A monthly review of climate, energy, and environmental policy issues
Eating bugs, atmospheric rivers, our turbulent climate past, and bad energy policies are just a few of the subjects we cover this month.
Articles compiled by Jonathan DuHamel
CLIMATE ISSUES
A note on climate alarmism:
by Jonathan DuHamel
Climate alarmists claim that if Earth’s temperature rises more than 2°C, life will perish. However, most people do not realize that we are in an interglacial period of an ice age and that it is much cooler than normal. Geologic evidence shows that for much of the past 600 million years, global temperature was as much as 13°C warmer than it is now and life flourished.
“Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle
requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don’t practice these tough
habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us, and we risk
becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.” —Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
Climate & Human History
from the CO2Coalition
There exists a fascinating relationship between the rise and fall of temperature and the rise and fall of great civilizations and empires. We find that the facts are opposite to the prevailing “consensus” predictions of apocalyptic doom from modest warming.
Nearly all great advances occurred during warm periods. Before climate science became politicized, the warm periods were called “climate optima” by those studying such things because both the Earth’s ecosystems and humanity benefited from the blessed warmth.
Conversely, the human condition declined during cold periods–and markedly so.
Wolfgang Behringer, in his book A Cultural History of Climate, reveals that “even minor changes in climate may result in huge social, political and religious convulsions.”
“Cooling has always resulted in major social upheavals, whereas warming has sometimes led to a blossoming of culture. If we can learn anything from the history of culture, it is that, even if humans were ‘children of the Ice Age,’ civilization was a product of climatic warming.” ☼
What Climate Crisis? A Primer On Earth’s Turbulent Climatic Past
by Ian Plimer
“For more than 80 percent of the time, Earth has been a warm wet greenhouse planet with no ice. We live in unusual times when ice occurs on continents. This did not happen overnight.”
In this essay professor Plimer examines climate history on a large scale and examines plate tectonics and the position of Earth relative to the sun. He notes: “No past warming events have been driven by an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. No past cooling events were driven by a decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide.”
“On a scale of tens of millions of years or more, the Earth’s climate is driven by plate tectonics. On a scale of hundreds of thousands of years, the Earth’s climate is driven by orbital cycles which bring Earth closer to or more distant from the Sun. On a scale of thousands of years to decades, the Earth’s climate is driven by variations in energy emitted from the Sun.”
He concludes the essay this way: “We are putting all our efforts and wasting trillions of taxpayers’ dollars into trying to prevent mythical human-induced global warming, yet we still don’t prepare for the inevitable annual floods, droughts, and bushfires, let alone longer-term solar – and orbitally–driven global cooling.
We have a crisis of single-minded stupidity exacerbated by a dumbed-down education system supported by incessant propaganda, driven by financial interests and political activist authoritarianism.” (Read full article) (See also Plimer’s book “Green Murder”)☼
Scientist: ‘There Is No Climate Crisis’ And ‘No Particular Correlation Between CO2 And Temperature’
By Kenneth Richard
The modern notion that human CO2 emissions are equivalent to a “deadly poison” may one day be viewed as “the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world.”
In a new paper published in the Journal of Sustainable Development, Manheimer (2022) summarizes some of the evidence for the lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature in the paleoclimate as he rips apart the claim that humans are driving a changing climate.
About 4000 years ago the limit of Northern Hemisphere tree growth extended 322 km (200 miles) farther north than it does today, as it was much warmer back then.
During Medieval times the Vikings were able to grow barley for centuries. Today Greenland is too cold to grow this crop.
The Romans grew wine grapes in northern Britain, indicating the climate was much warmer than today about 2000 years ago. Wine vineyards cannot flourish at these latitudes today (unless the new “hybrid” grapes, bred to survive in colder climates, are used).
Observing paleo temperature and CO2 concentration charts for the last hundreds of millions of years, it can be affirmed there is “no particular correlation between CO2 and temperature.”
In the paper abstract, Manheimer writes: “The emphasis on a false climate crisis is becoming a tragedy for modern civilization, which depends on relible, economic, and environmentally viable energy. The windmills, solar panels and backup batteries have none if these qualities. This falsehood is pushed by a powerful lobby which Bjorn Lomborg has called a climate industrial complex, comprising some scientists, most media, industrialists, and legislators. It has somehow managed to convince many that CO2 in the atmosphere, a gas necessary for life on earth, one which we exhale with every breath, is an environmental poison. Multiple scientific theories and measurements show that there is no climate crisis.” (Read more) ☼
The Case Against Human Caused Climate Change
by David Robb
[This is an excerpt from a much longer article.]
There is no question that climate change is happening. What is still open is whether the change is due to human use of fossil fuels, or is it something natural? Climate activists and even government authorities have tried to claim that the science is settled, and there is consensus that human activities are the cause. Aside from the fact that science doesn’t rely on consensus, there is considerable evidence that the change is natural.
Consider, …just two bits of evidence. First, in the mid 1600s, Europe was in the depths of the Little Ice Age. It was so cold that the Thames river froze over – something that has not happened since. About 1650, temperatures began to rise, and that rise has continued at about the same rate until just recently. Use of fossil fuels didn’t begin until about 1850 when coal began to replace wood for heating, cooking, and industrial applications such as steam power. In other words, the temperature rise began two hundred years before the use of fossil fuels and the corresponding rise of CO2. The rise in CO2 followed the temperature rise; how can the effect precede the cause?
A second bit is that the historical record is clear. Carbon dioxide levels in prehistory were over 20 times the level we have today, yet there was no catastrophic heating or runaway greenhouse effect. Indeed, all the evidence points to that period as one of lush forests, a benign climate across all the continents, and no tipping points.
Part of the evidence is found in the massive limestone deposits found across the world. Close examination of limestone shows it to be the fossil remains of uncountable creatures who thrived in the warm seas, drew dissolved carbon dioxide from the water around them, used it to form calcium carbonate for their shells, which then fell to the ocean floor to form the limestone we see today. All that prehistoric CO2 is now found locked up in limestone, and we are left with dangerously low levels in our atmosphere today. (Read more) ☼
What are atmospheric rivers?
In Janurary, California and other parts of the west coast were inundated with heavy rain and snowfall. Alarmists blamed “climate change.” However, the weather was produced by an “atmospheric river” which is a common phenomenon.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), “Atmospheric rivers are relatively long, narrow regions in the atmosphere – like rivers in the sky – that transport most of the water vapor outside of the tropics. These columns of vapor move with the weather, carrying an amount of water vapor roughly equivalent to the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River. When the atmospheric rivers make landfall, they often release this water vapor in the form of rain or snow. A well-known example is the “Pineapple Express,” a strong atmospheric river that is capable of bringing moisture from the tropics near Hawaii over to the U.S. West Coast. Atmospheric rivers are a key feature in the global water cycle and are closely tied to both water supply and flood risks — particularly in the western United States.” (Read more from NOAA) ☼
IPCC Climate Models Grossly Exaggerate ‘Global Warming’
By Jerome Corsi
Several recently published studies have provided methodological objections to alarmist IPCC global climate models that predict catastrophic global warming will result from anthropogenic CO2 atmospheric concentrations from burning hydrocarbon fuels. These studies indicate that a more accurate reading of the earth’s surface temperatures suggests global climate warming over the next few decades will be moderate. The studies further indicate that more precise surface temperature readings would seriously dampen the hysterical mass media demand for radical public policies requiring radical decarbonization to achieve Net Zero Emissions (NZE) as quickly as possible.
In November 2022, meteorologist Roy Spencer, Ph.D., a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, published a ground-breaking study demonstrating that 36 climate models used to guide national policy may have exaggerated “global warming” over the last 50 years by as much as 50 percent. Spencer’s research shows that increased urbanization, not increased CO2, is responsible for exaggerating the temperature measurements recorded in the NOAA homogenized surface temperature dataset.
In August 2022, meteorologist Anthony Watts found that 96 percent of the temperature stations in the United States used to measure global warming and climate change did not “meet what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) considers to be ‘acceptable,’ uncorrupted placement.” (Read more) ☼
To End Climate Lunacy, Stop Treating Warming & C02 Hysterically
by David Simon
Those who oppose economically destructive “climate” policies – like those promoted by the Biden administration and at the recent United Nations COP27 conference – will continue to fail to stop the advance of these policies so long as they continue to accept the false claim that warming of the planet and carbon dioxide emissions are harmful.
They are not. On balance, global warming and CO2 emission are beneficial.
Before getting to why that is, however, it is crucial to understand why accepting the false climate claim is so harmful.
When the destructiveness of climate policies is shown, the response is that the policies nevertheless are necessary to address what President Biden refers to as the “existential threat” of global warming and increased CO2 emissions.
When it is noted that these climate policies will at most microscopically and insignificantly reduce temperatures and CO2 emissions, climate policy mandarins push for even more draconian policies.
The result has been that since the 1990s, climate policies have become increasingly destructive and wasteful. Even worse, their continued intensification appears unlikely to be stopped until the public and policymakers are persuaded that global warming and CO2 emissions are not harmful. To win this argument, it is necessary to focus on the scientific facts. (Read more) ☼
Antarctica Has Not Warmed For Over 70 Years
By Kenneth Richard
New studies affirm Antarctica has not been cooperating with either the global warming or “polar amplification” narratives. The Antarctic continent has not warmed in the last seven decades, despite a monotonic increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. (Read more) ☼
Top Ten 2022 Media Climate Stories – Fact Check
This summary serves as a fact check on the top ten disasters that mainstream media attributes to climate change. (link) ☼
According to media reports, 2022 was the Hottest coldest driest wettest year ever (link) ☼
Despite Media Hype, 2022 Global Wide Hurricane Season Ends with Weakest Storm Levels of the Last 42 Years
According to NOAA, measured worldwide hurricane season science data for all year 2022 tropical storms shows that global wide storms were at their lowest strength levels in the last 42 years. Additionally, NOAA’s science measured tropical storm data through year 2022 clearly demonstrates that global hurricanes are not trending stronger in numbers, duration or intensity. The number and strength of tornados were also below average. (Read more) ☼
Record Agricultural Yields Should Allay Climate Fear
by Vijay Jayaraj
Countries all over the world are surpassing previous records for production of food crops. This is good news that stands in stark contrast to the apocalyptic picture that the media paints daily in reports on climate and weather. (Read more) ☼
Let Them Eat Bugs!
By Janet Levy
Give up cheeseburgers, and eat bugs instead. That’s what the Davos elite want you to do, while they dine on $50 burritos and slabs of steak. They would even have you feel good about being a meat- and diary-free insectivore. To this end, they have carefully manufactured the cult of environmental alarmism, whose virtue-signaling adherents have been duped into thinking an ecological disaster is at hand. The cult’s latest scapegoat is agriculture. The wise global leaders of the World Economic Forum (WEF) have decreed that farming must be restricted to “save the planet.” By 2030, they dictate, plebs must adopt the ecologically sound practice of entomophagy, or insect-eating. (Read more) ☼
A Rebuttal From Doctors for Disaster Preparedness
Eating bugs can be dangerous
Using insects as a main source of animal protein is a big part of the World Economic Forum’s plans for us. But that may have some bad side effects on your body (Read report) ☼
ENERGY ISSUES
NRC Certifies First U.S. Small Modular Reactor Design
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has certified NuScale Power’s small modular reactor (SMR). The company’s power module becomes the first SMR design certified by the NRC and just the seventh reactor design cleared for use in the United States. The design is an advanced light-water SMR with each power module capable of generating 50 megawatts of emissions-free electricity. (Read more) ☼ [Note: these installations should be used to replace wind and solar generation which is unreliable and require huge land footprints.]
The Gas Stove Gambit
by Ron Clutz
Is it really a “bait and switch” gambit so that government can monitor indoor air quality and/or get rid of fossil fuels? (Read more) ☼
Biden admin quietly admits canceling Keystone XL Pipeline cost thousands of jobs, billions of dollars
by Thomas Catenacci
The Biden administration published a congressionally mandated report highlighting the positive economic benefits the Keystone XL Pipeline would have had if President Biden didn’t revoke its federal permits.
The report, which the Department of Energy (DOE) completed in late December without any public announcement, says the Keystone XL project would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs and would have had a positive economic impact of between $3.4-9.6 billion, citing various studies. A previous report from the federal government published in 2014 determined 3,900 direct jobs and 21,050 total jobs would be created during construction which was expected to take two years.
But immediately after taking office in January 2021, Biden canceled the pipeline’s permits, effectively shutting the project down. (Read more) ☼
China to accelerate approval of new coal projects to ensure energy supply
By Global Times
China reiterated its focus on energy security, vowing to ensure the supply of energy and electricity, coordinate resources and accelerate approval of new coal projects, while asking coal enterprises to expand production as peak season approaches. Power generation companies should store more high-quality coal to ensure power generation during peak times. (Read more) ☼
Let’s Take the Final Step to Reshore U.S. Mining for Battery Metals
By Danny Ervin
The U.S. depends on China for more than half of the minerals and metals deemed critically important for our nation’s economic health and military readiness. While China has made mineral production and processing a strategic priority, the U.S. has done the reverse. Mining in the U.S. has been pushed to the margins.
As recently as the 1990s, the U.S. was the world’s largest producer of rare earth minerals. Today we have just one rare earth mine remaining and the U.S. must ship its ore to China for processing. Demand for rare earths is massive and growing. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology says a wind turbine rated at 3.5 megawatts of electricity contains 1,300 pounds of rare earths.
There is just one lithium mine left in the U.S., one for nickel, one for cobalt, one for manganese. These raw materials are vital to the manufacture of batteries used in electric vehicles and the transmission of solar and wind power on the nation’s electricity grid.
The problem isn’t a lack of mineral resources in the U.S. The National Mining Association says the U.S. is home to $6.2 trillion worth of mineral reserves.
Despite the enormous stakes, nothing has been done to make America’s own minerals on public lands more accessible to mining companies. A complex permitting process is the problem, requiring companies to wait 10 years or more to get government approval to mine in public lands. This is shackling the transition to EVs and clean energy technologies with huge, growth-killing costs. (Read more) ☼
Green Energy Failed To Meet Power Demand During Winter Storm
by Jack McEvoy
Renewable energy was unable to generate sufficient power to meet elevated energy demand during Christmas Eve snowstorms, forcing utilities in the northeastern U.S. and Texas to burn more fossil fuels to prevent outages.
Although wind turbines, solar panels and other forms of green energy have been consistently touted by the Biden administration as reliable alternatives to fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, renewables accounted for a small percentage of grids’ power output after snowstorms and a “bomb cyclone” nearly caused power outages in New England and Texas. Grid operators in both areas were forced to burn oil, a fuel that is significantly less efficient than natural gas, to avoid power outages as renewable energy sources were stymied by the harsh weather. (Read more) ☼
A Quiet Refutation of ‘Net Zero’ Carbon Emissions
Two energy reports show the U.S. is burdening and dismantling its grid to achieve an impossible goal.
By Steve Milloy
‘Net zero by 2050” is more than a slogan of climate activism. It has become a chief organizational principle for multinational corporations and the BlackRock-led cartel pushing environmental, social and corporate governance investing.
In September, the Electric Power Research Institute, the research arm of the U.S. electric utility industry, released a report titled “Net-Zero 2050: U.S. Economy-Wide Deep Decarbonization Scenario Analysis.” The EPRI report concludes that the utility industry can’t attain net zero. “This study shows that clean electricity plus direct electrification and efficiency . . . are not sufficient by themselves to achieve net-zero economy-wide emissions.” In other words, no amount of wind turbines, solar panels, hydropower, nuclear power, battery power, electrification of fossil-fuel technologies or energy-efficiency technologies will get us to net zero by 2050.
The other recent report is “2022 Long-Term Reliability Assessment” from the North American Electric Reliability Corp., a government-certified grid-reliability and standard-setting group. NERC concluded that fossil-fuel plants are being removed from the grid too fast to meet continuing electricity demand, and that is putting most of the country at risk of grid failure and blackouts during extreme weather. The U.S. just got another taste of this during the Christmas electric grid emergency. So there you have it: We are dangerously dismantling our electric grid while burdening it with more demand in hope of attaining the goal of “net zero by 2050,” which the utility industry has admitted is a fantasy. (Read full article) ☼
ENVIRONMENT
The Recycling Religion Is Garbage
by John Stossel
For decades, we’ve been told: recycle! “If we’re not using recycled paper, we’re cutting down more trees!” says Lynn Hoffman, co-president of Eureka Recycling. Recycling paper (or cardboard) does save trees. Recycling aluminum does save energy. But that’s about it. The ugly truth is that many “recyclables” sent to recycling plants are never recycled. The worst is plastic.
Even Greenpeace now says, “Plastic recycling is a dead-end street.” Most of the material ends up in landfills. (Read more) ☼
ECONOMY
How to tell that the climate alarmists aren’t serious
By Maker S. Mark
[The “globalists” want western nations to decrease/eliminate carbon dioxide emissions, but are okay with China increasing emissions.]
“….allowing China to increase emissions at a time that you are asking other countries to sacrifice with proposed reductions is a totally ridiculous and unserious solution to the man-made climate change problem. The real question then becomes, why are Western nations being asked to sacrifice in this way? I think we have to “follow the money” to find out. China increases manufacturing capability to produce the green products needed by the West. It increases this capacity while significantly increasing emissions of the very gases the rest of the world are trying to cut. Cutting Western energy consumption will hurt Western economies, and allowing China to increase energy consumption will allow its economy to expand. This solution to man-made climate change is nonsensical, unless this solution is really a financial reordering. China seems to be the only country truly benefitting from the current green plans.” (Source) ☼
THE EPA
EPA Reinstates Dubious Waterway Regulation
Joe Biden’s bureaucrats bring back an Obama-era power grab just for fun. The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers effectively resurrected the dubious redefinition of the “waters of the United States” found within the 1970 Clean Water Act. The EPA broadly expanded the definition of “waters of the United States” to include nearly any body of water — virtually down to the size of a puddle. (Read more) ☼
The Supreme Court Case That Could Upend the Clean Water Act
If SCOTUS finds in favor of a small-town Idaho couple in Sackett v. EPA, it could end the federal government’s jurisdiction over millions of acres of land. (link) ☼
State Attorneys General, Other Groups, File Petition Opposing U.S. EPA Greenhouse Gas Rule
by Bethany Blankley, Heartland Institute
Sixteen state attorneys general, 15 state associations, and multiple organizations are fighting against another Environmental Protection Agency rule they argue jeopardizes American energy and national security. The AGs, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to halt the EPA from implementing “radical climate regulations.” At issue is the EPA’s “Revised 2023 and Later Model Year Light Duty Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards.” (Read more) ☼
PROPERTY RIGHTS
Environmental Groups Deal Another Blow To Key Alaska Mine, Undermining Biden’s Green Energy Dreams
by Jack Mcevoy, Daily Caller
Two environmental groups spent $20 million to make lands and waters close to Southern Alaska’s Bristol Bay off-limits to economic development, a move that will hinder the construction of a mine that produces minerals that are needed to expand renewable energy production. Pebble Mine sits on top of 80.6 billion pounds of copper and 5.6 billion pounds of molybdenum, highly conductive metals which are crucial to producing solar panels, wind turbines and geothermal energy facilities.(Read more) ☼
WATER
Desalination of Sea Water Can Augment Our Water Supply Without Harming Sea Life
by Jonathan DuHamel
Desalination of sea water can produce the freshwater we need to augment our natural supplies. The most common method is reverse osmosis where the sea water is forced through a semi-permeable membrane which removes the salt. However, the process is energy intensive which some environmentalists claim will put more dread carbon dioxide into the atmosphere if the electricity comes from fossil-fuels. That can be solved by powering the plants with small, dedicated nuclear generators. The other claim by some environmentalists is that the effluent from the desalinization process, very salty brine, is harmful to wildlife. A new study shows this concern is overblown. A seven-year study, jointly conducted by Southern Cross University and the University of New South Wales at the Sydney (Australia) desalination plant found that when the plant was in operation, fish population in the area almost tripled. (Read more) The state of Arizona is currently considering building a desalination plant in Sonora, Mexico.☼
California’s Mega Water Wasters
by Edward Ring
Californians are squandering millions of acre-feet of storm runoff at the same time as they face permanent water rationing. (Read more) ☼
STATE OF THE UNION
“Stability in government is essential to national character and to the advantages annexed to it, as well as to that repose and confidence in the minds of the people, which are among the chief blessings of civil society.” —James Madison (1788)
The Economic Cost Of The Pandemic: State By State
by Eric Hanushek, Hoover Institution
Abstract: Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) now shows the significant impact of the pandemic on learning. The abstract nature of test score declines, however, often obscures the huge economic impact of these learning losses. NAEP results indicate large differences in learning losses across states, and this analysis provides state-by-state estimates of the economic impacts of the losses. Students on average face 2-9 percent lower lifetime incomes depending on the state in which they live. By virtue of the lower skilled future workforce, the states themselves are estimated to face a GDP that is 0.6 to 2.9 percent lower each year for the remainder of the 21st Century compared to the learning expectations derived from pre-pandemic years. The present value of future losses for states depends directly on the size of each state’s economy. At the extreme, California is estimated to have lost $1.2 trillion dollars because of learning losses during the pandemic. These losses are permanent unless a state’s schools can get better than their pre-pandemic levels. (Read full paper, 12 pages)
How Green Investors Pay the Media to Promote ‘Climate Change’
by Daniel Greenfield
The Associated Press revealed last year that it had scored $8 million to promote claims of global warming. The AP impartially described this massive conflict of interest as an illustration of “how philanthropy has swiftly become an important new funding source for journalism”.
“This far-reaching initiative will transform how we cover the climate story,” its executive editor claimed. That is no doubt true. And an incredibly damaging admission.
The philanthropic quid-pro-quo saw five organizations fund the AP’s dedicated team of “more than two dozen journalists” to cover “climate issues” that the wire service would then plant in papers around the country to terrify Americans into supporting ‘green’ taxes and subsidies.
The Associated Press did not bother to explain to its readers or the newspapers that run its stories why these organizations were impelled to throw millions at it except sheer benevolence.
Nor did it explain why they might be particularly interested in convincing Americans that the climate sky is falling and that our economy must be dismantled and ‘greened’: raising energy prices and putting millions out of work. (Read more) ☼
Citizens! The Declaration of Independence: Now Read It, and Learn
By Frederick Melchiorre
The Declaration of Independence makes clear points regarding tyranny, points now particularly applicable to the Biden administration given the current state of the federal government.
The very first American document reads:
All men… are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security. The sole role of the government, to secure our unalienable rights, is no longer the goal. Our “civil servants” show no concern for our safety, they trod on our civil rights and decry human rights for the most vulnerable, and desecrate our economic rights for affordable property-ownership. Where is “the pursuit of happiness?” There remains no vestiges of the ideals the founders created, especially that pertaining to “the laws of nature and nature’s God.” God is an anachronism and anathema to modern society; especially to progressive Democrats. (Read more) ☼
Biden Throwing Taxpayer Dollars Down The Climate Change Rathole
by James Rogan
President Joe Biden pledged to the United Nations in 2021 that the U.S. would give $11.4 billion annually to international climate change funds. Biden repeated that pledge at the recent COP27 climate conference. Biden’s climate change pledges are hot air, and he knows it.
Under the Constitution, Biden does not have the authority to commit U.S. funds to overseas development projects. In fact, under the Constitution, only Congress can commit such funds and only Congress has the authority to make binding international agreements. (Read more) ☼
5 Infuriating Ways People Got the First Amendment Wrong in 2022
As free speech becomes an increasingly important part of the culture war, people won’t stop misinterpreting—and outright violating—the First Amendment.
by Emma Camp, Reason Magazine
1. Yes, you can yell “fire” in a crowded theater.
2. The Stop WOKE Act stops speech.
3. No, it is not a First Amendment right to shut down your critics.
4. Filming police is a First Amendment right.
5. Heckler’s vetoes are not protected speech.
Read an explanation of each point. ☼
ESG’s Perverse, Narrow, Fraudulent Ethical Principles
by Paul Driessen
Warning: Your retirement fund may have been Shanghaied by BlackRock or other Wall Street asset managers who’ve unilaterally decided that the tens of trillions of dollars of other people’s money they control should be used to advance political causes they favor – to “make the world a better place.”
As most people know, ESG stands for Environmental protection, Social justice, and Governance of corporate and societal affairs. They’re all noble-sounding causes.
However, under ESG they’re centered around progressive, woke agendas, with the prevention of “man-made climate cataclysms” uppermost. Fund assets are used to drive “net zero” climate agendas and punish or de-fund fossil fuel companies.
That narrow focus creates serious problems. (Read more) ☼
The War Against We the People
By Jeff Crouere
In the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, our Founding Fathers declared that the brilliant centerpiece of our government was created by “We the People of the United States.” It was clearly not, “We the Politicians” or “We the Bureaucrats.”
Unfortunately, our federal government has utterly abandoned “We the People.” It was never more apparent than in the disgusting spectacle of the recently passed $1.7 trillion monstrosity known as the omnibus spending bill. (Read more) ☼
INTERESTING EDITORIALS
Under Wokeism, Animal Farm Comes to Life (link) ☼
The Globalist Scourge (link) ☼
Our government ‘protectors’ are releasing savages onto our streets! (link) ☼
A Mandate for the GOP House (link) ☼
TUCKER CARLSON: World Economic Forum exists to ‘destroy national economies’
Tucker Carlson compares attendees of the World Economic Forum to ‘supervillains’ (link) ☼
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:
Climate Change in Perspective (30 pages)
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 ☼
END
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