The Dems’ Radical Climate Change Agenda Is A Political Albatross
For many years now, there has been a spirited debate about whether climate change is science, religion, or even perhaps a secret route to socialism.
That question remains unanswered, but we’ve now discovered with certainty that climate change is a political albatross around the neck of the Democratic Party.
The Left’s spiritual devotion to climate change has been speeding the Democrats over a political cliff this fall with likely unprecedented losses this November.
The zero fossil fuels suicide pact was always an economic and political loser. More than 70% of all the energy we produce and consume in America derives from oil, gas, and coal.
President Joe Biden’s war on these fuel sources was sure to cause severe shortages and $5 a gallon gasoline at the pump.
Didn’t Democrats learn their lesson in 1980 when Ronald Reagan won a landslide election against Jimmy Carter that surging inflation and gas prices is a surefire way to infuriate voters?
While Biden keeps saying he is doing “everything I can to lower gas prices,” he’s speaking out of both sides of his mouth — because if your goal is to get people to stop using something, raising its price is a pretty good way to accomplish that.
If prices go to $10 or $15 a gallon, you can clear the highways of trucks and cars altogether, and what a wonderful world it will be.
Democrats were so enamored with their “Green New Deal” delusion that they failed to understand that most people aren’t as hyper-obsessed with climate change as they are.
A new poll sponsored by my group, Committee to Unleash Prosperity, found that people are much more concerned about inflation and high gas prices than climate change.
Moreover, the poll found that respondents’ average amount they would be willing to pay for the climate change agenda was $55 a year. Sorry, that’s the extra cost we are already spending with two fill-ups at the gas station.
Then there is the increasingly unavoidable reality that the green energy sources they fantasize about are decades away from being technologically feasible to replace old-fashioned oil, gas, and coal.
Even the Energy Department predicts that even with the trend toward renewable energy, by 2035, we will still be heavily reliant on oil, gas, and coal for electricity production, home heating, and transportation fuels.
Elon Musk, the leading champion of electric cars, reminded Biden in a recent tweet that in the real world rather than in la-la land, we are going to need oil and gas for many years to come. Today 3% of cars on the road are electric, and 95% use gas or diesel.
This brings us to yet another fatal flaw of the climate change movement. The Biden administration and its radical green allies can’t explain why getting our energy from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia makes more sense than Texas, Oklahoma, and Alaska.
This strategy is especially pinheaded because the war on oil, gas, and coal production is a big loser for the environment and increases global greenhouse gas emissions.
That is because America has the strictest environmental standards. Shifting oil and gas production to Russia or Iran and shifting coal production to China and India is causing far more air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is busy trying to take over the world economy, and the last thing he or the ruling class in Beijing cares about is climate change.
Finally, Democrats should have learned from the green energy catastrophe of Western Europe. A decade ago, the French, Germans, Italians, and others in the European Union moved to a renewable energy future.
They slashed much of their oil, gas, and coal production, shut down nuclear plants (why?), and subsidized the building of wind turbines and solar panels.
It nearly bankrupted Germany as energy prices soared and factories left Europe for America and Asia. A decade later, France is back to building nuclear plants, and Germany is burning more coal than ever before and importing natural gas from Russia.
Europe recently redefined natural gas and nuclear power as “clean energy.”
Going green wrecked their economies and submerged these countries deeper into the red. Unfortunately, Americans weren’t paying any attention to that failed experiment.
So now Biden is repeating it. The result is likely to be the same. The Democrats’ radical climate change agenda isn’t greening the planet, and it is bankrupting our country. Voters know exactly whom to blame.
https://climatechangedispatch.com/the-dems-radical-climate-change-agenda-is-a-political-albatross/
***********************************************Electric cars much more limited in cold climates. Decreased range
Electric vehicle range is still something that potential EV owners, and even existing owners, pay particular attention to. We've told you on numerous occasions that there are a plethora of variables that impact an EV's range, though temperature and weather conditions are the most obvious.
Autocar range-tested numerous EVs in both winter and summer conditions to learn how much real-world range the cars may lose when it's cold. However, sadly, while the publication was able to test four identical cars in both warm and cold temps, the other vehicles were only tested in the winter, and the real-world winter range was then compared to their official WLTP-rated range where available.
Still, while the study isn't consistent across all models tested, it gives us at least some indication of range loss across the board. The results of the four identical models tested during both seasons reveal a range loss of up to 20 percent, with the Porsche Taycan suffering the most, and the Fiat 500e suffering the least.
The publication notes that the tests were performed on a closed loop. They used a 15-mile route with 2.6 miles of stop-and-go traffic simulation. Then, the drive proceeded for 4 miles at 50 mph and 8 miles at 70 mph. Again, not a true real-world range test from full until empty, but it at least paints people a picture of the obvious loss in cold temperatures.
Autocar goes on to say that the range tests also emphasized the importance of a heat pump for dealing with cold-weather range loss. Models with a heat pump had an average winter range loss of about 25% compared to their WLTP-estimated range. Meanwhile, those without a heat pump lost an average of around 34%.
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Climate Crisis Fantasy Hurts Everyone
I believe there is broad bi-partisan agreement on this basic statement: We all love the environment.
We all want to live in harmony with nature and leave a clean, healthy, beautiful environment as a legacy. We all want to have access to clean air, clean water, and abundant, reliable energy. We understand that abundant and reliable energy creates prosperity. Prosperity creates a society that can afford to do things to help improve the environment.
Alternatively, poor, third-world countries have little ability to protect the environment—they’re busy trying to survive. Bjorn Lomborg has done some really thoughtful work on the importance of prosperity on improving the health of the environment and climate (bit.ly/3IRi4GL).
The question becomes how should our society achieve these sensible and mutually held goals? What policy and legal solutions should be implemented that will maximize environmental and societal goals while harming citizens the least? Is there actually a “climate crisis”? Is the world really about to overheat or are we actually on the cusp of a new ice age? Is the science “settled”?
Well, no! Science is never “settled.” As we learned in fifth or sixth grade, science progresses by proposing a hypothesis, and then running experiments and collecting data to prove or disprove the theory. No matter how certain we are of a theory, it remains a theory, and new information could completely upend what we think we know about a particular field of study.
Does climate change? Yes, it does. All we have to do is look back to the age of the dinosaurs to see that the climate now is really different than it was then … Earth was warmer and very lush (bit.ly/3vGeQlF). Is it the fault of the dinosaurs that it’s colder now? What caused the multiple different ice ages? What caused the Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age? Is it possible that the overall cycle of changing climate is very much like the changing of seasons?
Would you presume to think that if you just drove an electric car or put solar panels on your house that you could stop spring from turning into summer? If everyone in our state drove an electric car, would that stop summer from coming? Of course not. Yet, that’s exactly what the advocates of the “climate crisis” appear to claim. In addition, the mainstream news media doesn’t report on the scientists who are disproving the global warming “climate crisis” on excellent sites like Wattsupwiththat (bit.ly/3pKuxVn).
Radical progressive politicians from President Biden to Governor Inslee and the state Democratic caucus have seized on a particular scientific theory, and are using it to push a political agenda with a scary narrative—a climate fantasy—that uses fear to manipulate people to agree to radical political policy choices that harm many everyday people. We face higher energy prices, a lack of affordable housing, and an increasingly unreliable power grid, all because of these fantasy-driven policies.
Last year’s dreadful cap-and-tax legislation (The Climate Commitment Act, bit.ly/3HHmYEY) expanded the bloated bureaucracy at the Department of Ecology, and increased the cost of fuel and food prices. This carbon tax was imposed despite the voters rejecting it twice. In 2021, the Legislature also passed a low-carbon fuel standard which imposes new costs on carbon that will raise money primarily by raising the cost of gas for consumers.
Inslee and his cadre of climate alarmists have successfully pushed even more harmful legislation this 2022 session. This year, the democratic majority decided to deepen the affordable housing crisis by increasing the cost of building homes with SB 5722 - Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in buildings (bit.ly/3IQmFJt). New rent control measures in combination with these mandatory greenhouse gas compliance requirements will further reduce the inventory of available housing. Washington state's electric grid may experience reduced reliability due to the increased reliance on electricity mandated in this bill.
HB 1099 - climate response update to comprehensive planning, will deepen the Washington State housing affordability crisis even more (bit.ly/3vJWJeT)! This bill makes our problems worse by slowing permitting and restricting use. Sadly, this bill is also based on the theory of global warming. The whole premise of the bill is a theory that has never been proved.
Then, there is the Biden administration’s fierce opposition to allowing our country to resume oil and gas production. We could be an energy producer for the world, and yet many productive drilling production sites have been shut down or placed off limits by the radical climate crisis fanatics at the federal level. The nation’s average gas prices jumped nearly 20 cents in less than a week, but Labor Secretary Matt Walsh says more U.S drilling is NOT on the table (bit.ly/3KlJVzb).
I don’t know about you, but $1.79 gasoline, a reliable power grid, and affordable housing are starting to look pretty good. I believe that a Republican majority in Washington state and at the national level can find environmental policy solutions that will “save the planet” without putting you out on the street, driving you into poverty, or turning off the lights.
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Shell revives huge North Sea gas field to boost Britain's energy security
Shell has submitted new plans to develop a huge gas field in the North Sea, six months after they were rejected by environmental regulators, in an attempt to help Britain become less dependent on foreign suppliers.
The FTSE 100 company said it wanted the Jackdaw field, about 250km east of Aberdeen, to start operating by 2025.
It argued it would make "a significant contribution to UK energy security" and could be developed with relatively low carbon emissions.
The submission comes as the Government encourages UK producers to increase output to reduce reliance on Russian oil and gas.
Boris Johnson will also meet on Monday with executives from companies involved with nuclear power, including Rolls-Royce, EDF and Westinghouse, about ways to boost Britain’s energy independence, Sky News reported.
Shell said it was "disappointed" last October when regulators knocked back its Jackdaw plans, days before the UK was due to host the Cop26 climate change conference in Glasgow.
About two months later Shell pulled out of the major Cambo proposed development west of Shetland, which had become a flashpoint for anti-fossil fuel campaigners.
The company blamed a weak economic case as well as the “the potential for delays” - widely interpreted as a nod to potential legal and regulatory entanglements.
In its submission about Jackdaw to the Oil and Gas Authority, Shell said: "We have been, and remain, determined to minimise the environmental effects of the Jackdaw development project, including by reducing atmospheric emissions.
"The Jackdaw project will form part of a wider integrated system that makes a significant contribution to UK energy security, and which Shell is working towards repurposing to facilitate significant future greenhouse gas emissions reductions."
About half of the UK's gas is produced domestically with the rest imported via pipelines from Norway and Europe or shipped in from countries including the US, Qatar and Russia.
Less than 3pc of the UK's gas comes directly from Russia and Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, wanted to exclude Russian gas imports altogether.
Both the UK and the US are banning imports of Russian oil and Mr Johnson is believed to want the EU to follow suit.
However, Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, has warned that an EU-wide ban on Russian oil and gas would tip economies including the UK's into recession and knock about 3pc off British GDP "straightaway", according to the Financial Times.
The Government has already had to intervene to soften the blow of climbing energy bills due to high wholesale gas prices, with households due a £150 rebate on council tax and a £200 rebate on energy bills.
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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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Jim Hansen and his twin
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