Freedom Advocates Are the Right Whale’s Best Hope

Some whales do need saving

Who would have guessed that we would be the saviors of the desperately endangered North Atlantic Right Whales? If it can be saved from extinction, which remains to be seen. But when the green left goes uselessly industrial in the name of better weather, it starts to make sense. This seeming paradox is briefly explained below.

The North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium (NARWC) has long been the leading advocate for their namesake whales. They do lots of research and have promoted both reduced ship speeds and so-called “ropeless” fishing as ways to save the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale. Sadly. when it come to offshore wind they look to have abandoned the whales in favor of green nirvana.

The tip-off came with the email announcement of their annual meeting in October. It included a number of so-called news links, two being about offshore wind, and neither was good news for the whales.

The most important was a direct attack on us for daring to try to protect the right whales. This hit-piece is from Science Friday, a radio show I used to like. It labels us as “anti-wind”, which is true enough, but they are clearly pro-wind, hence anti-whale. They say the whales are a pawns in the game, so to push the chess metaphor, it is a pawn we are trying to protect.

It is the usual Bidenesque stuff claiming there is no evidence or even reason to believe offshore wind development harms Right Whales. No mention of the thousands of federally authorized harassment takings and their potentially deadly consequences, or the strong statistical evidence, etc.

There is one interesting bit, however, namely a link to a map of some of the alleged Right Whale protection groups and people put together by students at Brown University. In addition to many friends, there are folks on there that I was not aware of and hope to contact. But it is incomplete as I am not on it.

The extreme rhetoric that comes with the map is itself revealing. They really do not like us and here is an example: “As public relations and obstruction specialists actively engage local groups to block offshore wind projects, the climate and environmental justice consequences are dire. Offshore wind projects may struggle to get off the ground, locking us into catastrophic climate consequences experienced disproportionately by Black, Indigenous, Latino, and low-income communities.”

Anyone who believes this nonsense is likely willing to sacrifice a whale species or two. This is the fanaticism we are fighting.

The second so-called news link from the Right Whale Consortium is also revealing. It is an article from NRDC about the newly announced offshore wind lease areas in the Gulf of Maine.

They say the entire Gulf is designated as critical habitat for the Right Whales under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), but we should be happy because the lease areas avoid the most sensitive parts. NRDC is another pro-wind green group that used to be environmentalists.

We are talking about a huge projected 15,000 MW of development, so I am not comforted by this news. How does ESA allow this massive development within the critical habitat of a desperately endangered critter like the North American Right Whale? I doubt it does.

Ironically, the Consortium website says these are necessary actions:

“Eliminate human-caused mortality to right whales in critical habitats and migration corridors

Assess patterns of known critical habitat use by right whales and humans and eliminate conflict.”

Apparently, they do not regard building and operating a thousand gigantic 15 MW wind turbines within designated critical habitat as a conflict.

The Consortium itself looks like a secret society. There is no information about the organization, no staff listing, no way to join. There is a list of “Partners”, including several Biden Federal agencies, but no explanation of what that means or how to become one. The only contact information is to an unnamed person at the New England Aquarium. I doubt they would have me or CFACT as members.

So there it is. The North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium has abandoned the North Atlantic Right Whale to offshore wind. Only we who value freedom are left to defend the whale. We are its best hope for survival.

https://heartland.org/opinion/freedom-advocates-are-the-right-whales-best-hope/

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UN Chief Calls For Governments To Censor Fossil Fuel Advertisements

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called for governments to ban fossil fuel advertising during a Wednesday speech at the Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Guterres, who has served as Secretary-General of the UN since 2017, compared the fossil fuel industry to Big Tobacco and claimed a ban on advertising for fossil fuel companies is necessary to curb climate change and end corporate “greenwashing” during his remarks. Guterres also called for “windfall” taxes on energy producers worldwide during his Wednesday comments.

“We must directly confront those in the fossil fuel industry who have shown relentless zeal for obstructing progress,” Guterres said. “I urge every country to ban advertising from fossil fuel companies.” (RELATED: Wagyu Burgers, Asian-French Fusion And More: Here’s What’s On The Menu At The UN Climate Confab)

“Fossil fuels are not only poisoning our planet — they’re toxic for your brand,” Guterres added. “Your sector is full of creative minds who are already mobilizing around this cause. They are gravitating towards companies that are fighting for our planet — not trashing it.”

Beyond concerns about climate change, Guterres’s comments referenced “greenwashing,” a term that describes instances when corporations embellish their work on climate or the environmental benefits of their products, services and operations, according to the UN’s definition.

Guterres has repeatedly railed against the fossil fuel industry in his capacity as the UN’s top official, describing them as “godfathers of climate chaos” during his Wednesday talk after overseeing the commitment reached at De

https://dailycaller.com/2024/06/05/un-chief-calls-governments-censor-fossil-fuel-advertisements/

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Major Questions Raised by EPA’s EV Mandates

In hopes of shoring up its aggressive anti-fossil-fuel agenda against a possible elec­toral loss this November, the Biden Admin­is­tra­tion is rush­ing to finalize as many regu­la­tory man­dates as it can before the start of the Con­gres­sional Review Act’s “look­back win­dow”—the critical period near the end of an admin­is­tra­tion when newly issued agency rules become sub­ject to special legis­lative pro­ce­dures that allow them to be more readily over­turned by the next Con­gress and a new Presi­dent.

In this floodtide of final rules, perhaps the most egregious and far reach­ing are the two tailpipe emissions regu­la­tions recently issued by the Environ­mental Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA)—also known as EPA’s electric vehicle, or EV, man­dates.

With these mandates, EPA claims virtually uncon­strained power to dic­tate the extent and pace of elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of the Nation’s auto­motive sector, with­out any regard for the con­sti­tu­tional struc­tures and demo­cratic processes that are sup­posed to govern policy­making on matters of such vast eco­nomic and political sig­nifi­cance.

This usur­pa­tion of power comes at the expense of America’s families, U.S. pro­sperity, and our Nation’s security.

The first of the tailpipe rules covers all model year 2027 and later light- and medium-duty cars and trucks in the United States, including pas­senger cars, light trucks (pickups, SUVs, cross­overs, mini­vans), and medium-duty trucks (such as larger pickups and panel vans). The second rule covers new heavy-duty com­mer­cial work trucks and buses.

Together, these rules are designed to choke off the U.S. market for gasoline and diesel fuels by coercing auto­makers and truck manu­fac­turers to con­vert more and more of their pro­duc­tion from internal-com­bus­tion-engine (ICE) vehicles to battery-pow­ered cars and trucks and to do so at a far faster rate than cus­to­mer demand could ever sup­port.

How do the rules do this?

First, they ratchet down the tail­pipe emis­sions limits for car­bon diox­ide and for the tradi­tional criteria and other pollu­tants asso­ciated with smog to levels so strin­gent that gas- and diesel-powered vehicles can’t possibly meet them.

EPA then applies the emissions limits to manu­facturers on a fleet­wide average basis and reduces these averages each model year at a rate care­fully mani­pu­lated (surprise, surprise) to achieve the Biden Admin­is­tra­tion’s desired over­all per­centage mix of EVs in the U.S. car and truck fleets.

EPA projects that under these regulations, by model year 2032, 63 per­cent of new pas­senger cars sold in the U.S. will be EVs and another 10 per­cent will be plug-in hybrids; 52 per­cent of new light- and medium-duty trucks will be EVs and 14 per­cent plug-in hybrids; and from 14 to 67 percent of new heavy-duty trucks (depend­ing on size, function, and con­figura­tion) will be zero emis­sion.

For comparison, those percentages today are all in the single digits.

Thus, EPA is out to engineer nothing less than a seismic trans­for­ma­tion of America’s entire auto­mo­tive sector.

The Clean Air Act has never been inter­preted to authorize such a trans­for­ma­tion and hasn’t pre­viously been applied this way.

This arrogant scheme is very similar to the Clean Power Plan struck down by the Supreme Court under “major questions doctrine” analysis in West Vir­ginia v. EPA.

There, EPA was trying to reduce carbon dioxide emis­sions by forcing a shift in the Nation’s elec­tricity pro­duc­tion from coal plants to wind and solar. The Court held that no part of the Clean Air Act gave EPA license to “restruc­ture” the entire electricity market through “trans­for­ma­tive” regulations. In the absence of a clear and specific dele­ga­tion of authority by statute, the Court assumes that Con­gress has reserved the power to decide the “con­se­quential trade­offs” involved in such “vital considerations of national policy.”

The same goes for the EV man­dates, the con­se­quences of which for the American people will be stag­ger­ing.

The price of all new vehicles will rise dramatically because of EPA’s rules, and America’s families will lose many of their favorite options at the dealership. Lower-income and rural Americans will be stuck driving older and older used vehicles, kept on the road with parts scrounged from the junkyard. In other words, we will see the gradual Cuban­iza­tion of the American auto­mobile in many com­mu­nities.

And that’s a terrible thing. Statistics confirm that older cars are far less safe in acci­dents than newer models, so high­way deaths and injuries will definitely climb under EPA’s rules.

Countless jobs will be lost in the U.S. auto industry, too, while employ­ment will continue to surge in China, as the U.S. becomes desperately dependent on China for the pro­duc­tion of critical minerals and other inputs needed for EVs—an unacceptable stra­tegic vul­ner­ability for America.

Further, any rapid nation­wide transition to electric cars and trucks will put a tre­men­dous strain on our fragile grid and require a huge increase in electricity pro­duc­tion, just as EPA is attempt­ing to shut down fossil-fuel power plants. Elec­tricity prices, caught in this squeeze, will inevitably spike for all Americans.

And there’s no doubt the U.S. trucking industry will be clobbered. One industry study estimates that around $1 trillion in infra­struc­ture invest­ment will be needed to support the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of com­mercial truck­ing in America. As for the trucks them­selves, zero-emis­sion big rigs are more than twice as expen­sive as new diesel rigs to pur­chase and have much greater oper­ating costs. Inevitably, many truck­ing com­panies will be forced out of business, and the price of shipping for all goods will rise sharply throughout the U.S. economy.

At the same time, EPA’s grand scheme will have no mean­ing­ful effect on glo­bal climate or tem­per­a­tures. That’s because, among other things, China’s pro­duc­tion of energy from coal and its annual carbon dioxide emissions will just keep climb­ing higher and higher.

Indeed, the absence of real climate bene­fits from these hyper-aggressive tail­pipe rules only con­firms that the driving pur­pose behind them is not so much to save the planet as to cripple the fossil-fuel industry and stifle America’s love affair with the auto­mobile.

Of course, it is the American people who will ulti­mately bear the pain of these puni­tive policy choices.

The issues raised by the EV man­dates involve matters of life, liberty, and pro­sperity—issues that are fun­da­men­tally poli­tical in nature. Under our con­sti­tu­tional republic, it is for Con­gress, and Congress alone, to weigh the competing interests at stake in these matters and to make the monu­men­tal deci­sions that EPA now pre­sumes to take upon itself.

A version of this piece originally appeared in The Federalist Societ

https://www.heritage.org/government-regulation/commentary/major-questions-raised-epas-ev-mandates

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UK: The Met Office is Gaslighting Us With its Claim that Our Damp and Chilly May Was “Warmest on Record”

Weatherwise, it has been a rubbish May. And it has been an abysmal spring. It has been cold and wet. And everyone knows it. But according to the Meteorological Office, the U.K. has just experienced its hottest ever May, and its hottest ever spring. As news reports and the Met Office’s own press release have correctly indicated, this “may come as a surprise” to many people who actually live here (rather than on the planet that the Met Office’s scientists inhabit).

To those people, many of whom had their heating on for a good part of the month, the Met Office’s statement, as well as the “akshully…” news reports that claim to shed light on the difference between perception and reality, look like actual gaslighting. Even if the claim is true, which remains to be seen, what it reveals is the inadequacy of temperature as a metric on which U.K. climate and energy policy rests.

The Met Office’s charts for May and Spring show mean U.K. temperatures far in excess of what most people would expect. The mean temperature for May was a full degree warmer than the next warmest May in 2017. ‘Mean temperature’ is the average of the minimum and maximum temperatures recorded on one day. And the two extremes is obtained by averaging the highest and lowest temperatures of all stations in the MO’s network of weather stations. But as the following chart shows, while the max temperature is equal highest with 2018, it is the average minimum temperature which really makes May 2024 an outlier at 9°C, which is 1.2°C warmer than the next warmest average minimum, which was in May 2022.

The obvious point to make about this is understated by the Met Office, which explains: “This warmth was especially influenced by high overnight temperatures.” But this speaks to the inadequacy of temperature measurements of this kind to sustain climate change narratives. Whereas fears about global warming are driven by stories of relentless heat driving extreme weather such as heatwaves, wildfires and floods, a slight rise in minimum temperatures is the opposite of extreme: it is mildness. A 9°C average minimum temperature is not going to boil the planet, set the world on fire, or tear civilisation from its foundations.

But alarmists might point to the average maximum for May 2024, which is tied with 2018 as the warmest at 17.2°C. The problem, however, is that this says very little about what people are actually experiencing. Spring and May 2018 were notable for their record-breaking heatwaves. In April 2018, the hottest April temperatures for 70 years were recorded at 29.1°C, according to the Standard, caused by a huge plume of hot air from Portugal. The following month was the “sunniest and warmest on record in U.K.”, according to the Guardian, which began with a heatwave in which temperatures of 28.7°C made it “the hottest early May bank holiday weekend on record”.

Neither Spring nor May 2024 have had any weather events to compare with 2018. Yet max average temperatures do compare, and May 2024 min average temperatures exceed 2018’s. How can temperature therefore be a useful guide to what’s happening to our climate if it can seemingly underpin both extremely hot weather and extremely disappointing weather?

The problem is perhaps caused by these metrics being produced by cascades of averages. Data from weather stations across a nation that spans nearly 600 miles north to south and 300 miles west to east are mashed together as though a single metric of ‘climate’ for such a landmass was meaningful. Twenty four-hour minimum temperatures from all these stations are averaged. Then their maximum temperatures are averaged. And then these averages are averaged again to produce the ‘mean’. But anyone who has spent any time in the northwest of Scotland and the southeast of England know that these are radically different climes – as different in latitude as the south coast of Spain and its central region.

But perhaps the problem is even more radical than that. If the Met Office’s method of working out ‘average temperatures’ makes a dreary May like the one we’ve just had ‘hotter’ than one with a historic heatwave, eg May 2018, why should slight increases in ‘average temperatures’, as per the MO’s definition, concern us at all? The increased average temperature in May was, after all, likely driven by merely milder not extreme weather in a month that most people experienced as colder than average. Average temperature is supposed to be the most important metric of our time. Yet the same metric can mean anything between nearly 30°C heatwaves in April, and people wearing coats, hats and scarves in the week before summer. And a metric that can mean anything means nothing. It is a junk statistic.

None of this would matter if the Met Office and Britain’s news media were not so manifestly intent on gaslighting us into political obedience. But they want us to believe that our lives are deeply affected by such metrics, and use the weather forecast and news items about the weather to sustain the climate change narrative. Constant reminders of ‘danger to life’ herald something more than a breeze, a balmy evening or a scattered shower.

I wanted to see for myself how the raw data had been turned into this kind of zombie climate stat. It has been a long time since I bothered doing a deep dive into meteorological data, because it turns out that you do not need any kind of weather statistics to know, for absolute sure, that there is no ‘climate crisis’, so I haven’t felt the need. However, I was surprised to discover that data from the weather stations that are used in the Met Office’s analysis are not available to the public at higher than monthly resolution.

That’s a problem because in order to build an estimate of how useful minimum and maximum temperature data are, even in one location, never mind across an entire country, it would need to be compared to hourly data at a minimum. But not even daily data are available.

You might have thought that scientists and institutions that are so keen to tell us that their metric is so significant would be just as keen to make all of that data available to us. But you would be mistaken. The data is jealously guarded. It’s not for public consumption. We are supposed to take the good faith of institutional science for granted and are neither welcome nor even permitted to check for ourselves. ‘Follow the science’, means ‘obey’, not ‘try to understand’. And that’s what makes me – and, I hope, you – a sceptic.

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/06/06/the-met-office-is-gaslighting-us-with-its-claim-that-damp-and-chilly-may-was-the-hottest-ever/

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Costing the Green Grid

This paper presents a new model of the 2050 grid. In contrast to many other studies in the fields it:

encapsulates four decades of weather, and, uniquely, considers the effects on both supply and demand

considers the costs and efficiencies that pertain today, as well as speculations about those that might pertain in the future.

The results are compared and contrasted with those of the recent Royal Society study on large-scale electricity storage, which concluded that electricity in 2050 would be cheaper than today, and not much more expensive than it has been in the past. The Royal Society findings are criticised for:

using an incorrect demand curve

failing to model weather effects on demand

using highly optimistic assumptions about technology in 2050, and failing to highlight the extent to which these drove its key findings.

The paper finds that with current technology, the cost of the grid would be as high as £250 billion per year, or £8000 per household. That level of expenditure would need to be maintained indefinitely.

It concludes by calling for the withdrawal of the Royal Society paper.

https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-papers/costing-the-green-grid

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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)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Media Blames ‘Climate Change’ For Loss Of Venezuelan Glacier

Did you know that Venezuela’s last glacier was just demoted to an icefield? Or that this tropical, nearly equatorial, nation even had glaciers?

Well, it was and it did.

A reader asked us how to answer an alarmist claim that the demotion proves there’s a man-made ‘global heating crisis’, which of course is being bleated in unison by the herd of ‘independent’ media minds around the world.

None of whom of course hitherto knew or cared that said glacier even existed until it afforded this week’s opportunity to bang the climate apocalypse drum.

To which we said, as we usually do, check how long it’s been melting, because as a rule, the shrinking of glaciers demonstrates not that man is warming the planet but that the planet is warming man.

Then, and yes in true scientific fashion, we checked it ourselves to see if our hypothesis was sound. Si señor. It most certainly is.

The thing’s been melting since before World War I, most of the melting happened before World War II, and whenever the man-made ‘climate breakdown’ thingy hit, surely it wasn’t 1938.

The ex-glacier in question is the Humboldt Glacier, “struggling for survival in the Sierra Nevada National Park” according to the Times of India. Brave glacier! (And not to be confused with Greenland’s “Humboldt Glacier“.)

Mind you the South American one is not going to make it, given that Venezuela is not merely tropical but very nearly touches the equator, and is not a major mountaineering destination because its highest one, Pico Bolívar (not to be confused with Colombia’s Pico Simón Bolívar, a massive 5,730 meters high) tops out at just under 5,000 meters above sea level (4,978) and the ice field in question is on Pico Humboldt (please give now to alleviate the name shortage) at 4,925 meters.

Not where you’d store your ice if you cared about it.

Euronews.green complains that:

“Venezuela has lost its last glacier, making it the first nation in modern history to hold this unenviable record.

At least five other glaciers have disappeared in the South American country within the last century as climate change drives up temperatures in the Andes.

The country lost 98 per cent of its glacial area between 1952 and 2019, research shows.”

Note again that climate change is some weird mystical thing that surrounds us and penetrates us and causes temperatures to rise. It is not a description of them doing so. And of course when “research shows” mere citizens fall silent.

Despite this we did go and look at the actual research and, persevering down to Figure 5, found this map proving we were completely right all along and these journalists don’t know how to fact-check:

It’s a nice piece of work graphically speaking, with bright colors easy to follow, based on a reconstruction of the various glaciers going back to 1910, and the key here is that all the purple stuff is what melted between 1910 and 1952.

Big splotches, aren’t they? And look at the other two areas: they were half gone by 1952 and dwindled to specks or vanished by 1998, a full 26 years ago (the blue stuff being what vanished between 1952 and 1998).

Showing crucially that major melting started over a century ago, at a minimum.

We don’t know what happened before 1910 because ice doesn’t leave much in the way of a fossil record.

The pattern of Venezuelan glaciers is not anomalous. Rather, all glaciers have been retreating for centuries, with most of the melting predating the recent past.

Where we know in more detail, most of it happened before the 19th century. For instance, look at the map of Alaska’s famed glaciers published by W.S. Cooper in 1923 (below) and compare the ice extent in Alaska’s Muir Inlet as of 1880, compared to 1916.

Or the Reid and Torr inlets from 1879 to 1916:

Or, for a prettier version, look at this 2013 brochure given to one of us when we visited:

Look at the ice in 1750 and 1880, and then from 1880 to today. There was some mighty ‘climate change’ back in George Washington’s day, that’s for sure.

But not by us and our horse-drawn buggies. As is also true of the Franz Josef Glacier in New Zealand, in case anyone tries to tell you the Little Ice Age was regional.

All of this does not prove that something weird started in 1958, 1988, or 2000, or whatever the alarmists currently claim. On the contrary, it proves the exact opposite.

We are in a long-term warming trend that is overwhelmingly natural unless you believe that human CO2 not only causes artificial heating but shuts off the natural kind through some hitherto unknown process incompatible with the laws of physics and chemistry as we know them.

People get it wrong all the time because they’re so dogmatically certain that they do not check either facts or reasoning.

As we noted back in 2020, claims that the shrinking of France’s largest glacier was “irrefutable proof of global warming” were dead wrong.

It was the opposite.

The glacier had grown dramatically in the 18th century, peaked around 1850, and then shrank dramatically.

Glacier disappearance goes back much farther than 1800, too. As one paper safely published back in 1992 put it, concerning Hannibal’s apparently eccentric decision to bring elephants through the Alps:

“By the 3rd century BC the Alpine glaciers were in a backward position compared with their position in 900-350 BC.

This fact and the mildness of the climate, inferred from tree-ring analyses, suggest that ice conditions were not severe in the Alps in 218 BC.”

And the two main primary sources, Livy and Polybius, stress the appalling geography of whichever pass or passes he used but do not mention ice or glaciers. So possibly some countries that now have at least residual glaciers did not then.

Which again rather proves our point.

Nowadays everybody’s so sure of the opposite that they find it whether it’s there or not.

The research that says claims that:

“Glacier retreat in mountainous regions has accelerated worldwide within the last fifty years, triggering efforts to document what will soon become legacy landscapes (Barry 2006; Zemp et al. 2015; Huss et al. 2017).

In the tropical Andes, the rate of glacier retreat after 1950 is above the world’s average, with a notable increase after 1970 (Rabatel et al. 2013; Veettil and Kamp 2017).”

And nobody saw it coming that the place they were studying would be going up in flames faster than the average. But the rest of the statement is also nonsense.

They have no idea what the rate of retreat of the glaciers in this region was before 1900 so they can’t compare it to the present.

Besides what “rate” are they talking about? Distance? Volume? Percentage? If the latter it’s a cheat, because of course as it gets smaller, the rate of percentage decrease will accelerate.

But as we’ve shown before, only an insane person would maintain that the rate of glacier retreat in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park was slower 200 years ago than recently, or that it doesn’t have mountains.

Wikipedia predictably claims that:

“Most of New Zealand’s large glaciers shrank significantly towards the end of the 20th century, a consequence of global warming.”

But after that ritual genuflection, it blurts out that:

“Franz Josef Glacier advanced rapidly during the Little Ice Age, reaching a maximum in the early 18th century.

When Haast became the first European to see the glacier it was still much longer than today, and the ice surface was 300 m higher.

Between its first official mapping in 1893 and a century later in 1983, Franz Josef Glacier retreated 3 km up the valley.”

Note the “still”. That mapping was in 1893 and it had already retreated an enormous distance.

Like the Humboldt, it responded to natural warming long ago, and the fact that it still is doesn’t mean the warming suddenly started recently or changed its nature and cause.

It means it’s a continuation of a long, natural, cyclical rebound from the Little Ice Age.

https://principia-scientific.com/media-blames-climate-change-for-loss-of-venezuelan-glacier/

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Guardian Removes Article Claiming Renewables are Cheap

Regular readers of my Substack might recall that back in April, I wrote an article rebutting a blatant piece of propaganda that appeared in an advertorial in the Guardian, paid for by the National Grid.

I complained to both the Guardian and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and there is both good news and bad news to report.

The good news is the ASA appear to have taken a dim view of the article. Its response noted that the article has now been removed from the Guardian’s website and it said:

We have decided to resolve your complaint through the provision of advice to the advertiser. Therefore, we have explained the concerns raised to the advertiser and provided it with guidance on how to ensure that its advertising complies with the Codes both now and in future.

It is not clear whether the withdrawal of the article is related to the “advice” it gave or whether it is merely a coincidence. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that renewables are an expensive source of power and false claims can no longer be made in the press.

I think we should chalk this up as some sort of victory.

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/06/04/guardian-removes-article-claiming-renewables-are-cheap-as-advertising-watchdog-signals-false-claims-will-not-be-tolerated/

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New Survey Reveals Just How Unmotivated Americans Are To Purchase EVs

The Biden administration is aggressively pushing electric vehicles (EVs) on Americans, but consumers do not seem to be especially enthused about buying them, according to a new poll.

While 46% of respondents indicated that they are unlikely or very unlikely to purchase an EV, 21% said that they are “very” or “extremely” likely to purchase an EV for their next vehicle, and 21% said they are “somewhat” likely to buy an EV, according to the results of a new poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule in March that will require EVs to make up 56% of all new car sales on top of 13% for plug-in hybrids or partially electric models come 2032.

Respondents who are not inclined to purchase an EV identified several issues motivating their skepticism, according to the results of the AP’s poll. About half of adults point to concerns about EVs’ range as a major reason for not buying one, while approximately 40% identify charging time or uncertainty about nearby charging stations as problems. (RELATED: Biden Says That Americans Can Buy Any Car They Want. His Admin Is Forcing EVs To Be Huge Share Of Sales By 2032)

The Biden administration is spending $7.5 billion to help build out a national network of EV charging infrastructure, but those funds have only produced a handful of operational charging stations to date. The nation’s charging systems remain concentrated mostly in densely-populated coastal regions, according to the Department of Energy (DOE).

New EVs cost $52,314 on average as of February, according to the AP, while the average gas-powered compact crossover sets buyers back approximately $35,722, according to Edmunds. Nearly 60% of adults also cite the cost of EVs as a major reason not to get one.

Interest in EVs also varies by age, with more than half of respondents under the age of 45 indicating that they are at least “somewhat” likely to think about buying an EV compared to about 32% of respondents over the age of 45, according to the poll’s results.

The poll sampled 6,265 adults between March 26 and April 1o using a combination of interviews and online panels, according to the AP. The poll’s margin of error was 1.7%.

https://dailycaller.com/2024/06/04/biden-electric-vehicles-american-consumers-poll/

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UK: Labour’s energy claims are ‘divorced from reality’

The Labour Party is saying that its energy policies – a rapid decarbonisation of the electricity system – will save consumers money. The claim is apparently based on an October 2023 report by Ember,[1] which says that a decarbonised electricity system can reduce bills by £300 per household.

However, the report also says[2] that the authors are assuming that windfarms in the future will secure ‘the same price as [Contracts for Difference] auction round 4’. The prices achieved in Round 4 (£37.50) are around half the price (£73/MWh) currently on offer to offshore windfarms in Round 6 [3]. And industry insiders are suggesting that even the latter figure may be inadequate.[4]

In other words, Labour’s savings rely on assuming that wind power costs half of what it actually does.

A second problem Labour’s putative savings figure is that Ember’s report compares bills in their hypothetical decarbonised electricity system against bills in the third quarter of 2023, which were still inflated by the Ukraine war.

Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:

Labour’s claim of a reduction in household bills is based on figures that are entirely divorced from today’s reality.
And Mr Montford continued by calling for a new reality-based debate on Net Zero.

When it comes to energy policy, the political establishment is operating in a fact-free void. For the sake of the country, they need to start asking very hard questions about what they are being told by civil servants and environmental activists like Ember.

https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-news/labour-divorced-from-reality

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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)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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US Public Schools Continuing To Push Climate Indoctrination

Paul Tice, senior fellow for the National Center for Energy Analytics, took the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal to criticize the ‘climate change’ curriculum in New Jersey public schools

The educational materials, Tice explained, are not just found in sections of science courses, but in all school subjects.

Districts are encouraged to insert lessons on ‘climate change’ into English language, arts and mathematics.

In foreign language classes, students discuss the impacts of ‘climate change’ “on the target language of the world.”

In the state’s Visual and Performing Arts standards, students are required to “research global issues, including climate change, using multiple research methods to inform original dances expressed through multiple genres, styles, and varied cultural perspectives.”

To support the state’s climate curriculum, the New Jersey Department of Education points educators toward resources that provide only positive views of the potential of wind and solar to replace ‘fossil fuels’.

“New Jersey’s climate curriculum is pure indoctrination,” Trice wrote in the Journal column.

Dr. Sterling Burnett, Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at the Heartland Institute, told Just the News that this type of climate ‘education’ is common across the country, and it’s been going on for years.

“It’s all got climate alarm built into it. It doesn’t question the idea that humans are causing catastrophic climate change, despite the fact [it’s] not supported by the data or the evidence,” Burnett said.

Some states have attempted to include in the curriculum taught in public schools different perspectives on ‘climate change’.

Last year, Florida’s Board of Education approved the use of videos produced by the conservative Prager University Foundation in the state’s public schools.

Legacy media outlets were critical of the decision. The Guardian reported that kids would be exposed to educational materials that “portray solar and wind energy as environmentally ruinous,” even though there are many reasons to be concerned about the environmental impacts of wind and solar energy.

The Guardian also quoted ‘experts’ worried that kids in Florida would be exposed to “messages of support for fossil fuels and doubts for renewable energy resources.”

Politico quoted PragerU CEO Marissa Streit stating that the “climate is always changing,” to which the reporter was compelled to refer to the statement as “repeating a climate-denial motto.”

Streit’s statement is scientifically accurate.

Among other points, the PragerU videos challenge the belief that ‘climate change’ poses a risk to the survivability of the human race, and that wind and solar are a good idea for developing countries.

Other attempts to provide kids with different perspectives on ‘climate change’ and energy have also been rebuked.

In April 2023, the CO2 Coalition, whose members include a Nobel laureate, purchased a booth at the National Science Teaching Association’s annual convention in Atlanta.

The group distributed “Simon The Solar-Powered Cat,” a comic book that explains the process of photosynthesis, which benefits from carbon dioxide. The purpose of the lesson is to dispute the demonization of the ‘greenhouse gas’ as inherently destructive and dangerous.

The association found the materials so offensive that they kicked the CO2 Coalition out of the convention.

The Heartland Institute last year launched an initiative to provide educational materials that challenge the idea that humans are causing catastrophic climate change.

“Climate at a Glance” uses government sources to provide perspectives disputing the “climate crisis” on a range of topics from extreme weather to polar bears. They also created a downloadable app for the lessons.

Burnett, who helped author the materials, said the Heartland mailed out 7,000 free copies of the printed version.

He said that while not all the educators who received the copies reacted positively to the materials, Heartland received a lot of “good feedback” on it from teachers.

“The thing we’ve been pushing all along is that science is not teaching what to think. When you’re getting your science education, especially your basic education in the early grades, it’s teaching how to conduct science. It’s teaching how to think, not what to think,” Burnett said.

He said all the climate education in public schools teaches that the ‘climate crisis’ is ‘settled science’ and that there’s no legitimate dispute about it.

Burnett said the whole idea of “consensus science” is problematic.

“There was a consensus at one time that the universe revolved around the Earth. That was wrong. There was a consensus that the Earth was flat. That was wrong. There was consensus that diseases were caused by humors in the body, and you just need to balance the humors. It was wrong,” Burnett said.

While most states are keeping educational materials in schools uniformly in support of a climate crisis perspective, polls are showing that young people are becoming less inclined to accept it.

A recent Monmouth University poll found in the last few years a 17 percentage point drop in the number of people ages 18 to 34 who believe that ‘climate change’ is a very serious issue.

Many of those polled would have recently graduated from high school.

https://principia-scientific.com/us-public-schools-continuing-to-pushing-climate-indoctrination/

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Thanks for Publishing the Truth, New York Post, Climate Activists Don’t Care If People Die

They rather welcome it in fact: "Too many people"

The New York Post published an article by noted researcher Bjorn Lomborg, Ph.D., in which he argues climate activists not only don’t care about people’s well-being, they, in fact, support policies that result in unnecessary deaths. Lomborg is right. Poverty, in part due to lack of access to reliable energy, and the modern health and agricultural innovations they make possible, is the world’s number one killer. Because most climate policies promote ending or sharply curtailing the use of fossil fuels in the short-term, they leave the poorest populations in poverty and vulnerable to extreme weather events, resulting in unnecessary deaths.

In the New York Post article, “Green activists don’t care how many people will die from zero fossil fuel use,” Bjorn Lomborg provides an array of data demonstrating that fewer people are dying from extreme weather and temperatures now than ever before as the planet has modestly warmed. His research indicates, however, that even fewer deaths would occur from these causes were it not for climate policies prematurely restricting fossil fuel development and use. Lomborg writes:

We endlessly hear the flawed assertion that because climate change is real, we should “follow the science” and end fossil fuel use.

…

The assertion is convenient for politicians, because it allows them to avoid responsibility for the many costs and downsides of climate policy, painting these as inevitable results of diligently following the scientific evidence.

But it is false because it conflates climate science with climate policy.

The story told by activist politicians and climate campaigners suggests that there is nothing but benefits to ending fossil fuels, versus a hellscape if nothing is done.

But the reality is that the world over the past centuries has improved dramatically — largely because of the immense increase in available energy that has come mostly from fossil fuels.

Life spans have more than doubled, hunger has dramatically declined, and incomes have increased ten-fold.

Lomborg goes on to discuss the fact that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found limited, or no evidence climate change is impacting most extreme weather events and that deaths attributable to extreme weather have declined by 97 percent over the past century even as the Earth warmed slightly, in large part due to the energy, materials, and products fossil fuels make possible.

Climate realism has made these same points across the course of hundreds of articles debunking false claims that extreme weather is getting worse and dozens of articles discussing the decline in premature mortality due to extreme weather, weather related diseased, and non-optimal temperatures.

In addition, Climate Realism has discussed the tremendous benefit modestly warmer temperatures, fossil fuels, and rising CO2 has produced for food production, saving millions from starvation. Lomborg makes this point as well.

“Four billion people — half the world’s population — entirely depend on food grown with synthetic fertilizer produced almost entirely by natural gas,” Lomborg says. “If we ended fossil fuels quickly, we would physically have no way to feed four billion people.”

Lomborg is right, net zero by 2025 is not just costly, $27 trillion per year on average, equal to a quarter of the worlds current GDP, over the century in a vain effort to control the weather, it is, in fact, nothing more than a road to economic decline and increased deaths. Lomborg concludes:

When politicians tell us they are “following the science,” they use the claim to shut down open discussion of the enormous costs of their policies.

“The science” informs us about the problem, but is not the arbiter of solutions.

Democracies are.

Sudden, dramatic cuts in fossil fuel consumption will have huge downsides — which their backers would rather ignore.

Climate change is a problem, but a civilization-endangering cure can be far worse than the illness.

The vast majority of Climate Realism posts debunk and deconstruct false claims of climate alarm being hyped by the mainstream media, but every so often we’ve got to give a media outlet kudos for allowing important truths about climate change to be told. This article by the New York Post is one such instance. Thanks, New York Post for boldly presenting truths that are inconvenient to the popular climate crisis narrative and unpopular with the woke media and politicians kowtowing to it, and to misanthropic climate activists funding the media narrative and, all too often, the politicians themselves.

https://climaterealism.com/2024/06/thanks-for-publishing-the-truth-new-york-post-climate-activists-dont-care-if-people-die/

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UK: Met Office Should Put 2.5°C ‘Uncertainties’ Warning on All Future Temperature Claims

It is “abundantly clear” that the Met Office cannot scientifically claim to know the current average temperature of the U.K. to a hundredth of a degree centigrade, given that it is using data that has a margin of error of up to 2.5°C, notes the climate journalist Paul Homewood.

His comments follow recent disclosures in the Daily Sceptic that nearly eight out of ten of the Met’s 380 measuring stations come with official ‘uncertainties’ of between 2-5°C. In addition, given the poor siting of the stations now and possibly in the past, the Met Office has no means of knowing whether it is comparing like with like when it publishes temperature trends going back to 1884.

There are five classes of measuring stations identified by the World Meteorological Office (WMO). Classes 4 and 5 come with uncertainties of 2°C and 5°C respectively and account for an astonishing 77% of the Met Office station total. Class 3 has an uncertainty rating of 1°C and accounts for another 8.4% of the total. The Class ratings identify potential corruptions in recordings caused by both human and natural involvement. Homewood calculates that the average uncertainty across the entire database is 2.5°C. In the graph below, he then calculates the range of annual U.K. temperatures going back to 2010 incorporating the margins of error.

The blue blocks show the annual temperature announced by the Met Office, while the red bars take account of the WMO uncertainties. It is highly unlikely that the red bars show the more accurate temperature, and there is much evidence to suggest temperatures are nearer the blue trend. But the point of the exercise is to note that the Met Office, in the interests of scientific exactitude, should disclose what could be large measurement inaccuracies. This is particularly important when it is making highly politicised statements using rising temperatures to promote the Net Zero fantasy. As Homewood observes, the Met Office “cannot say with any degree of scientific certainty that the last two years were the warmest on record, nor quantify how much, if any, the climate has warmed since 1884”.

The U.K. figures are of course an important component of the Met Office’s global temperature dataset known as HadCRUT. As we noted recently, there is ongoing concern about the accuracy of HadCRUT with large retrospective adjustments of warming in recent times and cooling further back in the record. In fact, this concern has been ongoing for some time. The late Christopher Booker was a great champion of climate scepticism and in February 2015 he suggested that the “fiddling” with temperature data “is the biggest science scandal ever”. Writing in the Telegraph, he noted: “When future generations look back on the global warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which official temperatures records – on which the entire panic rested – were systematically ‘adjusted’ to show the Earth as having warmed more than the actual data justified.”

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/05/30/met-office-should-put-2-5c-uncertainties-warning-on-all-future-temperature-claims/

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Great Barrier Reef Doomsday Claims Should Be Audited: Scientist

Australian geo-physicist Peter Ridd says an additional $5 million (US$3.3 million) allocated to the Great Barrier Reef in this week’s budget would be better spent on “genuine environmental problems.”

The funding was handed down as part of Labor’s 2024 federal budget on May 14.

In a statement released last month, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation said the reef had suffered through the “worst summer” on record, with cyclones, severe flooding, starfish outbreaks and mass bleaching.

The funds will help the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to engage tourism operators undertaking reef monitoring, protection, and stewardship.

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation says the full extent of mass bleaching is not known, but claims aerial surveys over 1,000 reefs showed a rate of 73 percent bleaching within the area, plus another 6 percent in the Torres Strait.

“The Reef Summer Snapshot shows the highest levels of coral bleaching were found across the southern region, where temperatures are typically cooler, and parts of the central and northern regions, where in some areas corals were exposed to record levels of heat stress,” the Foundation said in a report online.

Yet Dr. Ridd, a researcher into the Reef, believes its poor health has been greatly exaggerated.

“It is telling that in the latest doom-news about the Great Barrier Reef bleaching, they failed to mention that the Great Barrier Reef had record amounts of coral in 2022/23 despite having suffered four ‘catastrophic’ bleaching events in 2016, 17, 20, and 22,” he told The Epoch Times in an email.

“We ended up with twice as much coral than in 2012 when a couple of cyclones genuinely destroyed a lot of coral.

“How did we end up with so much coral if those last four bleaching event were so catastrophic—even the fast-growing coral takes five to 10 years to regrow.”

The coral that bounced back, he says, is the type most susceptible to water bleaching.

“That proves the last four bleaching events were exaggerated in terms of the coral death, and there is no reason to expect this latest event to be much different,” he said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/great-barrier-reef-doomsday-claims-should-be-audited-scientist-5651830

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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)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Electric Bus limitations

Aircraft chocks are small wedges triangular in shape placed in front of and behind the aircraft's wheels lightly in contact with the tyre to prevent an aircraft from moving when parked.

The wheel chocks are commonly used to prevent an aircraft from accidentally rolling and colliding with other aircraft and damaging its parts, protecting the ground crew from harm during handling operations and protecting nearby infrastructure.

Never did I relate it to school buses, though, but I am learning that it's a thing in many states. Buses are heavy, so it does make sense. Some state regs are just for inspections or some if the bus is parked on a grade or out of the bus yard with the driver gone.

Even parking a school bus, particularly an expensive green electric one, is no longer as simple as "park," parking brake, and turning off the key.

Apparently, if you forget to throw chocks around the wheels, these buggers will roll on you. And that's just for starters.

Maine’s Democratic Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (CD-01) on Wednesday applauded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for announcing a $7.7 million round of grants for Maine schools to purchase electric school buses.

...However, the electric school buses in Maine that have already been purchased under this program have been plagued with mechanical failures and dangerous malfunctions, leading to several of the “zero-emission” buses being pulled off the road.

In December, Winthrop Public Schools reported that they were struggling to keep their fleet of four electric school buses on the road due to water leak issues and heating system failures — just weeks after they were purchased.

Leaky windshields letting water pour into an all-electric vehicle - sounds like a manufacturing issue.

The state police unit that does safety inspections had themselves quite a time writing up violations on the new buses.

...Last summer, the Maine State Police Vehicle Inspection Unit noted a number of problems with the electric buses, from loose body rivets and an inoperative driver’s auxiliary fan to a power steering hose that rubbed on a bracket and a malfunctioning rear emergency door check.

Vinalhaven’s electric school buses have also been identified as having side body damage in the form of broken rivets and a lack of wheel chocks, which are blocks that prevent the bus from rolling when parked.

A "lack of wheel chocks."

Now, like I said, I quickly dug through several states' school bus manuals and I see chocks mentioned when the bus is undergoing an inspection - which makes perfect sense. Also the "parked on a grade" thing. New Hampshire is school bus chock happy, which is probably prudent.

When you consider electric buses are weighing in at almost two tons more than your average 72-passenger diesel school bus?

Chocks might be pretty damn important.

A lot of those considerations came into play when New York Governor Kathy Daffy Hochul announced she was dumping $100M into electric school buses for her state. The practical side of the upstate people was triggered.

...The Empire Center For Public Policy estimates the cost shift to an all-electric school bus fleet between $8 billion and $15.25 billion. Meanwhile, 2025 budget projections already predict a state deficit.

...Then there’s the cost of new infrastructure, like charging stations.

Electric vehicle are heavier — a typical 72-passenger diesel school bus weighs 24,300 pounds and a 72-passenger electric bus weighs 36,000 pounds. That means more wear and tear on municipal and state roads, Weber said.

Electric vehicle ranges are also shorter. Sanchez said the district wasn't sure if the buses would last entire routes under the current system the district uses.

And electric vehicles are less efficient in cold weather like upstate New York experiences in winter, critics say.

But never mind that, say the cultists. Who cares if the windshields leak, the brakes seize, or the kindergarten bus runs out of charge when it's -15°F? Hell, those buses didn't have heat most of the time anyway. Tell those kids to toughen up!

Last year, Vermont seemed to have some real range issues with its modern electric marvels.

I don't know that I'd be all hep to have my kid on one in the winter. I mean, they can't carry a 60 lb backpack full of books and a ruck of survival gear just in case the bus Schlitzes the bed on a frosty mountain road.

New electric school buses lose up to 80% range in winter

New electric school buses cost roughly double their diesel-powered counterparts upfront and they lose up to 80% of their range in cold temperatures, the Vermont Electric School and Transit Bus Pilot Program Report indicates.

...Some brands – especially the Blue Bird model – seemed to have more serious issues than others with performance in cold temperatures. All of them had issues with charging equipment.

It states, “Some brands performed well in winter, and some failed to perform at all. Among the buses that were in-service in the winter, some buses performed better than others. Charging equipment performance remained a persistent issue for all sites year-round.”

...“As temperatures dropped, vehicle range reduced in a relatively linear manner. At zero degrees Fahrenheit, the Lion bus ranges had dropped off by 30-40% of the nominal range advertised by the manufacturer. For Blue Bird buses, the range loss at zero degrees was closer to 80%,” it states.

...Nonetheless, the report by the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation (VEIC) indicates that there is serious consideration to move forward.

“It is feasible to operate electric school and transit buses in Vermont even in cold weather and varied terrain,” the report claims.

https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2024/05/31/the-wheels-on-an-electric-bus-need-to-be-chocked-and-other-things-i-learned-today-n3789423

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Is America Ready for ‘Degrowth Communism’?

Green/Left destructivess writ large

Kohei saito knows he sounds like a madman. That’s kind of the point, the Japanese philosopher told me during a recent visit to New York City. “Maybe, then, people get shocked,” he said. “What’s this crazy guy saying?”

The crazy idea is “degrowth communism,” a combination of two concepts that are contentious on their own. Degrowth holds that there will always be a correlation between economic output and carbon emissions, so the best way to fight climate change is for wealthy nations to cut back on consumption and reduce the “material throughput” that creates demand for energy and drives GDP.

The degrowth movement has swelled in recent years, particularly in Europe and in academic circles. The theory has dramatic implications. Instead of finding carbon-neutral ways to power our luxurious modern lifestyles, degrowth would require us to surrender some material comforts. One leading proponent suggests imposing a hard cap on total national energy use, which would ratchet down every year. Energy-intensive activities might be banned outright or taxed to near oblivion. (Say goodbye, perhaps, to hamburgers, SUVs, and your annual cross-country flight home for the holidays.) You’d probably be prohibited from setting the thermostat too cold in summer or too warm in winter. To keep frivolous spending down, the government might decide which products are “wasteful” and ban advertising for them. Slower growth would require less labor, so the government would shorten the workweek and guarantee a job for every person.

Saito did not invent degrowth, but he has put his own spin on it by adding the C word.

As for what kind of “communism” we’re talking about, Saito tends to emphasize workers’ cooperatives and generous social-welfare policies rather than top-down Leninist state control of the economy. He says he wants democratic change rather than revolution—though he’s fuzzy on how exactly you get people to vote for shrinkage.

This message has found an enthusiastic audience. Saito’s 2020 book, Capital in the Anthropocene, sold half a million copies. He took a job at the prestigious University of Tokyo and became a regular commentator on Japanese TV—one of the few far-left talking heads in that country’s conservative media sphere. When we met up in April, he was touring the northeastern U.S. to promote the new English translation of the book, titled Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto, and planning to appear on a series of panels at Georgetown University to discuss his ideas. One day during his New York stint, we visited the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, where a young protester named Tianle Zhang spotted him and waved him over, telling Saito he’s the reason he’s applying to graduate school. They took a selfie together, and Saito posted it on X.

Saito’s haters are just as passionate as his admirers. The right-wing podcaster James Lindsay recently dedicated a three-hour episode to what he called Saito’s “death cult.” Liberals who favor renewable energy and other technologies say Saito’s ideas would lead to stagnation. On the pro-labor left, Jacobin magazine published multiple articles criticizing degrowth in general and Saito in particular, calling his vision a “political disaster” that would hurt the working class. And don’t get the Marxist textualists started; they accuse Saito of distorting the great man’s words in order to portray Marx as the OG degrowth communist.

It’s understandable that Saito provokes so much ire: He rejects the mainstream political consensus that the best way to fight climate change is through innovation, which requires growth. But no matter how many times opponents swat it down, the idea of degrowth refuses to die. Perhaps it survives these detailed, technical refutations because its very implausibility is central to its appeal.

Economic growth, the French economist Daniel Cohen has written, is the religion of the modern world. Growth is the closest thing to an unalloyed good that exists in politics or economics. It’s good for the rich, and it’s good for the poor. It’s good if you believe inequality is too high, and if you think inequality doesn’t matter. Deciding how to distribute wealth is complicated, but in theory it gets easier when there’s more wealth to distribute. Growth is the source of legitimacy for governments across the political spectrum: Keep us in power, and we’ll make your life better.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/kohei-saito-degrowth-communism/678481/

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UK: Green Election Candidate Claims Islamic State Is Run by Mossad

Just another Green loony

A Green Party election candidate is caught up in an antisemitism storm over social media posts slamming “Jew lovers” and alleging that the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad is behind the Islamic State. The Mail has the story.

Joe Belcher, who is standing in the Aldridge-Brownhills seat in the West Midlands, also denied a controversial mural showing “hooked-nosed Jewish bankers” playing monopoly off the backs of the poor was “antisemitic”.

Mr. Belcher, the treasurer of the local party branch in Walsall, shared a link to an article by “the real Syrian Free Press” – a pro-Assad website – suggesting ISIS was run by “Simon Elliott, a Mossad agent”.

He also posted other links to pages about “Rothschild bankers” and shared a link to a video by controversialist David Icke, suggesting Jeremy Corbyn might be a “savior [who is] going to turn the country around to a more fair and just society” before he became leader of the Labour Party.

The Green Party told MailOnline that “allegations of antisemitism will always be carefully considered using our robust internal disciplinary procedures”.

But a spokesman declined to say whether Mr. Belcher was facing disciplinary proceedings after we presented him with our dossier. …

He is the latest party candidate to express extreme views. …

Last week, a controversial Green Party councillor who shouted “Allahu Akbar” after being elected to a city council repeated the declaration of faith, boasting it had made him “infamous”.

Mothin Ali, who has previously claimed Hamas “had a right to fight back” against Israel, claimed he was being made a “scapegoat” to distract from “war crimes” being committed in Gaza. …

Amid fears of a rise in sectarian politics fuelled by the crisis in the Middle East, former Labour Cabinet minister Lord Mandelson accused the Greens of becoming a “dustbin” for “disgruntled hard-leftists”.

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/05/29/green-election-candidate-claims-islamic-state-is-run-by-mossad/

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Australia: What is the ‘energy transition’?

For Labor, it is a transition to renewables. For the Liberals, it is a transition to nuclear power and renewables.

As part of the transition, Labor wants nothing to with nuclear power; the Liberals support it. Labor dislikes coal; it is not clear what the Liberals think about coal.

Both aim to reach Net Zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050.

There is a much simpler and more effective transition at hand – a transition to coal, nuclear power, and natural gas, with little place for renewables and no place for Net Zero.

Underlying this approach are the following considerations:

coal, nuclear energy and natural gas are the only ways of providing baseload electricity in Australia – meaning in practice, reliable, around-the-clock, low-cost electricity
wind and solar energy cannot provide such electricity
The proposed coal-nuclear-gas transition is the centrepiece of a campaign planned by a group in the Latrobe Valley, provisionally called the Coal-Nuclear-Gas Alliance.

The alliance will focus on three key actions.

The first action is the development of a new coal plant in the Valley and the refurbishment of the Loy Yang A and B coal plants, using high-efficiency-low-emissions (HELE) technology.

Such technology is not only more efficient than current technology, but also results in a lowering of greenhouse-gas emissions from coal plants of up to 30 per cent.

Further coal capacity in Australia is vital.

It will take until at least the 2050s for nuclear power to become a significant component of overall electricity generation in Australia.

And coal will not be replaced quickly by natural gas, which is in short supply in the eastern states and, in any case, has historically been more expensive than coal or baseload electricity.

The second action is to offer the Valley as the location for Australia’s first nuclear power plant.

Should this be supported in the Valley, the political task of introducing nuclear power in Australia will be greatly facilitated.

The third action is the promotion of natural-gas development in the Valley.

This requires the reversal of the state government’s effective banning of gas exploration and production in Victoria and of the federal government’s recent interventions in the eastern states’ gas market, including the price caps introduced in late 2022.

The Latrobe Valley is probably better placed than any other region in Australia in successfully addressing Australia’s energy future.

It has enough coal for over 500 years of electricity generation.

It can offer sites for a nuclear plant close to transmission lines and with a workforce to operate such a plant. One possible site is Yallourn (the coal resource currently being mined at Yallourn will be exhausted by the mid-2030s).

In addition, Gippsland has significant untapped natural-gas resources. In the words of journalist, Robert Gottliebsen, it is one of ‘three major fields that will end the shortage of gas for domestic market’ in Australia (the other two being Narrabri in NSW and the Surat Basin in Queensland).

Tapping these resources opens the possibility of gas becoming price competitive with coal for baseload electricity and, even if this is not the case, of making a major contribution to gas use outside the electricity sector.

What are the arguments against wind and solar power?

The first is their intermittency. Theoretically, it may be possible to overcome this with battery support. However, such support would be impossibly expensive if applied to the grid as a whole, taking account of the need to allow for wind and solar droughts and the enormous battery stock required (over 5,000 times the current stock).

Second, wind and solar farms are proving to be high-cost.

For example, wind and solar farms are typically distant from the grid and thus often require substantial new transmission infrastructure. This is expensive.

In addition, they entail significant over-building – to illustrate, if a coal-fired power plant of, say, 1,000 megawatts is to be replaced by wind and solar farms, the capacity of these farms will need to be well over 3,000 megawatts because they only produce electricity for around 30 per cent of the time.

Furthermore, electrical engineers refer to costs associated with frequency control when wind and solar power are fed into the grid.

Up to the early 2000s, Australia had among the lowest electricity prices in the world, with coal being responsible for over 80 per cent of our electricity production.

Since then, the role of coal has steadily declined and retail electricity prices have increased nearly twice as fast as overall consumer prices. Australia no longer has cheap electricity by world standards.

Third, the expansion of wind and solar farms requires radical changes to Australia’s countryside. In the words of former chief scientist, Alan Finkel (who supports renewables), ‘think forests of windfarms carpeting hills and cliffs from sea to sky; think endless arrays of solar panels disappearing like a mirage into the desert’.

Protest movements are spreading around the country strongly opposing such outcomes.

For those critical of the idea of supporting coal, nuclear power, and gas, a simple question can be asked: How else do you ensure that Australia has access to reliable, low-cost electricity, a critical component of any modern economy?

The coal-nuclear-gas campaign emerging from the Latrobe Valley is at an early planning stage. To succeed, it will need to be well financed and to develop a detailed plan for mobilising support, including grass-roots support in the Valley and other parts of Victoria and political support in Melbourne and Canberra.

Last year’s referendum on The Voice exposed a large gap between grass-roots views on the issues involved and the views of those seen as opinion leaders – political parties, major corporations, universities, the media and environmental organisations.

Does a similar gap exist in the case of energy policy? And will it increase if (as is feared) electricity supplies become less stable, electricity prices keep rising and regional protests against wind the solar farms become more widespread?

If so, a shake-up in energy policy lies ahead, with the Latrobe Valley well placed to lead the way. If it can do so, other regions are likely to follow (e.g. Hunter Valley in NSW, Surat Basin in Queensland)

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/05/a-new-energy-transition-coal-nuclear-and-natural-gas/

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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)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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‘Termination shock’: cut in ship pollution sparked global heating spurt

There's no such thing as a happy Greenie

Regulations at the start of 2020 slashed the sulphur content of fuels used in shipping by more than 80%. Photograph: Shaun Cunningham/Alamy
The slashing of pollution from shipping in 2020 led to a big “termination shock” that is estimated have pushed the rate of global heating to double the long-term average, according to research.

Until 2020, global shipping used dirty, high-sulphur fuels that produced air pollution. The pollution particles blocked sunlight and helped form more clouds, thereby curbing global heating. But new regulations at the start of 2020 slashed the sulphur content of fuels by more than 80%.

The new analysis calculates that the subsequent drop in pollution particles has significantly increased the amount of heat being trapped at the Earth’s surface that drives the climate crisis. The researchers said the sharp ending of decades of shipping pollution was an inadvertent geoengineering experiment, revealing new information about its effectiveness and risks.

High ocean surface temperatures smashed records in 2023, alarming experts who have struggled to explain the huge rises. But scientists have mixed views on the role played by the cut in shipping pollution.

Those behind the new study say it could be a “pretty substantial” factor. Others say it is only a small factor, and that the reasons for the extraordinary rises in sea and global temperatures remain an alarming mystery.

Dr Tianle Yuan, at the University of Maryland, US, who led the study, said the estimated 0.2 watts per sq metre of additional heat trapped over the oceans after the pollution cut was “a big number, and it happened in one year, so it’s a big shock to the system”.

“We will experience about double the warming rate compared to the long-term average” since 1880 as a result, he said. The heating effect of the pollution cut is expected to last about seven years.

The research, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, combined satellite observations of sulphur pollution and computer modelling to calculate the impact of the cut. It found the short-term shock was equivalent to 80% of the total extra heating the planet has seen since 2020 from longer-term factors such as rising fossil-fuel emissions.

The scientists used relatively simple climate models to estimate how much this would drive up average global temperatures at the surface of the Earth, finding a rise of about 0.16C over seven years. This is a large rise and the same margin by which 2023 beat the temperature record compared with the previous hottest year.

However, other scientists think the temperature impact of the pollution cut will be significantly lower due to feedbacks in the climate system, which are included in the most sophisticated climate models. The results of this type of analysis are expected later in 2024.

“[Pollution particles] are one of the largest uncertainties in the climate system, and pretty hard to measure,” said Dr Zeke Hausfather, at analysts Carbon Brief. He said the new analysis did a good job of using satellite data to estimate the change in trapped heat after the pollution cut, but he disagreed on how that translated into a temperature rise. Hausfather’s estimate of the temperature rise due to the pollution cut was 0.05C over 30 years.

“The [pollution cut] is certainly a contributing factor to the recent warmth, but it only goes a small way toward explaining the 0.3C, 0.4C, and 0.5C margins of monthly records set in the second half of 2023,” he said.

Dr Gavin Schmidt, at Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said the new research was “definitely a positive contribution, but it’s not using a fully coupled climate model, so there is still more work to be done. We’ll see how this all gets reconciled over the coming months.”

In March, Schmidt warned: “We need answers for why 2023 turned out to be the warmest year in possibly the past 100,000 years. And we need them quickly.” He said the recent El Niño event and a rise in solar activity were not sufficient explanations.

Deliberately pumping aerosols into the air over the oceans to stimulate more cloud cover has been proposed as a way of cooling the Earth. Yuan said years of shipping pollution followed by a sharp cut was an accidental large-scale experiment: “We did inadvertent geoengineering for 50 or 100 years over the ocean.”

The new analysis indicates that this type of geoengineering would reduce temperatures, but would also bring serious risks. These include the sharp temperature rise when the pumping of aerosols stopped – the termination shock – and also potential changes to global precipitation patterns, which could disrupt the monsoon rains that billions of people depend on.

“We should definitely do research on this, because it’s a tool for situations where we really want to cool down the Earth temporarily,” like an emergency brake, he said. “But this is not going to be a long-term solution, because it doesn’t address the root cause of global warming,” which is emissions from fossil fuel burning.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/30/termination-shock-cut-in-ship-pollution-sparked-global-heating-spurt

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Logic leaves ‘The Science’ of climate in the dust

It is the gag order of the pseudo eco-scholar: “The Science is settled.” This is not science as we once understood it. In that discipline something could be proved false through observation and experiment. No, this is “The Science”: science as deity.

In the 20th century Karl Popper transformed the philosophy of science around the idea of falsifiability, saying: “It must be possible for an empirical scientific system to be refuted by experience.”

The first rule in Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery is: “The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.”

So, you can spend a lifetime counting white swans, but find one black one and the thesis that all swans are white is destroyed. The black swan event happened when Europeans first encountered the impossible animal in Australia.

Prove one assumption wrong and a whole set of conclusions collapses. The Science is not real science. It is a set of beliefs, a faith. Those who demand we agree it’s settled are no different from a Catholic bishop declaring: “Roma locuta est; causa finita est” – Rome has spoken; the cause is finished.

The zealots who invoke The Science as a gag order have never read the research or wilfully ignore its infuriating uncertainty. This uncountably large group includes battalions of politicians, academics, activists, journalists and a few dozen billionaire energy-hobbyist carpetbaggers.

Take the deeply entrenched belief that global warming is causing more extreme weather. This is so ubiquitous as to be unquestioned. It is an article of faith and there is almost no weather event nowadays that does not come with a blizzard of declarations it is proof of climate change.

Among myriad examples, let’s pick Tropical Cyclone Jasper, which hit far north Queensland in December. It dumped a massive amount of rain and none of what follows denies the fact it caused great damage and suffering. In its wake the Red Cross released an Instagram video declaring “Disasters like Ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper in Far North Queensland are happening more often due to climate change”. Greenpeace called it a “frightening portent of what’s to come under climate change”. The Climate Council warned “climate change is making (tropical cyclones) more destructive”.

None of this is true.

If The Science of global warming has a bible then surely it must be the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. It is the latest accumulation of all the best research and it runs to a mind-numbing 2391 pages.

On page 1586 it says: “(Tropical cyclone) landfall frequency over Australia shows a decreasing trend in Eastern Australia since the 1800s, as well as in other parts of Australia since 1982. A paleoclimate proxy reconstruction shows that recent levels of (tropical cyclone) interactions along parts of the Australian coastline are the lowest in the past 550-1500 years.”

Pause on that. Not only does observation show there are fewer cyclones since the industrial revolution began belching extra carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, there is evidence to suggest cyclone activity in Australia is at its lowest ebb since the days of the Tang dynasty and the decline of the Western Roman Empire.

The CSIRO echoes that finding in its State of the Climate Report 2022 and adds: “The trend in cyclone intensity in the Australian region is harder to quantify than cyclone frequency, due to uncertainties in estimating the intensity of individual cyclones and the relatively small number of intense cyclones.”

What of droughts? The IPCC finds southwestern Australia has been drying out since the 1950s and there is evidence that the length of droughts in southeastern Australia has “increased significantly”. But it says “the Millennium drought in eastern Australia was not unusual in the context of natural variability reconstructed over the past millennium” and concludes “there is currently low confidence that recent droughts in eastern Australia can be clearly attributed to human influence” (p1089).

In summary, on page 1663, it says there is low confidence in observed trends, or projected changes, to droughts in central and eastern Australia as the climate warms. In northern Australia there is medium confidence of a “decrease in the frequency and intensity of meteorological droughts”. So, more rain for the Top End then.

The report notes the major drivers of drought in Australia as well-known natural climate events: “During the last millennium, the combined effect of a positive (Indian Ocean Dipole) and El Nino conditions have caused severe droughts over Australia” (p1104).

What of bushfires? “Extreme conditions, like the 2019 Australian bushfires and African flooding, have been associated with strong positive (Indian Ocean Dipole) conditions” (p1104).

And, in case you were wondering, “There is no evidence of a trend in the Indian Ocean Dipole mode and associated anthropogenic forcing” and “The amplitude of the El Nino–Southern Oscillation variability has increased since 1950 but there is no clear evidence of human influence” (p1104).

Let’s be clear. There is plenty of evidence in the IPCC report demonstrating the climate is changing, that the world and Australia are getting warmer, and that industrial activity has played a part in forcing some of it. We should take that seriously. In response Australia should do its proportionate share in cutting greenhouse gas emissions without destroying our local ecology or impoverishing the nation.

But here is the good news: we are not facing a climate Armageddon. Again, this is not just my view but one shared by British professor Jim Skea, who was appointed chairman of the IPCC last year.

“The world won’t end if it warms by more than 1.5 degrees,” Skea told German weekly magazine Der Spiegel last year. “It will however be a more dangerous world. Countries will struggle with many problems, there will be social tensions.

“And yet this is not an existential threat to humanity. Even with 1.5 degrees of warming, we will not die out.”

Skea worries the zealots are doing their cause a grave disservice. “If you constantly communicate the message that we are all doomed to extinction, then that paralyses people and prevents them from taking the necessary steps to get a grip on climate change,” he said.

What it is also designed to do is scare people out of questioning absurd statements and bad policies.

Here there is another assault on reason by ideologues. In this game of witch burning, questioning a policy response to global warming is evidence of the crime of climate change denial. Their argument can be expressed as a syllogism.

Premise 1: Climate change is real.

Premise 2: Renewable energy combats climate change.

Conclusion: Therefore, to question renewable energy is to deny climate change.

This is the logical fallacy of a false dichotomy; it ignores the possibility of neutrality or nuance. But logic, like science, has long since departed in this debate. This is all about faith.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/logic-leaves-the-science-of-climate-in-the-dust/news-story/26ee9bfd255cc5aac4976b2d3f9232e4

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Senate Democrats Who Back Biden’s Crackdown on Fossil Fuels Suddenly Worried About High Gas Prices

Numerous Democrats who have helped the Biden administration restrict fossil fuel development and production are now concerned about high gas prices as the 2024 elections loom.

A group of 23 Senate Democrats—including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, and Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania—signed a Thursday letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking him to have the Department of Justice investigate major energy companies for allegedly colluding to raise gas prices for Americans and fatten their bottom lines.

The suggestion that oil companies are illegally collaborating to rip off American consumers is not new to Democrats, who have revived the narrative as prices at the pump tick up ahead of the 2024 elections.

“The federal government must use every tool to prevent and prosecute collusion and price fixing that may have increased gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil, and jet fuel costs in a way that has materially harmed virtually every American household and business,” the letter states. “We therefore urge the Department of Justice to investigate the oil industry, to hold accountable any liable actors, and to end any illegal activities.”

The letter references ExxonMobil’s recent acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources and amplifies the Federal Trade Commission’s allegation that Chris Sheffield, the founder and ex-CEO of Pioneer, tried to organize collusion between American and OPEC energy producers to artificially inflate profits.

Sheffield, however, has strongly contested that allegation, saying in a statement that the “FTC is wrong to imply that [he] ever engaged in, promoted or even suggested any form of anti-competitive behavior.”

Beyond Warren, Schumer, and Casey, other signatories include Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a nominal independent who caucuses with Democrats. Each senator who signed the letter also voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s flagship climate bill, and have also supported many other facets of the Biden administration’s efforts to move the U.S. away from fossil fuels.

Warren’s voting record has earned her a 95% lifetime approval score from the League of Conservation Voters, one of the country’s largest and most influential environmental groups that openly rejects fossil fuels, and a 100% score for 2023. Last year, Warren voted against an attempt to rein in the government’s push to regulate a wide array of consumer appliances, a bill promoting the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and to protect a Labor Department rule pushing asset managers to incorporate climate risks in their investment decisions.

Casey voted in favor of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, but joined Warren on the other two votes. He also voted against a 2022 effort to increase the number of government-issued oil lease sales and opposed another 2022 move that would have prevented federal permitting or regulatory actions from hindering fossil fuel development.

Schumer also voted to support the Mountain Valley Pipeline in 2023, but he has voted in line with what the League of Conservation Voters advised in every other instance since Biden took office in January 2021, with one exception. He has opposed four legislatives proposals that would have made it easier or less expensive to produce oil and gas throughout Biden’s term.

Murphy voted against the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and also opposed legislation that would have increased offshore and onshore oil and gas development.

Whitehouse voted against the Mountain Valley Pipeline, as well as numerous legislative efforts to enhance oil and gas leasing activity. Markey, meanwhile, has consistently voted against legislation intended to make it easier to produce oil and gas for his entire career.

Brown voted to support the Mountain Valley Pipeline, but he has opposed four initiatives meant to boost oil drilling through Biden’s term. Sanders, one of the most left-wing lawmakers in Washington, also voted against the four same legislative efforts and has consistently opposed bills designed to make drilling easier throughout his career.

Gas prices are increasing as the pivotal 2024 elections approach on the calendar. In January, the national average per-gallon price of all formulations of gasoline was approximately $3.08, a figure that has since increased to $3.60 as of May, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The administration is moving to release about 1 million barrels of gasoline from the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve to try to bring down prices this summer. The administration also released 180 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve ahead of the 2022 midterms, selling several million barrels to Chinese companies and leaving the reserve at its lowest levels in decades.

Numerous economists and analysts, and even the CEO of Chevron, have attributed the price increases in part to the Biden administration’s $1 trillion-plus climate agenda.

The administration has made many decisions that restrict domestic oil and gas production, pushed aggressive environmental regulations affecting energy producers, and established massive subsidy programs to favor sources of green energy, such as wind and solar. These choices have the combined effect of driving up prices that consumers pay at the pump and elsewhere over time, according to the American Energy Alliance, a right-leaning energy advocacy group.

In January 2020, just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans paid an average of $2.55 per gallon for all types of gas, according to the Energy Information Administration. Those figures have risen considerably since November 2020, the month that Biden won the presidential election. The average price sat at $3.61 per gallon in April 2024 after peaking at $4.92 in June 2022.

Democrats pushed similar messaging about major energy companies and collusion in 2022, when gas prices were causing political headaches for Biden and fellow Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. However, analysts from the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve argued at the time that corporate collusion was not one of the factors driving up retail gasoline costs, pointing out that energy producers actually have almost zero control over the prices set by gas station operators.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/05/31/senate-democrats-who-back-bidens-crackdown-fossil-fuels-suddenly-worried-high-gas-prices/

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Red States Ask Supreme Court to Stop Blue States from Forcing Climate Agenda on Rest of Country

Nineteen Republican state attorneys general hit five Democrat-controlled states with a legal challenge alleging that the blue states are illegally attempting to impose aggressive climate policies on the rest of the country.

The coalition of red states filed the challenge with the Supreme Court on Wednesday, alleging that the five blue states — California, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and Minnesota — are trying to advance an anti-fossil fuel agenda for the entire country via tools like climate nuisance lawsuits against oil companies. The coalition of red states requested that the Supreme Court step in to determine whether these Democrat-controlled states can effectively interfere in other states’ energy policy.

“Plaintiff States and their citizens rely on traditional energy products every day,” the complaint says. “The assertion that Defendant States can regulate, tax, and enjoin the promotion, production, and use of such products beyond their borders—but outside the purview of federal law—threatens profound injury.”

The coalition of plaintiffs asked the Supreme Court to examine the complaint in the context of the Commerce Clause, which gives the federal government the ability to address matters of interstate commerce that are beyond the jurisdiction of one state or another. The states that filed the complaint include Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

“In essence, Defendant States want a global carbon tax on the traditional energy industry,” the complaint states. “Citing fears of a climate catastrophe, they seek massive penalties, disgorgement, and injunctive relief against energy producers based on out-of-state conduct with out-of-state effects.”

The complaint references climate nuisance lawsuits that have been pursued by Minnesota and the other defendant states as evidence that the five blue states are trying to alter the national energy landscape by seeking to extract large settlements from traditional energy companies. In many instances, the third-party law firms that are helping prosecutors bring these tort cases stand to reap large paydays if the energy companies being sued decide to settle.

“Defendant States assert the power to dictate the future of the American energy industry,” states the complaint. “They hope to do so not by influencing federal legislation or by petitioning federal agencies, but by imposing ruinous liability and coercive remedies on energy companies through state tort actions governed by state law in state court.”

Democratic New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin expressed confidence that the Supreme Court will not side against him and described the red states’ complaint as politically-motivated.

“We are proud to stand up for New Jersey residents and consumers in combating the deception the largest oil and gas companies engaged in for decades. It’s a shame that other states are trying to hamstring our efforts to protect New Jerseyans under New Jersey law,” Platkin said in a statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. “But we are confident the Supreme Court will see this for the desperate stunt that it is, and deny their motion. In any event, our important work continues.”

Democratic Connecticut Attorney General Chris Tong issued a statement on Wednesday deriding the complaint filed against his state.

“This must be a fake lawsuit filed in the Land of Make Believe. I live and work in the real world, where I am focused on actual threats — like the climate crisis — to the health and safety of the people of Connecticut,” Tong said. “This is pure partisan political theater, and it will not distract or deter us from fighting for Connecticut consumers, families and our environment.”

The offices of Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Democratic Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha and Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

https://climaterealism.com/2024/05/red-states-ask-supreme-court-to-stop-blue-states-from-forcing-climate-agenda-on-rest-of-country/

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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)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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