GREENIE WATCH

The Net Zero Agenda Threatens Your Future Clothing Purchases

Whether living in the United States or in a European country, there is a greater chance of wearing a garment made in Bangladesh than in one’s homeland.

However, the south Asian country’s dominance in the manufacture of clothing is being threatened by a “green” agenda undermining the power supply.

With availability of cheap labor and plentiful raw materials, Bangladesh is the world’s second biggest garment exporter and trails only China, having surged ahead of other Asian competitors such as India, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. A key to sustaining this manufacturing boom is maintaining supplies of electricity to run factories.

The “Made in Bangladesh” label has become synonymous with affordable, quality garments for much of the globe and with the economic growth of a country that achieved independence from Pakistan in 1971 and now shares borders with India and Myanmar. Bangladesh garment-making is more than just another economic sector; it is the lifeline of the national economy.

In a nation of 168 million, the industry employs more than 4 million workers, the majority of whom are women, and accounts for approximately 84% of the country’s total exports. Bringing in $47 billion to the economy, Bangladeshi clothing supplies global brands such as Walmart, H&M of Sweden and Zara of Spain.

In 2023, knitwear export earnings reached nearly $26 billion, while woven garments earned more than $21 billion. Both categories realized year-on-year growth of approximately 11% and 9% percent, respectively.

This success is built on factories that operate within tight schedules to meet international demands and deadlines. They require a steady flow of electricity to light facilities and operate machinery. Any disruption can result in significant financial losses for factory owners and hourly workers.

In a country where the minimum wage for garment workers is around $113 per month (about $4 a day), even a small reduction in working hours makes a huge difference in a person’s life.

Nonetheless, intentional disruptions in the power supply occur almost every day to manage Bangladesh’s chronic shortage of electricity. The exception to these interruptions has been winter when overall energy demand is lower.

The large gap in the supply and demand for electricity also sometimes leads to sudden, unplanned blackouts such as one in October 2022 when 80% of the country (including key industrial hubs of Dhaka, Chattogram, Sylhet, and Mymensingh) were left without electricity.

Lasting for up to eight hours, the “outage affected production in garment factories and small and medium industries” as millions suffered in sweltering heat, according to news reports.

Net Zero and Green Fantasies Present More Uncertainty

Now, the national government in Dhaka has announced plans to saddle the struggling power system with the reliability issues of the so-called green energy of wind and solar as part of a net zero scheme to be “carbon neutral” by 2050. This would be disastrous.

Relatively reliable fossil fuels provide more than 98% of Bangladesh’s electricity and still the grid has issues managing the supply-demand gap.

The well-known intermittency of solar panels and wind turbines makes them available only 10% to 30% of the time and sometimes overproducing when they are. Such erratic operational features add complexity, risk of damage to equipment and more uncertainty to an already shaky grid.

Instead of wasting time and money on renewables, the country should focus on increasing its power capacity from conventional energy sources like coal and natural gas. Even analysts supporting “green” energy say the country must allocate more funds towards oil and gas exploration in order to reduce dependency on imported liquified natural gas to fuel plants that now generate 70% of the electricity.

Bangladesh should stick to its current course of giving energy security top priority and reject pseudoscientific theories about climate change that promote unreliable energy sources. The beneficiaries would be millions of Bangladeshi workers, the country’s development goals and clothing shoppers worldwide.

https://principia-scientific.com/the-net-zero-agenda-threatens-your-future-clothing-purchases/

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Virginia Breaks Free From California’s Electric Vehicle Mandate

Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced recently that Virginia would decouple from California’s onerous mandate requiring all new vehicles sold in the commonwealth to be electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles (EVs) by 2035.

This regulation—a ban on sales of new gas, diesel and traditional hybrid vehicles—promulgated by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), would have taken effect as soon as next year when 35% of all model year 2026 cars sold would be required to meet California’s definition of “zero emission.”

This all stems from a 2021 bill championed by then-Gov. Ralph Northam and his allies in the General Assembly. They enacted policy directing the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board (APCB) to adopt regulations tying Virginia law to California’s vehicle emission standards. And if you can believe it, the law was intentionally exempted from the Administrative Process Act, denying Virginians any opportunity to give input on the regulatory process and dodging larger economic review for the policy.

It sounds brazen, but that’s exactly what happened: the previous administration in Richmond put Virginia vehicle policy in the hands of Californians.

In November 2022, California finalized entirely new regulations at the direction of their Gov. Gavin Newsom. Under the new California policy, selling any new gas, diesel, flex-fuel or traditional hybrid cars and trucks would be unlawful and subject to severe penalties, whether in California or in states aligned with California.

California’s gas car ban would have been devastating for Virginia drivers and small businesses and damaging to U.S. national security. Consumers would have paid dearly under the ban, facing higher costs in both the new and used car markets and finding more and more vehicles simply priced out of reach for families. Any compliance penalties levied on automakers—roughly $20,000 per vehicle—would also likely be passed on to Virginia consumers.

The absurd and un-American mandate to “go electric” on California’s timeline would also have increased Virginia’s and the U.S. dependence on China, since China controls the global EV battery and mineral supply chain.

Make no mistake: criticism of California’s gas car ban and EV mandate policies—and fervent opposition to the spread of those policies in the commonwealth of Virginia and to any other state—should not be construed as an indictment of EVs themselves. EVs are a good choice for many Americans, and if those cars and trucks work for a family’s needs and fit within their budgets, that’s wonderful. Families have every right to make the choice to buy an EV, but no government mandate should compel them toward that purchase or restrict their access to other vehicle options.

When the stakes are absolutely clear and the choice is between government mandates and consumer freedom, the right move is to err on the side of consumers. And that’s exactly what Youngkin did when he chose to end California’s control over the vehicles that can and cannot be sold in Virginia. Virginia drivers, not California regulators 3,000 miles away, should be able to choose for themselves which vehicles to purchase. When people are free to choose, they make decisions that work best for them, their businesses and their families.

Other states tethered to California’s EV mandate should follow Youngkin’s bold and necessary leadership and free their residents, too, from the tyranny of California’s gas car ban.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/07/04/purple-states-take-note-youngkin-saves-virginia-from-tyranny-of-californias-gas-car-ban/

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UK: Green MP Opposes 100-Mile Corridor of Wind Farm Pylons in His Suffolk Constituency

The co-leader of the Green Party is objecting to the Labour Government’s plans to build a 100-mile stretch of pylons through his constituency as part of their Net Zero plans. The Telegraph has the story.

Adrian Ramsay, one of the party’s four newly elected MPs, has said that he will seek a pause to the plans to build a 100-mile corridor of pylons stretching through his constituency of Waveney Valley.

The plans, which are currently under consultation by National Grid, will bring power from wind farms off the coast of East Anglia, and stretch from Norwich to Tilbury.

A spokesman for the Green Party said that the Government had “tried to force through one option” and Mr. Ramsay was “focused on securing a proper options assessment to ensure that the alternatives are properly considered, including an offshore grid”.

The new Labour Government has a target for the electricity grid to be run from 100% green sources by 2030, and will set out plans in its first days to lift the ban on onshore wind farms, and encourage community backing for local renewable projects.

But the opposition from within the Green Party, which has urged the country to move even faster to Net Zero, shows the challenge of getting the public onside, even when they support action on climate change. …

The Norwich to Tilbury pylon plan has been the subject of controversy in the local area, with campaigners saying the proposals for 110 miles of cabling using 50m high pylons will “destroy our historic landscapes and will require huge loss of trees”. …

Speaking after his win in Waveney Valley, Mr. Ramsay said he would “stand up for the issues that really matter to people here”.

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/07/07/green-mp-opposes-100-mile-corridor-of-wind-farm-pylons-in-his-suffolk-constituency/

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Wind droughts

Rafe Champion

Severe wind droughts are prolonged spells with next to no wind across continental areas. They also exist offshore as any sailor who has been becalmed knows full well. Wind droughts will kill the green-power fantasy, and they have the potential to deal a massive blow to our lifestyle, depending as we do on abundant, reliable and affordable power. While meteorologists don’t mention them, independent Australian observers discovered wind droughts over a decade ago but nobody took any notice. We may pay a bitter price for this neglect.

Serious questions have to be asked about the silence of meteorologists on wind droughts. At the same time the responsible authorities should be called to account for their failure to check the wind supply before connecting intermittent energy to the grid.

Why wind won’t work

Wind and solar cannot provide reliable power at grid-scale and the reason is as simple as ABC: Input to the grid must continuously match the demand, and the continuity of wind and solar input fails on nights with little or no wind.

The amount of storage required to bridge the gaps is not feasible or affordable.
Supporters of the transition to intermittent energy invoke a “holy trinity” of strategies to ride through wind drought. These are (1) long-distance transmission lines to shift power from areas of plenty to drought zones, (2) pumped hydro storage, and (3) battery storage.

Long distance transmission lines will not help because wind droughts can extend across the whole of SE Australia. On the other side of the world they have been known to extend across all of western Europe.

Pumped hydro at the scale required appears to be out of the question. There is no substantial pumped hydro scheme in the world that runs on wind and solar power alone.

As for batteries, we read practically every day that more “big batteries” are coming but “big” is an abuse of language in this context because the capacity of even the biggest batteries, like the 1.4GWh Waratah Super Battery in NSW, is negligible compared with the power required in a single night in the grid. That is in the order of 300GWh, while the total capacity of all the battery projects in the pipeline amount to some 60GWh and the batteries at work in the system at present can deliver only 3GWh.

The plan devised by the market operator (AEMO) calls for a ninefold increase in the amount of installed wind and solar capacity, but all that capacity will deliver a pitifully small amount of power on nights with little or no wind. Such nights are the limiting factor for the whole system like the slowest ship in a convoy or weakest link in a chain.

The threat of wind droughts

Subsidised and mandated intermittent energy providers drive out conventional power plants because they can make money when the market price is too low for conventional providers to run profitably. The unreliables can displace conventional power but they can’t replace it! Eventually there will not be enough reliable (dispatchable) power to meet 100 per cent of the demand. At that point, the power supply will be compromised whenever the wind is low overnight.

The day of reckoning has been delayed by the modest increase in demand in recent years due to creeping deindustrialization — directly caused by the increasing cost of power. As the coal generating capacity runs down, the pinch will first occur for a few hours at the dinnertime peak of demand. That can be met using the deceptively named Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader Scheme (RETS). This sounds like a reserve supply, but it functions by diverting power from major users (with compensation) to protect the integrity of the grid and avoid inconvenience for the community at large. In other words, industrial production stops so he the community’s lights stay on!

If the RETS diversions of supply is not enough, rolling blackouts can be organized to handle the shortfall. As the process goes on, there will eventually not be enough conventional power to service the base load, the minimum that is required day and night. At that point, whenever the wind is low overnight there will be blackouts, and we will officially achieve the status of a Third World country.

Since 2012, 12 coal power stations have closed in South-Eastern Australia, taking out some 8GW of capacity, which in total is down to 22GW. We are now only one coal station closure away from a power crisis whenever the wind is low overnight. The problem surfaced in June 2022 when outages in some coal stations created a crisis that was met by using gas, which spiked the price of gas, and hence the wholesale price of power.

This was seen as a problem with the price of gas, to be solved by government intervention and a price cap. It should have been seen as an early warning of what was coming if the capacity of coal power continued to run down. Gas is too expensive to be used outside peak periods. In addition, there are serious concerns about the availability of gas going forward.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2024/06/things-that-go-slump-in-the-night/

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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What Happened To The Predicted Summer Of Hell?

In March this year, the German website Climate News carried a piece by former criminal biologist & politician Marc Benecke (and now apparently also a climate expert), who declared to all and sundry this year would see a ‘summer of hell with almost complete certainty’ because of ‘climate change’

We all know what happened next in Britain. April was so cold most people had their heating on for much of the month.

This must have been another case of mass delusion though, because the Met Office confidently stated in June we had only imagined the cold, and April was in fact warmer than usual.

May turned out to be about average in terms of temperature, and the first 18 days of June were up to five degrees cooler than usual (and only half the temperature we saw in the two-week heatwave last June), before we had five days of hot temperatures.

That qualified as a heatwave because about ten years ago the Met Office reduced the number of days from seven consecutive above the average temperature for the time of year, to just three, thus allowing them to claim heatwaves are becoming more common.

After the hot week, temperatures dropped again at the end of June and into July which, along with August, are traditionally the hottest months in the UK.

The Telegraph reported June saw more sunshine than usual, but acknowledged cold air from the Arctic made it significantly cooler than usual.

The Telegraph article said 30.3C was recorded at Heathrow Airport on June 26th which, as everyone should know by now, usually gives the highest readings, not least because of the urban heat island effect, and the fact that the Heathrow weather station is right in the middle of acres of highly reflective tarmac and concrete, and probably has aircraft exhaust washing over it.

The Met Office and the mainstream media decline to mention that inconvenient fact.

Today the temperature is predicted to reach just 16C, and the forecast for the next seven days is temps in the high teens, where the average July temperature for the UK is around 22C.

So much for the summer of hell then.

Those who remember the summer of 1976 with its eight-week heatwave will probably recall it was described by many as a glorious summer, and it was.

If that happened now you would undoubtedly hear shrill cries from the gullible and the indoctrinated that ‘the end is nigh’.

We shall see what temperatures the rest of summer brings, but whatever happens, you can guarrantee with almost complete certainty to paraphrase Marc Benecke, that the BBC and the Met Office will confidently state this year was ‘the hottest on record’.

This continues to ignore the fact that the 1930s was the hottest decade, a fact climate alarmists fervently wish didn’t exist.

https://principia-scientific.com/what-happened-to-the-predicted-summer-of-hell/

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Illegal ESG Collusion Behind Decarbonization Efforts

In mid-June, the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee released an interim report describing collusion between radical environmental groups, progressive activists, and corporate interests, especially in the financial sector, to impose Environment, Social, and Governance goals on the American people. The Judiciary committee is, in part, charged with the “[p]rotection of trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies.” This includes protecting against collusion which reduces competition, limits consumer choice, and increases prices, in the case at hand, through efforts to decarbonize the economy, in pursuit of environmental and environmental justice demands.

Doctrinaire, elitist adherents of ESG goals view capitalism is a sin against the environment that must be restrained through social engineering to ensure that the social, environmental, and ethical ends they believe are required by a social justice, are adopted and enforced across society. Evidence shows that there is no climate crisis, but ESG pushers use the alleged threat of catastrophic climate change to push progressive ends.

The Heartland Institute was well ahead of the curve in exposing the dangers ESG poses to freedom and economic progress, with our April 2023 study exploring the ways different special interests are colluding to universalize ESG standards – Congress is finally catching up.

Congress used the power of the subpoena to force recalcitrant ESG proponents (which it labels the “climate cartel”) to give up documents detailing their collaborations to promote ESG, and concluded based on the documentation that the various groups are illegally colluding against the interest of the American people by, for example, “forcing companies to slash output of products and services that are critical to Americans’ daily lives.”

The groups colluding, include (not an exhaustive list), per the report:

Climate Action 100+, the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ);
blue state pension funds like the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS);

radical environmental non-profit organizations like Ceres;
stockholder engagement service providers like As You Sow;
activist investors like Arjuna Capital, LLC (Arjuna), Trillium Asset Management,

LLC, Engine No. 1 LP, and Aviva Investors Americas, LLC, which “acquire a minimal ownership stake . . . to stop climate change, not to make a financial profit;”

the “Big Three” asset managers BlackRock, Inc. (BlackRock), State Street Global Advisors (State Street), and The Vanguard Group, Inc. (Vanguard), who together own 21.9% and vote 24.9% of the shares of the Standard and Poor’s (S&P) 500;

and the foreign-owned proxy advisory duopoly of Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS) and Glass, Lewis & Co. (Glass Lewis), which have a combined 90% market share and advise mutual funds controlling more than $27 trillion in assets.
The report says the climate cartel has, among other things:

[D]eclared war on the American way of life [by] … waging “a Global World War” for net zero against disfavored American companies, including those in the fossil fuel, aviation, and farming industries that allow Americans to drive, fly, and eat.

It has described Climate Action 100+ as “the global Navy,” and compared Ceres’s efforts to “the Army ground troops” and “an ‘air cover’ strategic and silent bombing campaign by a newly funded division of the Air Force.”

The climate cartel has agreed to force corporations to “decarbonize.” Members of groups like Climate Action 100+ expressly commit to engage “with the companies in which [they] invest” to make them reach “net zero [greenhouse gas (GHG)] emissions by 2050” by disclosing their carbon emissions, reducing their carbon emissions, and adopting enforcement mechanisms to strengthen these commitments.

The climate cartel “[r]amp[s] up” and “[e]scalate[s]” pressure against corporations on the “wrong side of climate history.” The climate cartel is “willing to go to the top rung” by filing shareholder resolutions, voting against management, and “replac[ing] board members” with those of its own choosing.

The climate cartel seeks to “keep fossil fuels in the ground,” raising prices and reducing output for American consumers.

In short, this exhaustively referenced report uses the climate cartel’s own documents and independent research to expose how these groups are colluding through pressure tactics and political influence (politicians and bureaucrats), to force companies to adopt ESG goals that further their social and political aims, to the detriment of many of the companies themselves, consumers, and the general public.

The report concludes:

The Committee’s ongoing investigation into collusion between left-wing activists and major financial institutions has revealed that a climate cartel is working to decarbonize the U.S. economy—with disastrous implications for American consumers. The climate cartel has declared war on our way of life, escalating its attacks on free markets and demanding that companies slash output of the critical products and services that allow Americans to drive, fly, and eat.

The Biden Administration has failed to act upon the climate cartel’s apparent violations of longstanding U.S. antitrust law.

For a government report, it is relatively short, and like The Heartland Institute’s report before it, well worth reading in full. As grim a picture as the Judiciary Committee paints of the collusion to decarbonize the world in pursuit of ESG, I think it actually understates the danger to humanity’s short-term and long-term well-being. ESG is a recipe for equality in squalor—with the exception of the elites in charge of the climate cartel—with poverty and premature death being the end result.

https://heartlanddailynews.com/2024/07/climate-change-weekly-511-illegal-esg-collusion-behind-decarbonization-efforts/

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Energy Innovation Is Key to Prosperity

In a recent report, “Powering Human Advancement,” The Heritage Foundation laid bare the truth that the driving force behind wealth creation and raising human development standards is the innovative harnessing of energy.

As historian Vaclav Smil sees it, “Energy is the only universal currency.”

Therefore, policymakers should endeavor to allow their citizens abundant access to energy and to the wealth and prosperity it affords.

Unfortunately, government bureaucrats have taken for granted the practical realities that energy abundance has on reducing poverty for its citizens. Subsequently, these policymakers are taking a dangerous path of forced energy scarcity that is deindustrializing countries like Germany.

America cannot turn its back on the energy abundance that made it the most advanced and greatest nation on Earth.

The universal currency of energy provides us with reliable rules-of-thumb for gauging human advancement. In nations with an energy use of only 500 kWh of energy per capita, there is often only subsistence-level agricultural production, and incomes hover around $1,000 per year.

When energy consumption per capita eclipses 10,000 kWh per capita, there is a drastic decline in poverty. At this point, societies tend to have one doctor per 1,000 residents and see a drastic reduction in child mortality. At 20,000 kWh per capita, the people have enough accumulated wealth to begin serious investments towards mitigating air and water pollution.

America exceeded 10,000 kWh per capita around the 1920s. This ushered in a period well remembered for material prosperity that saw the beginnings of mass-electrification and majority access to improved water sources.

By the 1960s, America had eclipsed 20,000 kWh per capita, and the march of progress continued. This period saw near universal access to electricity and sanitized water systems causing infant mortality rates to decline and life expectancy to increase rapidly.

This increase in energy consumption is also directly correlated with improvements in GDP, agricultural productivity, health indicators, and overall human development. In fact, the U.S. saw GDP per capita rise from $4,000 in 1900 to over $60,000 in 2018, a clear demonstration of how increasing energy access drives economic growth and improves living standards.

The American Experiment has thrived as innovators created new businesses and jobs that increasingly harnessed energy with greater efficiency to build our modern wealth of material goods. This new wealth has one source – the intangible value created by the energized innovators and entrepreneurs that push our technological frontiers and expand the dream of tomorrow. It is not the individual innovator that benefits most from their creation, it is the rest of society.

As long as the government does not become captured by special interests, the voluntary exchange of wealth, the exchange of time and skills, allocates toward whoever can solve the scarcity of time the best. This free market, under properly ordered liberty, is the only system that allows individuals and their families to maximize their utility, their pursuit of happiness, and their indirect service to the rest of society through innovative pursuits.

With an energy abundance, the physical toil that defined much of human existence has been alleviated–for which we should be thankful.

As “gratitude is the heart of conservatism,” policymakers should be humble in this time of energy abundance and avoid punishing the creation of wealth, the fruits of easing scarcity for others.

Policymakers must prioritize facilitating the work of innovators and entrepreneurs to discover new methods of harnessing energy and increasing energy access. This is the only true path to accumulating the wealth necessary for human advancement worldwide.

When policymakers create radical energy policy, onerous regulations, and slush funds for favored groups, the resulting progressive corporatism strains our collective confidence in our time-tested marketplaces. The poverty these policies induce doesn’t largely fall on those government bureaucrats or wealthy business owners–it falls on families in the form of high prices, lower wages, and loss of access to products.

If we are to reverse our recent economic malaise and secure our nation for generations to come, policymakers must acknowledge that the innovative harnessing of energy is the driver of prosperity.

Thoughtful and grateful policymakers would be wise to respect the free innovative and entrepreneurial process by heeding the wisdom of the old Greek proverb that “Society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.”

https://www.heritage.org/energy/commentary/energy-innovation-key-prosperity

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Greenwashing Kamala Harris: How the Veep Casts Herself as an Environmental Justice Crusader

Vice President Kamala Harris has long cast herself as a fearless pioneer of efforts to fight for social and environmental justice.

“When I was elected DA of San Francisco,” Harris told a gathering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta last year, “I started the first environmental justice unit of any DA’s office in the country.”

In her telling, the San Francisco District Attorney formed the special environmental justice unit in the early 2000s especially to protect the long-neglected community of Bayview Hunters Point, a predominantly African American and impoverished part of the city, which had become “a dumping ground for people from other places.”

In dozens of speeches and interviews in recent years, Harris has bragged that she went “after polluters” and protected minority communities in San Francisco in novel ways as a local prosecutor.

The narrative has become a bedrock of Harris’ political identity. She featured her DA environmental justice crimes unit in her first statewide television advertisement and she rarely missed an opportunity to tout the history during her presidential bid, during which she promised similar initiatives if elected.

But records from the San Francisco District Attorney’s office and interviews with local environmental advocates point to a different, far less ambitious record.

“We’re unaware of any major or semi-major environmental justice work done by Harris in Bayview Hunters Point, including on the Hunters Point Shipyard Superfund site,” said Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, a progressive watchdog group that seeks to “to promote environmental, social, economic and climate justice.”

Steve Castleman, an attorney with UC Berkeley’s Environmental Law Clinic, who has worked on urban pollution issues in the Bay Area, also noted that he did not know of any significant Harris environmental justice action as DA.

Far from targeting powerful corporate interests, Harris’ environmental justice unit appears to have filed only a few lawsuits, all against small-time defendants. The targets included a young man who conducted illegal smog checks at a small auto body shop in the city and a left-leaning community newspaper accused of illegally dumping leftover ink in an abandoned lot.

Another defendant charged by the unit was a small construction company accused of using adulterated concrete. The major industrial polluters of San Francisco were left untouched under Harris’ watch during her two terms that ended in 2010.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/06/25/greenwashing_kamala_harris_how_the_veep_misleadlingly_casts_herself_as_an_environmental_justice_crusader_1039776.html

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Guterres Mangles Metaphors To Pitch Extreme Climate Alarmism

History will record that the United Nations has established itself as the greatest organizational perpetrator of junk science in modern times, if not of all time, with current Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (pictured) destined to be singled out for his contribution to the grossly-distorted UN climate alarmism

Since his appointment in 2019, Guterres and the UN have lived up to our standard formal definition of junk science.

It occurs when scientific facts are distorted, risk is exaggerated (or underplayed), and “the science” is adapted and warped by politics and ideology to serve another agenda.

That definition encompasses a wide range of activities among scientists, NGOs, politicians, journalists, media outlets, cranks, and quacks who manipulate science for political, environmental, economic, and social purposes.

It also nicely captures the entire United Nations climate crusade and the work of its institutional creation, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

But no single official can top Guterres as a purveyor of IPCC hype and doom, a living embodiment of Hans Christian Andersen’s fabled emperor who believes he is fully, stylishly dressed but in fact, has no clothes.

Guterres, a former Socialist Party prime minister of Portugal (1995-2002) and president of the Socialist International (1999-2005) was in typically ridiculous form on June 5th when he delivered a speech at the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, at an event billed as “A Moment of Truth” and a “special address on climate action.”

Guterres talked about a planet on a “highway to climate hell,” rehashing a line he used in 2022 in Egypt at the COP27 climate conference:

“We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.”

Guterres also has no qualms about mixing and mangling metaphors.

He simultaneously told the Manhattan audience that humans are:

“like the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, we’re having an outsized impact. In the case of climate, we are not the dinosaurs. We are the meteor. We are not only in danger. We are the danger.”

The longer Guterres rambles on, the more confusing, contradictory, and senseless the metaphors become:

“We are playing Russian roulette with our planet. We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell.

And the truth is … we have control of the wheel.”

Other Guterres’ climate spins include:

“Humanity has opened the gates of hell” and “become a weapon of mass extinction.”

And:

“We must go into emergency mode and put out this five-alarm fire.”

Is Guterres describing reality — or the content of a new AI computer game in which some crazed, teenaged human monster drives a flaming meteor through the ozone layer, knocking off dinosaurs before crashing onto a highway and plowing into a Russian Museum of Political Roulette just outside the Gates of Hell?

As UN secretary-general, Guterres sits atop a hierarchy of agencies such as the IPCC climate science megaplex, which was created in 1988 by two other UN agencies, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

UNEP was cobbled together in 1972 as the brainchild of Maurice Strong, the late Canadian global environmental schemer, who famously mused about a fictional environmental crisis that led a group of global insiders to decide the only hope for the planet is “that the industrialized civilizations collapse”.

The current “degrowth” movement is a version of deindustrialization that reflects Guterres’ off-ramp from the highway to hell. In fact, the word “degrowth” appears 28 times in the IPCC’s sixth and latest Assessment Report.

https://principia-scientific.com/guterres-mangles-metaphors-to-pitch-extreme-climate-alarmism/

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California Advances Bills to Ban Thicker, Reusable Plastic Bags That It Previously Required

It seems that California’s plastic bag ban has been a failure, but that is not stopping lawmakers from trying to impose a second bag ban.

California first adopted a statewide ban on “single-use” plastic bags with the passage of Senate Bill 270 in 2014.

After being held up by a referendum in November 2016, voters narrowly approved Proposition 67, thereby implementing SB 270. As a recent Mercury News report revealed, however, Democratic lawmakers who had plastic bag factories in their districts successfully lobbied for the inclusion of a provision in the bill that would allow the use of thicker plastic bags marked as recyclable.

However, people treated the thicker, “reusable” plastic bags the same as the previous “single-use” bags, which was entirely predictable. Plastic bag use is now greater than it was before the ban. Moreover, as an August 2023 Los Angeles Times article noted, not a single recycling center in California accepts the thicker, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bags anyway.

Now, a pair of identical bills, SB 1053 and Assembly Bill 2236, would ban those thicker plastic bags and force grocery stores and retailers to sell paper bags made from at least 50 percent recycled paper for a minimum of 10 cents apiece, or reusable bags made of cloth or other washable textiles. The bills have each passed their respective chambers and are now under consideration in the opposite chamber.

So we are apparently going back to using paper bags, which, if you are old enough to recall, we were once told were not environmentally friendly, and we were scolded for using them because their manufacture required killing too many trees. In fact, those “single-use” plastic bags did have a significantly smaller carbon footprint than paper bags—and they had the added benefit of not ripping and dropping heavy loads of groceries as easily as the paper ones. (It should also be noted that the “single-use” moniker was always a misnomer, as people tended to use them to line trash bins, pick up pet waste, and store and carry a number of items after their initial use.)

In a 2013 San Diego Union-Tribune column, I asserted:

The claims that plastic bags are worse for the environment than paper bags or cotton reusable bags are dubious at best. In fact, compared to paper bags, plastic grocery bags produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions, require 70 percent less energy to make, generate 80 percent less waste, and utilize less than 4 percent of the amount of water needed to manufacture them. This makes sense because plastic bags are lighter and take up less space than paper bags.

Reusable bags come with their own set of problems. They, too, have a larger carbon footprint than plastic bags. Even more disconcerting are the findings of several studies that plastic bag bans lead to increased health problems due to food contamination from bacteria that remain in the reusable bags.

In fact, according to a 2018 Danish government study, one would have to reuse a paper bag 43 times to equal the environmental performance of a “single-use” plastic bag (like the ones California already banned), a thicker polyethylene plastic bag (like the ones legislators are now trying to ban) 35 to 84 times, and an organic cotton bag 20,000 times. So, banning plastic bags will likely have a worse net effect on the environment. The substantial increase in the water needed to produce the paper bags that would largely replace them under the proposed laws seems doubly foolish for a state prone to periodic (and often severe) droughts.

Moreover, banning the existing thicker plastic bags will only prompt consumers to buy more plastic bags to replace the ones they used to use for their trash can, pet waste, and other needs. This is precisely what happened not only here in California after the previous ban but also in places like New Jersey, Ireland, and the Australian Capital Territory (where the capital of Canberra is located) after they instituted similar plastic bag bans.

California state Senator Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas) and Assemblywoman Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda) recently wrote a Sacramento Bee column arguing for their bills, SB 1053 and AB 2236, respectively. In their piece, the politicians decried “our culture of plastic consumption.” They noted that a wide variety of plastics have been found “in our oceans and waterways.” The language they used suggests that not only is plastic pollution a substantial problem, but also that “we” in California and the United States more broadly are major contributors to that problem. But a little perspective is in order here.

Despite having the largest economy in the world and the third-largest population, the United States emits less than 1 percent of its plastic waste into the ocean. Moreover, the U.S. is responsible for just 0.25 percent of all plastic waste emitted to the ocean (and, of course, California accounts for only a small fraction of this total). That is less than half of the plastic waste emitted by tiny Panama (which accounts for 0.53 percent of ocean waste) and only about one-third of Guatemala’s total (0.73 percent). In fact, approximately half of all plastic waste emitted to the ocean comes from the Philippines (36.4 percent) and India (12.9 percent). Other top polluters include Malaysia (7.5 percent), China (7.2 percent), and Indonesia (5.8 percent).

So it is not the large, industrialized nations like the United States that are primarily responsible for plastic waste ending up in the oceans; rather, it is the poorer, industrializing nations—particularly in Asia—that do not have adequate waste management infrastructures. Thus, punishing Californians by (once again) dictating how they should carry their groceries to their cars and into their homes will have no significant effect on plastic pollution in the oceans and, as noted above, is likely to actually be counterproductive for the environment.

If California’s previous plastic bag ban, and others around the country and the globe, have taught us anything, it is that these prohibitions are less about the environment and more about control and virtue signaling: control over how we live our daily lives (in this case, through the decision of what kinds of bags in which we may carry our food and other goods) and control over our minds, through the propaganda that falsely claims that this sacrifice will save the lives of untold numbers of cute sea turtles and other marine life.

Until Californians stop electing preening busybodies intent on meddling with and micromanaging people’s lives with harmful and suffocating mandates, however, we can expect still more pointless nanny-state laws to come out of the formerly Golden State.

https://blog.independent.org/2024/06/26/california-reusable-plastic-bags-ban/

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How the Climate Hysteria Is Lowering Your Standard of Living

Interview with Doug Casey.

Excerpts:

But perhaps the average person doesn’t think about these things or care. The standard of living has gone up for so long that we tend to think it’s automatic and divinely ordained. I’m not so sure about that. Everything tends to wind down unless there is enough outside force to counteract it.

The planet will be just fine. It’s been here for 4.5 billion years and will be here for billions more, long after humanity has disappeared or gone elsewhere. Anyway, the climate hysterics don’t really care about “saving the planet”; even they aren’t quite that stupid. What’s going on is that they actually hate humanity. And themselves. The world is suffering from an episode of mass psychosis.

One currently fashionable indication of this is the 15-minute city, which governments are trying to impose all over the world. These would penalize you if you exit your designated 15-minute zone more than X number of times per month. The idea is green. And, like most green notions, it is very retrogressive. They want to return people to the status of medieval serfs, when few ventured more than 15 minutes from their hovels.

https://progresswithgod.com/2024/01/19/how-the-climate-hysteria-is-lowering-your-standard-of-living/

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‘Screwed’: People trying to sell their used Teslas face massive challenges

A second hand Tesla that’s been listed for sale for the past four years without finding a buyer offers a stark insight into the challenges faced by Australians trying to offload older used electric vehicles.

The 2015 Model S in question is almost a decade old and has 115,000 kilometres on the clock, with some visible wear and tear across its interior.

Despite its age and the fact it’s sat unsold since July 2020, the current owner is seeking $86,800, although the price has been discounted by almost $16,000 over the years. Used car valuations site RedBook puts the guide for such a car in a considerably lower range of $51,400 to $57,300.

It’s one of almost 1000 used Teslas currently listed on carsales.com.au, ranging from a sleek 2011 Roadster for $349,000 to a stock standard 2019 Model 3 for just $32,000.

Analysis by news.com.au shows a large number of those vehicles for sale have been languishing for several months and up to two years.

“Second hand EVs do pose some challenges for retailers and private sellers at the moment,” Michael Costello from Cox Automotive Australia, which owns the Manheim wholesale auction house, told news.com.au.

Tesla resale values slide

A “perfect storm” of factors have combined recently to deliver generally lower residual values compared to traditional fuel cars, Mr Costello said.

“New EV prices continue to get cheaper, due largely to new Chinese players and Tesla’s ongoing price cuts. When new models get cheaper, you can’t sell an older model at inflated prices,” he explained.

Carsales.com.au motoring reviewer Toby Hagon said a surge in the supply of new Teslas globally, combined with weaker demand for the brand, has seen the US carmaker aggressively discount some of its models in recent times.

“Over the past 18 months or so, there have been multiple price reductions to Teslas, the most recent of which shaved $3000 off the Model 3,” Hagon said. “It’s all aimed at luring more buyers by lowering the price.”

In addition, rapid advancements in battery technology in the past few years mean older Teslas are beginning to look “a little obsolete”, Mr Costello added.

And then there’s customer anxiety over ageing batteries, which can cost anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000 to replace.

“A lack of clarity for consumers around battery longevity beyond the eight-year warranty, and a lack of battery health tests to reassure used buyers, [is another reason].”

https://www.news.com.au/technology/motoring/motoring-news/screwed-aussies-trying-to-sell-their-used-teslas-face-massive-challenges/news-story/2f140cb5a8cbda0f794e12ddebdc462b

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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After A Trillion Tons Of CO2, The Great Barrier Reef Hits Record Coral Cover Third Year In A Row

Sixty Percent Of All Human CO2 Emissions Have Been Emitted Since 1985 But Today The Corals Are Healthier Than Ever.

In 1985 humans were emitting only 19.6 billion tons of CO2 each year, and now we emit 37 billion tons. In the meantime AIMS have been dragging divers thousands of kilometers over the reefs to inspect the coral cover.

These are the most detailed underwater surveys on the largest reef system in the world, and they show that far from being bleached to hell, the corals are more abundant than we have ever seen them.

As Peter Ridd points out, when the reef was doing badly, AIMS was happy to combine the data on the whole reef, so we could lament its demise.

But lately AIMS splits it into separate sections and if Peter Ridd didn’t check the numbers, who would know it was a record across the full 2,300 kilometer length of the reef?

And that may be exactly the point. As Ridd reminds us, in 2012 the AIMS team predicted the coral cover in the central and southern regions would decline to 5 – 10 percent cover by 2022. Instead the whole reef is thriving at 30 percent.

UNESCO has been threatening to slap an endangered label on the reef for years. They would have looked ridiculous if they had done this whilst corals were at a record high.

But that didn’t stop them demanding tribute and conditions anyway, as if Australia can’t manage the reef by itself. Our Prime Minister should have laughed at them and cut UN funding until they start making sense.

The UNESCO recommendation that the World Heritage Committee not proscribe the reef as “in danger” at its meeting next month no doubt has come as a big relief for government but it still has plenty of strings attached.

To keep favour with UNESCO, governments must ban all gillnet fishing by mid-2027 and more closely supervise land activities stretching hundreds of kilometres inland from the coastline, and further still from the reef itself. It must also keep the billions of dollars flowing for research and reef management.

Who runs the country, is it our elected government or a foreign committee at the service of third world dictators?

The Greens, unfortunately, still struggle with big-numbers, or any numbers at all:

The Greens say the UNESCO decision is a “triumph of lobbying and spin over science”. “The burning of fossil fuels is ­literally cooking our oceans and degrading marine ecosystems across the globe, and nowhere else has this been more politicised than on the Great Barrier Reef,” says Greens spokesman Senator Peter Whish-Wilson.

And who is politicizing The Great Barrier Reef more than The hyperbolic Greens themselves? No wonder Greens voters were the most confused in the AEF survey.

Ten years after our corals hit a record low, our survey showed that half the country didn’t realize the reef has recovered. Only 3% knew the corals were at a record high, and nearly half the Green voters were as wrong as they possibly could be — they thought coral cover was at a record low.

The full AIMS report will be released in August. There have been some bleaching events both before and after the survey, and as is normal, we won’t know for months whether any corals actually died or whether it was just the normal home renovation that corals go through when they get stressed.

It’s common for corals to throw out the zooanthellae as temperatures change and let in newer house-guests that are better acclimatized. Since sea levels near Queensland were 1 -2 meters higher 6,000 years ago, and the world was a lot warmer, corals can clearly look after themselves.

As Peter Ridd says the biggest threats to the reef are cyclones and crown-of-thorns starfish plagues, neither of which appear to be any worse now than they were years ago.

https://principia-scientific.com/after-a-trillion-tons-of-co2-the-great-barrier-reef-hits-record-coral-cover-third-year-in-a-row/

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Central England Temperature Record Shows No Unprecedented Warming

The Central England Temperature (CET) record, maintained by the Met Office, is the longest-running continuous temperature record in the world, starting in 1659. It provides an invaluable historical dataset that allows us to analyze long-term temperature trends and variations over centuries

This dataset serves as a critical reference point in the ongoing discourse on ‘climate change’ and the factors influencing global temperatures.

Initially, measurements were taken from various locations, including Birmingham, Oxford, and London.

Over time, the locations have changed slightly, with modern observations coming primarily from rural locations to mitigate urban influences.

The current primary stations include Pershore College in Worcestershire and Rothamsted in Hertfordshire. This careful selection helps ensure that the data remains consistent and representative of the broader region.

Early thermometers were less precise, and methods for recording temperatures have evolved. Errors can arise from several sources, including instrument calibration, changes in measurement locations, and observer differences.

However, modern techniques have significantly improved the accuracy and reliability of temperature measurements. Regular calibration of instruments and the use of standardized methods help reduce errors.

Statistical methods are also applied to adjust for known biases and to homogenize the data across different periods and locations.

The CET record is crucial for understanding natural and anthropogenic climate influences. It provides context for recent temperature changes by showing that significant warming and cooling periods have occurred over the past several centuries.

These historical variations highlight the importance of considering natural climate variability when interpreting modern climate trends.

When examining the CET record, one can observe significant warming periods, notably from 1695 to 1735 and from 1990 onwards.

The warming from 1695 to 1735 is particularly striking; it displays a rapid increase in mean temperature anomalies, much like the warming observed in recent decades. This historical warming occurred during a period when atmospheric CO2 levels were relatively stable and pre-industrial, suggesting that natural variability played a significant role.

The modern warming period, which began around 1990, is frequently attributed to anthropogenic CO2 emissions. However, the magnitude of the warming observed from 1695 to 1735 challenges the narrative that current warming is unprecedented.

If the warming in the early 18th century could occur without significant changes in CO2 levels, it challenges the assumption that current warming is driven exclusively by CO2.

Natural climate variability, driven by factors such as solar radiation, volcanic activity, and oceanic cycles, has historically influenced global temperatures. The significant warming period from 1695 to 1735, evident in the CET record, underscores the role of these natural factors.

Given that similar temperature increases occurred in the past without industrial CO2 emissions, it is plausible that natural variability could be responsible for recent warming trends as well.

Attributing the current warming trend solely to CO2 emissions may be an oversimplification driven by factors other than scientific inquiry.

The CET record demonstrates that significant temperature fluctuations can and have occurred due to natural causes. The mainstream media often portrays modern warming as unprecedented, yet historical data from the CET record suggests otherwise.

This raises critical questions about the models and assumptions used in contemporary climate science.

In conclusion, the CET record offers a valuable long-term perspective on temperature trends, illustrating that substantial warming can occur independently of CO2 levels.

Historical warming periods such as that from 1695 to 1735 suggest that natural variability remains a significant factor.

A more nuanced understanding of both natural and anthropogenic influences is essential for accurately interpreting climate trends and formulating effective policies.

https://principia-scientific.com/central-england-temperature-record-shows-no-unprecedented-warming/

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Increased CO2 Caused Big Gains In US Crop Yields

From the US National Bureau of Economic Research: a new study by economists Charles Taylor and Wolfram Schlenker of Columbia University shows that rising atmospheric CO2 levels were better for crops than scientists had suspected up to now.

So more unsettled science… but for once it’s better than scientists thought, not worse. Experts have long known that something good was going on out in the fields. Starting around 1950 US agricultural output started soaring even while the number of workers was shrinking.

Introduction of improved seed and plant varieties helped, as did new equipment and techniques. But by the 1990s it was clear that agricultural productivity was growing much faster than the rest of the economy, and faster than could be accounted for by standard measures of technological improvement.

Using satellite-measurements of changing CO2 levels from 2015 to 2021 matched to county-level crop yields these economists found not only that extra CO2 makes crops grow better, which experts already knew, but the effect is much much better than previously believed.

The usual way of measuring how CO2 affects plants is to grow them in a greenhouse where the CO2 level can be artificially increased.

Taylor and Schlenker note that the effect is so good, so consistently, that commercial greenhouses typically raise the CO2 level to 900 ppm or more, at least double the average outdoor level.

But it’s hard to identify how plants would respond out in the field where other weather conditions can play a role.

One way to try to figure it out is to use little chimneys and pump CO2 into the air along a row of field crops, called the Free Air Carbon Enrichment or “FACE” method.

Those experiments have tended to show only small improvements in yield, but critics have argued the results aren’t very accurate since the CO2 gets blown away so the plants may not benefit from it.

There is another approach: look at the big picture. So Taylor and Schlenker made use of a satellite observatory that was put in space to measure the distribution of CO2 in the atmosphere.

While CO2 eventually mixes to a uniform average in the troposphere, closer to the ground it varies considerably over space because of the variation in sources (such as cars and factories) and sinks (like plants and forests).

It also varies seasonally, dropping in the spring and summer as plants grow then rising again as they die and decompose, and it trends up over time as CO2 emissions happen.

The satellite record yielded point-by-point estimates of the local CO2 level during the 2015-2021 period that the authors could then line up with local temperature, precipitation and air pollution records, then use to explain local variations in the output of corn, soybeans and wheat.

They found that every one-part-per-million increase in local CO2 yielded a gain of between 0.5% and 0.8% in output depending on the crop type. These benefits were far higher than estimates from FACE and other previous methods.

Looking back in time Taylor and Schlenker attribute 10% of the total increase in output of corn since 1940 to CO2, plus 30% of soybeans and 40% of wheat. Which is a remarkably good thing if you dislike hunger and hate deadly famines.

Indeed, if someone invented a machine that boosted crop productivity by that much it would be hailed as a miracle of modern technology. Instead we keep hearing how extra CO2 is going to kill us all. Well at least we’ll be well fed when the apocalypse arrives.

https://principia-scientific.com/increased-co2-caused-big-gains-in-us-crop-yields/

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Battery baloney, hydrogen hype, and green fairy tales in Australia

Viv Forbes is his usual incisive self below

How low Australia has fallen… Our once-great BHP now has a ‘Vice President for Sustainability and Climate Change’, the number of Australian students choosing physics at high school is collapsing, and our government opposes nuclear energy while pretending we can build and operate nuclear submarines.

Our Green politicians want: ‘No Coal, No Gas, No Nuclear!’ while Our ABC, Our CSIRO, and Our Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) are telling us that wind and solar energy (plus a bit of standby gas, heaps of batteries, and new power lines) can power our homes, industries and the mass electrification of our vehicle fleet. This sounds like Australia’s very own great leap backwards.

There are two troublesome Green Energy Unions: the Solar Workers down tools every night and cloudy day, and the Turbine Crews stop work if winds are too weak or too strong. And wind droughts can last for days. The reliable Coal and Gas Crews spend sunny days playing cards, but are expected to keep their turbines revving up and down to keep stable power in the lines.

Magical things are also expected from more rooftop solar. But panel-power has four huge problems:

Zero solar energy is generated to meet peak demand at breakfast and dinner times.

Piddling solar power is produced from many poorly oriented roof panels or from the weak sunshine anywhere south of Sydney.

If too much solar energy pours into the network (say at noon on a quiet sunny Sunday), the grid becomes unstable. Our green engineers have the solution – be ready to charge people for unwanted power they export to the grid, or just use ‘smart meters’ to turn them off.

More rooftop solar means less income and more instability for power utilities so they have to raise electricity charges. This cost falls heaviest on those with no solar panels, or no homes.

Magical things are also expected from batteries.

When I was a kid on a dairy farm in Queensland, I saw our kerosene lamps and beeswax candles replaced by electric lights. We had 16 X 2 volt batteries on the verandah and a big thumping diesel generator in the dairy.

It was a huge relief, years later, when power poles bringing reliable electricity marched up the lane to our house. All those batteries disappeared with the introduction of 24/7 coal power.

Batteries are never a net generator of power – they store energy generated elsewhere, incurring losses on charging and discharging.

There has to be sufficient generating capacity to meet current demand while also recharging those batteries. What provides electricity to power homes, lifts, hospitals, and trains and to recharge all those vehicle batteries after sundown on a still winter night? (Hint: Call the reliable coal/gas/nuclear crews.)

The same remorseless equations apply to all the pumped hydro schemes being dreamed up – everyone is a net consumer of power once losses are covered and the water is pumped back up the hill.

Yet AEMO hopes we will install 16 times our current capacity of batteries and pumped hydro by 2050 – sounds like the backyard steel plans of Chairman Mao or the Soviet Gosplan that constipated initiative in USSR for 70 years. Who needs several Snowy 2 fiascos running simultaneously?

Mother Nature has created the perfect solar battery which holds the energy of sunlight for millions of years. When it releases that energy for enterprising humans, it returns CO2 for plants to the atmosphere from whence it came. It is called ‘Coal’.

‘Hydrogen’ gets a lot of hype, but it is an elusive and dangerous gas that is rarely found naturally. To use solar energy to generate hydrogen and to then use that hydrogen as a power source is just another silly scheme to waste water and solar energy. It always takes more energy to produce hydrogen than it gives back. Let green billionaires, not taxpayers, spend their money on this merry-go-round.

Who is counting the energy and capital consumed, and the emissions generated, to manufacture, transport, and install a continent being covered by ugly solar panels, bird slicers, high voltage power lines, access roads, and hydro schemes? Now they want to invade our shallow seas. Who is going to clean up this mess in a few years’ time?

As Jo Nova says:

‘No one wants industrial plants in their backyard, but when we have to build 10,000 km of high voltage towers, 40 million solar panels, and 2,500 bird-killing turbines – it’s in everyone’s backyard.’

With all of this planned and managed by the same people who gave us Pink Batts, Snowy 2 hydro, and the NBN/NDIS fiascoes, what could possibly go wrong?

Another big problem is emerging – country people don’t want power lines across their paddocks, whining wind turbines on their hills, and glittering solar panels smothering their flats. And seaside dwellers don’t want to hear or see wind turbines off their beaches. Even whales are confused.

The solution is obvious – build all wind and solar facilities in electorates that vote Green, Teal, and Labor. Those good citizens can then listen to the turbines turning in the night breezes and look out their windows to see shiny solar panels on every roof. This will make them feel good that they are preventing man-made global warming. Those electorates who oppose this silly green agenda should get their electricity from local coal, gas or nuclear plants.

What about the Net Zero targets?

At the same time as Australia struggles to generate enough reliable power for today, governments keep welcoming more migrants, more tourists, more foreign students and planning yet more stadiums, games, and circuses. None of this is compatible with their demand for Net Zero emissions.

Unlike Europe, the Americas, and Asia, Australia has no extension cords to neighbours with reliable power from nuclear, hydro, coal, or gas – we are on our own.

Australia has abundant resources of coal and uranium – we mine and export these energy minerals but Mr Bowen, our Minister for Blackouts, says we may not use our own coal and uranium to generate future electricity here. Someone needs to tell him that no country in the world relies solely on wind, solar, and pumped hydro. Germany tried but soon found they needed French nuclear, Scandinavian hydro, imported gas, and at least 20 coal-fired German power plants are being resurrected or extended past their closing dates to ensure Germans have enough energy to get through the winter.

Australia is the only G20 country in which nuclear power is illegal (maybe no one has told green regulators that we have had a nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney since 1958). Australia is prepared to lock navy personnel beside nuclear power plants in our new nuclear-powered submarines but our politicians forbid nuclear power stations in our wide open countryside.

More CO2 in the atmosphere brings great benefits to life on Earth. If man adds to it, the oceans dissolve a swag of it, and what stays in the atmosphere is gratefully welcomed by all plant life.

In 2023, Australia added just 0.025 ppm to the 420 ppm in today’s atmosphere. Most of this probably dissolved in the oceans. If we in Australia turned everything off tomorrow, the climate wouldn’t notice, but our plant life would, especially those growing near power stations burning coal or gas and spreading plant food.

Climate has always changed and a warm climate has never been a problem on Earth.

It is cold that kills. Especially during blackouts.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/07/battery-baloney-hydrogen-hype-and-green-fairy-tales/

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Another problem prosecutor

In the ACT, Shane Drumgold created still ongoing problems for many people by prosecuting Bruce Lehrmann against police advice. He took the feminist "believe the woman" approach instead of a proper judicial stance.

It now seems that NSW has a similar problem with prosecutor Sally Dowling. Launching a prosecution against someone can itself be a form of punishment so launching a prosection against someone on flimsy grounds in an extremeny irresponsible and reprehensible act. No wonder that even female judges are critical of her

NSW District Court judge Penelope Wass has taken the extraordinary step of making a formal complaint against chief prosecutor Sally Dowling SC, after Ms Dowling raised secret grievances about her to the court’s chief judge in the middle of a criminal hearing.

Judge Wass told the Taree District Court on Tuesday morning that she had made the complaint to the Office of the NSW Legal Services Commissioner, telling counsel she was disclosing it in case they thought it was grounds for her to withdraw from any matters before her currently.

The Australian understands the complaint was filed on Friday.

Last month this masthead revealed Ms Dowling made a complaint about Judge Wass during a sexual assault prosecution, alleging the judge was jeopardising the right to a fair trial by directing witnesses to present their phones as evidence, and threatened in correspondence with Chief Judge Sarah Huggett to “take the matter further” if the directions continued. The communications were not disclosed to the defence.

That was interpreted as a “warning” by Judge Wass, who in the past has criticised Ms Dowling’s office for shepherding “incredible and dishonest allegations of sexual assault” through NSW courts amid ongoing tension between Ms Dowling and the state’s judges.

Ms Dowling’s complaint at the time became the latest missile thrown in a war between Ms Dowling and the judiciary, after five judges complained about processes governing rape complaints, with some believing a pattern is emerging in which prosecutors prefer to take a “believe the victim” stance and push a matter before a jury, rather than dropping impossible cases.

Judge Wass disclosed Ms Dowling’s complaint to Judge Huggett the matter in an interlocutory judgment for R v SF, delivered on May 27.

According to the judgment, Ms Dowling emailed Chief Judge Huggett on May 22 “without the knowledge or consent of the other party of the Crown briefed in the trial” to make the complaint about Judge Wass directing witnesses in three separate matters to hand up their phones and, at times, their passcodes.

“The terms of the correspondence, the fact that it came from Ms Dowling who prosecutes on behalf of the Crown, a party to this litigation, the fact that it was sent to the chief judge only days before I was due to give judgment in two of the three cases mentioned, and because it contains an express warning to me, has meant that, at the very least, I am required to disclose it to the parties in those two cases, and I do so now in respect of this case,” she wrote in the interlocutory judgment.

“The content and the timing of the complaint is a relevant matter. The comments made by Ms Dowling were conveyed to me by the chief judge shortly after they were received, as was in my view appropriate. Indeed, the final remarks by Ms Dowling, as they contained a warning to me, made clear that they needed to be conveyed to me forthwith.”

The three matters were R v Chambers in 2021, R v Stenner-Wall in 2023 and R v SF.Judge Wass, in the interlocutory judgment, noted Ms Dowling did not make any complaint or comment in the Chambers or Stenner-Wall cases when the direction was made for a witness to hand up their phone.

Judge Wass, at the time, said she was preparing a sentence for the Stenner-Wall matter.

She said the direction to have a witness hand up their phone “resulted in a proper disclosure being made to both parties (that had not been made to or by the Crown) and the subsequent entry of a plea of guilty to the relevant counts on the indictment”.

In the Chambers matter, she said, the direction stopped a witness taking her phone to the bathroom with her when she sought an unscheduled toilet break during cross-examination.

Judge Wass said Ms Dowling had included a “warning” that she would “consider steps she considers to be properly available to her to seek judicial review should further directions of this nature” be made in the future.“

I regard such a warning of the contemplated judicial review, although delphic as to what form it might take, as extremely serious, particularly as it was delivered during the course of my consideration of two of the three cases at hand and where it sought to have me take that matter into account in my determination of future cases,” she said.

“Had this opinion been conveyed directly to me at any time, but particularly at this time, I would have regarded it as being highly inappropriate, particularly from an experienced Senior Counsel … particularly when I am so obviously part heard. I wish to say no more about that at present.”

The Australian has in recent months revealed Ms Dowling is facing a bitter dispute with sitting judges and members of her own staff, some of whom say her office consistently puts accused rapists on trial for crimes that will never secure a conviction.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/judge-penelope-wass-makes-formal-complaint-against-dpp-sally-dowling/news-story/c851cd31e99226adf5af58d450c2416d

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Tax cuts, bill relief and more on offer, but Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers just can’t sell it

Reducing inflation now only to make it worse later on is incredibly stupid and counter-productive but typically Leftist. Our best hope is that the voters suss that out

Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers couldn’t sell water to a dying man in the desert.

From this week, wage rises, tax cuts and energy subsidies are all going to put more money in people’s pockets.

Yet since the budget, Labor’s primary vote has gone only one way – down.

Either voters don’t buy the bull or Labor’s proclivity for political felo-de-se has deafened the electorate to its more boastful claims on the economy.

And hanging over all this is the spectre of what may be coming. Don’t underestimate the electorate’s ability to sift the flour.

Publicly, the Treasurer is on a positive spin over his cost-of-living relief. Privately, however, he will be sweating bricks for the next six weeks, gripped by fear over what the central bank may or may not do in August.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the Albanese Labor government’s cost of living relief, which comes out today, is “substantial, it is meaningful, and it is responsible”.
This is now looming as the central test for Chalmers and the government – both economically and politically.

It will be the pivotal moment that will decide the course of the contest until the next election.

If the key selling point is that people are better off thanks to Chalmers, the underlying truth is that nothing has actually changed. The pain has just been rearranged.

The key question now is not whether more pain is to come or whether the current pain is prolonged. And Labor has clearly identified borrowers as the guinea pigs. This says a lot about its strategic posture.

If the RBA keeps rates on hold, as will be its inclination, then the pain can be blamed on the RBA. This is the political upside for Chalmers.

But if all the state and federal government spending does lead to a rate rise, then it will be Chalmers who owns it. He will have inflicted more pain.

More likely than not, the RBA doesn’t hike. But this will be a close-run thing. And if even if it doesn’t, Michelle Bullock is likely to rattle the sabre.

This doesn’t give Chalmers the clear air he will be seeking.

The political stakes couldn’t be higher for Chalmers or Albanese. And this all feeds into election timing.

If rates don’t rise in August Chalmers gets over a crucial hump.

With the energy rebates from the commonwealth and state coffers feeding into the price index, there is every chance the Treasurer meets his promised target of getting headline inflation back within the 2-3 per cent band.

He will have bought himself a cut in headline inflation with the assistance of state Labor mates.

This is where the political narrative and economic reality collide. From a political perspective, it will be a great story to tell.

People will expect that if headline rates look good, why doesn’t the RBA cut rates.

But as we know, the headline rate is not the determining factor. And this is the nuanced debate Chalmers is clearly happy to have.

It won’t be Chalmers that has to make the argument, the talking points to every other Labor minister and backbencher will do the work.

If it hasn’t dawned on Michele Bullock yet, it soon will. Chalmers is setting her up. Bullock has so far given Chalmers rhetorical cover in her public statements about inflation and the budget.

The RBA board’s statement, however, tells a different story.

There is no equivocation about its view that state and federal government spending is adding to the problem.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/tax-cuts-bill-relief-and-more-on-offer-but-anthony-albanese-and-jim-chalmers-just-cant-sell-it/news-story/8b9ef3661d91d43037f239a8c398810a

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Albanese greatly weakened by the Fatima Payman affair

Anthony Albanese is reaping the Fatima Payman whirlwind as he sowed: an initial weak reaction to the junior WA Senator’s defiant crossing of the floor and the snubbing of her ALP colleagues has only been made worse by a late, frustrated penalty that has gifted the two-year senator enhanced power.

Payman can now dictate terms to the Prime Minister on every vote from a ban on live-sheep exports to Palestine and govern the extent of the damage and distraction Labor is suffering.

Labor’s entire economic re-election plan and answer to the supreme political priority of easing the cost-of-living pressure on households is now being publicly sidetracked and downgraded.

Albanese’s authority, already diminished, is captive to Payman and the Greens who can further undermine Labor unity with a cheap trick any hour in the Senate and is also being challenged by union leaders.

Instead of confronting the Payman problem last week when the 28-year old Muslim Senator crossed the Senate floor to vote with the Greens on a motion contradicting Labor policy on Israel and Palestine Albanese let her off with a slap on the wrist only to face a defiant declaration she would do it all again.

Thus, a political dust-up of lesser import would have been finished by the end of last week, instead it has redoubled its momentum and dramatically spread the fallout.

In Albanese’s first media interview on July 1 he was wished “a happy new financial year” on tax Independence Day when everyone gets a tax cut and the cost-of-living pressure is eased.

But, the ABC wellwishing lasted about 20 seconds before the PM was challenged over the indefinite suspension of the rogue Payman, what it meant for Labor’s Muslim vote, what it meant for a young Muslim woman simply following her heart, what was the impact on diversity within the ALP and the power of the Greens.

Albanese, not wanting to put Muslim voters off-side, said the suspension was not about voting against Labor’s two-state policy on Israel-Palestine but the distraction she was creating about tax policy.

“Well, let’s be very clear. It’s not because of her support for a policy position that she’s advocated,” Albanese said.

“It’s because … today is July 1. It’s a day where we want to talk about tax cuts. We want to talk about our economic support for providing that cost of living relief without putting pressure on inflation,” he said.

“What we have is a process where people participate, people respect each other and people don’t engage in indulgence, such as the decision last week,” he said.

There’s no doubt that on this question Albanese is 100 per cent dead right: in his own interview the PM spent more time talking about Payman, Labor rules and his dog Toto, than tax cuts; every minister who appeared in the media was asked about Payman and; as a clearly frustrated Treasurer Jim Chalmers said “my focus is not typically on internal issues like these, as important as they are – I’m focused on cost-of-living and inflation and the economy”.

Chalmers’ Budget partner, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, expressed the hope Payman would be returned to the Labor fold as others said it was better to work from within and raise concerns in caucus meetings – as Payman hasn’t – than break Labor pledges of loyalty.

Every vote in the Senate gives Payman an opportunity to enhance her authority at the cost of Albanese, further divide Labor’s position over Israel-Palestine, gift the Greens propaganda and detract from the ALP’s entire economic re-election strategy.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/anthony-albanese-to-reap-as-he-sowed-over-fatima-payman-whirlwind/news-story/8aeb54b0418b2223ff842ec4c199b90a

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‘Green lawfare’ is now the weapon of choice for Australia's activist class

The anti-industry industry has come a long way from its humble origins in the late 1970s, when Bob Brown went to his local St Vincent de Paul and bought himself a suit. The transition from a gaggle of amateur nature lovers to a professional organisation with salaried staff was a giant evolutionary leap for the environmental movement.

It was the precursor to blocking the Franklin Dam and the first tentative steps into politics and the law. Today, green activism in Australia is a quarter-billion-dollar business that employs hundreds of people. Research published this week by the Menzies Research Centre shows the combined revenue of the top 25 green advocacy groups was $275m last year. The revenue has more than doubled from $113m in 2015. The number of staff on their books has increased from 374 to 880.

Ironically, the report finds that the green activist industry is growing faster than the primary industries and resource sectors it targets. Its goal is not to create wealth but to destroy it. It forms part of the NGO-corporate-industrial complex that has discovered how to profit from the war on carbon, aided and abetted by the government through subsidies and regulation.

The environmental juggernaut of today bears little comparison with the green movement that began in Tasmania almost half a century ago. Its focus has changed from conservation to the ideology of climate change. The movement has become remote and insensitive to the natural environment and developed a narrow-minded obsession with carbon emissions from coal and gas combustion.

The big environmental groups are wholly committed to renewable energy and dogmatically opposed to nuclear power. To the extent that we’re able to trace the source of their funding, much of it flows from investors in the renewables sector whose portfolios would be instantly devalued by the entry of nuclear power.

Activist organisations have become so dependent on green corporatism that they are willing to ignore the destruction of broad acres of natural vegetation for the construction of wind turbines, industrial solar plants, energy storage infrastructure and associated transmission lines.

Climate warriors are more likely to be found in the courts these days rather than tied to the front of a bulldozer in the tropical forests of the Upper Burdekin in far north Queensland. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s approval of the Upper Burdekin/Gawara Baya wind development last month came despite a damning report that warned of “unavoidable significant impacts” on the endangered Sharman’s rock wallaby, the koala, the greater glider, the red goshawk and the masked owl.

Nowadays, lawyers perform much of the heavy lifting for climate activism. The MRC’s research found that Australia is the second-largest forum for environmental lawfare after the US. There are more climate lawsuits per capita in Australia than anywhere else in the world, thanks to a rich array of resource sector targets and an obliging legal system.

The bar for launching court actions in Australia is low for those with funds. Every dollar spent by legal activists is a drain on the profits of businesses forced to defend themselves against adventurous and vexatious claims. The biggest cost to the resource sector is not legal fees, punishing as they are. It is the mounting cost of interest on borrowed money that sits idle while the legal process drags on.

The MRC calculates that in past two years $17.48bn in industrial output has been frozen by legal action. Whether investors will see a return on their capital is at the mercy of the courts. The damage is compounded by the damage to the broader economy.

The MRC calculates 29,784 Australian jobs are at risk in cases before the courts. The loss of taxes and mining royalties will make it harder to fund roads, schools and hospitals and support our health and education systems.

The fiscal impact alone would prompt a clear-thinking government to step in and clean up this mess. The Albanese government, however, is anything but hard-headed about anything related to the environment. It refuses to countenance any reform that might give the Greens party an edge in quinoa-chomping enclaves such as the seat of Grayndler, the fate of which is of more than passing interest to our PM.

It gets worse. In an act of fiscal self-harm, the government is subsidising legal activism that eats into the profits it likes to milk. The 2022 budget included $10m in funding for the Environmental Defenders Office and Environmental Justice Australia, the two bodies responsible for most environmental lawfare in Australia.

In 2015, the EDO had 14 staff and a $3m budget. By 2023, it had grown to a team of 105 staff and a budget of $13.3m. It measures success with a perverse set of metrics. Its 2022 annual report boasts of providing 11,587 legal hours and spending 134 days in court.

In January, the EDO’s tactics were heavily criticised by Federal Court Justice Natalie Charlesworth, who reversed an order preventing Santos from building a pipeline allowing the $5.8bn development of the offshore Barossa gas field. She rejected assertions by three Tiwi Islanders that the pipeline posed a risk to intangible underwater heritage, including Crocodile Man song lines and an area of significance for the rainbow serpent Ampiji, and was not “broadly representative” of the beliefs of Tiwi people who would be affected by the pipeline.

Charlesworth found the EDO had engaged in dishonest “coaching” tactics and the misrepresentation of local Indigenous knowledge. Charlesworth dismissed evidence from the EDO’s expert witness about potential impacts on underwater archaeological sites, finding there was a “negligible chance” of a significant impact on tangible cultural heritage. Charlesworth found a cultural mapping exercise undertaken by an expert witness for the applicants and “the related opinions expressed about it are so lacking in integrity that no weight can be placed on them”.

“I am satisfied that this aspect of the case does indeed involve ‘confection’ or ‘construction’, at least in part, and that it cannot be an adapted account of the kind discussed by the anthropologists,” the judgment states.

Yet despite the loss of the case, the activists are winning. The global demand for liquid natural gas has never been higher, and is forecast to continue to rise until the 2040s. Yet oil and gas exploration activities in Australia have been falling significantly over the past two decades. The number of new offshore wells has fallen from over 50 in 2010 wells to just three in 2023. When your aim is to frustrate and delay, there is no such thing as a wasted day in court.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/green-lawfare-is-now-the-weapon-of-choice-for-activist-class/news-story/fa4824e2369b59e1d751d89a5daac8ab

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The New York Times Is Right, Finally; Climate Change Is Not Threatening Island Nations

The New York Times (NYT) recently posted an article, titled “A Surprising Climate Find,” which explains how island nations like the Maldives and Tuvalu are not, in fact, in danger of sinking under the seas due to climate change. This is true; a fact Climate Realism has repeatedly discussed. Atolls in particular are known to grow with rising water levels, this has been known for years if not decades.

The NYT climate reporter, Raymond Zhong, explains that as “the planet warms and the oceans rise, atoll nations like the Maldives, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu have seemed doomed to vanish, like the mythical Atlantis, into watery oblivion.”

This is an exceptionally common claim from the climate alarmist media, and some of the nations themselves that are benefitting from massive aid packages and “reparations” from wealthier countries; money not be used to help their people relocate from the “sinking” islands, but rather to build infrastructure and boost tourism. In fact, the NYT promoted this falsehood as late as April 2024, with a story, titled, “Why Time Is Running Out Across the Maldives’ Lovely Little Islands.“

In his most recent piece Zhong writes:

“Of late, though, scientists have begun telling a surprising new story about these islands. By comparing mid-20th century aerial photos with recent satellite images, they’ve been able to see how the islands have evolved over time. What they found is startling: Even though sea levels have risen, many islands haven’t shrunk. Most, in fact, have been stable. Some have even grown.”

It is true that the islands are not sinking, but Zhong is wrong when he says this fact has only been discovered “of late.” His own article references a study published in 2018, which found 89 percent of islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans increased in area or were stable, and only 11 percent showed any sign of contracting. So just three months after the NYT published an article claiming the Maldives were disappearing beneath the waves, the paper is now reversing itself based on research that existed six years before the April article was published. Since, Climate Realism has covered the claim many times, including with regard to Tuvaluan “refugees,” looking at tropical storms, and examining other island refugee claims, one wonders whether the NYT’s fact checkers were asleep on the job when the paper published its false story in April.

The facts about atolls growth and demise are not newly discovered. Scientists have known for decades, if not more than a hundred years, that atoll islands uniquely change with changing sea levels. Charles Darwin was the first to propose that reefs were many thousands of feet thick, and grow upwards towards the light. He was partially correct, though reality is more complicated than his theory.

In 2010, as discussed in the Climate Realism post “No, Rising Seas Are Not Swallowing Island Nations,” studies found that Tuvalu and Kiribati were growing, as well as Micronesia, and some had grown dramatically. Likewise in 2015, the same group of researchers reported that 40 percent of islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans were stable, and another 40 percent had grown.

Zhong correctly says that ocean currents and waves can cause erosion, but also “bring fresh sand ashore from the surrounding coral reefs, where the remains of corals, algae, crustaceans and other organisms are constantly being crushed into new sediment.”

Climate at a Glance: Islands and Sea Level Rise, also confirms the fact that in Tuvalu in particular –often a poster child for islands supposedly threatened by sea level rise—“eight of Tuvalu’s nine large coral atolls have grown in size during recent decades, and 75 percent of Tuvalu’s 101 smaller reef islands have increased as well.”

The only “surprising” discovery in this story is that the climate desk for the New York Times was allegedly not aware of these facts before now. This information is not new. It could be, of course, that the NYT neglected to report the truth about island nations’ status previously simply because it did not conform to the alarming climate narrative they have been trying to push, but as the data has gotten too strong to ignore, they were forced to admit the truth with regard to growing islands in the face of rising seas.

https://climaterealism.com/2024/07/the-new-york-times-is-right-finally-climate-change-is-not-threatening-island-nations/

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Mining the Planet for Renewable Energy

By Paul Driessen

This election year, several critical issues dominate voter concerns. Illegal immigration across unsecured borders by migrants, criminals, sex traffickers and terrorists. Anti-police policies, reduced prosecution of criminals and rising crime. Unprecedented prices for food, clothing, housing and other necessities.

Parental roles in education and sex changes for children. Threats to our republic and democracy from unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who use their powers to persecute, prosecute, silence and even imprison opponents, and control our lives.

Also crucial: control over energy – the lifeblood of our civilization, jobs, health and prosperity.

Will America shut down coal, gas and nuclear electricity generation before it has sufficient reliable replacements? Will we have electricity when we need it, or only when it’s available, especially after we’re forced to convert gasoline cars and gas stoves, furnaces and water heaters to electric models?

What will families pay for that electricity and everything we eat, drink, build and use? Where will we get plastics, paints, pharmaceuticals, and thousands of other products made from oil and gas they want to lock in the ground? What will happen to our jobs, health, living standards – and personal choices about where we live, what we eat, what car we can drive and how far, whether we can fly places for vacation?

We’re told a great energy and economic transformation is underway – and is essential to prevent a “climate crisis.” In reality, the crisis exists in computer models, headlines and politicized science, but not in actual temperature and weather records.

In reality, there is no energy transformation. In 2023, wind and solar power generated 2.7% of the world’s primary energy; 81.5% came from fossil fuels. Between 1965 and 2023, North America and Europe cut their fossil fuel consumption almost in half; but over the same period, the rest of the world consumed seven times more than those two regions reduced their use. Emissions went up even more, because China, India and other developing countries require minimal pollution controls on power plants and vehicles.

In reality, a transition to an all-electric economy with no fossil fuels means millions of acres of America’s wild, scenic and agricultural lands would be covered with wind turbines, solar panels, transmission lines, and warehouses filled with batteries that can spontaneously erupt in flames.

In reality, we don’t know whether there are enough accessible metal and mineral deposits on Planet Earth to extract all the raw materials required to manufacture the turbines, panels, batteries, transmission lines, electric vehicles, transformers and other equipment the energy transformation would require – just for the United States, much less for the entire world.

We don’t know how many billions of tons of rock would have to be mined, processed and disposed of; how many millions of acres would be impacted; how many millions of tons of toxic air and water pollution would be emitted; what human rights would be violated to get those metals and minerals.

One of the most basic and vital metals for the energy transformation is copper. Average worldwide ore concentrations (0.04%) mean miners would have to remove some 40,000,000 tons of overlying rock and extract, crush and process nearly 25,000,000 tons of ore to get 110,000 tons of copper – enough for just the first 30,000 megawatts of President Biden’s offshore wind plan.

Worse, mining is essentially banned in the United States – and the Biden Administration has vetoed world-class mines that could have met US needs for copper (and other metals) for decades to come. And the problem isn’t just President Biden or the Biden Administration. It’s governors like Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer, and countless activists and mostly Democrat politicians who support these policies.

Recent studies question whether mining companies can even produce enough copper just for the electric vehicles people are told they must buy – much less for wind and solar power; to say nothing of a full US (or global) energy transformation. Again, that’s just the copper.

A 2022 International Energy Agency report examines the need for essential metals and minerals in energy transitions. Onshore wind installations, the report says, require nine times more materials than combined-cycle gas generating plants, to produce the same amount of electricity. Offshore wind installations require fourteen times more. (These IEA numbers do not include materials for transmission lines or backup power for windless-sunless periods.)

The IEA says its projections are “highly dependent” on how quickly and stringently the world actually tries to reach zero greenhouse gas emissions in power generation and all energy uses; on which wind, solar, battery and other technologies dominate; and on whether countries also try to utilize low-carbon (natural gas) or no-carbon (batteries) equipment in mining, materials processing, manufacturing and transporting wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, vehicles and other technologies.

However, the IEA calculates, demand for aluminum, copper, cobalt, graphite, iron, nickel, lithium, rare earths, concrete and other “green” energy materials is expected to skyrocket by 5, 20, 40, 50 or more times current global requirements by 2040.

The Agency says numerous “challenges” to actually acquiring those materials include actually finding producible deposits, plus land use, water scarcity and pollution, air pollution, toxic mining waste management, corruption and bribery, worker and nearby resident health and safety, and child labor.

Meeting these challenges, the IEA says, will require “systematic approaches,” the “development of institutions and the rule of law,” “inclusive legal frameworks,” “responsible” and “robust” pollution and waste management frameworks, “sustainable practices,” “international coordination,” “capacity building and knowledge sharing,” greater “transparency” and, ultimately, “international minerals governance.”

These actions will all help foster “sustainable and responsible supply chains that contribute to a low-carbon economy” worldwide, the IEA assures us.

But will these wishful terms survive collisions with the real world? Developing nations view coal, oil and gas as their key to jobs, modernity and prosperity. China, Russia and their allies perceive the West’s fixation on climate change and green energy as opportunities to control US and EU supply chains, geo-political options and military-economic capabilities.

The biggest wind energy project in the USA will soon blanket 1,600 square miles (1.25 times Delaware) of New Mexico, to generate 3,500 MW about 30% of the year. The Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona generates 4,200 MW from 6 square miles almost 24/7/365.

A Bloomberg research team says the world will need at least $200 trillion to stop global warming by 2050. Others estimate $275 trillion!

How can we head this economy-and-environment-killing craziness off at the pass?

Wise decisions at the ballot box are essential, of course. But state and local governments should enact laws requiring that utilities explain how they will generate wind and solar replacement power on windless winter nights, before they shut down a single coal, gas or nuclear power plant – or get approval for a single wind or solar project. (Those are just a few of the actions they can take.)

They should also demand full details on where raw materials will come from, and at what dollar, human rights and environmental costs – to state and local communities … and our planet.

America’s jobs, health, living standards, and right to choose our homes, cars and food depend on it.

https://heartland.org/opinion/mining-the-planet-for-renewable-energy/

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Yet Another Waste Of Time Climate Conference

The implausible president of COP29, Mukhtar Babayev of Azerbaijan, was at the recently-concluded UN’s Bonn Climate Change Conference in June to try to galvanize the COP29 corpse, and claimed to have “a two-pillared plan to ‘enhance ambition and enable action’.”

To which again we say been there, done that.

Twenty-eight times and counting, in fact… if you’re only counting the main gatherings not the endless intermediate ones.

Given the grandiose rhetoric ambition hardly needs enhancing since everybody has it, in amounts that make it a drug on the market.

The real question is why action needs “enabling” since nothing’s obstructing it, other than nobody wanting to impose disastrous costs on their own people to no purpose.

Nations are able to act. They just aren’t motivated to, and an agenda full of high-falutin’ ambition won’t change that situation.

The Edge (Singapore) explains in vain that lead Azerbaijani climate negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev:

“says the COP29 Presidency also aims to broker a ‘fair and ambitious new climate finance goal, finalise Article 6, strengthen global financial institutions and ensure the private sector commits to climate action’.”

Ensure? That we’d like to see. Well no, we wouldn’t. And we aren’t going to, no matter what was said at the Bonn Show.

Which in fact was yes we failed again let’s um uh well see that is, as Climate Home News lamented in a closeout piece that makes you wonder whether covering the story was worth it:

“Apart from smiles and flowers in an emotional farewell for a longtime UNFCCC staffer, the mood at the closing session of the Bonn climate talks on Thursday night was sombre.

Frustration and finger-pointing dominated interventions by delegates representing both developed and developing nations, as they lamented the collapse of key talks on the Mitigation Work Programme – the main channel for curbing planet-heating emissions.

‘We have failed to show the world that we are responding with the purpose and urgency required to limit warming to 1.5 degrees,’ said Samoan negotiator Anne Rasmussen, speaking for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).

Disappointment also ran high over minimal progress towards a new post-2025 finance goal due at November’s COP29 summit in Baku, with rich countries refusing to put numbers on the table.

And there were grumblings about the narrow scope and opaque process of work on integrating climate science into the UN talks in Bonn. All of that left UN climate chief Simon Stiell with little option but to give countries a stiff talking-to as he beseeched them not to ‘leave the hardest work to the eleventh hour’ before COP29.

‘Business-as-usual is a recipe for failure, on climate finance, and on many other fronts, in humanity’s climate fight,’ he warned them.”

Um that was business as usual. And the 11th hour. But they can fix the weather, honest. And will in Baku. This time for sure.

https://principia-scientific.com/yet-another-waste-of-time-climate-conference/

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‘Green lawfare’ is now the weapon of choice for Australia's activist class

The anti-industry industry has come a long way from its humble origins in the late 1970s, when Bob Brown went to his local St Vincent de Paul and bought himself a suit. The transition from a gaggle of amateur nature lovers to a professional organisation with salaried staff was a giant evolutionary leap for the environmental movement.

It was the precursor to blocking the Franklin Dam and the first tentative steps into politics and the law. Today, green activism in Australia is a quarter-billion-dollar business that employs hundreds of people. Research published this week by the Menzies Research Centre shows the combined revenue of the top 25 green advocacy groups was $275m last year. The revenue has more than doubled from $113m in 2015. The number of staff on their books has increased from 374 to 880.

Ironically, the report finds that the green activist industry is growing faster than the primary industries and resource sectors it targets. Its goal is not to create wealth but to destroy it. It forms part of the NGO-corporate-industrial complex that has discovered how to profit from the war on carbon, aided and abetted by the government through subsidies and regulation.

The environmental juggernaut of today bears little comparison with the green movement that began in Tasmania almost half a century ago. Its focus has changed from conservation to the ideology of climate change. The movement has become remote and insensitive to the natural environment and developed a narrow-minded obsession with carbon emissions from coal and gas combustion.

The big environmental groups are wholly committed to renewable energy and dogmatically opposed to nuclear power. To the extent that we’re able to trace the source of their funding, much of it flows from investors in the renewables sector whose portfolios would be instantly devalued by the entry of nuclear power.

Activist organisations have become so dependent on green corporatism that they are willing to ignore the destruction of broad acres of natural vegetation for the construction of wind turbines, industrial solar plants, energy storage infrastructure and associated transmission lines.

Climate warriors are more likely to be found in the courts these days rather than tied to the front of a bulldozer in the tropical forests of the Upper Burdekin in far north Queensland. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s approval of the Upper Burdekin/Gawara Baya wind development last month came despite a damning report that warned of “unavoidable significant impacts” on the endangered Sharman’s rock wallaby, the koala, the greater glider, the red goshawk and the masked owl.

Nowadays, lawyers perform much of the heavy lifting for climate activism. The MRC’s research found that Australia is the second-largest forum for environmental lawfare after the US. There are more climate lawsuits per capita in Australia than anywhere else in the world, thanks to a rich array of resource sector targets and an obliging legal system.

The bar for launching court actions in Australia is low for those with funds. Every dollar spent by legal activists is a drain on the profits of businesses forced to defend themselves against adventurous and vexatious claims. The biggest cost to the resource sector is not legal fees, punishing as they are. It is the mounting cost of interest on borrowed money that sits idle while the legal process drags on.

The MRC calculates that in past two years $17.48bn in industrial output has been frozen by legal action. Whether investors will see a return on their capital is at the mercy of the courts. The damage is compounded by the damage to the broader economy.

The MRC calculates 29,784 Australian jobs are at risk in cases before the courts. The loss of taxes and mining royalties will make it harder to fund roads, schools and hospitals and support our health and education systems.

The fiscal impact alone would prompt a clear-thinking government to step in and clean up this mess. The Albanese government, however, is anything but hard-headed about anything related to the environment. It refuses to countenance any reform that might give the Greens party an edge in quinoa-chomping enclaves such as the seat of Grayndler, the fate of which is of more than passing interest to our PM.

It gets worse. In an act of fiscal self-harm, the government is subsidising legal activism that eats into the profits it likes to milk. The 2022 budget included $10m in funding for the Environmental Defenders Office and Environmental Justice Australia, the two bodies responsible for most environmental lawfare in Australia.

In 2015, the EDO had 14 staff and a $3m budget. By 2023, it had grown to a team of 105 staff and a budget of $13.3m. It measures success with a perverse set of metrics. Its 2022 annual report boasts of providing 11,587 legal hours and spending 134 days in court.

In January, the EDO’s tactics were heavily criticised by Federal Court Justice Natalie Charlesworth, who reversed an order preventing Santos from building a pipeline allowing the $5.8bn development of the offshore Barossa gas field. She rejected assertions by three Tiwi Islanders that the pipeline posed a risk to intangible underwater heritage, including Crocodile Man song lines and an area of significance for the rainbow serpent Ampiji, and was not “broadly representative” of the beliefs of Tiwi people who would be affected by the pipeline.

Charlesworth found the EDO had engaged in dishonest “coaching” tactics and the misrepresentation of local Indigenous knowledge. Charlesworth dismissed evidence from the EDO’s expert witness about potential impacts on underwater archaeological sites, finding there was a “negligible chance” of a significant impact on tangible cultural heritage. Charlesworth found a cultural mapping exercise undertaken by an expert witness for the applicants and “the related opinions expressed about it are so lacking in integrity that no weight can be placed on them”.

“I am satisfied that this aspect of the case does indeed involve ‘confection’ or ‘construction’, at least in part, and that it cannot be an adapted account of the kind discussed by the anthropologists,” the judgment states.

Yet despite the loss of the case, the activists are winning. The global demand for liquid natural gas has never been higher, and is forecast to continue to rise until the 2040s. Yet oil and gas exploration activities in Australia have been falling significantly over the past two decades. The number of new offshore wells has fallen from over 50 in 2010 wells to just three in 2023. When your aim is to frustrate and delay, there is no such thing as a wasted day in court.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/green-lawfare-is-now-the-weapon-of-choice-for-activist-class/news-story/fa4824e2369b59e1d751d89a5daac8ab

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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