Since Mr Trump walked out of the Paris agreement one year ago, it has been fascinating to watch the decline of media interest in “saving the planet”.

Donald Trump imposed punitive tariffs on steel imports exactly a year after he announced that the US would withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement. The two decisions are unrelated, except that both reflect the character of his presidency.

President Trump looks at any international arrangement on any subject – Iran, North Korea, trade, climate – and asks himself whether it is a good deal for America. If he thinks it is not, he starts making trouble. He loves a deal but, unlike some politicians on this side of the water, he sees no point in a bad deal.

When President Trump starts the trouble, he does not necessarily know where it will end. He is, if you like, open-minded; or, if you don’t like, irresponsible. He just wants a result, and will pull back if he thinks he won’t get the right one. In the case of his trade war, he will succeed if his action exposes unfair practices by trade rivals and forces them to change. He will fail if all he does is put up everyone’s prices, including, of course, America’s.

In the case of the Paris process, he has succeeded almost without trying. The answer to the question, “Which major country in the world has most successfully reduced its CO2 emissions?” is, “The United States of America”. US emissions hit a 25-year low last year. This success has nothing to do with the UN caravan, which has rolled on for 30 years, or, indeed, with Mr Trump. It has everything to do with the shale revolution – the triumph of much cleaner fossil fuels. Energy prices are falling.

By contrast, the greenest of the great economic powers, Germany and Japan, have poured money into renewables. They are consuming more coal than before, however, with Japan planning 36 new coal-fired power stations over the next 10 years. Since renewables are not reliable (because of intermittency), Germany must have more coal or lie prostrate before Mr Putin and his gas. Both Germany and Japan are increasing their carbon footprint because they have run away from nuclear. Energy prices are rising. China, after a slowdown, is increasing its CO2 emissions fast once again.

As for “Paris”, this is failing, chiefly for the reason that poorer countries won’t decarbonise unless richer ones pay them stupendous sums. The amount supposedly required to do this, agreed at the Copenhagen conference in 2009, was $100 billion a year, every year, from 2020; but no mechanism could be devised to compel the poor countries to restrict their emissions. At yet another conference in the process, in Bonn last month, the parties broke up without agreement on handing the money across. It is almost impossible to imagine real agreement, because it would be unenforceable.

If you look back, you can see that Copenhagen was the first ebbing of climate panic. Gordon Brown, then prime minister, told us that we had “50 days” to avoid catastrophe. Prince Charles warned delegates that “our planet has reached a point of crisis and we have only seven years before we lose the levers of control”. President Barack Obama, burnished by his freshly awarded Nobel Peace Prize, flew in. Yet all these great men failed to persuade the wretched of the earth to abandon their right to economic growth. “With your pens, you can write our future,” said HRH. The developing countries had the wit not to sign all the same.

Perhaps if Copenhagen had taken place before the global credit crunch of 2008, the world would have swallowed anything. The great paradox of greenery is that it is a boom phenomenon: only when a society is awash with dosh does it start believing it wouldn’t mind getting poorer. By December 2009, however, the dosh had evaporated.

The Paris conference of 2015 put a brave face on the failure of Copenhagen, by parading an agreement. But as the agreement was non-binding, and permitted countries to determine their progress on CO2 reductions unilaterally, it did not alter the reality. The whole UN process originated in the belief that global warming could be prevented only by a global solution. It never found that solution, and so, at Paris, was hoist with its own petard.

The Prince of Wales was proved wrong in 2016, when the “irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse” that he had predicted did not show up. Yet he spoke truer than he knew when he made that warning about losing the levers of control. The global warmists lost those levers – if they ever had them – after Paris.

Mr Trump noticed this and felt free to walk away. US participation in the Paris arrangements formally ends the day after the next US presidential election. It will be a brave Democrat who campaigns for the White House on a “Let’s stay in” ticket. What’s in it, after all, for America?

Since Mr Trump walked out, it has been fascinating to watch the decline of media interest in “saving the planet”. There was the most tremendous rumpus when he made his announcement, but the End-Of-The-World-Is-Nigh-Unless feeling that made headlines before Rio, Kyoto, Copenhagen, Paris, and numerous other gatherings, has gone. This feeling was essential to achieve the “Everybody’s doing it, so we must do it” effect the organisers sought.

The media barely noticed the recent Bonn meeting. I doubt if they will get apocalyptic about the next big show, “COP24” in Katowice, Poland, this December. The Poles are among the nations emerging as “climate realists” – people with their own coal and a very strong wish not to depend on the Russians. Climate-change zealotry is looking like CND after the installation of cruise and Pershing missiles in the 1980s – a bit beside the point.

None of this means that activism will disappear. There will be strong anti-American campaigns and moves to impose ESG (environmental, social and governance) investment principles to make the lives of fossil-fuel companies a misery. In Britain, energy bill levies to subsidise renewables will probably continue to ensure that Theresa May’s famous “just about managing” people are just about screwed simply because they want light and heat in their homes…

SOURCE 




No, We Are Not Running Out of Forests

Once nations hit around $4,500 GDP per capita, forest areas begin to increase

Recently on the BBC, Deborah Tabart from the Australian Koala Foundation noted that “85 per cent of the world’s forests are now gone.” Luckily this statement is incorrect.

Moreover, due to afforestation in the developed world, net deforestation has almost ceased. I’m sure that Tabart had nothing but good intentions in raising environmental concerns, but far-fetched claims about the current state of the world’s forests do not help anyone. The record needs setting straight.

After searching for evidence to support Tabart’s claim, the closest source I could find is an article from GreenActionNews, which claims that 80 per cent of the earth’s forests have been destroyed. The problem with that claim is that according to the United Nations there are 4 billion hectares of forest remaining worldwide. To put that in perspective, the entire world has 14.8 billion hectares of land.

For 80 per cent of the forest area to have already been destroyed and for 4 billion hectares to remain, 135 per cent of the planet’s surface must have once been covered in forests. GreenActionNews’ claim not only implies that 5.2 billion hectares of deforestation occurred at sea, but that every bit of land on earth was once forested. Ancient deserts, swamps, tundra and grasslands make mockery of that claim.

Amusingly, GreenActionNews’ claims that “forest is unevenly distributed: the five most forest rich countries are the Russian Federation, Brazil, Canada, the United States of America and China.” Country size and forest area do not always correlate, but it is hardly “uneven” that the five largest countries also hold the world’s largest forest areas.

Anyhow, slightly more than 31 per cent of the world is covered in forest. The world does continue to lose forest area, but consider the rate and location of this loss. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the annual rate of deforestation has more than halved since the 1990s. Between 2010 and 2015, the world has gained 4.3 million hectares of forest per year, while losing 7.6 million hectares of forest per year. That accounts for a net decrease of 0.08 percent of forest area each year.

Some argue this data is faulty, because the FAO defines forest area as including natural forests and tree plantations. But that criticism is illegitimate. The FAO makes it clear that “93 per cent of global forest area, or 3.7 billion hectares in 2015,” was natural forest. Natural forest area decreased at an average rate of 6.5 million hectares per year over the last five years, a reduction from 10.6 million hectares per year in the 1990s. Put differently, natural forest loss is declining by 0.059 percent per year and is heading towards zero.

The reason why most people labor under a misapprehension about the state of the world’s forests is that news stories often ignore afforestation. In about half of the world, there is net reforestation and, as Matt Ridley puts it, this isn’t happening despite economic development, but because of it.

The world’s richest regions, such as North America and Europe, are not only increasing their forest area. They have more forests than they did prior to industrialization. The United Kingdom, for example, has more than tripled its forest area since 1919. The UK will soon reach forest levels equal to those registered in the Domesday Book, almost a thousand years ago.

It is not just rich nations that are experiencing net reforestation. The “Environmental Kuznets curve” is an economic notion that suggests that economic development initially leads to environmental deterioration, but after a period of economic growth that degradation begins to reverse.

Once nations hit, what Ridley dubs the “forest transition,” or approximately $4,500 GDP per capita, forest areas begin to increase. China, Russia, India, Vietnam and Bangladesh are just some of the nations that have hit this forest transition phase and are experiencing net afforestation.

Poor people can’t afford to care about the environment very much, because other priorities – such as survival – are more important. If that means that a rare animal must be killed and eaten, so be it. “The environment is a luxury good,” says Tim Worstall of the Adam Smith Institute, “it’s something we spend more of our income upon, as incomes rise.”

A recent study from the University of Helsinki highlights that between 1990 and 2015, annual forest area grew in high and mid-income nations by 1.31 per cent and 0.5 per cent respectively, while decreasing by 0.72 per cent in 22 low income countries.

The Kuznets curve not only applies to forest area, but also biodiversity. Ridley gives the example of three apex predators: wolves that live in developed countries of Europe and North America, tigers who mainly inhabit mid-income India, Russia and Bangladesh, and lions, which live in poor Sub-Saharan Africa. Following the Kuznets curve, wolf numbers are rapidly increasing, tiger numbers have been steady for the last 20 years (and have just began to increase), while lion numbers continue to fall.

To encourage reforestation and environmental protection, the answer is a simple one – adopt economic policies that encourage rapid development and urbanisation. As people grow rich and move to the cities, more money becomes available for environmental protection and more land can be returned to nature.

Thankfully Tabart’s claim was wrong and historically unprecedented poverty alleviation that has occurred in the last 50 years means that more countries are increasing their forest area. Yearly net deforestation is fast approaching zero and according to current trends, within the next couple of decades net afforestation will be the norm. This tremendous news is something to truly shout from the treetops.

SOURCE 




Japanese Meteorological Agency Corrects Antarctic’s Long-Term Sea Ice Growth Trend Upwards

The Global Environment and Marine Department of the Japanese Meteorological Agency recently corrected the long term trend in the annual mean sea ice extent in the Antarctic area: from 0.015 x 106 km2 per year to 0.019 x 106 km2 per year on 11 May 2018.

That’s more than a 25% adjustment (15,000 sq. km to 19,000 sq km). So while chunks the size of Manhattans may break off from time to time, about 300 Manhattans of new ice gets added annually.

The report notes that in the Antarctic Ocean: “the annual maximum and annual mean sea ice extents have shown a long-term trend of increase since 1979”.

The Japanese weather and climate site provided the following 2 charts showing sea ice extent for both the Arctic and Antarctic respectively since 1979. From them we see some interesting developments.

Arctic downward trend halted

Although the Arctic has seen a downward trend over the past 4 decades, we note that the mean Arctic sea ice cover has remained mostly steady over the past 11 years (since 2007). Moreover, Arctic and Greenland ice volume have piled up recently.

SOURCE 






The Reason Liberal Lawmakers Are to Blame for High Gas Prices

With consumer confidence at a 17-year high and economic prospects looking relatively strong, congressional Democrats have taken to grousing about the gas pump as a midterm strategy.

“These higher oil prices are translating directly to soaring gas prices,” declared Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, “something we know disproportionately hurts middle- and lower-income people.”

If this is true, then why have Democrats spent the past two decades advocating policies that artificially spike fossil fuel prices? If higher energy costs hurt Americans—and thank you, senator, for conceding this point—why have liberals favored increasing gas taxes, inhibiting exploration for fossil fuels (including a ban on fracking for less environmentally damaging gas in a number of places), and capping imports?

If higher gas prices disproportionately impact the working class and poor, then why do Democrats push for national schemes designed to create false demand through a fabricated marketplace?

Not a single reporter asked the Democrats who were performing at a press conference in front of an Exxon filling station the other day if higher gas prices might incentivize Americans to switch to subsidized “alternative” energy sources—even though this happens to be the prevailing theory driving much of their energy policy. Shouldn’t Democrats be celebrating the fact that fewer Americans were driving on Memorial Day? I thought we were facing an apocalyptic situation here.

Schumer conveniently blamed the United States’ exiting of the Iran nuclear deal for the spike—an agreement he supposedly opposed. Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz, a self-styled “climate hawk,” claimed, “There’s a straight line between [President Donald] Trump’s policies and the price of gasoline.” We can only now assume he believes the prevalence of cheap fossil fuels is imperative in the effort to alleviate poverty and create wealth. I concur. But don’t worry about Iran, senator; there’s plenty of oil elsewhere.

Politico maintains that Democrats have stolen a page from the “GOP playbook to attack Trump,” which is true, though the difference is that Republicans generally support proposals that make gas more affordable.

The Obama administration, for example, benefited greatly from a recalcitrant GOP Congress’ committed obstruction of an untold number of terrible initiatives. We should recall that the energy secretary openly wrestled with ways “to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

When Obama was asked in 2008 if the $4-a-gallon gas prices at the time were beneficial for the American economy, the presidential candidate prevaricated, saying, “I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment.”

What is the gradual adjustment Democrats prefer today? A slow and steady move to $7? Right now U.S. gas prices are only a fraction of those in European nations, and yet Democrats acted as if Trump had triggered Armageddon when he decided to leave the Paris climate agreement. Do you want us to follow Norway’s lead or not?

Democrats had opposed the opening of pipeline projects, of new drilling, and allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to transform from a regulatory agency that was protecting the environment to a place where the administration could implement backdoor legislation that American voters had rejected. If Democrats hadn’t lost power in 2010, we might be living with those $4-per-gallon prices today.

To understand how this policy manifests, just look at California, where gas prices are consistently among the highest in the nation—despite the fact that there are no constraining geographic or economic impediments to cheap energy. Last year, the legislature pushed through another gas tax (and an even larger one on diesel) and extra “fees” to help make one of the most regressive energy policies in the country even more onerous and expensive.

Now, obviously the entire spectacle is for show. Schumer says, “It’s time for the president to buck his oil executive buddies,” because lots of ignorant voters probably believe that the price of crude oil can be controlled by a few nefarious CEOs. The only question I have is: Why don’t these profitmongering oligarchs keep prices high all the time?

Of course, in the real world, summertime typically brings a spike in prices—and despite Schumer’s forecast of “soaring gas prices,” prices are already dropping again.

Given the fungibility of commodities and the track record of the Middle East, we’ll likely always have to deal with some painful fluctuations in the price of energy, regardless of what we do at home. But relying on market forces has, by every conceivable measurement, had a better track record than price controls.

So while Democrats have learned to be less open with their intentions, the policies speak for themselves. What do they plan on doing about oil prices when they win the election? Yell at some executives? Why doesn’t anyone with access ask these concerned senators if they believe cheap fossil fuels are preferable? Or do they still support policies that spike energy prices on purpose?

SOURCE 




Speculative climate chaos v. indisputable fossil fuel benefits

Federal judge tells climate litigants to tally the numerous blessings from fossil fuels since 1859

Paul Driessen and Roger Bezdek

Judge William Alsup has a BS in engineering, has written computer programs for his ham radio hobby, delves deeply into the technical aspects of numerous cases before him, and even studied other programming languages for a complex Oracle v. Google lawsuit.

As presiding judge in People of the State of California v. BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell, he insisted that the litigants present their best scientific evidence for and against the state’s assertion that fossil fuel emissions are causing dangerous climate change. Now he wants to see, not just the alleged damages from burning oil, natural gas and coal – but also the immense benefits to humanity and the people of California from using those fuels for the past 150 years and more.

Environmental and climate activists, including cities pursuing climate lawsuits against oil companies, almost never acknowledge those benefits, which are far-reaching and indisputable. We can only hope attorneys Anne Champion, Philip Curtis, Diehl Kemper, et al. and friends of the court will do justice to the many blessings attributable to our use of these once unimaginable energy resources.

For countless millennia, our ancestors struggled to survive amid deprivation and backbreaking dusk-to-dawn labor, often on the brink of starvation – with the bulk of humanity living little better than their domesticated animals. Average nasty, brutish and short life expectancy hovered in the low thirties.

But then, suddenly and miraculously, in barely two centuries, health, prosperity and longevity began to climb. First coal, then oil, then natural gas paved the way, providing the fuels for transportation, communication, refrigeration, electricity and other incredible technologies that improve, enhance, safeguard and save lives. Incomes increased eleven-fold. Mass die-offs so confidently predicted by Malthus and Ehrlich never materialized. In fact, global life spans more than doubled, and today billions of people enjoy living standards that even kings and queens could not dream of 120 years ago.

Sadly, equal numbers of people still struggle on the edge of survival. A billion and a half are still without electricity, two billion still exist on a few dollars a day, and millions still die every year from insect-borne, lung and intestinal diseases – largely because they still burn wood and dung, instead of fossil fuels.

In 1900, New York City’s 3.4 million people relied on 100,000 horses whose “tailpipes” emitted 2.5 million pounds of manure and 60,000 gallons of urine every day. Sanitation crews cleaned it up, dumped it mostly in local rivers, and hauled dead horses to rendering plants. Farmers devoted thousands of acres just to growing horse feed. Imagine what today’s 8.6 million NYC residents would require and emit.

Today, far more powerful, far less polluting, trucks, cars, buses, trains, subways and airplanes move people, food and products far more quickly and efficiently. They take us to work, school and worship services; to the grocery, bank, drug store, doctor and restaurant; to movies, picnics and sporting events. Fire trucks help us battle devastating conflagrations, and ambulances take our injured to hospitals.

All these vehicles (internal combustion and electric) exist because of, are fueled by – and travel on roadways made with fossil fuels: asphalt from oil, metal and concrete manufactured using fossil fuels.

Even electric cars require oil, gas and coal for manufacturing and recharging. Indeed, the earth-moving machines, drilling rigs and production platforms, pipelines, foundries, factories and other technologies needed to extract, process and fabricate raw materials into the world around us exist because of fossil fuels. Every bit of metal, plastic, concrete, wood, fabric and food we see results from fossil fuels. Even wind turbines, solar panels and biofuels are impossible without the fuels that California so loves to hate.

Medical devices, computers, cell phones, radios and televisions, kitchen appliances, household and office heating and air conditioning, millions of other products of every description require fossil fuels for their components, manufacturing and daily operation. The schools and research laboratories that made our amazing technologies and other advancements possible are themselves made possible by fossil fuels.

The modern agricultural equipment and practices that feed the world share the same ancestry: tractor and harvester fuel, ammonia fertilizer from natural gas, pesticides and herbicides from petrochemicals. Carbon dioxide from burning these fuels helps crop, forage, forest and grassland plants grow faster and better, with less water and better resistance to droughts and diseases. Our bounteous grain and other crops mean fewer famines, except where forced starvation is used to subdue and eliminate enemies.

Indeed, between 1961 and 2011, the total monetary value of CO2 enhancement for 45 crops reached an estimated cumulative value of $3.2 trillion! Carbon dioxide’s annual enrichment value rose from $19 billion in 1961 to $140 billion in 2010. Between 2012 and 2050, these benefits will total $9.8 trillion!

Pharmaceutical and cosmetic products all have their roots in petrochemicals – as do paints, synthetic fibers and plastics. Hockey and football players are dressed head to toe in fossil-fuel-sourced materials.

High-rise office and residential buildings made possible by steel and concrete allow our cities to grow upward, instead of just outward, preserving millions of acres of wildlife habitats and scenic areas.

Then there’s electricity. Look around you, and try to imagine your life without this wondrous, pervasive energy source. Electricity was properly ranked humanity’s second most significant innovation of the past 6,000 years, after the printing press! It has created, shaped, defined and powered the modern world, and facilitated virtually every technological achievement of the past century. Electrification of nations is undeniably the world’s most significant engineering and life-enhancing achievement of the past century.

Economic growth, quality of life and longevity are directly correlated to sufficient, reliable, affordable electricity. In today’s world, nothing happens without it: communication, transportation and research; the operation of every home, office, hospital, factory and airport; refrigeration to preserve food and medicine; heating and air conditioning to save lives and enable people to survive and prosper in any climate.

Electrification will be increasingly important in the 21st century, and world electricity consumption is forecast to double within four decades, as electricity supplies an increasing share of the world’s ever-increasing energy demand. Fossil fuels will continue generating at least 75% of electricity, even in 2050.

Hydroelectric and nuclear (which radical environmentalists also despise and oppose), a bit of geothermal, and a smattering of unreliable, weather-determined wind and solar power will supply the rest. The land, resource and environmental impacts of building and operating wind and solar must also be considered.

Social media and internet search engines (to run biased searches for alarmist climate news) also depend on electricity – 91.4% of which was generated by fossil fuels, nuclear and hydro in 2016 in the USA.

Increased productivity generated by all these technologies creates the leisure time and wealth that enable everyone to enjoy evenings, weekends and holidays – and the fossil fuel transportation to go places (including to faraway, exotic locales and 5-star hotels for IPCC climate change confabs).

Finally, aside from nuclear-powered ships, our highly mechanized military gets there “the fastest with the mostest” thanks to fossil fuels, to combat terrorism and provide for our national defense.

Judge Alsup’s case is thus really about highly speculative manmade climate disasters versus indisputable fossil fuel benefits – as further documented here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and elsewhere. Indeed, today’s undeniable fossil fuel benefits outweigh any hypothesized climate, sea level and other costs by literally orders of magnitude: at least 50:1 to more than 200:1.

Barring major efficiency, battery storage and other technology improvements, renewable energy cannot possibly replace fossil fuels. Judge Alsup has no choice but to rule in favor of the oil company defendants … and all who rely on oil, gas and coal for the countless, life-enhancing benefits barely touched on here.

Via email

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