The ‘Climate Strike’ is a crock that exploits kids

This Friday, in advance of the United Nations Climate Summit, students across the country will walk out of their schools as part of a Climate Strike. In New York City, the Department of Education has given its stamp of approval to the walk-out and won’t mark it as an absence, making it less “a strike” and more a coordinated effort by the school system to force political action on children.

Tweeted DOE: “We applaud our students when they raise their voices in a safe and respectful manner on issues that matter to them.” Does it? The department is only giving kids a pass to skip school to protest on this one issue. So while school brass may applaud students raising their voices, only preapproved political posturing will be granted official protest status.

Sure: Children are our future, goes the adage. Shouldn’t they have a say in what happens to their planet?

But what “say” are they having by marching around with signs — repeating slogans and talking points spoon-fed to them by … adults?

Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted about the strike on Monday, “Young people are taking action against Climate Change in record numbers. You know why? BECAUSE. WASHINGTON. WON’T. We are running out of time. Our kids aren’t waiting. We can’t either. #ClimateStrike”

But it’s hard to ignore that in this call for action there’s no, well, action. They’re literally doing what they’re urging politicians to stop doing: talking.

We could have had an army of teenagers cleaning up parks or beaches instead of striking and making signs. Teens could have led the way by not using cars or plastic utensils for the day.

Or how about something as simple as this: Give up their phones for a day (or, heck, 15 minutes!) to save energy. (Right!)

Instead, expect stories on Saturday about how much garbage the protesting kids left behind.

In my Russian-speaking community, people took to Facebook to discuss the similarities they saw to their time in the Soviet Union. One mom posted that the strike is “Soviet-style brainwashing and propaganda” Another mom wrote that the particular issue doesn’t matter; “having children demonstrate on school time was the Soviet way.”

One Park Slope elementary school sent parents a note that the entire school will be walking out for the strike. A mother of a 6-year-old told me, in response: “I am all for people supporting causes they believe in, but do not force your causes and beliefs on my first-grader.”

Another mom told me she believes in climate change and thinks the government should take action but finds the strike absurd. She’s afraid to single her kid out by making him skip it and isn’t speaking up.

Trump says Green New Deal would turn US into 'hermit nation'
In America in 2019, it really ought to be OK for parents to say: “My kids are not your props and, no, it’s not OK for them to spend school time making climate-change signs or walking out in protest.”

Memo to DOE: Some parents would actually prefer their kids to be in class learning than taking part in one-sided political theater (though, it’s true, at some schools kids who strike won’t be missing much).

Nor should parents be put on the spot and have to declare whether they want their kid to attend the organized protest. This isn’t a school subject. It’s not standardized testing or dissecting a frog. Parents shouldn’t even have to opt in to have their child attend (and whether even that should be allowed is arguable).

In any event, the real test to see if kids care about the Climate Strike would be to do it after school or on a weekend. After all, almost any teen will agree to skip school, no matter the cause. But every grown-up knows that far fewer teens would spend their free time protesting than school time.

Fact is, teenagers should be learning how to be adults and learning adult skills — not just mimicking actions of the adults in their orbit to gain their approval.

I believe climate change is real and we must deal with it. I teach my children to be good stewards of the environment. But that’s separate from allowing them to be exploited for political goals — even if I happen to agree with the mission.

Sticking kids with the job of solving climate change or even just using them as puppets is deeply inappropriate.

De Blasio tweeted: “New York City stands with our young people. They’re our conscience.” Maybe adults should have their own conscience.

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NBC News Wants You to Confess Your Climate Sins

Do you ever get the feeling that climate change is a cult? Does it ever seem like its adherents are immune to reason as they vindictively lash out at anyone who questions their beliefs? Wouldn't it be nice if they just left you alone and let you live your life?

Well, too bad. You live in 2019 and you use modern technology and conveniences. You eat food that actually tastes good. You're guilty and you need to confess. Repent, sinner!

That's right, NBC "News" has put up a page for what they're literally calling Climate Confessions.

"Even those who care deeply about the planet's future can slip up now and then. Tell us: Where do you fall short in preventing climate change? Do you blast the A/C? Throw out half your lunch? Grill a steak every week? Share your anonymous confession with NBC News."

Bless me, Gaia, for I have sinned.

Apparently, there are all sorts of ways you can sin against the planet. NBC breaks it down into six categories

I submitted my own confession: "I work in an air-conditioned newsroom at NBC." They haven't published it yet, but I feel better already.

Hat tip to Mark Hemingway, who notes: "This from NBC News is amazing. Climate change is some kind of religion -- all eschatology, minus the redemption." In other words, you're always guilty but you can never be saved.

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Wind Power Sources Remain More Fantasy than Reality

At first glance, wind power seems to be the path to a carbon-free energy future. Once harnessed, it’s clean and abundant. Larger turbines have enhanced wind’s power-generating capacity.

But contrary to its supporters, wind energy has grown thanks largely to production tax credits (2.3 cents per kilowatt hour) totaling billions of dollars. However, those credits are being phased out, and without such generous subsidies, wind energy will not make much of a dent in power production or carbon mitigation for at least a decade.

The amount of wind energy has tripled in the past 10 years, growing to 97,223 megawatts in 41 states. Half of that generating capacity is located in five of them: Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, California and Kansas. Because seasonal wind patterns vary considerably across the country, wind’s contribution to the grid represents just 8 percent of power production nationwide.

Despite all the hoopla over wind energy, the nation’s only offshore wind turbines are located in coastal waters near Rhode Island. The Block Island Wind Farm, which went into operation in late 2016, cost $2 billion, plus $16.7 million to compensate companies that lost access to fishing grounds. Operating and maintenance expenses for wind farms currently add about $48,000 per megawatt generated.

Massachusetts likewise is preparing to obtain power from more than a score of huge wind turbines off its coast, carried to the mainland by underwater cables, with the cost passed through to households and businesses.

According to the Institute for Energy Research, offshore wind energy is “very, very expensive,” costing 2.6 times more than onshore wind power and 3.4 times more than power produced by a natural gas combined-cycle plant. Of course, the cost of wind farms surely will fall as more are built, and perhaps ways will be found to reduce the dangers wind turbines pose to birds, bats, and other wildlife.

In the meantime, if we are serious about reducing energy costs and carbon emissions, we need to be realistic about the limitations of power generated by the wind and other renewables.

A more practical environmental approach is to expand the use of the combined-cycle natural gas plants, which have smaller carbon footprints than coal plants and have reduced such emissions to levels not seen since the early 1990s. The shale revolution has made that possible, greatly strengthening economic incentives to substitute natural gas for coal in power production. Nowadays, data analytics and complex algorithms make it easier to find natural gas and boost the productivity of shale fields.

The surge in America’s natural-gas production also helps to reduce carbon emissions in other countries. Exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) are projected to double by the end of this year. Asian countries that still rely heavily on coal are the largest purchasers of American LNG, using the clean-burning fuel to improve their air quality.

Shale has been the single biggest addition to the nation’s energy supply in many decades. Renewables at the moment offer more promise than reality. Even with lavish subsidies, wind and solar power together account for slightly more than 10 percent of the nation’s electricity. In contrast, gas provides nearly 35 percent; it is indispensable for generating backup power on days when the wind doesn’t blow, or the sun doesn’t shine.

Because of rising electricity demands and the retirement of coal and nuclear plants, many states are planning for more wind-powered electricity production. Under present regulatory regimes, most of the capital and operating costs of new wind farms will end up being added to consumers’ utility bills. So, too, in some states are “the stranded costs” of mothballed power plants.

Unsubsidized wind energy simply is too expensive to become a major source of electricity in most states. (In 2016, wind represented just seven-tenths of 1 percent of Massachusetts’s power production.) The inability of grid operators to manage the variations in power from wind and solar energy is creating new headaches.

Americans need a reliable supply of affordable electricity. But if too much weight is placed on wind and solar systems and not enough on conventional power plants, the result will be far too little electricity, with potentially grievous economic consequences.

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Renewable Energy Will Only Be Possible With Massive Increases in the Supply of Critical Minerals
 
The recent threats by Beijing to cut off American access to critical mineral imports has many Americans wondering why our politicians have allowed the United States to become so overly dependent on China for these valued resources in the first place.

Today, the United States is 90% dependent on China and Russia for many vital “rare earth minerals.”

The main reason for our overreliance on nations like China for these minerals is not that we are running out of these resources here at home. The U.S. Mining Association estimates that we have at least $5 trillion of recoverable mineral resources.

The U.S. Geological Survey reports that we still have up to 86% or more of key mineral resources like copper and zinc remaining in the ground, waiting to be mined. These resources aren’t on environmentally sensitive lands, like national parks, but on the millions of acres of federal, state and private lands.

The mining isn’t happening because of extremely prohibitive environmental rules and a permitting process that can take five to 10 years to open a new mine. Green groups simply resist almost all new drilling.

What they may not realize is that the de facto mining prohibitions jeopardize the “green energy revolution” that liberals are so desperately seeking.

How’s this for rich irony?: Making renewable energy at all technologically plausible will require massive increases in the supply of rare earth and critical minerals. Without these valuable metals, there will not be more efficient 21st-century batteries for electric cars or modern solar panels. Kiss the Green New Deal and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ utopian vision of 100% renewable energy goodbye.

Yet, for decades now, environmentalists have erected every possible barrier to mining here in America for critical minerals — which we have in great abundance.

Search far and wide through the grandiose Green New Deal plans and you will not find any call for additional domestic mining for battery-operated electric vehicles and electrified mass transportation systems, nor the underlying energy infrastructure.

Thanks to the extreme environmentalists, we import from unfriendly and repressive governments the critical minerals needed to produce rechargeable batteries (lithium and cobalt), wind turbine motors (dysprosium), thin films for solar power (tellurium) and miniature sensors that manage the performance of electric vehicles (yttrium).

Another irony in the left’s anti-mining crusade is that these same groups have long boasted that by eliminating our need for fossil fuels, America won’t rely on cartels like OPEC that have in the past held our nation hostage to wild price swings and embargoes. Greens also complain that fossil fuel dependence requires a multibillion-dollar military presence in the Middle East and around the world to ensure supply. Now we can substitute OPEC with China and Russia.

Here is one simple but telling example of the shortsightedness of the “no mining” position of the environmentalists. Current electric vehicles can use up to 10 times more copper than fossil fuel vehicles. Then, additional copper wire networks will be needed to attach convenient battery chargers throughout public spaces and along roads and highways. Do we really want this entire transportation infrastructure to be dependent on China and Russia?

Of course, it is not just green energy development that will be imperiled by our mining restrictions folly. Innovation and research on new lightweight metals and alloys, such as those used in lifesaving medical devices and tiny cameras in smartphones, could also become stalled if foreign prices rise prohibitively.

Also, because our mining laws — the ones that don’t outright prohibit mining — protect the environment far more than those in nations like China and Africa, by importing these minerals, we are contributing to global environmental degradation.

So, there you have it. The keep-it-in-the-ground movement environmentalists demand against use of almost all of America’s bountiful energy and mineral resources is blocking a green future and a safer planet. Do they know this? Do they care?

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‘Blood on his hands’: Australian PM urged to intervene after Queensland Government loses bid to continue shark culling

Greenies much prefer sharks to people

Queensland’s tourism minister says Prime Minister Scott Morrison could have “blood on his hands” if he doesn’t intervene on a ban preventing shark culling on the Great Barrier Reef.

The Queensland Government yesterday lost an appeal in the Federal Court for the right to use drum lines to catch and kill sharks on the reef in a bid to protect swimmers.

The appeal came after the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in April upheld a Humane Society challenge to the State Government program in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park area.

Queensland Agriculture Minister Mark Furner wants the Federal Government to change federal legislation to allow the program to continue in the park.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which manages the area, was created by federal legislation in 1975.

Tourism Minister Kate Jones said the court decision left her deeply concerned for the safety of visitors swimming in the World Heritage area.

“I’m calling on the Prime Minister to intervene,” she told reporters. “I’m sure the Prime Minister does not want to have blood on his hands through this decision in relation to the federal act.”

However, Humane Society campaigner Lawrence Chlebeck says the court decision is a victory for sharks.  “No longer will sharks senselessly die for a misguided sense of security,” he said.

In its decision, the tribunal said the scientific evidence about “the lethal component” of the shark control program “overwhelmingly” showed it does not reduce the risk of an unprovoked shark attack.

The program now has to be carried out in a way that avoids killing sharks to the “greatest extent possible”. The park will only be permitted to authorise the euthanasia of sharks caught on drum lines on animal welfare grounds.

All tiger, bull and white sharks caught on drum lines are now to be tagged before being released. Additionally, sharks caught on drum lines are to be attended to as soon as possible — preferably within 24 hours of capture — and tagged sharks are to be relocated offshore.

Mr Chlebeck wants the Government to stop shark culls along the entire Queensland coastline.

There have been no changes to the shark control program in other Queensland locations, including the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast.

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