People for the West -Tucson
Newsletter, February, 2020
PO Box 86868, Tucson, AZ 85754-6868
pfw-tucson@cox.net
Real environmentalism can go hand in hand with natural resource production, private property rights, and access to public lands
The Political Season
by Jonathan DuHamel
The political season is in full swing with Democrat presidential candidates vying for the nomination and with the attempted removal of President Trump via impeachment.
Because People for the West is a 501(c)(3) corporation we cannot advocate for or against candidates for political office, but we can make some observations on policy and politics in general. The following quotes capture the feel of the season:
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” – Alexis de Tocqueville
“The reason so many people misunderstand so many issues is not that these issues are so complex, but that people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied. They want villains to hate and heroes to cheer, and they don’t want explanations that do not give them that.” – Thomas Sowell
When asked, what he would tell a generation living 1,000 years from now, Bertrand Russell (1959) replied:
“I should like to say two things, one intellectual and one moral:
The intellectual thing I should want to say to them is this: When you are studying any matter or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed, but look only and solely at what are the facts. That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say.”
“The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.” – Albert Einstein
“Emergencies have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded.” – Friedrich von Hayek
“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.” ― Bertrand Russell
“The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.” —James Madison (1788)
“What historians will definitely wonder about in future centuries is how deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that CO2 from human industry was a dangerous, planet-destroying toxin. It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that CO2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.” – Dr. Richard Lindzen
THE WILDFIRES
Catastrophic wildfires this past fall and winter in California, Brazil, and Australia have been blamed on global warming. However, a study of tree rings and fire scars, conducted by the University of Arizona and SMU, shows that (at least in the American Southwest) fire incidence was nearly the same under both cool and warm, wet and dry conditions. (Source)
Both the Australian aborigines and pre-Columbian American Indians use fire as a tool to keep forest open for game and hunting and to prevent large catastrophic fires. The more modern forest policy of fire suppression prevented forests being naturally thinned by relatively small ground fires. The result was a build up of brush which exacerbated fires to produce even larger, more destructive wild fires.
Australian fires
Climate change is the excuse to hide an Inferno of Incompetence — heads must roll for the billion dollar bushfire mistakes by Australian science writer Joanne Nova (link) ☼
Forgotten Fact: 1974/75 Australian Bush Fires Were More Than 9 Times Greater Than Those Of 2019/20! By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Jan 11, 2020 (link) ☼
Australian hail storms (not from global warming either)
by Joanne Nova (link)
On January 20, 2020, hail the size of golf balls fell on Canberra:
Windows, cars, gardens smashed, solar panels destroyed. Already there have between 15,000 insurance claims made and it’s been declared a catastrophe. But similar storms happened in 1871, 1877, 1897, 1919, 1936, 1956, 1963. ☼
THE CLIMATE SCAM
To refute the current climate propaganda, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (Cfact.org) released the Climate Truth File 2020, during the UN Climate Summit in Madrid last December. This report, compiled by Marc Morano is a 36-page PDF available here for free download.
Summary:
Global warming hype and hysteria continue to dominate the news media, academia, schools, the United Nations, and the U.S. government. The Green New Deal being pushed on Capitol Hill and in the 2020 presidential race is based upon “solving” an alleged “climate crisis.”
Teen school-skipping climate activists are testifying to the U.S. Congress and the United Nations and young children are being recruited for lawsuits against the U.S. government for its alleged climate “inaction.” The phrase ‘climate emergency’ has emerged as the favorite for climate campaigners.
But the arguments put forth by global warming advocates grossly distort the true facts on a host of issues, ranging from rising sea levels and record temperatures to melting polar caps and polar bears, among others. In short, there is no “climate crisis” or a “climate emergency.”
The UN, climate activists, the media, and academia are using the climate scare as an opportunity to lobby for their alleged “solutions” which require massive government expansion and central planning.
This talking points memo is designed to arm people with the voices of the rising number of scientists, the latest data, peer-reviewed studies on key facts so they can better engage in climate change debate with those advocating the UN/Al Gore/Green New Deal positions.
The global warming movement has morphed into a coalition of “climate cause deniers.” They deny the hundreds of causes and variables that influence climate change and instead try to pretend that carbon dioxide is the climate “control knob” overriding all the others factors and they pretend that every bad weather event is somehow “proof” of their “global warming.”
Some of the issues discussed:
Claims of an alleged “97% consensus” of scientists are “pulled from thin air”
CO2 is not the “control knob” of the climate
There is no “climate emergency”
The world is not going to end in 11 or 12 years due to “climate change.”
Prominent scientists say don’t fear CO2 and instead tout its benefits.
The Green New Deal is neither “Green” or “New”
Green New Deal would have NO impact on climate
Architects of Green New Deal admit it is NOT about the climate
Claims of “Hottest Year on Record” are scientifically meaningless
Earth’s temperature is not outside the range of natural variability.
Sea level rise is not accelerating
Extreme weather failing to follow predictions
Hurricanes are not getting worse
Droughts are NOT getting worse
Wildfires are not increasing
Antarctica ice melt fears not based on data
Arctic sea ice not disappearing
Greenland ice is not disappearing ☼
For even more information, re-read the links in the first article of the PFW January newsletter:
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/people-for-the-west/2020-archive/2020-01-january/ ☼
Was 2019 really the “second warmest year ever?”
From an article by Anthony Watts (link)
It depends on how you count and upon the database used. The claim was based upon the antiquated Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN) which reflects warmer biases due to urbanization and adjustments to the data. If, on the other hand, you use the modern U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) you will find that 10 of the past 15 years where warmer than 2019.
According to Watts: “NOAA’s U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) has the best quality climate data on the planet, yet it never gets mentioned in the NOAA/NASA press releases. Commissioned in 2005, it has the most accurate, unbiased, and un-adjusted data of any climate dataset. The USCRN has no biases, and no need for adjustments, and in my opinion represents a ground truth for climate change.” ☼
Dr. Tim Ball: The Evidence Proves That CO2 is Not a Greenhouse Gas
The most important assumption behind the AGW (Anthropogenic global warming) theory is that an increase in global atmospheric CO2 will cause an increase in the average annual global temperature. The problem is that in every record of temperature and CO2, the temperature changes first. Think about what I am saying. The basic assumption on which the entire theory that human activity is causing global warming or climate change is wrong. The questions are how did the false assumption develop and persist? (Read full article) ☼
Testing the hypothesis that variations in atmospheric water vapour are the main cause of fluctuations in global temperature (link)
Because water has been considered as providing positive feedback to warming primarily from CO2 its possible forcing effect has been overlooked. But as shown here by several different means, the more potent effect of applying water previously in the ocean or deep in the ground to dry surfaces with air in strong water deficit areas can be sufficient to affect global temperature. Clearly, the water vapour content of the troposphere is the major cause of the natural greenhouse effect, contributing up to two-thirds of the 33°C warming. Spatial and temporal variations in soil moisture and relative humidity of the atmosphere are the main factors controlling the regional outgoing longwave radiation (OLR), in contrast to the more even effects from well-mixed greenhouse gases such as CO2. This is well illustrated in the 4-6 year El Nino cycles, resulting in a global mean temperature variation approaching 1°C compared with La Nina years. Longer term, the proposed Milankovitch glaciations of paleoclimates result in declines of atmospheric temperature around 10°C, consistent with the major reduction in tropospheric water vapour approaching 50%. Weather conditions and climate as illustrated in the greenhouse effect are clearly demonstrated in the distribution of water, particularly on land. The apparently linear relationship between the water content of the atmosphere is direct verification of the greenhouse warming effect of this greenhouse gas. By contrast, other than by correlation, there is no such direct verification possible for the greenhouse effect of CO2.
Ivan R. Kennedy and Migdat Hodzic Periodicals of Engineering and Natural Sciences ISSN 2303-4521
Vol. 7, No. 2, August 2019, pp.870-880 ☼
PROPERTY RIGHTS
Only Dramatic, Direct Action Will Save the American Beef Industry
by Tom DeWeese, American Policy Center
[Note, this is a long article, here is the beginning]
For the past year I have been working to sound the alarm that the American beef industry is under massive assault from the radical environmental and animal rights movements that seek its ultimate destruction. Throughout the year I have been addressing cattlemen’s groups to educate them on the facts I have learned over nearly thirty years of exposing these groups and their plans to transform our entire culture and economy through the enforcement of the policy called sustainable development.
In the rural areas, the Greens’ selected tactic is to control the land, water, energy, and population of the Earth. To achieve these ends requires, among other things, the destruction of private property rights and elimination of every individual’s ability to make personal life-style choices, including personal diet. That’s why the American Beef Industry is such a necessary target.
First they had to create a false crisis so everyone would feel the need to take immediate action. Their tactic was to declare that beef was not sustainable – not as a product to grow — and not as a healthy food for people to consume. This put the cattlemen in the middle of a pincer move between the radical environmental movement seeking control of land use, and the Animal Rights movement which demanded the end of the consumption of animals.
Their most effective tactic is the never-ending threat of Global Warming. Say the Greens, global warming is driven by energy consumption and cows are energy guzzlers. That’s because you need trucks to ship the cattle to market. In their vision of a perfect sustainable community, nothing would be shipped in to consume. Everything needed would be produce right in the city. The Soviet Union called those gulags. And they starved. (Read more) ☼
REGULATION REFORM
White House moves to speed up approval of infrastructure projects under NEPA
By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.
Hoping to break the logjam that, for decades, has held up construction projects throughout the United States, the Trump administration on Jan. 9 rolled out sweeping reforms of the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
To many, NEPA may not be a household name. But the statute’s Byzantine requirements have delayed, and in many cases, thwarted much-needed infrastructure projects, undermining plans to build or upgrade roads, bridges, tunnels, and pipelines. NEPA has also been used to prevent the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, as well as the mining of precious minerals.
Signed into law by President Nixon in 1970, the law has become a tool of obstruction by environmental groups – and with great success. Federal judges have not hesitated to delay projects on the grounds that federal officials have not conducted a thorough enough review under NEPA. The resulting delays are partially responsible for the nearly $1 trillion backlog in transportation projects.
According to the White House, each year agencies assessing projects under NEPA prepare approximately 170 environmental impact statements (EIS) — detailed documents that can run to 600 pages each – and 10,000 environmental assessments that are less stringent. Agency officials involved in the EIS process have no incentives to complete them in a time fashion and have been suspected of dragging their feet to please their political allies among the environmental groups bringing suits under NEPA.
The new rules, which were written by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), are intended to speed up NEPA’s process for preparing and approving an EIS. Under the proposed rule, it should be easier for agencies to grant categorical exclusions for privately funded projects that lack significant federal involvement and would therefore not have to receive a NEPA permit.
For projects that require an EIS, the new rules set a two-year limit to complete an EIS and a 300-page limit for the document. For projects that require a less rigorous Environmental Assessment, the page limit is 75 and the time limit is one year. However, the agency official in charge could still waive these limits.
Other key provisions intended to speed up the process include: strengthening the authority of the lead agency when multiple agencies are involved (which is usually the case); requiring that public comments be solicited earlier in the process; and, significantly, reducing the number of alternatives that must be considered to those that are economically and technically feasible.
The current regulations flush out the law by requiring that an EIS consider “direct, indirect, and cumulative” environmental impacts of a project. The new rule strikes these specific references and thereby reverts simply to the consideration of “environmental impacts.” (Read more)
See also from the Wryheat blog: How NEPA crushes productivity
See also this article about the Clean Water Act and the “Waters of the United States”☼
ENERGY
More than 13.9 million trees felled in Scotland for wind development, 2000–2019
Author: Scottish Forestry (link) ☼
California files lawsuit to remain a National Security Risk
By Ronald Stein
California has chosen to be the only state in America that imports most of its oil needs from foreign countries and relies on the U.S. Navy to pay a steep price keeping an aircraft carrier with escorts on station to deter attacks on oil tanker traffic operating in and around the Persian Gulf. Regarding the crude oil demands for the state, there are scary similarities between Governor Newsom’s goals for California and Vladimir Putin’s objectives. Both support California being more and more dependent on imported foreign oil, and both support anti-fracking in California. Obviously, any successful fracking enterprise would lessen the states’ dependency on that foreign oil. Does the Governor know his actions are supportive of California’s 5th largest economy in the world being a National Security risk to America? (Read more) ☼
50,000 Tons Of Non-Recyclable Wind Turbine Blades Dumped In The Landfill
Funny, no one seemed to consider what to do with the massive amount of wind turbine blades once they reached the end of their lifespan. Thus, the irony of the present-day Green Energy Movement is the dumping of thousands of tons of “non-recyclable” supposedly renewable wind turbine blades in the country’s landfills. Who would have thought? What’s even worse, is that the amount of wind turbine blades slated for waste disposal is forecasted to quadruple over the next fifteen years as a great deal more blades reach their 15-20 year lifespan. (Read more) ☼
Green Madness: Wind Farms Paid Up To £3 Million Per Day To Switch Off Turbines
The Sunday Telegraph
Wind farms were paid up to £3 million per day to switch off their turbines and not produce electricity last week, following a fault with a major power line carrying electricity to England from turbines in Scotland. (Source) ☼
CO2 emissions from renewables: solar pv, hydrothermal and EGS sources
by D. Chandrasekharam . G. Ranjith Pathegama (link)
Solar pv cells may not emit CO2 during the generation of electricity, but during their manufacture, emissions are considerable. Therefore, solar pv cannot be considered a zero-emission source.
Abstract
Geothermal and solar pv are future energy sources, as both these renewables draw energy from natural heat sources i.e. the Earth and the Sun. While geothermal energy utilizes Earth’s heat for power generation and for direct applications, like space cooling and dehydration, solar energy captures the Sun’s energy and converts the energy to electricity through solar pv cells. The quartz required to manufacture solar cells that can generate 1 MWe weighs about 10 tons, and the manufacture of pv cells involves two important stages: metallurgical grade silicon (MGS) and electronic grade silicon (EGS). In the first stage an amount of 1756 million kg of CO2 is released, and a similar amount of CO2 is released during the conversion of EGS to ingots. The total CO2 emissions during the lifecycle of a solar pv cell are about 3312 million kg. This is far higher than a geothermal energy source, which emits about 450 g/kWh. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), under the sustainable development policy proposed for adoption to mitigate CO2 emissions, nearly 54 billion cells are required to meet the generation target of 14,139 TWh. Of solar pv and geothermal energy sources, geothermal energy is the best option under this policy scenario to mitigate CO2 emissions and to control global temperatures. In addition to the emissions related to the manufacture of solar pv cells, solar panels and solar cell waste management are of great concern. Globally the generation of solar panel waste will be of the order of 78 million tons. Countries involved in the manufacture of solar pv cells will emit considerable amounts of CO2 from this source in addition to coal-based thermal power plants. Solar pv cells may not emit CO2 during the generation of electricity, but during their life time emissions are considerable. Therefore, solar pv cannot be considered a zero-emission source. D. Chandrasekharam, Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, India and G. Ranjith Pathegama, Monash University, Clayton, Australia ☼
Progressive Eco-Group Admits It: Renewable Energy is a Hoax that Benefits its Greenie Elmer Gantries like Al Gore
By John Eidson
Independent physicist John Droz, Jr. alerted me to the website of Deep Green Resistance (DGR), an international environmental organization that calls for the total destruction of what it refers to as the “global industrial economy,” a.k.a. capitalism. Given the group’s hard-left credentials, its call for dismantling capitalism throughout the world is not surprising.
What is surprising is that in an unusual show of progressive candor, Deep Green Resistance openly acknowledges what skeptical scientists have been saying for more than two decades: that renewable energy is a government-backed hoax that enriches big corporations — and green energy investors like Al Gore — at the expense of taxpayers and the environment. If you find that admission hard to believe, please keep reading. The questions and answers below are verbatim from the FAQ page on the organization’s website. (Read more) ☼
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Our Mission
1) Support private property rights.
2) Support multiple use management of federal lands for agriculture, livestock grazing, mining, oil and gas production, recreation, timber harvesting and water development activities.
3) Support a balance of environmental responsibility and economic benefit for all Americans by urging that environmental policy be based on good science and sound economic principles.
Newsletters can be viewed online on Jonathan’s Wryheat Blog:
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/
See my essay on climate change:
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/climate-in-perspective/
The Constitution is the real contract with America.
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People for the West – Tucson, Inc.
PO Box 86868
Tucson, AZ 85754-6868
Jonathan DuHamel, President & Editor
Dr. John Forrester, Vice President
Lonni Lees, Associate Editor
People for the West – Tucson, Inc. is an Arizona tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) corporation. Newsletter subscriptions are free.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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