Thursday, September 07, 2023


Biden moves to block oil drilling in Alaskan wilderness

The Biden administration moved to ban oil drilling in a swath of Alaskan wilderness, including cancelling all remaining oil and gas leases issued in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge under the previous administration.

The announcement on Wednesday comes after the Biden administration approved the Willow oil-drilling project in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve earlier this year over the objections of many Democrats and environmentalists.

The Interior Department’s proposed regulation would bar new oil or gas leasing on 4.3 million hectares, or more than 40 per centof the National Petroleum Reserve. The reserve is a 9.3 million hectare area managed by the department.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said she also authorised the cancellation of seven oil and gas leases issued by the Trump administration in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The leases had been suspended in 2021.

“As the climate crisis warms the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the world, we have a responsibility to protect this treasured region for all ages,” President Joe Biden said in a statement on Wednesday.

Senator Lisa Murkowski (Republican, Alaska) criticised the decision, suggesting it was driven by politics rather than sound policy.

“It just kind of sends a signal that when it comes to Alaska, it depends on the whim of an administration,” Senator Murkowski said. “But that’s not coherent, in my view.”

Politicians in Washington have been looking for a way forward on energy policy as they grapple with concerns over overseas threats, high prices and climate change. While the Biden administration has tried to strike a balance on oil drilling, Republicans have consistently pushed for increased energy production.

A GOP-authored bill that passed the House of Representatives in March would boost oil and gas production and accelerate new projects by streamlining environmental reviews, though it isn’t expected to move forward in the Democratic Party-controlled Senate.

Republican 2024 presidential hopefuls have made the same case for expediting production. “This isn’t that complicated, guys, unlock American energy, drill, frack, burn coal and embrace nuclear,” entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said at last month’s GOP primary debate in Milwaukee. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he would “open up all energy production.” The approval of the Willow project earlier this year allowed Houston-based ConocoPhillips to go ahead with the roughly $US7bn ($11bn) project in the National Petroleum Reserve. At its peak, the company expects to produce 180,000 barrels of oil a day there.

The new actions by the Biden administration don’t impact the Willow project, which won the support of the oil-and-gas industry and Alaska’s congressional delegation, as well as many Alaskans.

The reserve was originally established in 1923 for the US Navy, and was later transferred to the Interior Department in 1976. The isolated region in northwest Alaska is home to caribou, polar bears and walruses. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, while similar in size at about 7.7 million hectares, is in northeast Alaska and is managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. About the size of South Carolina, the refuge has no roads and was established in 1960.

Following the new rule proposed for the reserve Wednesday, there will be a 60-day public comment period. A draft of a supplemental environmental impact statement related to the cancelled leases will also be available for public comment.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/the-wall-street-journal/biden-moves-to-block-oil-drilling-in-alaskan-wilderness/news-story/aea66409eeabe2b606f43b24c823dcad

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British Conservatives warn government's pursuit of ‘cultish’ eco-policies could see customers paying more/div>

Conservative MPs have warned that the flagship Energy Bill is a “recipe for energy disaster” and risks making customers pay more to deliver “cultish” eco-policies.

Former business secretary Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg was among a group of Tories who pressed ministers to “keep people with us” and avoid “undue burdens” while reforming the energy sector and pursuing net-zero emissions targets.

The Bill seeks to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, unlock investment in low-carbon energy technologies, increase resilience and produce more energy in the UK, and lower energy bills in the longer term.

The Government avoided a potential rebellion from some of its backbenchers by announcing ahead of Tuesday’s report stage debate that planning permission for onshore wind farms was to be relaxed.

Energy minister Andrew Bowie also confirmed changes to remove the proposed hydrogen levy on households and said the Government will explore the potential of renewable liquid heating fuel for heat by issuing a consultation within 12 months.

But several Tory MPs expressed concerns over the wider impact of the Bill and suggested it risks going too far too soon.

The Bill cleared the Commons after MPs voted 280 to 19, majority 261, to approve it at third reading – although the division list showed nine Tory MPs, including Sir Jacob, rebelled to oppose it.

Another rebel Craig Mackinlay, chairman of the backbench Tory Net Zero Scrutiny Group, told the Commons: “I have to say, I absolutely despise this Bill.”

On the plans that could see property owners who fail to comply with new energy efficiency rules facing prison, he said: “I do feel that when we create criminal penalties in this place, it is a duty that it is discussed properly that we put our fellow citizens potentially in prison for 12 months for an unknown offence of the future relating to net zero.

“This is going to be the first time that we are potentially criminalising people in this country for not being adherent to this new code of net zero. We should not be doing this lightly.”

The MP for South Thanet also argued the Bill will “drive even more of our high-energy businesses offshore and China will be very pleased that they can sell us more solar panels and wind turbines based on their steel that are being produced on the back of very cheap coal power”.

He went on: “This is a recipe for not energy security, this is a recipe for energy disaster and I could talk at length about what is wrong with the net-zero proposals, banning cars, banning oil boilers, banning this, banning that, that’s not what we do as Conservatives.

“We actually allow freedoms, we allow the market to decide and this Bill goes in the wrong direction.”

Sir Jacob said several amendments tabled by Mr Mackinlay sought to “ameliorate the burden this Bill is placing on all of our constituents”, adding: “Throughout this Bill, we are creating cost and regulation and penalties and obligations.”

He added: “We need to keep people with us and we risk losing them if we put undue burdens on them.”

Sir John Redwood, another Tory former minister, said: “The wish to carry through a great electrical revolution is going to require a lot of goodwill from the British people.

“My worry about this legislation is that it may antagonise them by being unduly restrictive and particularly by the threat of civil and even criminal penalties on some of their conduct.

“We need to persuade people that the green products are going to be cheaper, better, more acceptable and make a more general contribution, we shouldn’t be trying to bamboozle them.”

Richard Drax, Tory MP for South Dorset, said the “green revolution is coming”, but added: “We cannot impoverish our country to meet some, well, I’d like to call it in some cases almost cultish policy … until we can afford it, until it works, that’s when I think we should adopt all these policies.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/business/tory-mps-warn-pursuit-of-cultish-ecopolicies-could-see-customers-paying-more-b2405396.html
 
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‘Horrific - completely offensive!’ Outrage as Britons risk jail for breaking Net Zero rules

Pressure is mounting on Rishi Sunak over his Energy Bill that could lead to legal ramifications for homeowners across the country.

A group of MPs from his own party are set to rebel, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, as they cite draconian measures which could impact many, possibly even leading to jail terms.

Another disavowing Tory MP is Craig Mackinlay, who dubbed the bill “horrendous” in a scathing rant on GB News.

He added the bill could result in homeowners facing jail time for breaking new rules which all come as a part of the drive for net zero.

“I think it’s a horrendous bill”, he said.

“It’s 379 pages, there’s 144 pages of amendments, many of them in my name. It’s a bill of yesteryear, it was founded on Boris who certainly drunk the Kool-Aid on many of these environmental issues.

“This is a truly horrific bill. It allows all sorts of intrusive powers to tell you exactly what you must and mustn’t do.

“I would rather it was scrapped and we start again.”

Mackinlay told Andrew Pierce and Bev Turner that a specific clause relating to sanctions could spell grave consequences for those who break new rules.

He said: “I’m particularly concerned about clause 248. It’s helpfully called sanctions.

“Under section two there are civil penalties, up to £15,000 for not doing the right thing on net zero.

“It’s even worse in clause and subsection three - energy performance regulations may provide for criminal offences with imprisonment for up to 12 months.”

According to The Telegraph, the Energy Bill will allow councils the right to be able to build proposed wind farms if there is community support.

https://www.gbnews.com/politics/homeowner-jail-net-zero-rishi-sunak-jail-latest

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What is mis-dis in climate change debate?

Speaking in Suva in July 2022, Anthony Albanese declared a climate emergency in the Pacific. This came after joining regional leaders in Fiji to warn Australia’s neighbours face an immediate threat to their security and wellbeing. Pacific islands were sinking under rising sea levels, claimed the islands.

But back in January 2021, ABC News had reported new research that found hundreds of islands in the Pacific are growing in land size. Sticking stubbornly to the climate alarmist playbook like most politicians, the Prime Minister appears to give cover to those agitating for ever more draconian actions through misinformation about climate change.

At last count, a global network of over 1,600 scientists and professionals had signed the CLINTEL Climate Declaration stating there is no climate emergency. Climate Intelligence (CLINTEL) is an independent foundation that operates in the fields of climate change and climate policy. CLINTEL was founded in 2019 by emeritus professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and science journalist Marcel Crok.

The persistent climate alarmism, now at ‘global boiling’ hysteria level, is one of the most pernicious elements of discussion in the public square. How would fact-checkers in the proposed new world of mis-dis laws deal with the diametrically opposed views within not just politics but science itself? The ruling orthodoxy as espoused by government is based on science that is still largely a science of computer simulations. The reality is, as often emphasised by scientists not captured by the orthodoxy or reliant on it, climate science is full of wicked problems; uncertainty not consensus is the dominant status.

When tech giant Meta suspended its partnership with FactLab at the beginning of September 2023, some took that as a public indication of how risky it is to have fact-checking as a fixture of media oversight. That relationship break-up was over apprehended bias in regards to fact-checking amidst the Voice referendum discussions online. Climate change is a topic ripe for such controversial procedures. The disparaging of and billion dollar funding for climate alarm orthodoxy skews the integrity of fact checking carried out on behalf of the ruling orthodoxy.

What would fact-checkers make, say, of geology Professor Ian Plimer’s observation that, ‘Annual human emissions (3 per cent of the total) of carbon dioxide [in the atmosphere] are meant to drive global warming. This has never been shown. If it could be shown, then it would also have to be shown that natural emissions (97 per cent) don’t drive global warming.’ The 3 per cent of the total of 0.04 per cent of carbon dioxide, 0.0012 per cent, is what climate alarmists tell politicians is frying the planet. (That 97 per cent from natural sources includes outgassing from the ocean, decomposing vegetation and other biomass, venting volcanoes, naturally occurring wildfires, and belches from ruminant animals.)

‘When a society loses the desire to know the truth, that is a precursor to totalitarianism,’ observed author, Holocaust survivor, and political philosopher Hanna Arendt (1906–1975). And the truth is not going to be revealed by mis-dis fact checkers who are powered by authority to enforce the ruling orthodoxy.

It is indeed loudly broadcast disinformation that perpetrated the absurdity of climate alarmism in the first place. The unreliability of global warming enthusiasts was demonstrated long ago when Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, was criticised in October 2007 by a high court judge in Britain who highlighted what he said were ‘nine scientific errors’ in the film. The mistakes identified mainly deal with the predicted impacts of climate change, and include Gore’s claims that a sea-level rise of up to 6 metres would be caused by melting in either west Antarctica or Greenland ‘in the near future’. The judge said: ‘This is distinctly alarmist and part of Mr Gore’s ‘wake-up call’.’ He accepted that melting of the ice would release this amount of water ‘but only after, and over, millennia’.

How would mis-dis fact checkers deal with that part of the story?

The zealotry of climate and energy minister Chris Bowen, for example, helps propel any fact-checker to equal zealotry, ignoring the thousands of scientists who have nothing to gain by challenging the orthodoxy.

Dr Richard Lindzen, former MIT Professor of Atmospheric Science and past IPCC contributor, says: ‘The narrative of climate alarm … is pretty absurd. Many people (though by no means all) have great difficulty entertaining this possibility. They can’t believe that something so absurd could gain such universal acceptance.’

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/09/what-is-mis-dis-in-climate-change-debate/

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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)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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