free summer within the next 20 years or so,” Ron Kwok, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in July 2013. “It’s not very far away.”
However, a new report by Allan Astrup Jensen, research director and CEO at the Nordic Institute of Product Sustainability and Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology in Denmark, shows that from September 2007 through September 2023, Arctic sea ice declines were near zero.
More Articles
“The facts are that the Arctic Sea ice extent measured by satellites since 1978 expresses annual variations, and it has declined considerably from 1997 to 2007. However, before that time period, from 1978 to 1996, the downward trend was minimal, and in the last 17 years, from 2007 to 2023, the downward trend has also been about zero,” the report states.
“Therefore, there is no indication that we should expect the Arctic Sea summer ice to disappear completely, as predicted, in one or two decades.”
Mr. Jensen told The Epoch Times that the IPCC and other organizations “exclude the possibility that the sea ice extent may expand in the future and even reach levels from before 1996.”
“That is because they believe that the driver of the sea ice extent is the predicted warming by rising CO2 levels in the troposphere,” he said.
Frank Geisel is an ocean engineer and naval architect who examined ice thickness in the Arctic and Antarctic with the Coast Guard over several expeditions in the 1980s.
He said it’s problematic to measure sea ice extent and ice thickness and then conclude that CO2 is driving a decline and should then be mitigated.
“We can’t just issue a command and say, ‘If we do this, then this will happen,’” Mr. Geisel told The Epoch Times. “Well, maybe. But maybe not.”
CO2 and Sea Ice
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) uses data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) to record Arctic sea ice yearly minimums in September, at the end of the summer melt season. The measurement is based on sea ice extent, which is the square mileage of ice covering the Arctic Ocean during a specified time.
In September 1979, the NOAA reported that the Arctic sea ice yearly minimum was 2.72 million square miles. At that same time, CO2 concentrations were 337.1 parts per million (ppm), according to The Nature Conservancy.
Nearly 20 years later, in 1996, CO2 concentrations had risen to 362.58 ppm, and the September Arctic sea ice yearly minimum had increased to 2.93 million square miles.
After 1996, the sea ice extent declined until 2007, with the most significant drop occurring between 2006 and 2007—from 2.26 million square miles in 2006 to 1.65 million square miles by 2007. CO2 concentrations were 383.37 ppm.
After the 2007 results were released, the American Geophysical Union issued a report warning that the Arctic may be “on the verge” of a fundamental change, and images of starving polar bears stranded on floating ice slabs became commonplace.
Due in part to their declining habitat, on May 15, 2008, polar bears were listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.
But the sea ice extent recordings in the Septembers of 2008 and 2009 increased, and despite hitting a record low in 2012, from 2007 to 2023, sea ice declines have been close to zero.
In September 2023—during what NOAA’s Ms. Kapnick called “by far” the warmest year in NOAA’s 174-year climate record—the Arctic sea ice yearly minimum was 1.69 million square miles, an increase of about 40,000 square miles from 2007. CO2 was 421.55 ppm in 2023.
Mr. Jensen said that a couple of years ago, he started to make and post charts and diagrams with the NSIDC’s data to provide people with simple visual representations.
“My first diagram I did send to NSIDC but I got no reaction from that organization. It surprised me. It has also surprised me that many people, including scientists and even friends, are difficult to convince that the sea ice has been unchanged since 2007, although I use the same official data also used by the IPCC,” Mr. Jensen said.
“They are brainwashed by the many alarmist news articles telling about a decrease in the Arctic sea ice, and [by] their great respect for the U.N. organization IPCC.”
Mr. Geisel said he’s concerned some scientists and policymakers are using “a very precise, almost microanalysis on a very, very macro situation.”
“We’re looking at processes that change over decades, and we’re trying to understand how we’re going to respond this year,” Mr. Geisel said.
“If you study the weather systems in the high Arctic, there’s a tremendous high-pressure system that’s well known by weather geeks that sits on the top of the Pole. ... And it shifts, and it’s well known that it shifts positions and thus changes the weather patterns on a decadal frequency—we’re talking 10, 12 years.
“Those are really massive, longer-term processes that all of our technology can’t fully understand.”
*********************************************
In Central Asia’s Brutal Winter, Fossil Fuels Trump Climate Politics
Globally, winter cold kills more people than summer heat, and winter in Central Asia is no gentle visitor. Temperatures can plummet to minus 40 degrees C (minus 40 degrees F), transforming bustling cities into frozen landscapes and testing the limits of human endurance.
The winter struggle is especially intense in rural areas, where shelter and other infrastructure are often rudimentary. Wood and coal have long been used for heat.
For example, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan—three Central Asian countries seldom mentioned in the media—rely heavily on abundant coal reserves for heat and energy.
However, this economical energy source, along with natural gas and oil, has come under attack by international political institutions, such as the European Union and United Nations, and leftist politicians and funding entities. Armed with the pseudoscience of climate change, fearmongering opportunists are seeking to ban the fuels that are a lifeline for the people of Central Asia.
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan generate more than 95 percent of their electricity from gas, oil, and coal. Both countries are pragmatic about future energy needs, having decided to choose energy security over climate virtue signaling.
Uzbekistan is set to increase coal production by 22 percent and is conducting geological exploration across 31,000 square kilometers of new sites. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan is increasing oil production and plans to increase exports to Eastern Europe.
Kyrgyzstan has more than 33 percent of its population living in poverty, making it significantly poorer than Uzbekistan (17 percent in poverty) to the west and Kazakhstan (5 percent) to the north. Half of Kyrgyzstan depends on traditional coal-fired stoves for cooking, and nearly all citizens depend on solid fuels such as wood, coal, and rubber for winter heating.
Raw coal prices have risen so sharply that nonprofits are now giving out free coal for families in Kyrgyzstan to stay warm. In 2021, people queued for hours in freezing weather to receive coal handouts from the government.
“In a cold winter, we burn about 5-6 [metric] tonnes,” a Kyrgyz housewife told Reuters at the time. “It is expensive for us to buy coal at 5,500 soms [$62 a tonne]. Therefore, I stand in line for three-four hours. And what are we supposed to do, freeze?”
More than 90 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s electricity comes from hydroelectric plants. Though hydropower is a valuable resource, such high dependency on it increases the risk of power shortages in winter, which is one of the drier seasons in this relatively arid country. Kyrgyzstan supplements winter energy supplies with imported electricity from Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.
The most obvious solution to filling its energy needs is Kyrgyzstan’s coal reserves. Undeterred by the political noise of climate change, Kyrgyzstan is embarking on an ambitious program to increase coal production with advanced technology and by privatizing mines.
Mining has increased by around 30 percent during the past 15 years. Most of the mined coal is brown coal, or lignite, an inferior fuel that’s mostly exported. The demand for higher-quality coal is met predominantly by imports.
To bolster the movement of electricity imports and exports, the country is investing in the 500‑kilovolt Datka-Khodjent-Sangtuda power transmission line connecting Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. There’s also a long-term partnership with Gazprom to improve gas supply in the country.
In addition to withstanding the annual assault of winter, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan all have interests in overall security and economic development that make the exploitation of natural resources such as fossil fuels all the more important. Climate politics has no place in the frigid expanses of Central Asia
***************************************
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