A monthly review of climate, energy, and environmental policy issues
Articles compiled by Jonathan DuHamel
IN THIS ISSUE:
We show how many current or proposed policies are detrimental to America; we show that the renewable energy fantasy goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 is impossible; and CO2 has many benefits: that clouds are the decisive drivers of our weather, our energy status and hence also our climate. We also review crazy climate policies.
STATE OF THE UNION
“Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their government, they will
find that their government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone,
and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized
and selfish interest.” —President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)
When fanatics are on top, there are no limits to oppression.” — H.L. Mencken
Biden’s Misguided Policies in State of the Union Address (link, 9 pages)
Fact-Checking 7 Claims in Biden’s State of the Union Address (link) ☼
Biden Proposal Puts Climate Agenda Above America’s Defense
by Travis Fisher & Maiya Clark
The Biden administration seems bent on forcing defense contractors to comply with new climate pledges instead of protecting Americans from our enemies.
At issue is a new rule called the “FAR Rule” that uses a change to the Federal Acquisition Regulations to bulldoze federal contractors—including defense contractors—into compliance with the Paris climate accords, also known as the Paris Agreement.
Regulations are notoriously boring, but the stakes are high: In fiscal year 2021, the federal government obligated $637 billion through contracts that were subject to Federal Acquisition Regulations.
The FAR Rule should be dropped because it weakens our national security, wasn’t authorized by Congress, skirts required rule-making procedures, and is so disruptive to the agencies involved that it likely triggers what’s called the Major Questions Doctrine.
The Congressional Research Service explains the doctrine thusly: “The Supreme Court has declared that if an agency seeks to decide an issue of major national significance, its action must be supported by clear congressional authorization.”
First and foremost, the FAR Rule risks turning defense contractors into just another tool of climate activists. The new regulation places the Department of Defense’s basic mission of national security second to climate change. Rather than helping arm America against growing threats from China, the rule requires major contractors to count their level of greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide and develop a plan to comply with the Paris climate accords.
(Read more) ☼
Social Security and Medicare Cuts Are Coming, Whether Politicians Do It or Not
As legislators refuse to act, benefits will be cut without any possibility of sheltering those seniors who are poor. by Veronique De Rugy (Read full article) ☼
Biden Admin Hobbles Its Own ‘Green’ Ambitions By Blocking Massive Mining Project
by Antonino Cambria, Daily Caller
The Biden administration is stymieing its own “green” energy efforts after the Interior Department announced the blocking of mining in parts of Northeast Minnesota for the next 20 years.
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland signed Public Land Order 7917, withdrawing 225,504 acres in the Superior National Forest from leasing to mining or geothermal companies through 2043, according to the department’s press release. The administration has canceled multiple mining projects over the past two years while prioritizing a green energy transition, which requires mining of critical minerals and metals. (Read more) ☼
Minnesota’s Duluth Complex has one of the world’s largest undeveloped mineral deposits, including copper, nickel and cobalt that are needed in vast quantities for EV batteries. Other mining projects in Minnesota, Arizona, Nevada, and Alaska have been stuck in permitting purgatory and the courts. ☼
Washington Governor Jay Inslee mandates an all-electric state
by Ronald Stein, CFact
Washington State Governor Jay Inslee, like California’s Governor Newsom, is mandating his state toward an all-electric state. In doing so, Inslee is demonstrating his visionary limitations, as he cannot see the ugly side of his wind, solar, and EV mandated world.
For the vast acreage required for wind and solar, it’s pathetic destruction of pristine landscapes.
The problem with renewables is that they don’t work most of the time. Practically every windmill or solar panel requires a backup from coal, natural gas, pumped storage hydro, or nuclear. The percentage of actual electricity generated by renewable sources compared to the nameplate capacity, is about 24 percent. (Read more) ☼
White House officials blamed the “thousands” of unidentified flying objects in the skies above America on used car salesmen during a Monday (Feb 14) briefing. Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall claimed that most of the things flying over us are probably “used car lot balloons.” (Read more) ☼
Why Joe Biden is coming for my family’s 70-year-old farm
by Kent Hoffman
When I started managing our family’s farm in 2000, I had big plans to keep us going strong in the 21st Century. My dad, who started the farm in 1953, worked his tail off growing corn, soybeans, wheat, and raising hogs. I saw a chance to expand, and while it’s been a long slog, today we farm over 1,900 acres.
But now I’m worried we can’t keep expanding because of the heavy hand of the federal government. It’s the most infuriating thing I’ve ever encountered.
The Biden administration rolled out its long-awaited “Waters of the United States” rule just before the new year, the latest version of the regulation that won’t die. It follows the Obama administration’s attempt to claim enormous federal power over land like mine, simply because a small amount of water sometimes runs over it, as water is known to do.
The Trump administration went the other direction, giving my farm a break and me some hope. Yet in the name of “clean water,” the Biden EPA is once again claiming control, the likes of which D.C. should never have over my property. (Read more) ☼
Destroying Meritocracy Is Deadly
by Victor Davis Hanson
A recent epidemic of airline near misses deserves both attention and reflection. Similar problems are plaguing the U.S. military. (Read more) ☼
‘Conservatives Need Not Apply’ Under Biden Administration’s Proposed Hiring Rules
by Hans von Spakovsky
In a move that has gotten little notice in the press, the Biden administration is proposing federal hiring rules that easily could be abused to deny employment to anyone who questions liberal, woke policies, criticizes the government, or belongs to a politically incorrect organization.
The vague, nebulous language of the proposed changes in existing government hiring regulations could be exploited and allow biased government managers to put up a virtual “Conservatives Need Not Apply” sign when it comes to the federal civil service, leaving rejected applicants with little recourse. (Read more) ☼
Biden preparing to relinquish national sovereignty to WHO globalists
By Olivia Murray
Last year, conservative media ran reports about a “pandemic treaty” — it was a binding agreement between the World Health Organization and its member-states, including these United States. It seemingly died (although it was only delayed), but now it’s been resurrected, and reports suggest that Biden is expected to unilaterally enter our country into the treaty, which would subject American citizens to a global medical police state. From an Epoch Times article via JD Rucker at America First Report:
“Written under the banner of ‘the world together equitably,’ the zero draft grants the WHO the power to declare and manage a global pandemic emergency. Once a health emergency is declared, all signatories, including the United States, would submit to the authority of the WHO regarding treatments, government regulations such as lockdowns and vaccine mandates, global supply chains, and monitoring and surveillance of populations.” (Read more) ☼
“Things in our country run in spite of our government, not by aid of it.” ~ Will Rogers
“The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time.” ~ Ayn Rand
“When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.” —Thomas Sowel
“Pause to reflect that America is the only successful multiracial constitutional republic in history. To survive in an increasingly dysfunctional and hostile world abroad, the unique idea of the United States requires concord. But national cohesion is only possible through citizens subordinating their tribal interests to a common culture. Only then do they cease being automatons of warring tribes and collectives. As the world becomes ever scarier, Americans must — as Benjamin Franklin once warned — hang together, or most certainly they will soon all hang separately.” —Victor Davis Hanson
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
New geological study proves that the green energy movement is impossible to achieve
By Robert A. Bishop
The renewable energy fantasy goal is achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Carpet-bombing propaganda has convinced the public to accept the extravagant claim that technology currently exists to reach net zero carbon emissions. Like carnival barkers, the net-zero fanatics say renewable energy is affordable, sustainable, scalable, and not an economy wrecker.
The goal is to create a first-generation green power grid relying on wind turbine farms, solar array farms, and power storage battery banks replacing fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. In addition, the new power grid would power a global fleet of electric vehicles that would replace the internal combustion engine.
Western society has taken one hundred fifty years of progress to achieve a fantastically complex energy system using the dense source of cheap hydrocarbon energy, the master resource. Yet, the net-zero devotees believe the complex energy system can be dismantled with minimal disruption and replaced with a low-density renewable energy grid that is intermittent and nonscalable, in less than thirty years.
Well, I have horrible news for the devotees; the green energy fantasy collides with the laws of thermodynamics. The Greenies never researched whether or not there are sufficient base and rare earth metals and adequate time to mine and build out the technologies to accomplish the net-zero carbon 2050 target date.
Simon P. Michaux of the Geological Survey of Finland has compiled an exhaustive study dismantling the overly ambitious task of phasing out fossil fuels. His comprehensive analysis focuses on the required physical material resources and the extraction timeframe to create renewable energy generation systems.
The comprehensive study found the current estimated metal reserves are woefully deficient in almost every category. (Read more) ☼
Curbing US oil, gas production would hurt the environment, report finds
by Aaron Kliegman, Fox News
Environmentalists seeking to halt U.S. oil and gas production in the name of combating climate change are undermining their own agenda and risking greater damage to the planet, according to a new report. The Institute for Energy Research (IER) released a paper showing that the U.S. is the most environmentally friendly major energy producer and arguing that, like it or not, because petroleum products are here to stay, limiting U.S. production would have a devastating effect on the environment. (Read more) ☼
Natural Gas – Generated Nitrogenous Fertilizers Prevent Worse World Hunger
by Joshua Antonini, Heartland Institute
Half of the people on Earth are alive today thanks to nitrogenous fertilizers made of and with natural gas. An estimated 44 percent of the world’s people were consuming food produced with nitrogen fertilizers in 2000, according to an article in Our World in Data. That percentage had risen to 48 percent by 2008. The article, which summarized findings published in Nature Geosciences by scientist and policy analyst Vaclav Smil, estimated that by 2015, three-and-a-half billion people were alive thanks to these products.
The Haber-Bosch process, the main method for industrial synthetic nitrogen fertilizer production, uses the nitrogen found in the atmosphere and the hydrogen from natural gas to make ammonia. “Approximately 60% of the natural gas is used as raw material,” an article in Fertilizers Europe explains, “with the remainder employed to power the synthesis process.”
The result is synthetic nitrogenous fertilizer, which, when combined with selective crop breeding and various forms of chemical protection (herbicides and pesticides), significantly improves crop yields. As Smil noted in a 2011 article for the journal World Agriculture, fertilizers and other related advances have “more than tripled the average U.S. wheat yields during the 20th century.” Smil found yield multiples of 5.8 for France and 3.8 for China. In the United States, corn yields alone “rose more than five-fold,” while rice yields in Japan “increased nearly three times.” (Read more) ☼
Are You Really Against Fossil Fuels? Read This Before You Answer
by Vijay Jayaraj
It is easy for anyone to say that they are against fossil fuels. Opposition to coal, oil and natural gas is fashionable and will prompt heads to nod and even hands to applaud in most places.
But are people aware of the extent to which their lives are dependent on fossil fuels? Do they know that more than 90 percent of things used in their everyday lives are derived from fossil fuels?
From your toothbrush to your car tire, a majority of the things you use today has been made possible because of fossil fuels. Shoes, refrigerators, washing machines, coffee makers, furniture, pens, eating utensils, eyeglasses, commodes, medical gear, camping equipment, and the list goes on and on. Also: Cement, Steel, and Plastic, Fertilizers etc. (Read more) ☼
Gas Stove Just a Starter
by Ron Clutz
As explained below, the move against gas stoves is just an opening into a larger war against methane because of its CO2 emissions. Coal was bashed as a fuel already long ago, and now activists want to disqualify gas lest it serve as a bridge energy source with much lower CO2 emissions, delaying the desired upheaval. The current assault on domestic appliances should be seen as the thin edge of a wedge to destroy natural gas supply, in parallel with actions against coal and oil. (Read more) ☼
Everything that needs electricity is made with oil
by Ronald Stein
The few wealthy countries pursuing the generation of electricity from wind turbines and solar panels while simultaneously moving to rid the world of fossil fuels have short memories of petrochemical products and human ingenuity being the reasons for the world populating from 1 to 8 billion in less than two hundred years.
Renewables may be able to generate intermittent electricity from breezes and sunshine, but they cannot replace what is manufactured from fossil fuels, that are demanded by lifestyles and economies around the world. (Read article for a list and a graphic of all things made from petroleum) ☼
Wind Turbine Collapses Caught on Video
There have been a rash of recent wind turbine malfunctions across the US and Europe, ranging from failures of key components to full collapses. Some industry veterans say they’re happening more often, even if the events are occurring at only a small fraction of installed machines. The problems have added hundreds of millions of dollars in costs for the three largest Western turbine makers, GE, Vestas Wind Systems and Siemens Energy’s Siemens Gamesa unit; and they could result in more expensive insurance policies—a potential setback for the push to abandon fossil fuels and fight climate change.(Read more and watch video) ☼
Are Electric Vehicles The Solution To Climate Change?
Short answer: NO!
In this long article Dr. Terence E. Winters reviews the myriad of subsidies for EVs and then shows why the alleged reduction in carbon dioxide emissions will have no effect on climate.
Sub-headline: “OR, IS IT A GOVERNMENT-SUBSIDIZED SCAM AT OVER $30,000/CAR?”
Yes. (Read full article) ☼
See also: Ford Halts Production, Shipping of Electric F-150s Over Battery Issues (link) ☼
Evidence says offshore wind development is killing lots of whales
Many humpback whales have been turning up on the U.S. East coasts. This seems to coincide with expansion of leasing for off-shore wind turbines. The prime cause of deaths seems to be “sonar blasting” which is used to survey the ocean bottom. Also, driving the hundreds of enormous monopiles that hold up the turbine towers and blades will be far louder than the sonic blasters. (Read more) ☼
Greenpeace Betrays Founders to Peddle Junk Science
by Dr. Patrick Moore
Since 2016, when acoustic sonar surveys required for construction of 1,500 wind turbines began on the U.S. Atlantic coast, 174 Humpback whales have washed ashore dead. This represents a 400 percent increase in mortalities from previous years. And then there are the highly endangered North Atlantic right whales, of which less than 400 individuals exist today. They recovered somewhat after being hunted to near extinction in the 1930’s, but now they are thought to be declining. Federal government agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are authorizing the sonar surveys. Greenpeace, the organization I helped found in 1971, has sided with the wind turbines over the whales, stating there is no “proof” that sonar is involved in this tragedy. (Read more) ☼
India’s Uncompromising Commitment to Coal
By Vijay Jayaraj
This week, the UK scrambled to ready its coal plants as wind turbines froze in extremely cold weather. It is no surprise as coal is one of the most reliable, affordable and abundant energy sources in the world.
In fact, coal is still the largest contributor to global power generation. Leaders of Asian countries know this and are not inclined to risk their objective of economic liberty with overreliance on highly volatile and expensive “renewable” technology.
Abundant and economical energy is necessary to meet basic needs such as lighting, cooking, and powering appliances that can improve the quality of life for millions of the poor and even prevent early death. Hospitals, schools, water systems and industrial facilities need reliable access to electricity if they are to play a role in alleviating poverty and deprivation.
As a fuel, coal is plentiful and relatively cheap. Coal-fired power plants are a reliable and established technology for generating electricity. Technologies like wind and solar are inherently intermittent and relatively expensive. They rely on machines that have comparatively short life spans and require many times the materials and acreage to generate equivalent amounts of electricity. At best, these so-called green technologies are suitable for limited applications but certainly not for the baseload supplies of large populations. (Read more) ☼
Green Energy: Greatest Wealth Transfer to the Rich in History
by Steve Goreham
“Since 2000, the world has spent more than $5 trillion on green energy. More than 300,000 wind turbines have been erected, millions of solar arrays were installed, more than 25 million electric vehicles (EVs) have been sold, hundreds of thousands of acres of forest were cut down to produce biomass fuel, and about three percent of agricultural land is now used to produce biofuel for vehicles.”
We are in the midst of history’s greatest wealth transfer. Government subsidized wind systems, solar arrays, and electric vehicles overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy members of society and rich nations. The poor and middle class pay for green energy programs with higher taxes and higher electricity and energy costs. Developing nations suffer environmental damage to deliver mined materials needed for renewables in rich nations. (Read more) ☼
CLIMATE
CO2 Benefits: A Summary
This post summarizes and links to many articles on the benefits of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which include: increased plant productivity, more efficient use of water, enhancement of plant medicinal properties, reducing temperature stress in plants. (Read more) ☼
Clouds, not greenhouse gases, are the decisive drivers of our weather, our energy status and hence also our climate. (A long and technical explanation: Source) ☼
Climate Fact Check for January 2023
Seven pieces of climate propaganda from January 2023 exposed and debunked.
This article covers fact checks on climate headlines for January including atmospheric rivers, gas stoves and asthma, migratory bird deaths etc. (Read report, PDF or here) ☼
Antarctica Hasn’t Warmed In 70 Years Despite CO2 Rise, Stumping Scientists
by Frank Lasee
antarctica penguinsEven though the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere has been going up all over the world, average temperatures in the Antarctic have not gone up in the last 70 years. (Read more) ☼
In fact, 2021 was the coldest 6-month winter since records began in 1957.
The Nation Flounders on Miami Sea-Level Rise Story
by Sterling Burnett and Anthony Watts
A recent debate in The Nation claimed Miami should either make plans to evacuate from the Florida coast or become the model of adaptation in response to rapidly rising sea levels from climate change and the refugees that will result from it. The story is not just false, it is laughably inept. There is no evidence the United States faces the loss of any major coastal city due to climate change or that climate change has or will create climate refugees. (Read more) ☼
New Paper Shows Hurricane Activity Not Getting Worse, More Active
By Dr. Benny Peiser
While scientists are quite clear that we are not seeing a dramatic increase in hurricanes or even any increase at all, the public has been conned into thinking that tropical storms are getting worse. It’s high time the mainstream media came clean and told people what is really going on.
(Read more) ☼
Reuters Editor Comes Clean About CO2 Hysteria
by Ron Clutz
Neil Winton disavows his uncritically adopting global warming belief in his Daily Skeptic article: Covering Climate Change for Reuters, I Thought CO2 to Blame for Rising Temperatures. I Was Wrong.
My Reuters credentials meant that I had easy access to the world’s finest climate scientists. To my amazement, none of these would say categorically that the link between CO2 and global warming, now known as climate change, was a proven scientific fact. Some said human production of CO2 was a probable cause, others that it might make some contribution; some said CO2 had no role at all. Everybody agreed that the climate had warmed over the last 10,000 years as the ice age retreated, but most weren’t really sure why. The sun’s radiation, which changes over time, was a favoured culprit. (Read more) ☼
CLIMATE SCIENCE BACKGROUND:
by Jonathan DuHamel
Geologic evidence shows that Earth’s climate has been in a constant state of flux for more than 4 billion years. Nothing we do can stop that. Much of current climate and energy policy is based upon the erroneous assumption that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, which make up just 0.1% of total greenhouse gases, are responsible for “dangerous” global warming/climate change. There is no physical evidence to support that assumption. Man-made carbon dioxide emissions have no significant effect on global temperature/climate. In fact, when there is an apparent correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been shown to follow, not lead, changes in Earth’s temperature. All efforts to reduce emissions are futile with regard to climate change, but such efforts will impose massive economic harm to Western Nations. The “climate crisis” is a scam. U.N officials have admitted that their climate policy is about money and power and destroying capitalism, not about climate. By the way, like all planetary bodies, the earth loses heat through infrared radiation. Greenhouse gases interfere with (block) some of this heat loss. Greenhouse gases don’t warm the Earth, they slow the cooling. If there were no greenhouse gases, we would have freezing temperatures every night.
For more on climate science, see my Wryheat Climate articles:
A Review of the state of Climate Science
The Broken Greenhouse – Why Co2 Is a Minor Player in Global Climate
A Summary of Earth’s Climate History-a Geologist’s View
Problems with wind and solar generation of electricity – a review
The High Cost of Electricity from Wind and Solar Generation
The “Social Cost of Carbon” Scam Revisited
ATMOSPHERIC CO2: a boon for the biosphere
Carbon dioxide is necessary for life on Earth
Impact of the Paris Climate Accord and why Trump was right to drop it
New study shows that carbon dioxide is responsible for only seven percent of the greenhouse effect
The Climate Cultists Are Coming For Electric Cars, Too
by Allysia Finley
Replacing all gasoline-powered cars with electric vehicles won’t be enough to prevent the world from overheating. So people will have to give up their cars. That’s the alarming conclusion of a new report from the University of California, Davis, and “a network of academics and policy experts” called the Climate and Community Project. Progressives’ dirty little secret is that everyone will have to make do with much less—fewer cars, smaller houses and yards, and a significantly lower standard of living. (Read more) ☼
Crushed Bug ‘Additive’ Now In Pizza, Pasta, And Cereals Across The EU
As of Jan. 26, 2023, a food additive made out of powdered crickets began appearing in foods from pizza to pasta to cereals across the European Union. The Liberal World Order has decided that the little people must eat bugs to prevent the climate from fluctuating, in accordance with ruling class ideology. (Read more) ☼
The Great Food Reset: ‘Lab-grown meat’ harvested in ‘massive steel vats’ edges closer to fed approval & U.S. dinner plates
If you want to eat lab-grown or bugs, that should be your choice. But, the climate agenda/Great Reset goal is to collapse modern high-yield agriculture and meat production to meet net-zero climate goals. As shortages and prices skyrocket on meat and other foods, it will be much easier to push insect-eating and lab-grown ‘meat’ to the public. (Read more) ☼
The Climate Faithful Have Developed Religious Dietary Restrictions (and You Guessed It — We’ll All Be Expected to Eat This Way)
by Athena Thorne
“Climatarians” (also called “reducitarians” or “climavores”) are people who make their food choices based on how what they eat will impact the earth, with the aim of reducing their carbon “foodprint.” The Earthist version of original sin is that, simply by living, people commit climate sin every time they eat, breathe, travel, and heat or cool their homes. Naturally, the younger generations are the most pious Earthists, having been recently exposed to the most evangelical Earthist education system yet.
“Climavores, as you might expect, follow a diet less defined by ingredients—unlike veganism, for example,” global consulting firm Kearney informs us. “Instead, Climavores actively make food choices based on climate impacts, practicing climate-conscious eating based on a series of dietary trade-offs intended to benefit the planet.” (Read more) ☼
Europe Joins California In Banning Gas Car Sales By 2035 (link) ☼
How Woke Can You Go? Majority-Minority Groups Automatically Disqualified for ‘Food Equity’ Grant If CEO Is White
by Tyler O’Neil
Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation is offering a three-year, $300,000 grant to advance “healthy food equity,” but many organizations that work to expand access to healthy food in minority populations need not apply. Indeed, some organizations that employ a majority nonwhite staff and have a majority-nonwhite board of directors automatically are disqualified from the grant. (Read more) ☼
“During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare.” —Thomas Jefferson (1805)
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