Congressional Democrats just admitted the US can’t afford the Green New Deal

Anyone thinking the benefit (?) would be a noticeable effect on global temperatures is going to be disappointed, as the article points out. Government-controlled climate is a fantasy, however much the exchequer is robbed.
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Democrats accidentally showed their hand by voting for a new loophole to the U.S. House of Representatives budget rules, says the Washington Examiner.

The “pay as you go” rule, which imposes a modicum of fiscal restraint by requiring spending increases to be accompanied by spending cuts to keep the national deficit from growing, now specifically excludes climate change-related bills.

In going forward with it, the House essentially admitted that we can’t afford the Green New Deal and that Democrats don’t want you to know how much it costs, either.

Carving out special treatment for big-government climate programs will give Congress license to spend with abandon on nominally eco-friendly initiatives without the slightest impact on climate change.

Biden Should Help Clean Up The Developing World’s Exotic Mining Tragedy

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Cobalt was declared as ‘reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen’ in 2016.

PA Pundits - International

By Ronald Stein ~

Reducing America’s emissions (if that’s your thing) is a major goal of President Elect Biden’s platform, but it should not be implemented by “leaking” environmental degradation and human atrocities to foreign countries that are supplying the exotic minerals and metals to support green electricity. Biden has an opportunity to follow the lead of the United Nations and Amnesty International as the efforts to achieve net zero emissions must not be built on human rights abuses or on non-existent environmental regulations in foreign countries.

Biden’s “war on pollution”, will require worldwide transparency of supply chains, and environmental and labor protection laws and standards to control the environmental degradation and humanity atrocities occurring around the world from the mining in the foreign countries that dominate the supply chain of the exotic minerals and metals to support wind turbines, solar panels and EV battery construction.

The dark side of…

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CCS can’t solve the climate crisis – new report

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This should have been obvious all along, but believers in human-caused climate warming are desperate to find ways of overcoming the intermittency of renewables.

DRILL OR DROP?

A study by climate scientists says carbon capture and storage (CCS) cannot meet the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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Removal of dairy cows would have minimal effect on ’emissions’, say researchers

Climate obsessives will have to find something else to try and bother the long-suffering public with.
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The dairy industry in the United States is massive, says AgriMarketing .

It supplies dietary requirements to the vast majority of the population.

This same industry also contributes approximately 1.58 percent of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

A commonly suggested solution to reduce greenhouse gas output has been to reduce or eliminate this industry in favor of plant production.

A team of Virginia Tech researchers wanted to uncover the actual impact that these cows have on the environment.

Freezing weather in Asia sends energy prices soaring, catching markets off guard

Chinese icebreaker

H/T The GWPF

Had those markets fallen into a computer-modelled global warming stupor? If so, real world weather has brought a rude awakening, requiring urgent actions to get the means of heating to millions of shivering people.
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China’s coldest winter in decades meant state-owned energy giant Sinopec was desperate to unload heating fuel from a vessel headed to a northern port, yet freezing temperatures that have swept parts of Asia froze a thick sheet of ice and blocked access, says Bloomberg.

With the help of an icebreaker ship and a cannon loaded with hot water, workers spent 20 hours clearing a pathway for the tanker to dock and discharge its cargo of liquefied natural gas in Tianjin.

White House Brochures on Climate (There is no climate crisis)

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The only climate crisis is the one in some people’s heads.

wryheat

 

[Wryheat note, the brochures linked to below were intended to be posted on the White House website, but since they are politically incorrect, the new administration will probably ban them.]

January 8th, 2021 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. (link to full post)

Late last year, several of us were asked by David Legates (White House Office of Science and Technology Policy) to write short, easily understandable brochures that supported the general view that there is no climate crisis or climate emergency, and pointing out the widespread misinformation being promoted by alarmists through the media.

Below are the resulting 9 brochures, and an introduction by David. Mine is entitled, “The Faith-Based Nature of Human Caused Global Warming”.

Introduction(Dr. David Legates)

The Sun Climate Connection(Drs. Michael Connolly, Ronan Connolly, Willie Soon)

Systematic Problems in the Four National Assessments of Climate Change Impacts on the US(Dr…

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The Earth has been spinning faster lately

In fact it’s unprecedented, in recent history at least. But 2021 is predicted to be even shorter.
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Scientists around the world have noted that the Earth has been spinning on its axis faster lately—the fastest ever recorded, says Phys.org.

Several scientists have spoken to the press about the unusual phenomenon, with some pointing out that this past year saw some of the shortest days ever recorded.

For most of the history of mankind, time has been marked by the 24-hour day/night cycle (with some alterations made for convenience as the seasons change). The cycle is governed by the speed at which the planet spins on its axis.

The crackdown on wrongthink: be prepared.

The big tech oligarchs have seized the moment and are purging social media platforms. The Twaliban have been suspending pro-Trump accounts (including the US president himself) and FakeSpook are following suit and forcing a new user agreement on WhatsApp users allowing Zuck to harvest their private data. Google and Apple have removed alternative chat platform Parler from their app stores.

A better, more secure messaging platform called Signal should now be used by people who care about free speech and privacy. More info in this article from Wired.

Storm Filomena: Spain sees ‘exceptional’ snowfall

Image credit: NewsNow

This is said to be the heaviest snow seen in Spain for at least 40 years. Who’s next?
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Storm Filomena has blanketed parts of Spain in heavy snow, with half of the country on red alert for more on Saturday, reports BBC News.

Madrid, one of the worst affected areas, is set to see up to 20cm (eight inches) of snow in the next 24 hours.

The city’s airport has closed along with a number of roads.

California is scrambling to avoid blackouts – not using the refrigerator could help

Solar power complex in California [USA. Gov – BLM – Bureau of Land Management]

Welcome to the inglorious green revolution, where the lives of ageing gas power plants have to be extended and various other mini ‘solutions’, some relying on equipment owned by individual citizens, have to be adopted in a frantic effort to keep the lights on. Of course none of this was necessary before renewables were deemed to be the future of electricity supply, in the vain hope of altering the climate. What’s next if these measures are not enough?
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Sometime next summer, there’s a decent chance a heat wave will bake the American West, and California’s power grid will again be stretched to its limits, says TechXplore.

As the sun sets, solar panels will start generating less electricity even as temperatures remain high.

Power plants that burn natural gas will fire up as quickly as possible, in a race to keep air conditioners blowing and avert the need for rolling blackouts.

But the fossil fuel won’t be alone in riding to the rescue.

As power supplies tighten, lithium-ion batteries—some connected to sprawling solar farms in the desert and others tucked away in household garages—will dispense electricity produced during the afternoon sunlight.

A small but growing number of household batteries will be part of coordinated networks, discharging in unison as dictated by the needs of the grid.

Meanwhile, millions of people will cut back on electricity use in their homes, in some cases because state officials asked nicely and in others because they’re getting paid to conserve.

First detection of a built-in wobble on another planet – Mars

Clouds on Mars [image credit: NASA]

Regarding the Earth’s equivalent Chandler wobble, Wikipedia says: ‘Since the Chandler wobble should die down in a matter of decades or centuries, there must be influences that continually re-excite it.’ Presumably the same will apply to Mars, but as relevant observations are all fairly recent no conclusion can be reached at present.
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Spacecraft find that Mars oscillates 10 centimeters off its axis of rotation, says Eos.

In a first for a solar system body other than Earth, scientists have detected the Chandler wobble on Mars, a repeated movement of the poles on the surface of the planet away from its average axis of rotation.

The Chandler wobble arises when a rotating body isn’t a perfect sphere. This imbalance affects its spin.

The result is a wiggle resembling that of a swaying top as it loses speed, rather than the smooth spin of a perfectly balanced globe.

Why are hundreds of Pacific Islands growing despite rising sea levels?

In the Maldives

Just as the late Nils-Axel Mörner, a lifelong sea levels researcher, explained in an interview about two years ago. Let’s hope the climate miserablists now give up on their ‘drowning islands’ nonsense.
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New research says hundreds of islands in the Pacific are growing in land size, even as climate change-related sea level rises threaten the region, says ABC News Australia.

Scientists at the University of Auckland found atolls in the Pacific nations of Marshall Islands and Kiribati, as well as the Maldives archipelago in the Indian Ocean, have grown up to 8 per cent in size over the past six decades despite sea level rise.

They say their research could help climate-vulnerable nations adapt to global warming in the future.

Avalanche warnings after heavy snowfalls in Austria, Italy

East Tyrol, Austria and the Dolomites

Yes, it’s winter. But this report says they’re checking the snowfall record books. Major skiing events have had to be cancelled or relocated. One area reported a metre of snow in 24 hours. Is this a one-off or a sign of things to come?
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Heavy snowfalls and rain have caused chaos in alpine Austria and northern Italy, reports DW.com.

Avalanche alerts apply in Austria’s East Tirol and Italy’s Dolomites and South Tirol. Italy’s Po river is among those flooded.

Austrian authorities declared avalanche alerts Sunday as heavy snowfalls blocked roads and rail segments and left thousands of homes without electricity.

Across Italy’s northern Emilia-Romagna region, rising rivers prompted evacuations as the north’s main conduit, the river Po, rose 2.5 meters (8 feet) in 24 hours.

U.S. Solar Industry Itching To Import Chinese Panels

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There may be a place for some use of solar panels, but replacing all fuel-burning power stations isn’t it.

PA Pundits - International

By Bonner Cohen, Ph.D. ~

The chief beneficiary of the incoming Biden administration’s climate agenda will be none other than the People’s Republic of China, the same outfit that brought the world COVID-19.

Purveyors of renewable energy are eager to take advantage of Biden’s pledge to move the U.S. from fossil fuels to renewable energy and are already taking legal action to smooth the transition. On December 29, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and solar-power developers, including NextEra Energy Inc. and Invenergy Renewables LLC, asked the U.S. Court of International Trade to issue an injunction prohibiting an October proclamation by President Trump that raised tariffs on imported solar equipment.

The Trump proclamation removed a tariff exemption on two-sided, or bifacial, solar panels, almost all of which are manufactured in China. As reported by Bloomberg (Dec. 29), the lawsuit contends the Trump administration “failed to follow the required procedures” before…

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UK urged to save Cop26 UN climate change summit in Glasgow

The greenblob is right to think ‘COP-speak’ is a big turn-off for the public, but that’s about all they get right. Trying to manipulate the Earth’s climate by demonising the minor trace gas carbon dioxide is a vastly expensive exercise in futility. Seeing hundreds of planes full of delegates arriving in Glasgow (if it happens) will undermine any little public credibility the COP exercise, supposedly about ’emissions’, might have. People may be even less impressed if/when delegates start arguing for semi-permanent forms of lockdown, in pursuit of their long-term agendas.
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UK ministers are under pressure to rescue the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (Cop26) in Glasgow this year amid concerns not enough energy is being poured into preparations for the crucial talks, reports The National News (N World).

Environmental experts warned the government must step up preparations after a report claimed at the weekend Business Secretary Alok Sharma offered to quit his government post to focus on his second responsibility as Cop26 president.

The November talks are seen as critical for accelerating global action towards meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Participating countries are expected to hammer out new emission reduction targets to limit global warming to well below 2°C.

Drought of the century in the Middle Ages: parallels to climate change today?

Drought in Europe

Climate alarmists would love to ‘get rid of the Medieval Warm Period’ (to quote a certain email), but it refuses to go away. Interestingly, the period under discussion here (1302-2018, or ~716 years) equates to four José cycles.
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The transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age was apparently accompanied by severe droughts between 1302 and 1307 in Europe; this preceded the wet and cold phase of the 1310s and the resulting great famine of 1315-21, says Eurasia Review.

In the journal Climate of the Past, researchers from the Leibniz Institutes for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) and Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) write that the 1302-07 weather patterns display similarities to the 2018 weather anomaly, in which continental Europe experienced exceptional heat and drought.

Both the medieval and recent weather patterns resemble the stable weather patterns that have occurred more frequently since the 1980s due to the increased warming of the Arctic.

According to the Leibniz researchers’ hypothesis based on their comparison of the 1302-07 and 2018 droughts, transitional phases in the climate are always characterized by periods of low variability, in which weather patterns remain stable for a long time.

Summer temperatures could rise faster in the UK than average global rates, researchers suggest

Bring it on. Average August temperature in London is 22C, and much of the UK is at cooler higher latitudes than London is. A long way to go to even get close to Mediterranean-style summers, and some ‘heat deaths’ could well be due to lack of air conditioning as much as the weather itself. Deaths from cold weather are more the issue in the UK. Researchers today like to assume that temperature trends go on forever in one direction, but forget the ‘experts’ were forecasting drastic global cooling back in the 1970s, after 30 years of lack of warming. A 40 year study period is short for claiming trends, hence words like ‘could’ and ‘projected’ to hedge their bets.
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The U.K. could be facing a future of extreme heatwaves according to a new study in which scientists mapped almost 40 years’ worth of trends to project what lies ahead, says Phys.org.

The study, published in Environmental Research Letters, draws on datasets from the Met Office’s U.K. Climate Projections, specifically UKCP18, which contains global climate model projections and simulations from around the world, as well as high resolution climate model projections on a local and regional scale for the U.K. and Europe.

Between 2016 and 2019 there were more than 3,400 excess deaths in England as a result of heatwaves.

Massachusetts will require all new cars sold be electric by 2035

Electric car charging station [credit: Wikipedia]

Climate fever is spreading, in the minds of political leaders at least. They forget, or don’t know, that most so-called greenhouse gas is water vapour – not carbon dioxide – so reducing ’emissions’ can make little difference to the total figures even if such a goal was useful, which is doubtful to say the least.
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On the last day of 2020, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and his administration shared a plan that will deal a major blow to fossil fuel automakers while severely cutting the state’s greenhouse-gas emissions in the next decade and beyond, says CleanTechnica.

These changes include the mandate that all new cars sold in the state will be electric by 2035, The Boston Globe reports.

Planet Earth has remained habitable for billions of years ‘because of good luck’, say researchers

Credit: earth.com

Greetings Earthlings, or should we say ‘habitable-zone-dwelling asteroid dodgers’? We even have the right amount of atmosphere — not too little (like Mars) or too much (like Venus), and the essential oxygen.
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Pure chance is the reason that Planet Earth has stayed habitable for billions of years.

A new study has found that it’s nothing more than good luck that has kept our world full of life, reports I-news.

Scientists at the University of Southampton have carried out a mass simulation of climate evolution of 100,000 randomly generated planets.

Each planet was simulated 100 times with random climate-altering events occurring each time in order to see if habitable life could be sustained for three billion years like on Earth.

2020 – what a year of climate alarmism tells us about green ideology

From: Ben Pile at Climate Resistance

Many climate alarmist’s failed predictions were centred around 2020. This video examines just ten, and argues that they were produced not by science, but by ideology.

This is proved by the fact that rather than suffering any consequences to their careers or public standing, fearmongering individuals and institutions enjoy continued and undeserved success.

The analysis of the ten predictions was produced by Steve Milloy and can be read at his website.
[Or via the Talkshop, here].