Poland: The Heartland Institute and Solidarity Labor Union Leaders Take Historic Steps to Oppose UN Climate Activism
Solidarity labor union leaders and The Heartland Institute signed an historic agreement Tuesday to work together to preserve conventional energy and individual freedom while opposing the United Nations’ oppressive climate change agenda.
In a pair of Joint Declarations (here and here) Solidarity’s National Secretariat for Mining and Energy, Solidarity’s Independent Self-Governing Trade Union for Individual Farmers, and three other prominent Polish trade unions joined The Heartland Institute in voicing serious concern that UN climate policies are destroying jobs, driving up the cost of living, and threatening precious personal freedoms that Solidarity fought so hard to win a generation ago from the Soviet communists occupying the Polish nation.
“In our view, such actions [to address the so-called climate crisis] aim solely to provoke widespread fear and a sense of threat, especially among young people, without finding – so far – confirmation in scientific research,” stated one of the declarations.
“The Parties declare mutual assistance in preparing for a referendum in which Poles will decide on the verification of suspension of the European Green Deal,” stated the second declaration. “The key actions in this area will include: preparing resources including analyses, assessments, forecasts, interviews, reports, and informational threads as well as securing international support from the strongest member states. Fully appreciating the Heartland Institute’s extensive experience in managing large international projects, we are convinced that such cooperation can significantly contribute to increasing the effectiveness of our joint actions in the future.”
This is not the first time Solidarity has called on Heartland’s expertise on climate and energy policy. Heartland and Solidarity signed similar declarations in Katowice, Poland, site of the 2018 United Nations Conference of the Parties on the Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Before and after the meetings, Solidarity officials introduced Heartland Institute President James Taylor to members of the Polish Parliament and Polish members of the European Union Parliament who share Heartland’s commitment to individual freedom.
“Fighting to advance climate realism in the face of a globalist climate-hysteria agenda is an international labor issue as well as a scientific, environmental, and economic issue,” said Taylor in Krakow. “After inviting me here to Poland, these union leaders emphasized how important it will be for Heartland to form and lead an alliance of organizations to fight for common-sense climate policy. I vow that Heartland will not let them down and we will provide as much information and leadership as humanly possible.”
Also, during the meetings, Solidarity advisors requested permission to translate and publish a Polish-language version of Heartland’s groundbreaking informational book, Climate at a Glance for Teachers and Students. Climate at a Glance provides concise, compelling climate-realist summaries of 30 frequently discussed topics related to climate change, such as hurricanes, droughts, coral reefs, etc. The book is also publicly available for free in digital format and as a free smart-phone app. Heartland will work with its Polish allies to make a Polish-language version speedily available in Poland.
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EV Owners Have Big Carbon Footprints
A recent report in the Daily Mail shows that while electric vehicle owners may virtue-signal by crowing about their green credentials, especially wealthy elites and celebrities, their carbon dioxide footprints are larger than those of most average folks who still drive vehicles that use gasoline and diesel for fuel. The Daily Mail reports:
Researchers from the University of Turku, Finland, found that on average EV drivers actually have a bigger carbon footprint than drivers who own petrol or diesel cars.
While their cars might cut down on emissions, the researchers say that EV owners’ glitzier lifestyles mean they contribute more to climate change overall.
The average EV owner churns out half a tonne more CO2 per year with owners of the sportiest models producing almost two tonnes more pollution.
The researchers surveyed almost 4,000 Finnish people about their car ownership, background and lifestyle.
The participants also provided answers about their housing, transport, and purchasing habits to estimate their carbon footprint.
Overall, someone who owned an internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) which runs on petrol or diesel created 8.05 tonnes of CO2 or equivalent greenhouse gases per year.
Considering that environmental concerns are a major reason for purchasing an electric vehicle you might expect EV owners’ emissions to be lower.
However, the average EV driver actually has a slightly larger carbon footprint than those who opt for cars powered by fossil fuels, producing 8.66 tonnes of emissions per year.
Owners of low-end EVs, smaller or less-expensive vehicles, who were less concerned about performance and reliability, had smaller carbon footprints than non-EV owners and EV owners concerned about those two factors. The owners of low-end EVs were also the smallest category of EV owners. Most EV owners are in the top income bracket. The average income of households with EVs in Europe was more than double the average income of households in the U.K.
According to the research, published in PLOS CLIMATE, the EV owners’ higher carbon footprint is a result of their lifestyle: multiple vehicles, including internal combustion engine vehicles, with the EV being a second or show vehicle; more travel; larger homes; multiple homes; more spending on nonessential goods, etc.
“Prior research has established that income is the strongest predictor of carbon footprint as higher income is associated with larger homes as well as more travel and consumption,” the researchers write. “’Since EV households tend to have a high income, their total carbon footprint is also above average.”
On this point the Daily Mail notes,
It’s no secret that the rich and famous who have most vocally championed electric vehicles are among some of the biggest individual polluters. This is especially true for those celebs who still enjoy flying around the world on their private planes. During a single four-hour flight, a single private jet can produce more than eight tonnes of CO2—more than the average person produces in an entire year.
Additionally, those who owned EVs typically owned more cars and reported driving significantly further than those who owned cars powered by petrol or diesel. On average, EV users drove 18,640 miles (30,000 km) which was more than double the 8,800 miles (14,200 km) covered by non-EV drivers.
https://heartland.org/opinion/climate-change-weekly-522-ev-owners-have-big-carbon-footprints/
*******************************************Heartland Institute Applauds Louisiana Governor’s Declaration Supporting Natural Gas
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry on Wednesday issued a proclamation urging the Biden/Harris administration to “withdraw unlawful and senseless rules and regulations not authorized by Congress” that he said are leading to higher energy costs for Louisianans.
In Proclamation 68, Gov. Landry also announced that Louisiana “opposes efforts to limit, delay, or ban the approval of new and existing liquified natural gas export facilities in Louisiana” and across America. Landry, while endorsing an “all of the above” national energy strategy, also urged the Biden/Harris administration to “remove barriers to the production of natural gas.”
The following statement by Cameron Sholty, director of government relations at The Heartland Institute, may be used for attribution.
“Louisiana has all the pieces of the puzzle to be an economic power house and this move by Governor Landry sets the stage for a Louisiana Renaissance,” Sholty said.
“Affordable, reliable, clean energy is the most important input for economic growth from which prosperity flows. We hope the legislature in 2025 follows suit and capitalizes on the state’s abundant resources to bring opportunity to Pelican Staters.”
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The Irrationality of Western Energy Policies
What leads a country to begin winding down domestic oil and gas production while promoting the use of imported wood for power generation?
What leads policymakers to shut down a nation’s last and still-functional coal generating power plant after almost 150 years of using coal and within months arrive at a situation where blackout prevention notices have to be issued to its power generators?
The U.K. is by no means the only Western country to go down this perverse path of deindustrialisation and national economic suicide. Why are energy policies of leading Western countries afflicted by magical thinking and irrationality?
The Western World is in a hypnotic trance from 30 years of relentless propaganda pushing climate alarmism.
Energy Policy Mayhem
Evidence abounds of the mayhem that passes for energy policy in the West. It is only appropriate to start with Germany, the epicentre of the green trance that policymakers there have been hypnotised into. This follows decades of worship in the ‘Church of Climate‘ by the media and intellectual chattering class.
Let’s start with the destruction of thousands of acres of ancient Teutonic forests – the setting for the folktales of the brothers Grimm — to make way for wind farms. The irony is lost on Germany’s green ideologues that their energy policies threaten endangered species of birds and bats in their sacrifice at the altar of Mother Gaia. Consecrating thousands of eco-crucifixes with arms of petroleum-based glass-fibre-reinforced polyester resins manufactured in Chinese furnaces fuelled by coal or natural gas may seem particularly absurd to those not steeped in that miasma of green ideology.
Other examples of Germany’s green lunacy include the shutting down of the country’s nuclear power plants, only to then approve putting dirty lignite-fired power plants back online for German households to keep warm in the winter of 2022-23.
Adding to the economic gloom afflicting the country for the past two years, Reuters reported in July that the economy is expected to contract by 0.2% in 2024 from a previous projection of an anaemic 0.3% growth. It strains credulity to call this an “unexpected” contraction as the news wire does.
Irina Slav puts it succinctly:
In case anyone’s wondering how the least surprising thing ever could be described as surprising, that’s because economists and analysts did not expect the contraction and as we all know economists — and analysts — can never be wrong, especially when they’re actively turning a blind eye on obvious developments such as the cause-and-effect relationship between cost of energy and economic growth.
Let’s turn to other absurdities. We recently learned that in the wisdom of Scandinavian planners, dairy farmers in Denmark face having to pay an annual tax of 672 krone ($96) per cow “for the planet-heating emissions they generate”. This policy proposal came in the wake of widespread farmers’ protests in Europe which escalated across the width and breadth of the continent, from Sweden to Spain, Poland to Portugal, since they first started in the Netherlands in October 2019.
The Great European Farmer Revolt led to the shocking win in March 2023 by the populist Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) in the Netherlands, putting it ahead of the governing party in the Senate. In a reaction to Left-wing green parties in Government, farmers became an important part of the equation in the country’s political future. As part of the EU Green Deal to make agriculture consistent with being “carbon-neutral” by 2050, Brussels’ bureaucrats assured citizens that their farms would be rendered more “sustainable”, “environmentally friendly” and “biodiverse”.
Perhaps the pride of place belongs to Ed Milliband (“Mad Ed”), the U.K.’s Secretary of State for the oxymoronically-named Department of Energy Security and Net Zero. U.K.’s “Net Zero” policies, pursued by both the Conservatives, in power for 14 years, and the new Labour Government, have compromised the country’s energy security like nothing else. In Mad Ed’s short time in the office, the country’s last coal plant and its Port Talbot steel plant have been shut down, regulatory approvals for solar farms were rushed through over the heads of local community objections and the North Sea’s oil and gas field developments have been sacrificed to Greenpeace’s climate lawsuit.
Unsurprisingly, it was reported in July that Britain fell out of the top 10 manufacturing nations list for the first time. Mr. Miliband’s decision not to challenge a lawsuit filed by Greenpeace has compromised the country’s investment environment. According to Brendon Long, Director of Research at investment company Zeus Capital, Mr. Miliband’s decision would put wider investment in Britain at risk. He said:
London has fallen out of the top 10 capital markets in terms of monies raised from initial public offerings. That might reflect that financial markets are increasingly concerned with the U.K. as a jurisdiction that values and defends property rights and the sanctity of honouring agreements made.
To be fair to Mad Ed, some of these developments were already in train during the previous Tory Government’s term of office. Nevertheless, he has built up a CV that would be the envy of the wildest Left-wing Brussels bureaucrat.
But most egregious in the Labour Government’s short record of rule is its move to cut winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners while pledging nearly £22bn for projects in unproven technologies to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions. Rubbing salt into the wound, Ed Miliband insisted in July that Labour will honour its pledge of £11.6bn in overseas climate aid.
It is not much better across the pond. President Biden’s promised to make climate change front and centre of his administration’s policies across the whole of Government. This has been followed by the duplicitously-named Inflation Reduction Act, which unleashes a debt-driven tsunami of subsidies on favoured industries – solar, wind, EVs, batteries, hydrogen. I have written on Biden’s fractured and contradictory energy policies elsewhere (here, here and here).
Models Not Fit For Purpose
These absurd and immiserating “Net Zero” policies of the West imposed at great cost to ordinary working men and women are justified by the true believers in the Church of Climate by invocations of the “climate crisis”. Mr. Miliband and his ilk would respond along the lines that when the house is on fire, you don’t muck about but do “whatever it takes”. Doubtless, the lockdown and vaccination mandates imposed by “experts” in response to Covid would be offered as an example.
These twin hysterias – Covid and climate – share much in common. Both spring from not-fit-for-purpose and impossible to validate computer models that escalated alleged risks on flimsy assumptions. An infamous March 16th 2020 bombshell report by Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, London, warned of 510,000 deaths in the country if the country did not immediately adopt a ruthless Covid suppression strategy.
By March 25th, Ferguson’s prediction of half a million fatalities in the U.K. was adjusted downward to “unlikely to exceed 20,000”, a reduction by a factor of 25. This drastic reduction was credited to the U.K.’s lockdown, imposed two days previously. It was later found that Dr. Ferguson’s model was not fit for purpose.
Much as Ferguson’s model drove governments to impose Covid lockdowns affecting nearly three billion people on the planet, Professor Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” model was used by the UN’s IPCC, mainstream media and politicians to push the man-made global warming (now called climate change or climate crisis) hysteria over the past two decades. But like Prof. Ferguson’s model, Dr. Mann’s work has been cited by credible scientists as more in keeping with junk science.
Yet these hysterias prove irresistible for governments which love to accumulate power, activist academics in search of research grants and Left-wing billionaire foundations that support the vast climate industrial complex. The great essayist H.L. Mencken had this to say about governments:
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
Yet it would be naïve to view the climate industrial complex as a vast conspiracy. Steve Koonin in his book Unsettled offers a more plausible explanation, seeing a “self-reinforcing alignment of perspectives and interests” among governments doing practical politics à la Mencken, hubristic academics ‘saving the planet’, grifting NGOs, businesses eager for crony capitalist rents, intellectuals virtue-signalling their luxury beliefs and the mass of followers who make the mistake of believing what they’re told.
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/10/19/the-irrationality-of-western-energy-policies/
***************************************All my main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
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https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
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http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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