CPAC Crowd Cheers When Trump Mocks AOC’s Green New Deal

President Trump brought down the house at the annual CPAC convention when he delivered a rousing speech that delighted the crowd of patriotic conservatives who seemed to sense that their values are under assault as never before.

On the same day that socialist Bernie Sanders was rousing the rabble in Brooklyn with his trademark bitter tirades against capitalism and appeals to radically transform the United States into something unthinkable, the president hit all the right notes and showed that he will be a formidable force in the coming battle against radicalized Democrats.

Bernie and his fellow travelers have been pitching the Green New Deal, a Trojan horse for the socialism that has inspired millennials whose enthusiasm vastly exceeds their knowledge of history and the bitter fate of the countries that have taken the leap of faith.

While the Green New Deal is already akin to a religion with the political left, it isn’t going to sell in Middle America and the Rust Belt which is where national elections are won and lost. In a preview of his upcoming campaign, Trump delighted in his mockery of a plan that would bankrupt the nation and would take a totalitarian government to bring about which is exactly what the Democrats are planning.

The crowd went absolutely wild when the leader of the free world all but ripped the beating hearts of the left out of their chest and waved it in their smug faces.

“The Green New Deal, I encourage it,” Trump continued sarcastically after boos from the audience. “I think it’s really something that they should promote.”

“They should work hard on,” he continued. “It is something our country needs. Desperately, they have to go out and get it, but I’ll take the other side of that argument, only because I am mandated to. But they should stay with that argument and never change. No planes. No energy. When the wind stops blowing, that is the end of your electric.”

To the audience’s delight, Trump pretended to be someone’s spouse just hoping the wind blows so they can watch a little television.

“Darling, is the wind blowing today? I would like to watch television, darling.”

“It’s true,” Trump said after the crowd burst into laughter.

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House Dems scheduled an ‘important’ hearing on climate change – barely any of them showed up, so GOP killed it in 4 mins

By now, you know the truth. Climate change is the single greatest calamity facing mankind. Because there’s a Republican in the White House, Democrats have ramped-up the scare tactics to a fever pitch, and they can’t seem to get through a single presser without mention the fact that we’re all doomed.  The oceans are going to rise, super-storms are going to decimate the coasts and, in the words of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, we’re all going to be dead in 12 years.

So… you would think that Democrats would be eager to attend a House subcommittee hearing on the subject.  After all, if they don’t do something, Guam is going to tip over and Al Gore’s $9 million ocean view mansion is going to wash away.

So why, if this is such a grave threat, did only two Dems bother to show up to their own hearing?

Via the Politico:

House Republicans managed to quash Democrats’ hearing on climate change on Tuesday by outvoting the majority party at the poorly attended event, forcing it to adjourn only minutes after it began.

The hearing of the House Natural Resources panel was to be the latest to dive into climate change since Democrats took control of the House last month, bringing new attention to the issue they complained Republicans had ignored during their eight years leading the chamber. The hearing was designed to probe the “denial playbook” that Democrats say fossil fuel backers have copied from cigarette companies — the same tactics used by opioid makers and the National Football League to dispute strong scientific evidence.

Apparently, a meeting designed to forestall the end of the world wasn’t important enough for Democrats to attend. With only 2 Democrats appearing, Louie Gohmert and three other Republicans killed it in just a few minutes.

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Green New Nightmare: City’s Attempt To Go ‘100% Renewable’ Brings Massive Costs

As Congress debates the Green New Deal resolution to transition the U.S. economy to “net-zero” greenhouse gas emissions, a Texas town struggles under the growing financial burden of going green.

Georgetown has spent $30 million since it began its transition to 100 percent renewable energy in 2016, and now city officials are lashing out at local reporters and a conservative think tank for scrutinizing the cost to taxpayers.

“The entire 100 percent renewable claim is misleading,” Bill Peacock, vice president of research conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

TPPF has been holding public hearings with angry Georgetown residents since last fall. The group also called out the city’s renewable energy claim that it runs solely on renewable power.

Peacock said the city’s “dogged, almost bling pursuit of renewables” has cost residents $30 million, maybe more, in additional electricity costs because of how it structured its contracts. Georgetown is reportedly the largest U.S. city to claim to run on 100 percent renewable electricity.

“Nobody enters into contracts for twice as much electricity as they need,” Peacock said. “The only way it makes sense is if you’re trying to make the point that you’re 100 percent renewable.” “Nobody else made this mistake that we’re aware of,” Peacock said.

Now the city is scrambling to get out of its long-term, fixed-price energy contracts. But what’s more remarkable is the city also distanced itself from its claim to fame — running on 100 percent solar and wind power.

“The City has never claimed that the electrons produced by its energy contracts are the same electrons consumed in Georgetown,” city spokesman Jackson Daly said in an emailed statement.

Except, that’s the opposite of what city officials sold to the media over the past few years. In fact, “100%” is emblazoned on the city utility’s logo. The city says it can claim this because it purchases more wind and solar power than it actually needs, even though it doesn’t directly get all that power.

Georgetown also produced videos on its solar and wind contracts, framing them as the “first step in Georgetown’s 100 percent renewable plan.” Those videos also suggest Georgetown is directly receiving all that green power, which isn’t the case.

There was likely no bigger proponent of going all in on renewables than Mayor Dale Ross, a Republican called the “unlikeliest hero of the green revolution” by Smithsonian. Ross even gained international attention. The BBC recently called him “an unlikely climate change hero.”

Since joining the green revolution, Ross has been featured in films, including a cameo in former Vice President Al Gore’s 2017 film “An Inconvenient Sequel.” Gore even called Georgetown a “trailblazer” for being the biggest U.S. city to go 100 percent renewable.

Georgetown’s actions inspire other cities, including Washington, D.C., to follow suit and pledged to go 100 percent renewable. The news outlet CityLab compared what Georgetown was doing to the Green New Deal that’s touted by Democratic 2020 presidential hopefuls.

But now Ross seems to be buckling under the public backlash. He reportedly threatened Lorraine Brady, the editor of the local newspaper, for reporting on the city’s green energy woes.

“I was stunned and felt threatened,” Brady wrote in early February, detailing how Ross said he would use his influence as mayor to hurt The Williamson County Sun’s finances. “This apparent effort to silence the press suggests a disregard for the people and their right to know.”

Three weeks earlier, The Williamson County published an article showing Georgetown had lost roughly $30 million since it began purchasing wind energy in 2016. Losses amplified in the last year after it began buying solar power in 2017.

Ross declined to speak to TheDCNF, instead referring questions to Daly, who criticized TPPF and local reporters scrutinizing the city’s decisions.

“Reports by a local newspaper and an anti-renewable energy advocacy organization have attempted to question Georgetown’s status as an electric utility that uses 100 percent renewable energy,” Daly said.

Green Raw Deal?

Georgetown started its move toward renewables in 2012 when the city paid the Lower Colorado River Authority $4.1 million to end its contract. Officials then began looking for other power providers, eventually signing long-term contracts with a solar and wind farm.

Ross called the decision a “no-brainer” that was based on dollars and cents, not global warming activism. The idea was to set electricity rates for the next 20 to 25 years, which he said natural gas providers wouldn’t do.

“This is a long-term pocketbook issue,” Ross said in August. “It’s a win for economics and a win for the environment.”

Georgetown’s utility signed up for wind and solar at fixed prices until 2035 and 2043, respectively, contracting to buy about twice as much power as it actually needs — the excess of which would be sold on the grid.

John Hesser, who joined the Georgetown city council in 2013, said he was the only council member to oppose the long-term green energy contracts, which the city signed in 2014 for wind and 2015 for solar.

“Renewable energy has its limits,” Hesser told TheDCNF. “I was the only one who objected to the contract.”

After a career in finance, Hesser said he saw the risk in betting everything that electricity prices would go up, especially from natural gas and coal plants.

“What I saw was the financial contract looked like a futures contract,” Hesser said. “You do not take a fixed rate contract in a variable rate market. It’s like a mortal sin in finance.”

Energy prices plummeted, particularly natural gas prices, meaning the city lost money selling power back to the market. City figures show it exceeded its electricity budget for 2018 by $10.5 million.

City officials are looking for ways to make up the shortfall, including raising electricity rates. Recent rate hikes raised the average resident’s bill about $13 a month to recover losses selling power on Texas’s electricity market.

The city is also trying to renegotiate its power contracts, and Hesser said “some good things” were happening on that front but did not go into detail.

SOURCE





California Recycling Program Costs Residents $308 Million in 2018

California consumers lost out on at least $308 million in nickel deposits on cans and bottles in 2018, largely because it’s increasingly difficult to find a place to recycle them, according to a new report made public Thursday.

In the last five years, about 40 percent of California’s recycling centers have closed, with more than 100 closing in Los Angeles County alone. The state says 1,600 centers remain open statewide, but advocacy group Consumer Watchdog said there are still barriers to Californians finding a place to recycle and that many grocery stores won’t take back the empties.

The group’s report suggests several reforms to California’s 33-year-old recycling program, which has struggled to be profitable. Democratic state Sen. Henry Stern has also proposed changes to the program.

“Californians plunk down a nickel for their cans … but increasingly they’re only getting half that nickel back on average,” said Consumer Watchdog president Jamie Court. “Consumers are losing, the environment is losing.”

The organization faults state regulators for lax oversight, saying they should more aggressively fine major retailers that won’t redeem containers or undercount the number of deposits they collect. It says the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, known as CalRecycle, should spend more money to promote recycling centers and punish companies that hoard deposits.

“Overall, the program has been highly successful, but recent years have brought challenges,” CalRecycle spokesman Mark Oldfield responded, citing broader market conditions.

He said the agency is looking for ways to help increase buy-back locations but put the monetary value of unredeemed deposits at $272 million, which the consumer group says omits administrative fees required by law that brings the total to $308 million.

The consumer group provided an advanced copy of its report to The Associated Press.

It recommends doubling the amount for deposits to a dime for each glass or plastic bottle or aluminum can to encourage more consumers to recycle, similar to the deposits required in Oregon and Michigan.

Consumers there recycle at least nine of every 10 containers. About three in four containers are recycled in California, but that includes those redeemed by bulk haulers as well as individual consumers. California currently charges 5 cents for containers under 24 ounces and 10 cents for larger containers.

Beyond the $308 million in unclaimed deposits, the group alleges consumers are missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars more, including $200 million in deposits that go to commercial trash haulers and bulk collectors. It also cites a 2014 report from the Container Recycling Institute that shows an undercount in bottle deposits paid by consumers, though Oldfield said that number has never been substantiated.

On the legislative side, Stern’s bill would restrict which retailers must accept containers and allow about $3 million in annual incentives to low-volume recycling centers to try to keep them open. A similar bill passed last year but former Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed it.

Stern said he is trying to help smaller “mom and pop” grocery stores while restoring some incentives for recyclers.

“A lot more work has to be done in this area and I’m hoping to work with consumer advocates to make sure people are getting a fair shake here,” Stern said.

Court said he hopes Stern’s bill is a starting point for negotiations. “It’s not an overhaul of the system, it in fact creates more exemptions for the grocery stores, which is bad,” Court said. “It does a couple things, but it doesn’t go far enough.”

Stern said the system needs improvements before consumers are asked to make larger deposits. Although Democrats control two-thirds majorities in both legislative chambers, Stern said they are cautious about raising fees even though, in theory, consumers would get their higher deposits back when they recycle. “But if we can make a case that there’s a good market rational, I’m open,” he said.

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 Australia: BoM is still deceiving

The BoM are always saying that somewhere in some period Australian weather is "hottest".  They no longer are brazen enough to say that the heat is the work of global warming but they clearly aim to create the impression that global warming is ongoing. As with all Green/Left talk, however, they always tell just the bit that suits them.  We read:


Australia just sweltered through its hottest summer on record

Australia suffered its hottest summer on record from December through February and forecasts show the southern autumn will continue to be drier and warmer than average, the government said Thursday.

"After a record hot December and January, it won't come as a surprise that this summer will be our warmest on record," said Andrew Watkins, manager of long-range forecasting at the Bureau of Meteorology.

Although the final figures won't be available until Friday, the bureau said it was already clear the average maximum and mean temperature for the three months of summer would for the first time be more than two degrees Celsius higher than long-term averages.

SOURCE 


Now read just one thing elsewhere that they "overlook:


January–February 2019 North American cold wave

In late January 2019, a severe cold wave caused by a weakened jet stream around the Arctic polar vortex[3] hit the Midwestern United States and Eastern Canada, killing at least 22 people. It came after a winter storm brought up to 13 inches (33 cm) of snow in some regions from January 27–29. On February 2, the polar vortex moved west, and later affected Western Canada and the Western United States.

SOURCE 

So which is it?  Is the earth cooling or warming?  The clear answer is neither. There are just different random fluctuations in different locations that tend to cancel one another out

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