Exploiting Calamities And Climate To Push Socialism

.
.
Unfortunately ‘the science’ of the climate is at most a sideshow in political circles.

PA Pundits - International

By Dr. Jay Lehr and Tom Harris~

It should be no surprise to our readers that climate change was never a scientific issue, though politicians and well—financed scientists promoted it as such. It has always been a political movement aimed at increasing the size of government and installing a Socialist system. Such a system would eliminate individual freedom while enhancing the control of the elites to achieve their ultimate goal: power over the people.

It was a very transparent plan: convince the public that life—giving carbon dioxide is a danger to humanity and that, were the Earth to be a few degrees warmer, disaster would necessarily follow. You buy this dystopian fantasy and you give your government control of the very breathe you exhale, the number of children you are allowed and every kilowatt of energy your life may consume. As fantastically absurd as this fiction is, those who…

View original post 760 more words

Shellenberger: On behalf of environmentalists, I apologize for the climate scare

Earth and climate – an ongoing controversy

An IPCC reviewer says the public have been misled. Whether self-styled environmentalists go along with this is debatable of course. Cynics may say the writer has a book to sell, but an opinion piece in Forbes carries some weight. The definition of climate change is left open to interpretation.
– – –
On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years, says Michael Shellenberger @ Forbes [pdf link].

Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world.

It’s not even our most serious environmental problem.

IPCC and Sceptics Agree: Climate Change Is Not Causing Extreme Weather

Climate theory used to hold that there was a link between the amount of extreme weather and the equator-pole temperature gradient, meaning that warming poles should mean less of it, not more. But nowadays almost anything unusual can be labelled extreme weather by alarmists, creating headlines but no understanding of the climate.
– – –
A new Global Warming Policy Foundation report from retired physicist Ralph Alexander, Ph.D. (Oxford University) supports the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s conclusion there is limited scientific evidence linking human-caused climate change to increases in extreme weather, says H.Sterling Burnett.

Alexander’s conclusions are also confirmed by recent documents produced by Heartland Institute Senior Fellow and meteorologist Anthony Watts on the Climate at a Glance website.

Alexander’s paper begins by remarking, “The purported link between extreme weather and global warming has captured the public imagination and attention of the mainstream media far more than any of the other claims made by the narrative of human-caused climate change.”

This is odd because data and analyses from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.N. body that climate alarmists in academic, political, and media circles continually cite as the authoritative source of information on climate change, confirm that “if there is any trend at all in extreme weather, it’s downward rather than upward.

Our most extreme weather, be it heat wave, drought, flood, hurricane or tornado, occurred many years ago, long before the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere began to climb at its present rate,” writes Alexander.

“Recent atmospheric heat waves in western Europe,” writes Alexander, “pale in comparison with the soaring temperatures of the 1930s, a period when three of the seven continents and 32 of the 50 US states set all-time high temperature records, which still stand today.”

Nor has the IPCC discerned or identified any long-term trend in drought patterns, either in the United States or globally.

And even though rainfall has modestly increased in recent years, there is no evidence floods are becoming more frequent or severe.

Many recent flood events can be traced almost entirely to land-use changes such as channelization, deforestation, the destruction of wetlands, and the building of dams, Alexander notes.

Continued here.

Journalist claims carbon dioxide is ‘slowly but surely killing us all’

Electric ferry Ellen [image credit: Erik Christensen @ Wikipedia]

No evidence is offered, of course. The article is about an electric ferry, but the temptation to lapse into lurid climate propaganda was obviously too great. As for the ferry, the article implies the batteries will last for 30 years, which looks ambitious to say the least.
– – –
Ellen, Denmark’s first all-electric ferry, has completed its first 10 months of revenue service, reports CleanTechnica.

Passengers like its silent running and absence of diesel fumes.

The operator likes that it costs less to run than a diesel-powered ferry.

Delingpole: Britain Unleashes a Green New Deal to Kill What’s Left of the Economy

Green blob [credit: storybird.com]

Unsurprisingly the author is not impressed with the UK government’s plans for a post-COVID job creation scheme. Where’s the wealth creation in subsidised jobs within subsidised industries?

The Chancellor has found an ingenious scheme to ensure the UK never recovers from the lockdown: a ‘green industrial revolution’, says James Delingpole @ Breitbart News.

According to The Times of London:

Hydrogen cars won’t overtake electric vehicles – due to laws of science

Hydrogen-powered Toyota Mirai [image credit: Nikkei Asian Review]

A tank of hydrogen is obviously lighter than an equivalent fixed-weight battery pack, and filling up is much quicker than any recharge, but in many ways hydrogen cars struggle to compete, according to The Conversation. Very few manufacturers are interested in them any more, and list prices look higher even than EVs.
– – –
Hydrogen has long been touted as the future for passenger cars.

The hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV), which simply runs on pressurised hydrogen from a fuelling station, produces zero carbon emissions from its exhaust.

It can be filled as quickly as a fossil-fuel equivalent and offers a similar driving distance to petrol.

Climate Wars: David v. Goliath in Cyberspace

The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) brings this critique of the big beasts of social media to our attention. Fake impartiality and bullying tactics get exposed again.
– – –
Silicon Valley Goliaths, using the technology and market forces at their disposal, have shut out of the marketplace Davids opposed to their preferred opinions on climate change, says Clarice Feldman @ The Pipeline.

In his 2007 book, An Army of Davids, Glenn Reynolds, the founder of Instapundit, wrote optimistically that an army of ordinary people (“Davids”) could use technology and the market to beat the Goliaths of “Big Media, Big Government and other Goliaths.”

Thirteen years later, big media is on the ropes but the Silicon Valley Goliaths, using the technology and market forces at their disposal, have shut out of the marketplace Davids opposed to their preferred opinions.

Following Arrhenius on global warming

Svante Arrhenius

The eternal question – was the Arrhenius climate theory erroneous? Still looking for convincing evidence of it, the author concludes.
– – –
But he did change his mind …

This 1912 newspaper article (here) shows that a century ago the worthy citizens of Warkworth were followers of Svante Arrhenius’s new theory that global warming would be caused by mankind’s emissions of greenhouse gases, says Richard Treadgold @ Climate Conversation (NZ).

Forty years earlier Tyndall had identified CO2 as a greenhouse gas.

Arrhenius followed up with newly available data in 1896 and calculated that doubling CO2 would increase temperatures by 5°C or 6°C. In 1906 he reduced it to 4.0°C.

Calls to add ‘climate change’ to Australian death certificates

Tasmanian bush fire, 2013 [image credit: Chuq @ Wikipedia]

Climate alarmists yet again strain credulity to the limit, no doubt hoping to stir up guilt in the populace about energy use.
– – –
Heat-related deaths have been “substantially underreported” on Australia’s national records, according to experts from The Australian National University (ANU).  

Researchers say the amount of deaths attributed to excessive natural heat is at least 50 times more than recorded on death certificates.  

Published in The Lancet Planetary Health, figures show over the past 11 years 340 deaths in Australia were recorded as being due to excessive heat but statistical analysis found 36,765 deaths could have been attributed to heat.

“Climate change is a killer, but we don’t acknowledge it on death certificates,” co-author Dr Arnagretta Hunter, from the ANU Medical School, said.

The pivot from Covid to climate is starting – Joe Bastardi

Some more inconvenient data and discussion from an experienced and well-known meteorologist. Planting more trees may as he proposes be useful, but so might chopping down fewer of them for biomass burning and wind turbine land clearances.

I believe that as the COVID-19 situation diminishes, a major pivot to man made climate change as the major driver of impending doom will come front and center, says Joe Bastardi.

Perhaps I will be wrong, but the naming of AOC by Joe Biden as an advisor on how to fight climate change, to me, was the first signal this is going to happen.

This is an insensitive tactic, since the misery of Covid-19 is real, immediate, and loaded with great uncertainty. Future generations can opine on the result of the measures taken to combat it. Yet, as I wrote back in March:

Covid-19 and climate false equivalencies

Climate change accused of being deadlier than Covid 19 — Fact check

and the foundation for this was being set for the turn we are seeing now.

Planet Of The Greens

Standard green response to criticism: ‘Shoot the messenger!’ They like to travel around the world telling people it’s a bad idea to travel around so much, due to some flaky climate theory.
– – –
Attempts by eco-activists to censor and shut down Planet of the Humans reveals the green movement’s authoritarian nature that turns most aggressively on its own apostates.

Jeff Gibbs’ and Michael Moore’s new film, Planet of the Humans has been watched more than eight million times, says The GWPF.

It has cast doubt on the green movement’s claims to be concerned with the environment and questions the motivations and integrity of its leaders and backers.

In reply, environmental activists have attacked Moore and Gibbs, and called for their film to be censored.

Charles Moore: Lockdown is showing us the misery that Net Zero will demand

Nairobi traffic

The problem, as climate alarmists see it, is of course that ’emissions will rebound’ when something like normal economic activity eventually resumes. The author says: “And why will economies recover? Because growth is a function of activity, and activity is made possible by energy, and globally energy remains about 85 per cent dependent on fossil fuels.” Leaving the usual conundrum for CO2 demonisers of how to strangle fossil fuel use without strangling the modern economies we rely on, and/or imposing yet more restrictions on citizens but this time using climate as the excuse.
– – –
Eco-politics succeeds only with voters who feel guilty about being rich. Covid-19 will put paid to that, says Charles Moore via The GWPF.

Roger Harrabin, the BBC’s evangelically green environment analyst, recently wrote this on his employer’s website:
“I’ve just had a light bulb moment. The feisty little wren chirping loudly in the matted ivy outside my back door is telling us something important about global climate change. That’s because, intertwined with the melodious notes of a robin, I can actually hear its song clearly. Normally, both birds are muffled by the insistent rumble of traffic, but the din has been all but extinguished in the peace of lockdown.”

USA Today Pushes Climate Panic

.
.
Is there a legal limit to the more outlandish claims of climate alarmists, or if not, why not?

PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

I recently described the all too often case where extreme computer modeling results feed the media into then feeding a public panic. A cascade of mindless fear. See my https://www.cfact.org/2020/04/27/tale-of-two-panics-covid-climate/.

USA Today has now provided a perfect example of promoting model based panic.

Here is their panicky title: “Unsuitable for ‘human life to flourish’: Up to 3B will live in extreme heat by 2070, study warns“

Three billion people will live where humans cannot survive? Seriously? Will they become billions of climate refugees? That is the absurd idea, right?

USA Today is a trusted source for many people, but here they publish pure nonsensical alarmist speculation as accepted fact. Note that the headline does not say “study suggests”. No it is “study warns” as though this nonsense were real and something to act on. Perhaps a ten year lockdown is called for…

View original post 415 more words

IEA Projects Demand for Renewable Energy Surging Post-Pandemic While Fossil Fuels Collapse

Another rose-tinted glasses prediction from the climate alarm club. Wind and solar power are used to declining to zero output on a regular – or irregular – basis, unlike fuel sources of energy.

“Only renewables are holding up during the previously unheard-of slump in electricity use” – quotes news website Common Dreams.

A new report Thursday from the International Energy Agency projects a bleak year for fossil fuels but a banner 2020 for renewables as the coronavirus pandemic triggers “the biggest shock to the global energy system in more than seven decades.”

“This is a historic shock to the entire energy world,” Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said in a statement. “Amid today’s unparalleled health and economic crises, the plunge in demand for nearly all major fuels is staggering, especially for coal, oil, and gas. Only renewables are holding up during the previously unheard-of slump in electricity use.”

“It is still too early to determine the longer-term impacts,” he said, “but the energy industry that emerges from this crisis will be significantly different from the one that came before.”

Researchers: why relying on new technology won’t ‘save the planet’

The would-be planet savers imagine their mythical problem demands something more drastic than current efforts. Based on faulty climate assumptions their so-called solutions sound unpleasant, or worse. They propose ‘widespread deployment of both behavioural and technological responses’. You-must-obey type of thing.
– – –
Overreliance on promises of new technology to solve climate change is enabling delay, say researchers from Lancaster University.

Their research published in Nature Climate Change calls for an end to a longstanding cycle of technological promises and reframed climate change targets, says Phys.org.

Contemporary technological proposals for responding to climate change include nuclear fusion power, giant carbon sucking machines, ice-restoration using millions of wind-powered pumps, and spraying particulates in the stratosphere.

Almost half of UK drivers ‘consider EV switch in the wake of Covid-19’

How many were aware of the likely costs compared to fuel powered vehicles, before answering the questions? Improving urban air quality is no doubt a sound idea, but attempting to link EVs to climate – not so much.
– – –
A quarter of people say they will become an EV driver in the next five years, according to a new survey, reports Energy Live News.

Coronavirus is convincing people to buy electric vehicles (EVs) with 45% of UK drivers claiming they would consider swapping their current car for an EV in the wake of the pandemic.

That’s according to a new poll conducted by Venson Automotive Solutions, which reports the current lockdowns around the world and the radical improvement on air pollution as a result of the demobilisation of transport have a positive impact on people’s awareness of the benefits to the environment.

CLINTEL President Says Zero Carbon Is A Crime Against Humanity

.
.
Making electricity unreliable and expensive when it used not be — sounds idiotic, but seems to be the norm with climate-obsessed governments these days.

PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

I recently got an intriguing email from Professor Guus Berkhout, president of the Climate Intelligence Foundation or CLINTEL. It contained this striking paragraph and the last sentence really got me thinking:

“The past 150 years show that affordable and reliable energy is the key to prosperity. The past 150 years also show that more CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth and increasing the yields of crops. Why do governments ignore these hard facts? Why do they do the opposite and lower the quality of life by forcing high-cost, dubious low-carbon energy technologies upon their citizens? The zero-emission act is a crime against humanity.” (Emphasis added.)

So I looked into the law on crimes against humanity and Professor Berkhout may have a strong case. At its simplest, a crime against humanity is a government policy that systematically and knowingly harms a specific group…

View original post 668 more words

How Exactly Do They Plan To Replace Fossil Fuels? – OpEd

That’s easy – there is no plan. Plenty of bluster, arm-waving and rash promises though. But the realities of engineering, economics, logistics and so on can’t be wished away.
– – –
Berkeley, CA, Takoma Park, MD and other cities; California, Connecticut, New York, Virginia and other states; Germany, England and other countries; the European Union – all plan to banish oil, natural gas and coal within 10, 20 or 30 years, writes Paul Driessen @ Eurasia Review.

A number of US states have joined Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiatives and proudly say We Are Still In … the Paris climate treaty, no matter what President Trump says or does.

Forget the headlines and models, and look at hurricane, tornado, sea level and other historic records. There is no crisis, no unprecedented warming or weather events, certainly nothing that proves humans have replaced the powerful natural forces that have always driven climate changes and weather events.

EU Green Deal Should Be Canceled Because of Coronavirus, Czech PM Says

Not much chance of that in the absurdly climate-obsessed EU, but maybe a popular view in his home country given the massive costs and lack of worthwhile benefits of said ‘deal’.

Will COVID-19 be a reason to accelerate or slow Europe’s energy transition? The battle lines are already being drawn, says green Tech Media.

The Czech Republic’s prime minister, Andrej Babiš, has said the European Union should abandon its Green Deal and focus on fighting the spread of the coronavirus in an early sign of policy battles ahead.

Announced in December, Europe’s Green New Deal seeks to invest €1 trillion ($1.1 trillion) on the road to making the EU economy net-zero carbon by 2050.

UN Should Change Course On Climate

.
.
Many national economies are going to be under a lot of strain during and after the Coronavirus epidemic. Pouring fortunes into the bottomless climate money pit looks highly unlikely any time soon.

PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

The UN’s climate action machinery is on the verge to collapse, beginning this November in Glasgow, Scotland. This time the annual climate summit, called COP 26, is most likely to end in complete disarray, even more than COP 25 did last year in Madrid, Spain.

The failure of COP 25 was widely noted with sadness, but Madrid was a minor COP, with little of substance on the table. In contrast COP 26 is hugely important. When it fails, the UN has to rethink its entire approach to climate action.

One of the six principles stated in CLINTEL’s World Climate Declaration captures the situation very succinctly. It says “Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities.” If it does not, such a policy must fail. See https://clintel.org/world-climate-declaration/.

The scientific reality is that, as CLINTEL emphasizes, there is no climate emergency. The radicals insist that there…

View original post 663 more words