Reaching global climate deal will be tough, Cop26 president says

The amusing thing about this article is the totally honest graphic wich accompanies it. It is just a regular HADCRUT graph but it is frankly labelled and clearly calibrated. The author relies of readers knowing nothing about graphs. Its presentation is a really crude piece of deception

It does at first sight look alarming, with warming leaping up the page in the postwar era. Then we notice two things: It is calibrated in TENTHS of one degree Celsius and it does not show absolute temperature but rather the departure in temperature from an arbitrary point in time.

Both things make a mickle into a muckle, to be Scottish about it. In plain English, they make a really tiny effect into an apparently huge effect. Anyone who is used to working with graphs would be in danger of dying laughing at such a basic fraud.

A graphic calibrated in simple degrees Celsius (normal scientific practice in this field) would essentially show a flat horizontal line with NO alarming leap upwards. The sheer propaganda of the global warming claim would be exposed for what it is

Securing a global climate deal in Glasgow will be “really tough”, Cop26 president Alok Sharma has warned. He said sealing any agreement to reduce emissions with be harder “on lots of levels” than signing the Paris Agreement of 2015.

Countries are under pressure to increase their greenhouse gas emission cuts as the world is far off track to meet globally agreed targets to limit temperature rises and curb dangerous warming.

The Cop26 summit, which starts in Glasgow on October 31, is the effective deadline for countries to bring forward more ambitious national climate plans in a five-year process under the Paris climate treaty.

Mr Sharma told The Guardian: “What we’re trying to do here in Glasgow is actually really tough.

“It was brilliant, what they did in Paris, it was a framework agreement, (but) a lot of the detailed rules were left for the future.

“It’s like we’ve got to the end of the exam paper and the most difficult questions are left and you’re running out of time, the exam’s over in half an hour and you go, ‘how are we going to answer this one?’”

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/reaching-global-climate-deal-will-be-tough-cop26-president-says/ar-AAPRKix

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UK: Save the planet, Boris, by axeing a farcical summit

The Cabinet Minister was laughing. They decided that everyone who attends COP26 had to be driven around by an electric car. But so many people are coming they've realised they haven't enough charging points.

So they've been scrambling to find diesel generators to help boost the capacity.'

A second Cabinet Minister was struggling to find the funny side. I'm sick of it. Every time I do a speech, they try to slide some more COP nonsense into it. Something about telling people to do less washing-up, or eat less meat. It's ridiculous.'

A third Cabinet Minister was simply resigned: 'COP's turning into a circus. No 10 are trying to get a grip but it's spiralling out of control. They're saying to foreign governments, 'Can you keep the size of your delegations to a minimum?' And they'll be told, 'OK, we'll keep it down to 1,500 people.' '

The UN Climate Change Conference, which opens in Glasgow on Sunday, is supposed to be the event that saves the planet.

But ask anyone in government and they'll tell you the truth. It's a farce. It's degenerating into chaos. And to many, the best thing for the environment would be if Boris Johnson, right, just bit the bullet and scrapped it.

The whole purpose of COP26 was meant to promote global environmental sustainability. Instead, it is being turned into a catwalk for the green showboating of the global elite.

Or, in the case of Japan, showplaneing. Last week it emerged that a specially configured Boeing 777 had been flown 6,000 miles (without passengers) solely to see whether the pilots would prefer to use Prestwick or Edinburgh airports when the official Japanese delegation arrives.

It's also been announced that when the runway of choice has been chosen, special measures will be put in place to ensure arriving dignitaries can be whisked speedily to their destinations.

Unfortunately, COP26 has become so bloated that nearby roads will become gridlocked, so leaders will be ferried to their hotels along the Clyde Expressway, which has been turned into a VIP lane.

I understand the COP26 PR team, conscious of the questionable 'optics' developing around this orgy of pro-environmentalism, had hoped for some events to show global leaders utilising public transport. But the opportunities are shrinking.

The Unite union, with a commendable eye to the main chance, has announced that more than 1,300 bus workers will use the conference to go on strike over pay.

If you think all this unfolding chaos is shaping up to be bad news for the planet, then spare a thought for the real victims: COP26's corporate sponsors.

Veteran tree-huggers NatWest, Microsoft and Jaguar are among companies which have reportedly written to the Government condemning 'mismanagement' by the 'very inexperienced civil servants' organising the event.

But, painful though it is to see the opportunity for some greenwashed product-placement disappearing in a cloud of jet and motorcade fumes, what were those sponsors expecting?

Who in their right mind would hold a such a vital summit in the midst of a deadly pandemic?

As one Minister told me: 'People think COP is going to last three weeks. But it's been going on for over a year. And we've been trying to deal with something else quite big during that period.'

Covid's shadow over COP26 was always going to be too long and dark. Vladimir Putin, who has been forced to announce a workplace shutdown across Russia to try to get on top of a surge in cases, isn't attending. Neither, it appears, will President Xi of China.

Last week, China's economic recovery was thrown into reverse as the economic Covid aftershocks continue to reverberate.

And Joe Biden has had to tear up his original COP26 strategy as he struggles to manage America's surge in virus cases and force his own 'Build Back Better' budget through the Senate.

Meanwhile, there are disturbing signs here that Boris is about to fall heavily between two Covid and COP26 stools.

Rishi Sunak is tearing his hair out trying to work out how to align the Prime Minister's multi-billion-pound net-zero commitment with his need to tackle the £2.2 trillion Covid debt mountain.

At the same time, Ministers are expressing concern that as Boris's notoriously fickle attention has drifted towards Glasgow, there has been insufficient focus at No 10 on the vaccine booster rollout.

The argument within government is that the climate crisis cannot wait. Having been put back once by Covid, COP26 had to go ahead to refocus attention on another, potentially even more apocalyptic, global emergency.

But the opposite is going to happen. Rather than emphasise their stewardship of the environment, world leaders are again going to reveal just how detached they are.

Pressing ahead with COP26 while the globe is still struggling to contain Covid is the equivalent of forcing someone back into a burning building to carry on removing the asbestos.

In order to tackle environmental challenges, people are going to be asked to make significant sacrifices. And that will involve politicians – and the burgeoning green lobby and their sponsors – taking public opinion with them.

But instead of showing families that they have a plan for saving their planet, our leaders again seem intent on giving the impression they reside on an entirely different one.

COP26 is about to replace Davos as the event that most gratuitously frames the arrogance, hypocrisy and entitlement of the global ruling class.

Their gigantic jets will descend upon Prestwick. And they will alight and tell us how we each need to reduce our global environmental footprint. Their motorcades will speed along their exclusive expressway.

And they will get out, then inform us we have to do our bit by walking our kids to school. They will assemble for their plush banquet. And after dessert and coffee, they'll retire to put the finishing touches to speeches that lecture us about eating sustainably.

Worst of all, they think no one will notice their green doublespeak. That this grotesque 'do as I say, not as I do' grandstanding will pass everyone by amid a kaleidoscope of polar bears, Greta Thunberg and homilies about our grandchildren.

Which might actually be the optimum outcome.

The best that the organisers of COP26 can hope for now is that as many people as possible ignore them.

That those concerned about where the next booster jab is coming from, or how they will cope with soaring fuel prices, will blink and miss this UN imitation of The Fyre Festival.

Because if they don't, those same people aren't going to be happy.

As I've written before, a dangerous disconnect is opening up. Between those who believe that everyone has bought into their liberal, environmental consensus and those who want a recognition that we live in a complex world of competing priorities, not all of which revolve around the level of carbon emissions in 2050.

Anyone doubting this should have a word with the Insulate Britain protester who recently ended up tied by irate motorists to a railing with his own banner.

It's very late in the day. But the best way of saving COP26 – and the planet – is to cancel it.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/dan-hodges-save-the-planet-boris-by-axeing-a-farcical-summit/ar-AAPSke7?ocid=chromentpnews

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Heat pumps and other follies

Boris Johnson would be proud of me, I have the heating system he wants us all to install.

He told us this week that if we are to meet the Government’s targets for reducing carbon emissions we must abandon our gas boilers and install heat pumps. Well, I was ahead of the game.

The conditions were ideal. We were rebuilding the house from scratch so we laid the underfloor piping before the floors went down.

The walls were stone, but strict building regulations meant our insulation was state of the art.

And better still, the field behind the house was perfect for laying the pipes needed for a ground source system, which is far more efficient than the air source alternative that has to be used in the vast majority of homes in towns and cities.

It cost a small fortune, but it was worth it. I was helping to save the planet and saving myself the cost of buying nasty, polluting oil.

The perfect win-win, I told myself. A toasty house whatever the weather and a minuscule energy bill.

But I was wrong. For a start I had not allowed for the electricity needed to run the pump. Not a big problem because I’d also installed an array of solar panels. But you can’t do that in a small semi or a flat.

The real killer was that it didn’t do its job. I have not ended up with a toasty house in mid-winter.

If my lovely neighbour switches it on a couple of days before I arrive, it takes the chill off the downstairs rooms. But that’s about it.

To get really warm, I have to fire up the log-burning stove. Again, not exactly an option in your typical suburban semi.

The sad reality is I’ve spent a small fortune and have not ended up with a cosy house.

And I wonder: how many of us would — or even could — pay at least £10,000 for a heating system to replace our polluting but efficient gas boiler for something that just takes the chill off?

Yes, that’s what it costs. The promise of a £5,000 grant from next April is only for the lucky few. The Government’s own target is 600,000 heat pumps a year.

The handouts will cover just 30,000. And only for three years. Perhaps the tooth fairy will help out.

I jest but this is no laughing matter. The world is facing a real crisis.

It’s true that this country accounts for less than 1 per cent of the carbon that’s wrecking our precious atmosphere. China accounts for 28 per cent and is massively increasing its use of coal to generate power.

But it matters here at home because this is a moral issue. We must do everything in our power to repair the terrible harm we have already done and, above all, stop it getting even worse.

That’s why Boris Johnson’s statement this week should fill us with both despair and anger — specifically at the lack of detail. He promises that this country will be ‘net zero’ by 2050, but does not tell us how.

That’s because he’s scared of the electorate. He knows that if the targets are to be met there must be enormous technical advances in crucial areas such as carbon capture and storage, and producing hydrogen without fossil fuels.

It will cost vast sums, and he wants us to believe that the private sector can and should pick up the biggest bills.

Otherwise taxpayers will have to, which will not be popular — and Boris wants very badly to be popular.

He’s hardly unique. But he obviously believes if he can jolly us along with his feel-good approach, throwing in the odd joke, we’ll sit at his feet like an adoring puppy gazing up at its master.

He used an expression this week that demonstrated his contempt for our gullibility. We can build back greener, he said, ‘without so much as a hair shirt in sight’.

That is either stupid or cynical. Maybe both. The single event that enabled the human race to conquer the desperate poverty of the masses was the discovery of fossil fuels and what they could do: first coal, then oil. The energy trapped in them changed everything. It made the industrial revolution possible. It gave us electricity.

Now we are on a journey to a future without fossil fuels, and it’s fraught with hazards.

The Prime Minister underestimates the intelligence of millions of worried people in this country who know that if we carry on living just as we have done we betray our children and their children.

Renewable energy is vital, but it’s not enough. We must change the way we live.

But dumping petrol and diesel cars will mean a massive increase in electricity use. Planes will need kerosene into the foreseeable future. And we still have to heat our homes and offices.

So we must travel less. Turn down the thermostat. Maybe even learn something from my parents’ generation; when it got cold our mothers buttoned up us kids in weird garments called liberty bodices.

Padded vests we couldn’t take off even if we wanted to. We must have ponged a bit after the first week or two, but no one seemed to care.

I am not saying that smelly kids are the answer to our climate crisis, but here’s one suggestion that’s slightly less tongue-in-cheek: what if the Government dished out free thermal vests?

It might cost a few hundred million, but they’d have to be made in Britain so there would be some economic benefit from the jobs created. And think how much energy we’d save if we discovered we need not live in saunas.

Bonkers maybe. But are thermal vests really any more bonkers than Boris’s hair-shirt fantasy?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10121865/JOHN-HUMPHRYS-heat-pump-left-cold-Im-hot-bothered-PM.html

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Coal reserves now essential

PJM Interconnection, the largest U.S. power grid operator, could restrict how much some coal-fired plants can operate this winter if their fuel supplies fall below certain levels to ensure coal will be available in the case of a deep freeze in the eastern part of the country.

Energy prices around the world are trading near multiyear highs as supplies of coal, oil and natural gas run short, causing power outages in China and utilities in Europe and Asia to scramble to buy fuel before the winter heating season.

To help ensure power plants will be available when needed this winter, PJM said it may restrict steam units, which are generally coal-fired, from operating if they have less than 10 days (240 hours) of fuel supply available.

In the past, PJM allowed plants to operate until they had just 32 hours of fuel supply. The shift means plants will be able to run for several days if the region were to experience extreme winter weather or some other reliability need.

PJM operates the biggest electric grid in the United States serving 65 million people in 13 Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states from Illinois to New Jersey and the District of Columbia.

"We are especially concerned about coal supply chain issues and inventory levels heading into the winter," Michael Bryson, PJM's senior vice president of operations, said in support of temporary changes to rules governing minimum fuel requirements that take effect on Thursday.

"Our top priority at PJM is ensuring a reliable electric grid," he said.

Even though U.S. power generation relies more on renewable sources than in the past, about 24% of the nation's power supply still comes from coal plants, according to U.S. Energy Department data.

After years of shutting coal plants to reduce carbon dioxide and other emissions, U.S. energy companies have cut coal stockpiles at power plants to just 84.6 million short tons in September, their lowest in a month since March 1978, according to federal data.

By the middle of the winter, the federal government projected coal power plant stockpiles will collapse to 62.7 million short tons in February, the lowest on record, according to data going back to 1973.

https://au.investing.com/news/commodities-news/biggest-us-grid-changes-rules-to-shore-up-coal-supply-as-winter-approaches-2449859

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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)

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99.9% Of Climate Scientists Agree With Whoever Is Paying Them

More than 99.9 percent of peer-reviewed scientific papers agree that climate change is mainly caused by humans, according to a [alarmist-funded] survey of 88,125 [alarmist-funded] climate-related studies.

The research updates a similar 2013 paper revealing that 97 percent of studies published between 1991 and 2012 supported the idea that human activities are altering Earth’s climate. The current survey examines the literature published from 2012 to November 2020 to explore whether the consensus has changed.

“We are virtually certain that the consensus is well over 99 percent now and that it’s pretty much case closed for any meaningful public conversation about the reality of human-caused climate change,” said Mark Lynas, a visiting fellow at the Alliance for Science at Cornell University and the paper’s first author.

“It’s critical to acknowledge the principal role of greenhouse gas emissions so that we can rapidly mobilize new solutions, since we are already witnessing in real time the devastating impacts of climate related disasters on businesses, people and the economy,” said Benjamin Houlton, Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell and a co-author of the study, “Greater than 99 percent Consensus on Human Caused Climate Change in the Peer-Reviewed Scientific Literature,” which published Oct. 19 in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

In spite of such results, public opinion polls as well as opinions of politicians and public representatives point to false beliefs and claims that a significant debate still exists among scientists over the true cause of climate change. In 2016, the Pew Research Center found that only 27 percent of U.S. adults believe that “almost all” scientists agreed that climate change is due to human activity, according to the paper. A 2021 Gallup poll pointed to a deepening partisan divide in American politics on whether Earth’s rising observed temperatures since the Industrial Revolution were primarily caused by humans.

“To understand where a consensus exists, you have to be able to quantify it,” Lynas said. “That means surveying the literature in a coherent and non-arbitrary way in order to avoid trading cherry-picked papers, which is often how these arguments are carried out in the public sphere.”

In the study, the researchers began by examining a random sample of 3,000 studies from the dataset of 88,125 English-language climate papers published between 2012 and 2020. They found only four out of the 3,000 papers were skeptical of human-caused climate change. “We knew that [climate skeptical papers] were vanishingly small in terms of their occurrence, but we thought there still must be more in the 88,000,” Lynas said.

Co-author Simon Perry, a United Kingdom-based software engineer and volunteer at the Alliance for Science, created an algorithm that searched out keywords from papers the team knew were skeptical, such as “solar,” “cosmic rays” and “natural cycles.” The algorithm was applied to all 88,000-plus papers, and the program ordered them so the skeptical ones came higher in the order. They found many of these dissenting papers near the top, as expected, with diminishing returns further down the list.

Overall, the search yielded 28 papers that were implicitly or explicitly skeptical, all published in minor journals.

If the 97 percent result from the 2013 study still left some doubt on scientific consensus on the human influence on climate, the current findings go even further to allay any uncertainty, Lynas said. “This pretty much should be the last word,” he said.

https://principia-scientific.com/99-9-of-climate-scientists-agree-with-whoever-is-paying-them/

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Climate Change Calls for Adaptation, Not Panic

Catastrophic scenarios presuppose people will do nothing to adjust to differences in the weather.

By Bjorn Lomborg

Editor’s note: As November’s global climate conference in Glasgow draws near, important facts about climate change don’t always make it into the dominant media coverage. We’re here to help. Each Thursday contributor Bjorn Lomborg will provide some important background so readers can have a better understanding of the true effects of climate change and the real costs of climate policy.

It’s easy to construct climate disasters. You just find a current, disconcerting trend and project it into the future, while ignoring everything humanity could do to adapt. For instance, one widely reported study found that heat waves could kill thousands more Americans by the end of the century if global warming continues apace—but only if you assume people won’t use more air conditioning. Yes, the climate is likely to change, but so is human behavior in response.

Adaptation doesn’t make the cost of global warming go away entirely, but it does reduce it dramatically. Higher temperatures will shrink harvests if farmers keep growing the same crops, but they’re likely to adapt by growing other varieties or different plants altogether. Corn production in North America has shifted away from the Southeast toward the Upper Midwest, where farmers take advantage of longer growing seasons and less-frequent extreme heat. When sea levels rise, governments build defenses—like the levees, flood walls and drainage systems that protected New Orleans from much of Hurricane Ida’s ferocity this year.

Nonetheless, many in the media push unrealistic projections of climate catastrophes, while ignoring adaptation. A new study documents how the biggest bias in studies on the rise of sea levels is their tendency to ignore human adaptation, exaggerating flood risks in 2100 by as much as 1,300 times. It is also evident in the breathless tone of most reporting: The Washington Post frets that sea level rise could “make 187 million people homeless,” CNN fears an “underwater future,” and USA Today agonizes over tens of trillions of dollars in projected annual flood damage. All three rely on studies that implausibly assume no society across the world will make any adaptation whatever for the rest of the century. This isn’t reporting but scaremongering.

You can see how far from reality these sorts of projections are in one heavily cited study, depicted in the graph nearby If you assume no society will adapt to any sea-level rise between now and 2100, you’ll find that vast areas of the world will be routinely flooded, causing $55 trillion in damage annually in 2100 (expressed in 2005 dollars), or about 5% of global gross domestic product. But as the study emphasizes, “in reality, societies are likely to adapt.”

By raising the height of dikes, the study shows that humanity can negate almost all that terrible projected damage by 2100. Only 15,000 people would be flooded every year, which is a remarkable improvement compared with the 3.4 million people flooded in 2000. The total cost of damage, investments in new dikes, and maintenance costs of existing dikes will fall sixfold between now and 2100 to 0.008% of world GDP.

Adaptation is much more effective than climate regulations at staving off flood risks. Compare the two types of policies in isolation. Without any climate mitigation to help, dikes would still safeguard more than 99.99% of the flood victims you’d see if global warming continued on current trends. Instead of 187 million people flooded in 2100, there would be only 15,000. Climate policy achieves much less on its own. Without adaptation, even stringent regulations that keep the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius would reduce the number of flood victims only down to 85 million a year by the end of the century.

Stringent climate policy still has only a mild effect when used in concert with dikes: Instead of the 15,000 flood victims you’d get with only adaptation, you’d have 10,000. And getting there would cost hundreds of trillions of dollars, which is hardly mitigated by the $40 billion drop in total flood damage and dike costs climate regulations would achieve. As I’ve explained in these pages before, this kind of policy has a high human cost: the tens of millions of people pricey climate regulations relegate to poverty.

You don’t have to portend doom to take climate change seriously. Ignoring the benefits of adaptation may make for better headlines, but it badly misinforms readers.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-adaptation-panic-exaggerating-disaster-11634760376?mod=hp_opin_pos_4#cxrecs_s

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Nationalism to Confront Globalism in Glasgow over Climate Change

Patrick J. Buchanan

“Extraordinary, isn’t it? I’ve been hearing all about COP,” said the queen to the duchess of Cornwall. “Still don’t know who is coming. … We only know about people who are not coming. … It’s really irritating when they talk but they don’t do.”

Queen Elizabeth II was expressing her exasperation at the possible number of no-shows at the U.K.’s coming climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.

Among the absentees may be Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose country generates more carbon dioxide than the U.S. and EU combined.

Behind the queen’s exasperation, however, lies a political reality.

Nations like China are discovering that meeting goals for cutting carbon emissions can stall economic growth to where the regime itself is at peril.

Forced to choose between what is best for the country now and what is better for mankind in some indeterminate future, leaders are putting the needs of the nation today over the call of the world of tomorrow.

As the countdown to Glasgow proceeds, China’s energy situation is described by The New York Times:

“China’s electricity shortage is rippling across factories and industries, testing the nation’s status as the world’s capital for reliable manufacturing. The shortage prompted the authorities to announce on Wednesday a national rush to mine and burn more coal, despite their previous pledges to curb emissions that cause climate change.

“Mines that were closed without authorization have been ordered to reopen. Coal mines and coal-fired power plants that were shut for repairs are also to be reopened. Tax incentives are being drafted for coal-fired power plants. … Local governments have been warned to be more cautious about limits on energy use that had been imposed partly in response to climate change concerns.”

Earlier this year, Beijing had pledged to stop building coal-fired power plants outside China. But at home, Beijing is going all-out to mine and burn coal to keep the world’s greatest manufacturing plant producing and the world’s largest labor force employed.

Forced to choose between fighting climate change and preventing a possible recession or depression, Xi is unapologetically putting China first.

Nor is China the only Asian economic power grappling with an energy shortage. India, the world’s third-largest producer of carbon emissions after China and the U.S., is facing a potential power crisis.

Coal accounts for 70% of India’s electricity generation. Yet, 4 in 5 of its 135 coal-fired power plants have critically low levels of coal inventory. With its economy picking up, New Delhi is going to be in the market for more coal to burn. Lectures about carbon emissions are likely to go unheeded.

In Europe, wholesale electricity prices have increased 200% since 2019, a result of surging natural gas costs driven by high demand in Asia and lower-than-expected deliveries from Russia.

Most EU countries rely on gas-fired power stations to meet electricity demand. Some 40% of that gas comes from Russia. With completion of the Nord Stream II pipeline, German and EU dependence on Russian gas is going to rise.

Is Russia, rich in fossil fuels that are still in demand, and the world’s fourth-largest producer of carbon dioxide, likely to placidly accept watching its customers move away from Russian coal, oil and gas to solar and wind?

On Friday, U.S. oil prices hit a seven-year high amid a surge in global demand and a supply crunch induced by OPEC. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. oil benchmark, climbed to $82 a barrel. Gas prices followed.

Oil is at its highest price since OPEC launched its price war against U.S. shale producers. In November 2014, OPEC stunned world oil markets by refusing to curb production amid soaring shale output.

Crude prices went into free-fall as OPEC sought to drive the higher-cost U.S. producers out of the market.

Such economic nationalism raises a relevant question:

Why would OPEC nations that depend on oil exports for much of their national income champion a worldwide abandonment of the fossil fuel sales upon which their regimes’ survival depends?

In brief, world demand for coal, oil and natural gas is surging, as are prices, just as the climate conference, whose goal is to reduce and eventually eliminate the burning of coal, oil and gas, is about to meet in Glasgow.

Will nations such as China, India and Russia be willing to forgo the coal, oil and gas upon which 80% of the world’s power plants currently depend, to be replaced by windmills and solar panels?

At the insistence of Sen. Joe Manchin, the heart of President Joe Biden’s climate agenda — a program to replace U.S. coal- and gas-fired power plants with wind, solar and nuclear energy by steadily increasing taxes on the former and subsidies for the latter — will apparently be dropped from the $3.5 trillion budget bill.

Prediction: In the long run, nationalists fighting to meet near-term needs of their constituents and countries are likely to prevail over the globalists who profess to be serving all of mankind.

https://heartlanddailynews.com/2021/10/buchanan-nationalism-to-confront-globalism-in-glasgow-over-climate-change/

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Lawsuit Alleges Cronyism at Biden EPA to ‘Rubber-Stamp’ Green Agenda

The Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency is violating the law in a “purge” of advisory committees in order to “rubber-stamp” regulations, a lawsuit alleges, and in the process sweeping away a Trump administration policy against conflicts of interest.

The lead plaintiff in the case is Stanley Young, who in March was ousted from the EPA’s Science Advisory Board. Young previously worked for Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, and the National Institute of Statistical Sciences.

“In an unprecedented purge, EPA eliminated all industry representatives from two important advisory committees in order to stack those committees with academics who are financially beholden to EPA for multimillion-dollar research grants,” reads Young’s complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The lawsuit identifies the Environmental Protection Agency panels in question as the Science Advisory Board and the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.

The complaint says of the Environmental Protection Agency under Administrator Michael Regan:

Through this mass dismissal, EPA guaranteed that the committees will rubber-stamp the new administration’s regulations without the inconvenience of an objecting voice from the very industries targeted by those regulations and bearing the cost of those regulations, to the tune of billions of dollars a year.

These newly constituted, industry-free advisory committees are neither fairly balanced, nor protected from inappropriate influence in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

The Federal Advisory Committee Act requires that each board or committee must be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee.”

Any agency with one or more advisory committees, the law says, must adopt “appropriate provisions to assure that the advice and recommendations of the advisory committee will not be inappropriately influenced by the appointing authority or by any special interest, but will instead be the result of the advisory committee’s independent judgment.”

During the Trump administration, to avoid conflicts of interests, individuals associated with organizations getting federal grant money were prohibited from serving on federal advisory boards.

However, after the Biden administration took over, Regan restored recipients of federal grants as members of advisory panels—meaning, critics say, the grant recipients could be beholden financially to the administration’s political goals.

“EPA also abandoned—again without acknowledgment or explanation—its policy of addressing grant-based conflicts of interests on an individual appointment-by-appointment basis,” the lawsuit says.

Former President Donald Trump appointed Young, the lead plaintiff in the case, to a three-year term in 2017 and reappointed him in 2020. After taking office as EPA chief, Regan cut short the terms of Young and other industry representatives.

The EPA did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment for this report.

Conservatives who are not parties to the lawsuit took notice.

The Young v. EPA case is “hugely important” to protect the intent of federal law requiring a balanced and independent panel of qualified scientists, said Steve Milloy, senior policy fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute and author of “Scare Pollution: Why and How to Fix the EPA.”

“The Biden EPA has turned the law on its head by first deciding what its policy is and then stacking the panel with its cronies,” Milloy said in a public statement, adding:

These EPA cronies are academic researchers who have been awarded tens of millions of dollars’ worth of EPA grants. This will not be independent and balanced scientific review. Rather, it will be the rubber-stamping of EPA’s predetermined policy in contravention of congressional intent.

EPA appears to be engaging in cronyism, said Garrett Bess, vice president of Heritage Action for America, the grassroots partner organization of The Heritage Foundation. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s multimedia news organization.)

“[President Joe] Biden is again showing just how radical his administration is, by stacking advisory committees with left-wing academics, who depend on government grants, to rubber-stamp the left’s extreme job-killing agenda,” Bess said in a public statement.

“At every opportunity, the Biden administration has chosen to implement policies that hurt American businesses and workers,” Bess said, adding:

Now, [Biden] has rigged the advisory boards to hide the harm these ‘Green New Deal’ policies will cause. Heritage Action will continue to call attention to just how extreme Biden’s economic policies really are, even as he tries to hide the impact from the American people.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/10/12/lawsuit-alleges-cronyism-at-biden-epa-to-rubber-stamp-green-agenda/

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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)

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Recent NIMBY Move Could Leave California in the Dark

“Excuse me,” says your landscaper. “The mower’s out of juice. Mind if I plug in?” You look from the immobile machine to your half-cut lawn. “Outlet’s over there,” you tell him. “But let’s knock $20 off your fee? What are we up to now, 25 cents a kilowatt-hour?”

Welcome to the future. Welcome to California.

The state, committed to net-zero emissions by 2045, is moving to ban sales of gas-powered landscaping equipment as early as 2024. This is not the first attempt. Politicians tried and failed to do the same in 2003. Since then, though, more than half of homeowners in the state have swapped out their consumer-grade equipment for “zero emission equipment” (ZEE), meaning, battery-powered weed whackers, leaf blowers, hedge clippers, chainsaws, and even lawn mowers.

Electric, Because It’s . . . Quiet?

Many make the switch because, although lower-powered and less reliable (do batteries ever die at the right time?), battery-powered equipment is less noisy. That’s what prompted Mayor Stewart Welch of Mountain Brook, Alabama to begin switching his town’s tools over to electric. The bellow of leaf blowers disturbed his tennis game with a friend who, as chance would have it, had previously complained about the town’s noisy equipment. The city has spent $18,000 over the last year outfitting its public works crew with electric trimmers, blowers, and more.

According to Stanley Black & Decker, sales of the company’s electric yard equipment jumped 75 percent between 2015 and 2020. But, although lots of people are making the switch of their own accord, they’re not doing it fast enough, according to California’s legislative assembly.

Stop and Recharge

The biggest holdouts are those who do landscaping for a living, and for good reason. I searched Husqavarna’s site high and low for battery run time info for its 550iBTX, which one landscaper reviewed as “The best electric blower on the market.” For $469? Not bad, I thought. After lots of web searching about the battery, I gave up and contacted support. Turns out, it does not come with one. The lowest-priced option will cost landscapers an extra $300 and lasts between thirty and sixty minutes. The one the associate recommended, though, costs $969 (yes, more than double the cost of the blower) and “lasts up to 3.5 hours,” he told me. That’s if you run it in “normal” mode, which is half the power of Husqavarna’s $459 gas blower; boost mode saps the power faster and is about 33 percent less powerful than the gas blower.

Some landscapers make electric work, and not just those whose equipment is paid for by taxpayers, as in Mountain Brook. Chris Regis, owner of Florida-based lawn care company Suntek, is able to charge customers between 10 and 20 percent more for all-electric lawn care. He says, “There are people who don’t care and say, ‘I just don’t want the noise.’” All power to them. That’s exactly how free markets work.

Given the numbers above, though, it would take a lot of lawns to make up one’s initial investment with only a 10 or 20 percent upcharge. But Regis’s investment is far greater. He has outfitted the company’s vans with solar panels for recharging batteries on the go—each van costing about $100,000. Reflecting on how much longer the same work now takes him, Jimi Layne of Mountain Brook’s crew asked, “Are we looking at dollars and cents?”

‘Expensive and Unreliable, Please’

That’s an even more pertinent question in California, where energy prices are the highest in the continental US. (23.11 cents per kilowatt-hour, as of June 2021). Gas is more expensive there, too, in large part because of penalizing policies, but researchers predict electricity prices can only rise in the golden state, thanks to a host of factors. Prices are high, in part, because the size of the state increases transmission costs, as do wildfires on mismanaged public lands that have knocked out critical infrastructure, requiring replacement.

But the biggest contributor to high prices is the state’s push to adopt wind and solar, which require big upfront investments but nonetheless necessitate a reliable backup for when the sun’s not shining and the wind’s not blowing.

This problem came to the fore in 2020 when, for two days, California’s three big energy companies instituted rolling blackouts across the state because the grid could not meet demand. It was a self-inflicted wound. Given the state’s environmental restrictions, many coal-fired power plants are being decommissioned, and thanks to irrational fears, they’re not being replaced with clean, reliable nuclear energy, either.

Instead, taxpayers are being forced to subsidize massive investments in “renewables,” and power companies make up much of the state’s inevitable shortfalls by buying energy from more reliable, fossil-fuel plants in neighboring states. Unfortunately for Californians, on August 14, 2020, when the sun set and solar farms went offline, these companies realized they had miscalculated how big that shortfall would be. Western states were in the grip of a heat wave, and as Californians reached for the AC dials, they lost power altogether.

A Deadly Mistake

Losing power is no minor inconvenience, particularly when you live in what is naturally a desert, and especially when it’s more than 100 degrees outside. It’s not just that people can’t charge their Teslas or their ZEE mowers. One 2020 study concluded that more than 5,500 Americans lose their lives due to extreme heat annually. Climate-related deaths are a key indicator of low climate resilience, the ability of a locale to deal with extreme temperatures and weather. And, of course, climate resilience is directly dependent on plentiful, affordable, reliable energy.

But, increasingly, that is what California is doing away with in favor of expensive, unreliable energy. Unsurprisingly, the poor suffer the most. Research done in 2020 shows that many in Los Angeles can’t afford air conditioners, and many who have them can’t afford to run them because electricity prices are so high. In fact, accounting for cost of living, California has the highest poverty rate in the country, in large part because energy prices are so high. This, not in spite of the state’s adoption of “cheap” and “reliable” renewables, but because of it—because solar and wind are not cheap nor reliable and require a backup that is.

Cutting the Lifeline

Yet, with startling shortsightedness, the state assembly has sent Governor Gavin Newsom a bill that will effectively eliminate a go-to backup: gas-powered generators. The bill (AB-1346) lumps gas-powered generators in with the offending landscaping equipment and all other “small off-road engines,” referring to them as SOREs. It “encourages” the California Air Resources Board (the state’s own sort of EPA) to “adopt cost-effective and technologically feasible regulations to prohibit engine exhaust and evaporative emissions from new small off-road engines” and to consider “expected availability of zero-emission generators.”

Such generators do exist, but they are far more expensive, generate far less power, and most need to be recharged after just a few hours. Consider the GOAL ZERO YETI 3000X. It costs $3,400, and an additional $250 kit enables you to use it as a battery backup for your home. After all that, you can power a single refrigerator for less than 2.5 days, and that of course drops if you want to power, say, a few lightbulbs. By contrast, a Duromax XP10000HX can power your whole home—lights, appliances, and A/C system—continuously, running on either gasoline or propane, and it costs $1,400.

When the power went out last August, says Collin Blackwell of Eldorado Hills, California, “We went out and bought an $800 generator, so that way we could have the fridge powered up in the garage at least and be able to have food and everything in the house.” Mark Galloway of Cameron Park said he lives in a mountain community where losing power is fairly common. “You should have something, so having the backup generator and things like that—I think it’s on you to really take care of that,” he said. “It’s not like it’s something that you can’t plan for.”

But, if AB-1346 is signed into law, going out and buying an $800 generator will no longer be an option.

California legislators have not only cut ties with reality—failing to see that they’re heading for ever more blackouts—they also want to cut their citizens’ last lifeline to reliable power when these blackouts inevitably occur. California is committing energy suicide, and given that people rely on energy for just about everything, we shouldn’t be surprised by the toll this will take on human life.

https://catalyst.independent.org/2021/10/07/california-dark/

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Biden on Energy Crisis: Begging Others to Save Him From Himself

President Joe Biden is drowning in a sea of crises of his own creation, and Americans are the ones who are paying the price.

There’s an ongoing humanitarian and national security calamity at the southern border.

Thirteen U.S. service members are dead, and an unknown number of our citizens remain stranded in Afghanistan following Biden’s disastrous withdrawal.

COVID-19 is still rampant, despite Biden’s promises that he would defeat the virus, while his vaccine mandate has divided the country.

Americans are not taking the millions of jobs available and the economy is stalled, as many have chosen the option of being paid by the government to stay home instead of working.

Biden’s administration failed to identify the growing supply chain disruption, which did not occur overnight and threatens to further strangle the economy. Labor shortages are a contributing factor, including a lack of truck drivers to help unload ships and transport goods (see the above point about workers not accepting available jobs).

And energy prices continue to rise, helping to drive mounting inflation and hurting Americans—especially those with moderate or low incomes—at a time when the economy should be hitting its stride coming out of the pandemic lockdowns.

It is on the costs of energy where Biden’s failures are most starkly visible.

On his very first day in office, Biden scrapped the Keystone XL pipeline, killing 11,000 jobs in the process and making good on his campaign promise to be hostile to the fossil fuel industry.

Continuing his assault on natural resource development, Biden suspended oil and natural gas leases in Alaska.

Former President Donald Trump had propelled America to energy independence, but Biden has purposely squandered it. His policies are designed to reduce domestic production of petroleum, meaning we have become necessarily more reliant on foreign sources.

Biden’s approach has been an economic disaster.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the price of crude oil has jumped by 64% to a seven-year high. The cost of natural gas has doubled in just six months. Heating oil is more expensive by 68%, just in time for winter. And gasoline is over $3 per gallon on the national average, up by almost a dollar over the past year.

Energy costs are one driver of inflation, which is already a concern and could get worse.

The situation he created has led Biden into embarrassing situations where he has been forced to plead for rescue.

Over the summer, his administration begged OPEC to increase oil production to combat rising gasoline prices. It refused.

This month, Reuters reported that the Biden White House has approached domestic oil and gas producers, asking for help. These are the very companies that Biden has been demonizing and now he wants them to save him from himself.

Anne Bradbury, the chief executive officer of the American Exploration and Production Council, explained who the culprit is.

“By pursuing policies that restrict supply and make it harder to produce oil and natural gas here in America, Americans will have to pay more for their energy,” she said.

But never fear, White House press secretary Jen Psaki indicated that the higher prices just mean that Biden’s policies are going according to plan.

“Certainly, we all want to keep gasoline prices low, but the threat of the crisis—the climate crisis—certainly can’t wait any longer,” she said on Oct. 6.

One week later, Psaki appeared to soften the message somewhat, in recognition of how higher energy bills affect people, but attempted to mislead about the scope of the problem.

“[T]he American people are, of course, impacted by rising prices of gas in some parts of the country—not all,” she said.

This, of course, is not true. Gas prices are higher in all 50 states.

White House chief of staff Ron Klain then underscored the indifference of the Biden administration to the concerns of regular Americans by approving of a tweet from Harvard economist Jason Furman, who labeled “economic problems we’re facing,” such as “inflation, supply chains, etc.,” as merely “high-class problems.”

Klain quote-tweeted Furman and enthusiastically agreed, posting “This,” with two hand emojis pointing to Furman’s original post.

For Americans still struggling, it must be jarring that the White House chief of staff thinks rising grocery bills—driven by fuel prices and inflation—are “high-class problems.”

Such a callous dismissal of real-world issues, the endorsement of an Ivy League elitist view that working people are just imagining things, simply feeds the prevailing belief that Biden simply is bad at his job.

But rather than face reporters or describe to Americans what he’s doing to combat these severe economic problems—and all of the other crises he’s inflicted on the country—Biden has almost entirely avoided taking questions.

On the rare occasions that he comes to the cameras to deliver remarks, most often he finishes speaking, turns around abruptly, and returns to the recesses of the White House.

It’s an apt image presented by an administration that is usually very concerned about visuals and symbolism.

Biden is leaving the lasting impression that, as he does to members of the press, he is simply turning his back on the American people.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/10/18/biden-on-energy-crisis-begging-others-to-save-him-from-himself

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UK: Green banks: They may claim to grow savings with a clear conscience - but is it just posturing?

The idea of making money while also saving the planet is appealing to many savers. So it’s no surprise the Duke and Duchess of Sussex leapt at the opportunity last week to plunge their fortunes into the sustainable investment firm Ethic. ‘When we invest in each other we change the world,’ the couple said in a typically verbose statement.

Harry and Meghan are the latest in a long line of celebrities, politicians and businesses to talk about ‘ESG’ — which stands for ‘Environmental, Social and Governance’.

And the trend is filtering down to the High Street banks. The amount of money spent on ‘ethical banking’ more than doubled to £196.65 million between 2010 and 2019, according to research and campaign organisation Ethical Consumer.

From launching recycled debit cards to boosting women onto their boards, firms are eager to show customers they are the most socially responsible place to look after your money.

But can banking ever be ethical and lucrative? You don’t have to delve deep into the murky world of ESG for the threads of these claims to unravel.

Traditionally, these types of accounts meant banks would not invest your money in the likes of weapons, alcohol, tobacco, fossil fuels or fur.

However, firms are increasingly coming under fire over ‘greenwashing’ — the practice of overstating how sustainable a product really is.

There is no better evidence of this than Ethic — which the Daily Mail revealed at the weekend had invested millions of dollars in a wide range of unethical practices, such as fracking.

This trend is not exclusive to wealthy investment funds, however — it trickles right down to ethical accounts being offered by High Street banks.

‘Often we see banks just rebrand accounts overnight with the term “ESG”,’ says Gareth Griffiths, head of retail banking at green firm Triodos. ‘There is minimal accountability.’

And for customers, it can be almost impossible to work out which firms genuinely do good and which are simply virtue signalling.

In recent years, everything from meat consumption to air travel has come under scrutiny as the UK moves towards net zero.

But according to Make My Money Matter, making your pension green is 21 times more effective at reducing your carbon footprint than giving up flying, going vegetarian and switching energy provider combined.

And customers are wising up. Figures from investment data firm Morningstar show around £27 billion was poured into ethical investment funds in the first three months of 2020 alone.

Triodos bank, which often tops ethical banking polls, saw its customer base grow by 10 per cent in the first six months of this year. That follows a 20 per cent growth in 2020.

As interest grows, banks want to cater to new demands. But this can be difficult to balance with their core aim of making money.

And under pressure to be seen as more sustainable, banks are tempted to overstate how green their practices truly are.

For example, Barclays claims to work for the ‘common good’ under a section on its website titled ‘our approach’.

‘It is our fundamental belief that we can and must do business in a way that does good,’ it reads.

Yet one look at Barclays’ Climate Related Financial Disclosures reveals that the bank continues to invest in aviation, coal mining and oil and gas.

Greenwashing has become so widespread that City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) sent a letter to chief executives this year warning them that funds proclaiming to be concerned with ESG were not of an acceptable standard.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/greeninvesting/article-10108339/Green-banks-claim-grow-savings-clear-conscience.html

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Why Australia is foolish to embrace net zero emissions

Senator Matt Canavan

Australia is lagging the rest of the world. Just as we are set to sign up to a net zero emissions target, everyone is in a desperate rush to get more coal, oil and gas.

In the UK, they have reopened coal power stations because there has been a wind drought, and Vladimir Putin is not sending them as much gas as he used to.

The US has asked Middle Eastern countries to increase oil production because the woke Wall Street bankers are no longer financing fracking in Texas.

In China, Premier Li said this month that “coal supply is crucial to people’s lives” and that he would review China’s emissions targets in light of their recent energy crisis. He stressed that energy security was China’s priority.

India has demanded that all coal power stations use at least 10 per cent imported coal so they can boost their fuel security.

This is all happening because of Europe’s ill-fated attempt to reach net zero. The failure of Europe to develop their own fossil fuel resources has led to a cascading effect through world energy markets. The price of coal and gas are at record highs, which is good for Australia given we are the world’s largest exporter of both of these things.

But we are set to look this gift horse in the mouth by signing up to a net zero emissions target. A “net” zero emissions target means that any new coal mine or gas field in Australia would need to “net” off its emissions by purchasing carbon credits. These credits cost money and will, in effect, tax the creation of working class Australian jobs.

Over 1 million Australians work in the mining industry alone but these requirements will also impact agriculture, manufacturing and construction jobs too. A net zero target will be the first time that an Australian Government has adopted a policy to make us poorer.

How much will these carbon credits cost? UK Government modelling shows that the carbon price will have to be A$295 per tonne to reach net zero. Julia Gillard’s $20 carbon tax increased electricity prices by 10 per cent. Electricity bills are already skyrocketing in the UK under their net zero plans, and they have a lot higher to go.

But there will be some winners. The banks are happy with this outcome because they will trade the carbon credits. Banks are some of the biggest supporters of net zero emissions. My rule of thumb is that if something is good for the banks, it is probably bad for me.

Turning our back on our domestic supplies of coal and gas will also mean that we will become reliant on China for our energy needs, as that is where our wind turbines and solar panels are made. All of this just as we learn that China has invented a hypersonic, nuclear capable missile that can land anywhere on earth and avoid existing missile defence systems.

China now has space nukes but they can’t match us on plans to reach net zero.

At the last election, Scott Morrison rightly warned of the dangers of cutting our emissions by too much. He called Labor’s proposed 45 per cent reduction in emissions a “wrecking ball through the Australian economy.”

The working men and women of Australia agreed, and rewarded the Liberal and National parties with an unexpected victory. If we turn our backs on their jobs, the Quiet Australians will become loud and angry.

These Australians don’t care what world leaders think of them. They just want their government to create jobs, keep living costs down and make Australia stronger.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/technology/environment/matt-canavan-why-australia-is-foolish-to-embrace-net-zero-emissions/news-story/68bbdfe74836698b9b72b1f4a5178e40

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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)

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Price spike highlights how switching to greener energy will be a dirty job

The world is living through the first major energy crisis of the clean-power transition. It won't be the last. The shortages jolting natural gas and electricity markets from the UK to China are unfolding just as demand roars back from the pandemic.

But the planet has faced volatile energy markets and supply squeezes for decades. What’s different now is that the richest economies are also undergoing one of the most ambitious overhauls of their power systems since the dawn of the electric age — with no easy way to store the energy generated from renewable sources.

The transition to cleaner energy is designed to make those systems more resilient, not less. But the actual switch will take decades, during which the world will still rely on fossil fuels even as major producers are now drastically shifting their output strategies.

One of the biggest obstacles ahead will be storing power generated by intermittent wind and water sources. Solutions do exist, but it will be years before we have them at the scale on which they’re needed

“It is a cautionary message about how complex the energy transition is going to be,” said Daniel Yergin, one of the world's foremost energy analysts and author of The New Map: Energy, Climate and the Clash of Nations. In the throes of fundamental change, the world’s energy system has become strikingly more fragile and easier to shock.

Take the turmoil in Europe. After a colder-than-normal winter depleted natural gas inventories, gas and electricity prices soared as demand from rebounding economies surged too fast for supplies to match. Something similar probably would have happened had Covid-19 struck 20 years ago.

But now, the UK and Europe rely on a very different mix of energy sources. Coal has been cut back drastically, replaced in many instances by cleaner-burning gas. But surging global demand this year has left gas supplies scarce.

At the same time, two other sources of power – wind and water – have had unusually low output, thanks to unexpectedly slower wind speeds and low rainfall in areas including Norway. In other words: a strained global gas market triggered Europe's record-setting spike for electricity prices — and the transition amplified it.

The pain hitting Europe is an ominous sign of the types of shocks that could strike more of the globe. Even as solar and wind power become increasingly plentiful and cheap, many parts of the world will for decades still depend on natural gas and other fossil fuels as backups. And yet, investor and company interest in producing more of them is waning.

That’s a good recipe for volatility, Nikos Tsafos, from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in a recent analysis. “You're definitely moving into a system that’s more vulnerable,” Tsafos, the centre’s James R Schlesinger chair for energy and geopolitics, said in an interview.

To be clear, the transition itself – imperative for the planet – didn't cause the squeeze. But any big, complex system can become more fragile when it's undergoing major change.

All this is happening at a time when power consumption is projected to increase 60 per cent by 2050, according to Bloomberg NEF, as the world phases out fossil fuels and switches to cars, stoves and heating systems that run on electricity.

Continued economic and population growth will also drive consumption higher. And as the world moves even more into all things digital, it will mean that this heightened vulnerability comes at a time when people need reliable power more than ever.

The surge in electricity demand combined with fuel-price volatility means the world could be in a for a rocky few decades

The surge in electricity demand combined with fuel-price volatility means the world could be in a for a rocky few decades. The consequences will likely range from periods of energy-driven inflation, exacerbating income inequalities, to the looming threat of power outages and lost economic growth and production.

The planet's energy systems are interconnected, so the crisis and its spill over are being felt across the world. The crunch has had knock-on effects across industries, obstructing silicon production, disrupting food supplies and snarling supply chains.

In the US, natural gas futures have already more than doubled this year, before the peak demand that comes with the winter cold. With 40 per cent of the country’s electricity now generated by burning gas, those higher prices will inevitably push up electricity and heating bills.

In China, even as the government pushes to ramp up renewable power, the industrial economy still relies heavily on fossil fuels: coal, gas and oil. And when its factories started humming again during the pandemic rebound, the country simply didn’t have enough fuel.

Chinese manufacturing contracted in September for the first time in 19 months, suggesting that soaring energy costs have become the biggest shock to strike the economy since the beginning of the pandemic.

China's government is now vowing to stabilise the situation by procuring more overseas coal and liquefied natural gas. That puts the nation in direct competition with Europe, threatening to starve the continent of fuel and worsen that crisis. There will be an inevitable fight over what exports are available, leaving some developing countries such as India and Pakistan worried they can’t compete.

As major western producers from BP to Royal Dutch Shell work to reduce emissions and America’s shale drillers take a step back from expansion, the finite amount of exportable supplies is growing tighter. Jeff Currie, global head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs, points to underinvestment in fossil fuels as a big part of the problem.

Investors seeking the big returns that come from new businesses have been pouring money into alternative energy stocks rather than fossil fuel companies. Others are actively dumping coal and oil stocks, seeing them as a risk while the energy transition accelerates.

The current price spike has served as a reminder that even as the world is trying to build a new energy system, it’s still reliant on the old one

And some fossil fuel companies have themselves started directing investments into the low-carbon future rather than focusing solely on their old role of finding, pumping and delivering more oil and gas.

“In many parts of the world, you’ve overbuilt wind, you’ve overbuilt solar,” Currie said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. “The new economy is over-invested and the old economy is starved.”

Wind and solar power production have soared in the past decade. But both renewable sources are notoriously fickle – available at some times and not at others. And electricity, unlike gas or coal, is difficult to store in meaningful quantities.

That’s a problem, because on the electrical grid, supply and demand must be constantly, perfectly balanced. Throw that balance out of whack, and blackouts result. So far, natural gas plants have served as the stable backup that wind and solar power need. That interdependence works fine, so long as gas prices aren’t going through the roof.

One of the biggest obstacles ahead will be storing power generated by intermittent wind and water sources. Solutions do exist, but it will be years before we have them at the scale on which they’re needed. “The transition is both the challenge and the opportunity,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, managing director of the Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University.

Australia and California are plugging massive batteries into the grid to keep power supplies steady when the sun sets on solar plants. That deployment is just in nascent stages, and the batteries themselves are limited, usually supplying electricity for about four hours at a time.

Many countries and companies have pinned their hopes on hydrogen, seeing it both as a way to store energy and as a fuel for transportation and industry. Hydrogen can be split from water using machines called electrolysers powered by renewable energy, whenever it’s abundant. The process produces no greenhouse gases.

The hydrogen can then be burned in a turbine or fed through a fuel cell to generate electricity – all without carbon emissions. And unlike oil, gas and coal, such “green hydrogen” can be produced almost anywhere where there’s water and strong sun or wind.

The first wave of green hydrogen plants is still in planning stages. Many of the potential users – heavy industries and utility companies – are still studying whether the solution will work for them. The point at which hydrogen could underpin our global energy system, if it arrives, is likely years away.

In the short term, a warm winter across the northern hemisphere would bring gas prices down and allow storage fields to fill back up. But the current price spike has served as a reminder that even as the world is trying to build a new energy system, it’s still reliant on the old one.

“It’s not just about capacity of the amount of power we can get onto the network, it’s about the flexibility and the ability to deliver that power at the right time,” said James Basden, founder and director of Zenobe Energy Ltd., which is building Europe’s biggest battery.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/price-spike-highlights-how-switching-to-greener-energy-will-be-a-dirty-job/ar-AAPBFgG

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Poland seeks EU climate policy rethink amid high energy prices

Poland on Monday called for the European Union to cancel or delay parts of its plan to tackle climate change ahead of a summit at which EU leaders will wrangle over their response to surging gas and electricity prices.

EU country leaders, who meet on Thursday and Friday, are divided over whether short-term national measures like tax cuts are sufficient to address the recent energy price spike, or whether deeper reforms of EU energy regulation are needed.

In a paper circulated to other countries ahead of the EU summit, Poland said Brussels should change or delay parts of its planned climate policies, warning that if an "excessive burden" is put on consumers, they may reject the EU's climate aims.

"We should analyse in detail all elements of the Fit for 55 package that can have a negative impact on the energy price and consider their revision or postponement," the paper said.

"Fit for 55" refers to the EU policy package to cut emissions by 55% from 1990 levels by 2030.

The paper, seen by Reuters, singled out the EU's plan to launch a carbon market for transport and buildings, which has faced resistance from some countries over concerns it could increase consumer bills. The European Commission has said a new multi-billion-euro EU fund would shield vulnerable consumers from any price increase.

Poland also said the EU should maintain its current minimum energy tax rates. Brussels wants to overhaul the system to end tax exemptions for kerosene - a move supported by countries including the Netherlands and France - and increase rates on other polluting fuels.

EU tax changes require unanimous approval, meaning one country can block them.

While other states have warned that high energy prices could erode support for ambitious climate policies, Poland's demands are likely to face opposition from countries which say the recent gas price spike should encourage Europe to accelerate its green shift away from volatile fossil fuel prices.

Meeting the EU's legally binding climate targets will require huge investments. Brussels says this will create jobs and economic growth in green industries, while the cost of not tackling climate change would be far higher, in the form of devastating floods, droughts and wildfires.

Poland also called for the EU to create new financial mechanisms to reduce energy poverty, limit speculators' participation in the EU carbon market and introduce a gas storage obligation for each EU country.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/markets/poland-seeks-eu-climate-policy-rethink-amid-high-energy-prices/ar-AAPFdzI

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UK: New plans for net zero are unrealistic at best, irresponsible at worst

Boris Johnson’s net zero strategy fails to address the concerns that the available technologies are either too expensive or cannot be delivered at scale

Yesterday, months behind schedule, the government’s strategy for decarbonising the nation’s homes finally appeared. The long wait is understandable though - it is widely recognised that bringing the UK’s housing stock to net zero carbon emissions will be difficult and eye-wateringly expensive.

That’s because the only relevant net zero technology that is at hand is the electric heat pump, which carries a price tag of well over £10,000 once you have added in the bill for installation and the necessary upgrades to plumbing and radiators.

On top of that, most homes will also need much higher standards of insulation, adding thousands of pounds more. It’s little wonder that some estimates of the cost to the country run into the trillions of pounds.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-plans-for-net-zero-are-unrealistic-at-best-irresponsible-at-worst-k5z0zpnlg

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Greenhouse gas dispute in Australia

On Sunday, the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reductions Angus Taylor presented the Nationals with the government’s plan to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, the compounds such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide which contribute to global warming and help trigger climate change.

Under the Paris Agreement, signed in 2015, Australia promised to reduce emissions by 26-28 per cent by 2030.

There were two main components to the government’s plan on Sunday – bringing emissions to net zero by 2050, and increasing our 2030 target.

While there were hopes the Sunday meeting would complete negotiations, after four hours this proved not to be the case, with the Nationals presenting a host of objections.

On Tuesday the Prime Minister told parliament Australia would not be updating its 2030 emissions goal.

He has also said the 2050 net zero goal will become a decision for national cabinet, rather than the Coalition party room.

The Nationals expressed a range of objections, chiefly about the impact of net zero policies on the regions and wanting increased support for existing high-emitting fossil fuel industries such as coal and gas.

A number of Nationals also want the government to explore the possibility of Australia developing nuclear power.

There is also an historical element to the Nationals’ discontent. When John Howard signed the Kyoto Protocol (the forerunner to the Paris Agreement) in 1997, it prompted state and territory governments to ban land clearing.

This measure is regarded as the primary factor that’s enabled Australia to reduce its emissions by around 20 per cent already, as the uncleared land effectively retains carbon in vegetation, which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.

But many farmers say clearing bans have prevented them from making a decent profit from their land, so there is a sentiment that people in the regions should not be further burdened by further emissions cuts.

There are huge divisions. Some MPs, such as former leader Michael McCormack and Darren Chester, now cautiously support net zero as a global economic and environmental necessity (Mr McCormack was previously opposed).

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud sees himself as something of a centrist on the issue, telling reporters this week that “zealots from both sides need to bugger off”.

Queensland Senator Matt Canavan is perhaps the most hard line opponent, and has threatened to cross the floor if any net zero legislation is to come before parliament.

He has also raised concerns about the lack of detail in the government’s modelling and called for it to be made public. “We’re getting very little details about this and I’m in a position of being asked to marry a girl I haven’t met. That’s not how the Nationals party room works,” he said this week.

Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce has himself been a fierce critic of net zero in the past but has cast himself as a broker. On Tuesday he said he would be seeking further input from Nationals MPs over coming days, and he would communicate them to the Prime Minister.

The latest quarterly figures from the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory show Australia has reduced its emissions by just over 20 per cent on 2005 levels.

Mr Taylor has said on current projections, Australia could actually end up cutting emissions by around 32-35 per cent by 2030.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/technology/environment/nats-and-net-zero-why-its-so-complicated/news-story/c72b2c2d3bdbebbfbfbc92e930017d5f

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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)

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UN Climate Change Funding to Feed Corruption Gravy Train of Developing World

The U.N. climate change conference in Glasgow (COP26) is great news for corrupt governments in the developing world because it looks set to transfer huge sums of money into their hands.

Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian-born economist, has long warned the West against sending aid to Africa because of the corruption it creates.

Moyo’s book “Dead Aid” explained how foreign aid produces terrible outcomes in the developing world, such as economic laziness, cultures of dependence, and rampant corruption. She argued aid was killing Africa.

Warnings by Moyo, and others, have helped reduce the flows of foreign aid to third world governments know to be kleptocracies. But that has simply meant corrupt governments have had to work harder to get the West to send them money.

How have they done this? The method that has been widely used is playing the guilt card or the victim card.

The guilt card tells Westerners they should feel guilty because European empires and colonialism allegedly exploited the third world. But, unfortunately, the Left has so widely propagated this anticolonial mythology that it is becoming almost impossible to have a sensible discussion about the age of imperialism.

The victim card tells Westerners that the developing world is full of poor and starving people because villainous Western capitalists exploit them. Unfortunately, this socialist myth has been sold to many well-meaning but naïve, liberals through journalists and celebrities, or by screening heart-wrenching and sensationalist television images.

Since well-meaning liberals lack personal experience of the third world, they have no reality against which to measure the myths fed to them by left-leaning media and educators.

Playing the guilt and victims cards have also been routinely used by leaders of multilateral organizations like the U.N. and WHO.

More recently, we have also witnessed third world leaders increasingly using China’s Belt and Road initiative to turn the foreign aid tap back on. Today’s version of great power competition has seen Western countries handing out aid to try and stop developing countries from aligning with China.

Sadly, this sort of aid is especially likely to lead to corruption—just as it did during the Cold War.

But now we are facing a new explosion of third world corruption, caused this time by the way Greens have successfully mobilized the politics of climate change. If governments in Africa and Asia get their way, the Glasgow conference on climate change will transfer huge amounts of money into their hands.

With the Glasgow summit in mind, the South African government (known for its corruption) has promised to go beyond its Paris greenhouse gas targets.

But there is a catch—along with other third world elites, South Africa expects taxpayers in the West to pay them to implement their targets.

So we see the South African government, a well-known kleptocrat regime, brazenly asking the developed world to hand over to them $269 billion to pay for proposed decarbonization projects. The South African document lodged with the U.N. said “substantial multilateral support” would be required for measures such as “a very ambitious power sector investment plan.”

So Glasgow funds will be used to fix South Africa’s broken Eskom electricity supply system, plus fix the country’s catastrophic debt-repayment problem created by Eskom’s corruption and maladministration. Eskom has been unable to supply the country with enough electricity since 2007.

Further, ending the country’s energy crisis by building giant new power plants at Medupi and Kusile failed because of corruption, looting, and planning incompetence. Glasgow funds could fix all these problems, but it would also provide new corruption opportunities.

Effectively, the developing world is putting forward yet another neo-socialist wealth transfer scheme, but this one is dressed up in the language of saving the planet from climate change.

But the developing world says they will only help save the planet on condition that Western governments help them meet their Glasgow promises by transferring billions (if not trillions) of dollars from Western taxpayers to developing world elites so they can meet over-blown targets.

There are two problems with this. Firstly, the developing world has a record of poor governance, meaning these governments can seldom deliver on promises or targets. Even worse, developing world elites generally spend the foreign aid monies they receive to enrich themselves rather than to actually build the intended projects.

So the reality is, the U.N. climate change conference in Glasgow looks set to become just another mechanism to feed the corrupt gravy train that third world elites have been running for decades. Far from paying for green decarbonization projects, any wealth transfers flowing from Glasgow are more likely to end up buying four-wheel drives for the children of the third world elites.

To understand what is likely to happen to the $269 billion for climate change projects asked for by the South Africans, one only needs to look at what happened to their $4.3 billion COVID-19 relief funding from the IMF. One corrupt government Minister alone was involved in COVID-19 fraud valued at $10 million, while other politicians and African National Congress-aligned cronies looted another $700 million out of PPE funds.

If South Africa’s elite were even prepared to steal from funds geared to saving lives by fixing a health system shattered by COVID-19, imagine what they would do with climate change aid (where no lives are at stake).

By bringing together third world elites carrying begging bowls with Western greens which are willing to be taken advantage of, the U.N. climate change summit seems almost certain to deliver a bonanza for all those corrupt elites with a legacy of running gravy trains.

But this still begs the question; will Western governments ever learn?

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/un-climate-change-funding-to-feed-corruption-gravy-train-of-developing-world_4050207.html

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California environmental regulations behind shipping backlog

The trucking issue with California LA ports, ie the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and the Port of Long Beach (POLB), is that all semi tractors have to be current with new California emissions standards. As a consequence, that mean trucks cannot be older than 3 years if they are to pick up or deliver containers at those ports. This issue wipes out approximately half of the fleet trucks used to move containers in/out of the port. Operating the port 24/7 will not cure the issue, because all it does is pile up more containers that sit idle as they await a limited number of trucks to pick them up. THIS is the central issue.

On October 16, 2020, the EPA reached a settlement agreement [DATA HERE] with California Air Resource Board (CARB) to shut down semi tractor rigs that were non-compliant with new California emission standards:

2020 SAN FRANCISCO – “Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced settlements with three interstate trucking companies imposing $417,000 in penalties for violating the California Air Resources Board’s federally enforceable Truck and Bus Regulation, Drayage Truck Regulation and Transport Refrigeration Unit Regulation.

“As trucks are one of the largest sources of air pollution in California, EPA will continue to ensure these heavy-duty vehicles have the needed pollution-control equipment and operate in compliance with the rules,” said EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator John Busterud. “These companies have agreed to bring their trucks into compliance and operate more cleanly in all communities they serve.”

Transportation is a primary contributor to the high levels of air pollutants in Southern California and the Central Valley. Diesel emissions from trucks are one of the state’s largest sources of fine particle pollution, or soot, which is linked to health issues including asthma, impaired lung development in children, and cardiovascular effects in adults. Many of these trucks are older models and emit high amounts of particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen oxides (NOx).

[…] California Truck and Bus Regulation and Drayage Truck Regulation have been essential parts of the state’s federally enforceable plan to attain cleaner air. California requires trucking companies to upgrade vehicles they own to meet specific NOx and PM performance standards and to verify compliance of vehicles they hire or dispatch. Heavy-duty diesel trucks in California must meet 2010 engine emissions standards or use diesel particulate filters to reduce the diesel particulates emissions into the atmosphere by 85% or more. (read more)

In effect, what this 2020 determination and settlement created was an inability of half the nation’s truckers from picking up anything from the Port of LA or Port of Long Beach. Virtually all private owner operator trucks and half of the fleet trucks that are used for moving containers across the nation were shut out.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/10/14/the-california-version-of-the-green-new-deal-and-an-october-16-2020-epa-settlement-with-transportation-is-whats-creating-the-container-shipping-backlog-working-ca-ports-24-7-will-not-help-here/

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Are reusable cotton tote bags really good for the environment?

Long hailed by brands as the eco-friendly solution to single-use plastic bags, cotton totes have ironically become part of the problem.

According to a 2020 study by Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, reusing a cotton bag 50 times had over 10 times the global warming potential compared to reusable plastic bags that were reused the same number of times.

That means a single cotton tote has to be used hundreds of times before they are considered a more eco-friendly alternative over single-use or reusable plastic bags.

Bigger environmental footprint
The study also showed that cotton totes have relatively bigger environmental footprints compared to their plastic counterparts because of the eco-toxicity potential in their production.

According to a 2018 study by Danish authorities, a single organic cotton tote needs to be used 20,000 times – or used daily for 54 years — to offset its overall impact of production.

Cotton production is resource-intensive – staggeringly large amounts of water is needed to grow the fibres. Some 10,000 to 20,000 litres are required to produce just 1kg of cotton, which is the rough equivalent of one T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

It is also associated with allegations of forced labour in Xinjiang, China, which produces 20 per cent of the global cotton supply and supplies most Western fashion brands.

Even recycling a cotton tote is not as environmentally friendly as perceived.

Experts have said that even if these bags are sent for recycling, logos or messages have to be cut out of the cloth, wasting an estimated 10 to 15 per cent of cotton received by a single recycling firm. Most dyes used to print designs on the cotton totes are PVC-based, therefore not biodegradable and unrecyclable.

What can you do?
Think twice the next time you accept the offer of a free tote by brands – not every product needs to be bagged.

By all means, accept a free tote if you need it, but make sure you use it as often as possible.

https://au.yahoo.com/news/reusable-cotton-tote-bags-really-good-environment-143713273.html

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From green euphoria to global energy crisis

“The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.” So declared Sheikh Zaki Yamani, a Saudi Arabian oil minister who shot to global prominence during the oil shocks of the 1970s. In his view, the age of fossil fuels would draw to a close as superior technologies and cleaner fuels prevailed in the marketplace. The inevitable corollary of this argument was that vast reserves of coal, oil and natural gas would remain untapped as stranded assets in the ground.

For a time, it seemed as though his vision was coming to pass. A confluence of clean-energy innovation and concern about climate change created a euphoric green moment in energy markets. Solar and wind generation costs plunged dramatically, to the point that new renewable power plants became cheaper than new coal or gas plants in most parts of the world. With help from Californian investment and innovation and Chinese subsidies and scaling, electric cars started to give petrol-fired ones their first real run for the money since Thomas Edison and Henry Ford championed them over a century ago.

And global concern about global warming produced a rising tide of government action to cope with the rising tides of the oceans. Next month world leaders will assemble in Glasgow for the UN’s COP26 climate summit. They are expected to unveil national plans ahead of the summit that put teeth into pledges to rein in extreme climate change made at a similar shindig in Paris six years ago. Excitement about the forthcoming summit gave a dramatic boost to clean energy and climate innovation. Some even imagined that the talks would sound the death knell for fossil fuels and the greenhouse gases produced by them.

Alas, there is now a rather large and dirty spanner in the works. Far from fading quietly into the night, fossil-fuel use is rising on the back of strong economic demand. But because investment in fossil energy production has plunged of late—in part because investors concerned about future regulatory action against carbon-spewers have been dumping shares of oil and gas firms—there is short-term scarcity. Europe has very low stocks of natural gas, for example, and if this winter proves especially bitter it will run out of the stuff. The demand for fossil fuels is partly the result of shortfalls in renewable sources such as hydroelectric power and wind in various parts of the world.

This looks to be the first great shock of the global energy transition. Policymakers are likely to respond either by slamming on the brakes, seeing greenery as a threat to energy security and reliability, or by stepping on the accelerator, seeing today’s disruptions as short-term distractions in the urgent fight against climate change. But what they really need to do is rethink the policies and reform the markets of the energy transition. That could prove as difficult as fixing a flat tyre while going full speed ahead.

The Economist: noreply@e.economist.com

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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)

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