A monthly review of climate, energy, and environmental policy issues
Articles compiled by Jonathan DuHamel
This month I begin with a list of interesting articles you may like. Click the link to read them.
The Quota States of America
Martin Luther King said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
Today “content of character” or merit is deemed racist. (link) ☼
Record World Cereal Outputs Forecast for 2023/24 (link and link) ☼
New Study: Antarctic Ice Shelf Area Has Grown By 5305 Km2 From 2009-2019 (link)
On Broken Science by William Briggs (link)
What Did the World Look Like in the Last Ice Age? (link)
Why are the predictions on climate change always so wrong? (link) Follow the money.
Biden admin is preparing to target Americans’ gas furnaces amid stove crackdown (link)
The Federal War Against Your Lifestyle (link)
Biden Kills Another Mineral Mine—A Week Before Construction Would Begin (link)
Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Mark Christie: Power Grid is Facing ‘Dire Consequences’ Due to Coal & Gas Retirements (link)
Your Federal Government In Action: The SEC (link)
A Comprehensive Critique Of Net Zero Fantasies (link)
EVs Prone To Rapidly Losing Their Charge, Getting Stranded On German Autobahns (link)
US Regulators Open Probe Into EVs That Suddenly Lose Power (link)
China is Throwing Away Fields of Electric Cars – Letting them Rot! (link and link)
Lab Meat: A Pharma Product with Huge Carbon Footprint (link)
STATE OF THE UNION
“The general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any.” —James Madison (1787)
“The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife.” —Thomas Jefferson (1821)
“JFK is remembered for putting a man on the moon, while Joe Biden will be remembered for putting men in the same bathroom with little girls.” – Tony Heller
Constitutional Restoration: How to rebuild the separation of powers
by Dan Greenberg and Devin Watkin
A specter is haunting America—the specter of unlimited government.
A central feature of our Constitution is that it restricts the federal government’s powers. These restrictions are, in part, structural. Not only does the Constitution designate the limits of federal power beyond which the government cannot go, but the structure of the Constitution also separates and balances various executive, legislative, and judicial powers. These restrictions not only limit what the government can do, but they also limit which part of the government may do it. This demarcating, separating, and balancing is supposed to prevent any one branch of government from wholly dominating another.
There is tension between this classical vision of American constitutionalism and the day-to-day proceedings of the modern administrative state. In particular, many federal agencies—some that are independent and others that are part of the executive branch—now wield a multitude of both executive and non-executive powers. That is: some of these powers appear to be executive in nature, but others appear to be legislative or judicial. For instance, several Cabinet agencies now exercise powers once confined to just one of the three branches of the constitutional triad. Such agencies now investigate and prosecute those who are alleged to have broken the law (an executive function); they issue rules with the force of law (a legislative function); and they conduct hearings, trials, and appeals to apply the law (a judicial function). Those who observe these agencies exercising various powers—especially when those powers cross intragovernmental property lines—may wonder what is left of the Constitution’s promise of the balance and the separation of powers.
Both the separation and the balance of powers are vital elements of American governance. In this paper, we recommend setting new boundaries to restore these structural aspects of governance to their proper place. (Read more, 16 pages) ☼
Related: No One Voted for Administrative Rule Constraining Every Aspect of Our Lives
by GianCarlo Canaparo
What is administrative rule? It’s a system of government where nearly every aspect of Americans’ lives is regulated by obnoxious laws that nobody voted on, enforced by pedantic bureaucrats who nobody voted for. (Read more) ☼
This EPA rule will keep you from buying the cars you want
by Kristen Walker, Fox News
The Environmental Protection Agency is taking away your options within the automobile industry with its recently announced new rule that would require a drastic reduction in tailpipe emissions for light- and medium-duty vehicles. This administration has gone full speed ahead with its climate agenda and the federal government seems intent on fundamentally overhauling the automotive industry, regardless of what consumers want. The end goal is to get rid of gas-powered vehicles. (Read more) ☼
The Preservation of the Republic
By Melvin Anderson
A republic is a sophisticated form of government that relies on the morality and decency of the populace. But can this experiment persist? (Read more) ☼
DIE (diversity, inclusion, and equity) Litmus Tests are Robbing the Campus
By Janet Levy
Universities are forums for the free exchange of ideas, for learning how to think, not what to think; for debate, not indoctrination. Unfortunately, that can no longer be said of American universities. Open inquiry and critical thinking untainted by ideology have been supplanted by leftist dogma, including Critical Race Theory and social justice advocacy. Except at the increasingly rare institution offering a classical liberal arts education, it has become impossible for impressionable students to earn a degree without becoming steeped in leftist rhetoric and the extreme ideas of race and gender. They end up believing that America was built on racism and defining themselves as either oppressors or victims. (Read more) ☼
Reading and Math Scores Plummet as Racial and Sexual Activism Replace Academics
by Tony Kinnett
As America’s public education system reports the worst literacy and math performance in decades, its schools dedicate increasingly immense portions of their time to lessons on the supposed virtues of racial and gender segregation.
With only eight hours per day and 180 school days per year, one would think that everyone from the newest teacher’s aide to the tenured administrators would call “all hands on deck” to spend every moment trying to close the enormous performance gaps inflamed by COVID-19 lockdowns.
Instead of utilizing data-proven methods to close gaps in literacy and math, like many private and microschools do, most public schools have centered on a different tactic: political distraction. (Read more) ☼
Over $400 Billion in COVID Aid Was Stolen or Wasted
by Eric Boehm, Reason Magazine
Over the past three years, the federal government distributed more than $4.2 trillion in aid connected to the COVID-19 pandemic. More than $400 billion of it—nearly one in every $10 spent—was either wasted or stolen, according to a new report. And that figure is likely to grow. Already, prosecutors have charged more than 2,230 defendants with pandemic-related fraud crimes. If federal prosecutors are interested in catching the real culprits of this mess, they’ll have to take a look at government officials who were in charge of distributing the cash. (Read more)☼
RADIATION REGULATION FRAUD
Emails Reveal: Bureaucrats censor radiation risk science fraud by cancelling whistleblowers; Huge implications for nuclear power and more
by Steve Milloy, long-time editor and founder of JunkScience.com
What if the public’s fears about common exposures to radiation were not only baseless, but the product of epic science fraud? And what if the people we have trusted with setting radiation safety standards have knowingly suppressed that reality for decades, including up to the present day?
JunkScience.com is presenting for the first time emails uncovered via the Freedom of Information Act that expose the inner workings of a little-known bureaucracy dedicated to keeping in place the so-called “linear non-threshold model” (LNT). The LNT is used by regulatory agencies to set permitted exposure standards for radiation.
So if you have been concerned or scared of anything associated with radiation — from medical diagnostics to TSA screening to radon in your basement to nuclear power plants — you have been an unwitting victim of the LNT. As explained in this recent article, the LNT has been responsible for producing crippling fear of low-level radiation exposures. (Read more) ☼
ENERGY ISSUES
Britain’s Green Energy Disaster Should Be a Warning to America
by Capell Aris
“The UK already has 15 GW of offshore wind, more than 300 times as much as the USA: and our experience should be a terrible warning to Americans.” As the United States sets its sights on a significant expansion of offshore wind capacity, it would do well to examine the cautionary tale unfolding in Britain. With the UK already grappling with the consequences of an aggressive pursuit of green energy, American policymakers and citizens must carefully assess the feasibility and potential risks of such a rapid energy transition. The intermittent nature of wind power presents a fundamental challenge. In this article, we explore the concerns that Britain’s experience should serve as an awful warning to Americans. (Read more) ☼
Cruel Summer: The Dark Side Of The Green Energy Revolution
by I & I EDITORIAL BOARD
The green energy “revolution” is taking us backwards, to an era in which there won’t be enough electricity to meet the demand.
Members of the House Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security were told to expect “potentially catastrophic consequences” due to dispatchable generating sources being retired “far too quickly” in the race to replace those sources – natural gas, coal and nuclear, which are available on demand – with renewables, primarily wind and solar.
Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Mark C. Christie told the congressmen that lawmakers’ and activists’ obsession with green energy threatens “our ability to keep the lights on.” (Read more) ☼
Green Industrialization Greatly Increases CO2 Emissions
by David Wojick
Despite calling for rapid reduction in CO2 emissions, the left is rushing green industrialization which will dramatically increase emissions for the foreseeable future. This obvious absurdity has yet to be admitted.
On the one hand, there is growing literature on the enormous material requirements required for building huge numbers of wind and solar power generating systems. Then the growing realization that gas-fired backup will keep renewable power generation CO2 emissions high.
Combining these two factors means CO2 emissions should rise, not fall, as green industrialization proceeds. Both factors are ignored, but both are big. The energy transition increases emissions. It is that simple.
On the material side, we are talking about what I call “supply chain emissions.” It should be obvious that rebuilding the electric power system is hugely emission intensive. We are talking about a tremendous amount of mining, processing, and construction, with lots of transportation at each step. (Read more) ☼
Replacing Coal Power with Wind and Solar Increases Net CO2 Emissions
by Douglas Pollock
Advocates of wind and solar power confidently assert that using it to replace a coal-fired power plant will abate all the CO2 formerly emitted by the coal station, because unreliables do not emit CO2.
Not quite.
To keep the lights on when we need them, wind and solar requires backup from flexible sources, such as natural gas, that can react quickly when the Sun rises or sets, or when the wind drops or blows a gale.
This thermal backup emits CO2. Worse, when thermal stations are on standby, known in the trade as rotating reserve, they burn fuel without feeding any power to the grid and, when needed, they must be suddenly ramped up to full load capacity, thus emitting far more in the process than when running permanently at full load. Their emissions must thus be subtracted from the reductions achieved by decommissioned coal-fired capacity.
The most significant effects of adding wind and solar power to any grid are to destabilize it and greatly to increase the cost of electricity for homes and businesses everywhere. (Read more) ☼
The Actual Levelized Cost Of Energy
by Willis Eschenbach
A company named Lazard puts out an annual report on something called the “Levelized Cost Of Energy” (LCOE). Here’s the April 2023 version. The LCOE estimates the total capital, operations, and maintenance costs for new electric power plants coming into service. People use the Lazard LCOE all the time to claim that renewable electricity sources are now cheaper than fossil fuel electricity. However, the Lazard data has a problem—it doesn’t include the cost of backup and other costs for renewable energy. These costs fall into four groups: backup costs, balancing costs, grid connection costs, and grid reinforcement/extension costs.
Result: Solar and wind generation costs more the fossil fuels and nuclear. (Read more) ☼
Biofuels Are Bad for the Environment
by Linnea Lueken
A recent guest op-ed in The New York Times identifies some of the problems with biofuels that make them much less environmentally friendly than their promoters claim. The most common biofuels in the United States are ethanol and biodiesel, refined primarily from corn and soybeans, respectively.
The article, “The Climate Solution That’s Horrible for the Climate,” written by Michael Grunwald, describes many detrimental effects of using ethanol and biodiesel. Some examples include that they “accelerate food inflation and global hunger,” because the crops produced and land used to grow them them could otherwise be used to feed humans and animals. Indeed, a study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison estimated that the impact of the Renewable Fuel Standards program, which mandates the use of increasing amounts of biofuels, was a 30 percent increase in corn prices. Corn-based ethanol in particular is a problem because it uses almost as much fossil fuel — from fertilizers made of natural gas to diesel tractors, industrial refineries and other sources — as the ethanol replaces. (Read more) ☼
The Iron Law Of Electricity Strikes Again: Vietnam Boosts Coal Burning
by Robert Bryce
The Iron Law of Electricity says that people, businesses, and countries will do whatever they have to do to get the electricity they need. And for countries all over the world, that means burning coal, lots and lots of coal. Yes, coal use in the U.S. and Europe is falling. But, as can be seen in the graphic above, coal-fired generation in Asia is soaring.
And despite massive spending on renewables, wind and solar still only supply about 10% of global electricity.
Furthermore, coal’s share of global generation hasn’t budged in nearly 40 years. Since 1985, the carbon-heavy fuel has been consistently burned to generate between 36% and 40% of the world’s electricity. Besides Vietnam, coal burning is increasing in India, China and in other countries. (Read more) ☼
This Might Be The Biden Admin’s Most Ludicrous Idea Yet
by David Blackmon
No aspect of the vaunted “energy transition” screams out the word “fantasy” quite so starkly as projections that the U.S. will have to install 47,000 miles of new high-capacity transmission lines by 2035. That’s the assessment not by renewable energy skeptics, but by the enthusiastic promoters of renewables at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). (Read more) ☼
CLIMATE ISSUES
Climate Fact-Check May 2023 Edition (link)
This summary serves as a fact check on the biggest false claims made in the media in May, 2023. ☼
33 Bullet Points Proving ‘Global Warming’ Is Caused by the Sun, Not Co2 — by Geologist, Dr Roger Higgs (link)
Surprise: Hurricane Activity Reconstructions Show Greater Storm Frequency When Globe Was Cold
by P Gosselin
Germany’s “klimanachtrichten” (climate news) here reports on surprise findings concerning hurricanes frequency. It turns out hurricanes were more frequent during the Little Ice Age, when global temperatures were a degree colder, than they are today. This finding contradicts the climate science claim that global warming cooks up more hurricanes. The data show the opposite to be true. (Read more) ☼
What The Media Won’t Tell You About Wildfires
By Roger Pielke Jr.
Wildfire, common to many healthy ecosystems, is a particularly challenging problem for society because of its impacts on property and health. It is also challenging because people like to locate themselves in fire-prone places and do things that ignite fires. We have learned through hard experience that complete suppression of wildfire is not the best policy — despite what Smokey Bear says — as it can lead to even greater and more harmful wildfire events. These dynamics together make wildfire a challenging issue for policy. This week, wildfire smoke from fires in Canada has drifted south along the eastern seaboard of the United States, affecting New York City and Washington, DC, and correspondingly capturing a lot of media attention. The event should offer a teachable moment on the complexities of climate and the challenges of adapting to a volatile world. With this post, I discuss some of the aspects of wildfires that I see as missing in the public discussion. (Read more)
See also: Wildfires And Climate Change: Narrative Ever More Detached From Actual Evidence by Francis Menton (Read more) ☼
Thinking Smartly About Climate Change
by Bjorn Lomborg
It is possible for us to have a sensible climate policy without breaking the bank and without sacrificing the amazing opportunities delivered by cheap and abundant energy. (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
Six Issues the Promoters of the Green New Deal Have Overlooked
Why reducing carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuel will have no effect on climate ☼
CLIMATE MADNESS
The World Economic Forum & Corporations Are Coming for Your Cars
Marc Morano comments: “The Great Car Reset has arrived. Our transportation system is being intentionally collapsed; (and our freedom of movement is being stripped away) EVs to be forced upon YOU without a vote! This is the planned rationing of vehicles. An Australian bank is announcing it’s not going to give financing for loans to anyone buying a gas-powered car. The World Bank has now announced it wants to set a timetable to stop the funding for gas-powered cars. Gas station bans will create gas availability shortages. (Read more) ☼
If It’s Not Open Warfare, It’s Collusive Climate Lawfare
by Paul Driessen
The Biden Administration continues waging war on fossil fuels aided by environmentalists, politicians, and corporations chasing subsidies, competitive advantages, power, and profits.
They want to “fundamentally transform” America’s energy and economic systems, prevent “climate cataclysms”, and ensure “environmental justice” for some (by inflicting injustices on others).
Their weapons include withdrawing huge areas from economic activities; banning leasing, drilling, and pipelines; and imposing regulatory standards so costly or technologically impossible that coal-fired power plants, internal combustion vehicles, gas stoves, furnaces, and water heaters must be abandoned.
This open warfare is augmented and amplified by more clandestine “lawfare.”
Environmentalists have long employed lawsuits to impose by court decree what they cannot achieve via ballot boxes or legislation. (Read more) ☼
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” —John Adams (1770)
END
wryheat 