The Week That Was: 2022-06-25 (June 25, 2022)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”― Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays
Number of the Week: 70% capacity for 40% of the day
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: Last week, TWTW gave a brief summary of the importance of the scientific method. It was developed over centuries to settle conflicting scientific speculations such as an earth-centered universe, or a planetary system orbiting the sun. Physical evidence from experiment and observations divides scientific knowledge from speculation, or fiction. It makes no difference what scientists say; physical evidence decides if various scientific theories are sound.
The submission to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by eminent physicists William Happer and Richard Lindzen is discussed. They detail how the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) abandons the scientific method to arrive at politically negotiated reports, particularly the Summary for Policymakers. The divergence between science and IPCC is illustrated by the large and growing divergence between atmospheric temperature trends and IPCC models.
In arriving at its proposal accepting the false claim of dangerous global warming from greenhouse gases, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) failed to perform necessary due diligence. It is as if SEC is putting out slick promotional brochures rather than factual profit and loss statements showing little change. The importance of due diligence is discussed, and that investment advisors are subject to criminal prosecution if they fail to take adequate steps.
The state of California has declared the bumblebee to be a fish to extend regulatory control over possible harm. In similar fashion, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) extended the Endangered Species Act to include potential habitats of endangered species. Using similar logic, the FWS could declare Manhattan is a potential habitat of polar bears.
The UK National Audit Office (NAO) delivered a blow to the green dreams of prime minister Boris Johnson, The NAO warned the government it must ensure the public is not shortchanged by environmental policies.
As President Biden continues to restrict US independent oil and gas producers, he is planning a trip to Saudi Arabia to encourage it to produce more oil and gas. US independent oil and gas producers survived an effort by OPEC plus to bankrupt them. One can speculate what the Saudis think of the trustworthiness of Mr. Biden.
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IPCC Reports Are Not Science: After giving their qualifications, Happer and Lindzen begin their comments: Unless noted otherwise all boldface is in the original.
“Comment and Declaration
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed SEC requiring disclosures of climate related risk caused by fossil fuels and CO2.
We are career physicists who have specialized in radiation physics and dynamic heat transfer for decades.
In our opinion, science demonstrates that there is no climate related risk caused by fossil fuels and CO2 and no climate emergency.
Further, nowhere in the more than 500 pages of the proposed rule is there any reliable scientific evidence that there exists a climate related risk. None. It refers to the International Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”), the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (“TCFD”) and other outside groups, but never provides any reliable scientific evidence that supports the rule. The science is just assumed. Therefore, there is no reliable scientific basis for the proposed SEC rule.
Further, contrary to what is commonly reported, CO2 is essential to life on earth. Without CO2, there would be no photosynthesis, and thus no plant food and not enough oxygen to breathe.
Moreover, without fossil fuels there will be no low-cost energy worldwide and less CO2 for photosynthesis making food. Eliminating fossil fuels and reducing CO2 emissions will be disastrous for the poor, people worldwide, future generations and the country. Finally, the cost of the proposed rule is enormous and would have no public benefit. It would increase the reporting burden to companies to $6.4 billion, which is 64% more than the $3.9 billion all SEC reporting requirements have cost companies from its beginning in 1934. Id., 87 Fed. Reg., p. 21461.
Thus, the rule must not be adopted or, if adopted, ruled invalid by the courts. Here’s the science why.
I. RELIABLE SCIENTIFIC THEORIES COME FROM VALIDATING THEORETICAL PREDICTIONS WITH OBSERVATIONS, NOT CONSENSUS, PEER REVIEW, GOVERNMENT OPINION OR MANIPULATED DATA”
After substantiating this assertion, they assert
“II. SCIENCE DEMONSTRATES THERE IS NO CLIMATE-RELATED RISK CAUSED BY FOSSIL FUELS AND CO2, AND THEREFORE NO RELIABLE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE SUPPORTING THE PROPOSED RULE”
They go on to explain that in geological time, even 20 million years is nothing, rendering EPA assertions in its Endangerment Finding about greenhouse gases being unprecedented meaningless. After discussing matters such as how trivial the IPCC dates are, they explain how the IPCC politicizes good science. [Footnotes omitted]
“F. The IPCC is Government Controlled and Only Issues Government Dictated Findings, and Thus Can Provide No Reliable Scientific Evidence for the Proposed Rule
“Unknown to most, two IPCC rules require that IPCC governments control what it reports as “scientific” findings on CO2, fossil fuels and manmade global warming, not scientists. IPCC governments meet behind closed doors and control what is published in its Summaries for Policymakers (“SPMs”), which controls what is published in full reports.
“The picture below tells all. [Picture omitted here]
This is not how scientific knowledge is determined. In science, as the Lysenko experience chillingly underscores, and as Richard Feynman emphasized:
“No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles.”
The two IPCC rules are:
IPCC SPM Rule No.1: All Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs) Are Approved Line by Line by Member Governments”
After supporting this by quoting an IPCC fact sheet. Happer and Lindzen state:
“Since governments control the SPMs, the SPMs are merely government opinions. Therefore, they have no value as reliable scientific evidence.
What about the thousands of pages in the IPCC reports? A second IPCC rule requires that everything in an IPCC published report must be consistent with what the governments agree to in the SPMs about CO2 and fossil fuels. Any drafts the independent scientists write are rewritten as necessary to be consistent with the SPM.
IPCC Reports Rule No. 2: Government SPMs Override Any Inconsistent Conclusions Scientists Write for IPCC Reports
IPCC Fact Sheet: “’Acceptance’ is the process used for the full underlying report in a Working Group Assessment Report or a Special Report after its SPM has been approved…. Changes …are limited to those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policymakers.” IPCC Fact Sheet, supra. (Emphasis added).
IPCC governments’ control of full reports using Rule No. 2 is poignantly demonstrated by the IPCC’s rewrite of the scientific conclusions reached by independent scientists in their draft of Chapter 8 of the IPCC report Climate Change 1995, The Science of Climate Change (“1995 Science Report”). The draft by the independent scientists concluded:
“No study to date has positively attributed all or part (of the climate warming observed) to (manmade) causes.” Frederick Seitz, “A Major Deception on Climate Warming,” Wall Street Journal (June 12, 1996).
However, the government written SPM proclaimed the exact opposite:
“The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” 1995 Science Report SPM, p. 4.
What happened to the independent scientists’ draft? IPCC Rule No. 2 was applied, and their draft was rewritten to be consistent with the SPM in numerous ways:
• Their draft language was deleted.
• The SPM’s opposite language was inserted in the published version of Chapter 8 in the 1995 Science Report, on page 439: “The body of statistical evidence in chapter 8 …now points towards a discernible human influence on global climate.”
• The IPCC also changed “more than 15 sections in Chapter 8 of the report … after the scientists charged with examining this question had accepted the supposedly final text.” Seitz, supra.
As to the full IPCC reports, hundreds of world-class scientists draft some very good science. What to do? Use a presumption that anything in IPCC reports should be presumed to be government opinion with no value as reliable scientific evidence, unless independently verified by scientific method.
Stop for a moment. Just imagine what would have happened if the IPCC accurately reported the science. The scientists concluded there was no science that attributed all or most of the climate warming observed to manmade causes.
There would be no Massachusetts v. EPA, Green New Deal,” Net Zero” regulation, efforts to eliminate fossil fuels, huge subsidies of renewable energy and electric cars. For whatever reason, the IPCC as a government-controlled organization did not and has never followed the science if the science contradicts the theory of catastrophic global warming caused by fossil fuels and other human emissions.
In conclusion, none of the IPCC SPMs, models, scenarios and other findings asserting that dangerous climate warming is caused by human CO2 and GHG emissions and fossil fuels are reliable scientific evidence, they are merely the opinions of IPCC governments.
Thus, the IPCC SPMs, models, scenarios and other findings provide no reliable scientific evidence there is any climate related risk caused by fossil fuels, nor do they provide any reliable scientific evidence to support the proposed rule.”
Happer and Lindzen go on to assert:
“The Endangerment Findings and National Climate Assessments Rely on IPCC Findings and Thus Provide No Reliable Scientific Evidence to Support the Proposed Rule”
They give details for this assertion with examples of false science. Further, they explain how nature and humanity are benefiting from increasing atmospheric CO2. They conclude with:
“Thus, in our opinion, science demonstrates that there is no climate emergency and no climate related risk caused by fossil fuels and CO2. Therefore, there is no reliable scientific evidence that supports the SEC proposed rule.
Further, contrary to what is commonly reported, CO2 is essential to life on earth. Without CO2, there would be no photosynthesis, and thus no plant food and not enough oxygen to breathe.
Moreover, without fossil fuels there will be no reliable, low-cost energy worldwide and less CO2 for photosynthesis making food. Eliminating fossil fuels and reducing CO2 emissions will be disastrous for the United States and the rest of the world, especially for lower-income people.”
This remarkable document is an impressive criticism of what is wrong with climate science from the IPCC and all government entities that accept IPCC reports as scientific. With proper use of the scientific method, one can use physical evidence to separate knowledge from fiction. Happer and Lindzen have the evidence, the IPCC and its followers have the fiction. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Due Diligence: Investopedia has a clear description of Due Diligence:
“Due diligence is an investigation, audit, or review performed to confirm facts or details of a matter under consideration. In the financial world, due diligence requires an examination of financial records before entering into a proposed transaction with another party.
Due diligence became common practice (and a common term) in the United States with the passage of the Securities Act of 1933. With that law, securities dealers and brokers became responsible for fully disclosing material information about the instruments they were selling. Failing to disclose this information to potential investors made dealers and brokers liable for criminal prosecution.
The writers of the act recognized that requiring full disclosure left dealers and brokers vulnerable to unfair prosecution for failing to disclose a material fact they did not possess or could not have known at the time of sale. Thus, the act included a legal defense: as long as the dealers and brokers exercised “due diligence” when investigating the companies whose equities they were selling, and fully disclosed the results, they could not be held liable for information that was not discovered during the investigation.
It is clear that leaders of the SEC did not investigate the science of the IPCC with due diligence. If they did, they should have realized there was a huge disparity between climate models and atmospheric temperature trends, calling into question any claim of a climate crisis. See Article # 1 and links under Other News that May Be of Interest.
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Not What Is, But What Could Be: Last month a California court ruled bumblebees are fish and can be protected as fish under the California Endangered Species Act. Not to be outdone, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) expanded the definition of species habitat for endangered species from where they currently live to where someday they could live.
During the last major glaciation, Manhattan was covered with thousands of feet of ice. Caving icebergs carved huge gouges in the sand off the beaches of South Carolina. During the next glaciation, something climate modelers ignore, polar bear habitat could include Manhattan and stretch to South Carolina. Nothing is too absurd for this FWS. See Article # 3 and link under Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
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How Much Will It Cost? Last November during the UN 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, western leaders were bragging about the extent they could destroy their fossil fuel industries to achieve zero carbon dioxide emissions, Net Zero. Above, Happer and Lindzen demonstrate that the science used to justify Net Zero is false and adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere has tremendous benefits for nature and humanity. Yet, the politicians cling to their vain boasts.
According to reports from the UK, the Auditor General of the National Audit Office (NAO) has started to ask how much will Net Zero cost and what are the benefits? Two years ago, the NAO seemed indifferent as to cost. But, as costs escalate, there is reason for concern. A June 22 report addresses the problems with Ofgem, the energy regulator for Great Britain. In part, the report states:
“But the sheer number of supplier failures means a significant additional cost on every bill at a time when wider cost increases are already causing major financial challenges for many households. Ofgem has rightly recognised that it must quickly improve its capacity to oversee the financial resilience of individual suppliers and the sector as a whole.
Ofgem, along with the Department [for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy], must also ensure the supplier market recovers from its current state, where high wholesale prices combined with the price cap has stifled some aspects of competition, and where ongoing volatility means many suppliers still face financial risks. But this recovery needs to facilitate a longer‑term transition of the supplier market to one that truly works for consumers and supports the achievement of net zero. This is a significant and difficult task, requiring Ofgem and the Department [for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy] to maintain the capacity to consider the longer‑term objectives while managing the short-term challenges of stabilising the market. This will require a nuanced approach to regulation that finds a balance between its aims of competition, innovation, resilience and affordability for consumers.”
Who knows what will happen? But, as Paul Homewood writes:
“Hopefully, they might now start to do what they were set up to do, and that is to hold government to account and provide value for money for taxpayers; something they totally failed to do in 2020.”
See links under Questioning European Green and https://www.nao.org.uk/report/the-energy-supplier-market/
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Why Bail Him Out? After the bragging about Net Zero at COP26 and the intended destruction of the oil and gas industries, President Biden is preparing to go to Saudi Arabia and ask it to replace the oil and gas from Russia that Europe needs. It is questionable if Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates can produce sufficient oil and gas quickly. To make the massive investments necessary these countries need long term commitments. There is no reason petrostates should trust western politicians who promise to ban import of their resources.
Certainly, Saudi Arabia can look at what Biden is doing to the US oil and gas industries to get an idea about how trustworthy he is. See links under Change in US Administrations
SEPP’S APRIL FOOLS AWARD – THE JACKSON
SEPP is conducting its annual vote for the recipient of the coveted trophy, The Jackson, a lump of coal. Readers are asked to nominate and vote for who they think is most deserving. The entire Biden Administration won in 2021, so individuals in it are still eligible.
The voting will close on July 30. Please send your nominee and a brief reason the person is qualified for the honor to [email protected]. The awardee will be announced at the annual meeting of the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness on August 14 to 16 at the South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Registration: https://aaps.wufoo.com/forms/qb79fo31o62uh1/; Hotel: https://be.synxis.com/?adult=1&arrive=2022-08-14&chain=6903&child=0¤cy=USD&depart=2022-08-15&group=DOC0811&hotel=11548&level=hotel&locale=en-US&rooms=1
Number of the Week: 70% capacity for 40% of the day. June 21 was the longest day of the year. There appeared to be no major storms (or atmospheric rivers) hitting sunny California that day. According to the California ISO website on the supply trend on June 21 at 7:55 (8 am), Solar generation hit 10,000 megawatts, which is about 70% of the nameplate capacity. Rough calculations show that for sunniest day of the year, California solar power generated at least 70% of capacity for 40% of the day. There was zero solar power from 8 pm to 6 am. And California promises to be net zero by 2045?
The California Energy Efficiency Strategic Plan states:
“All new residential construction will be zero net energy (ZNE) by 2020.
“All new commercial construction will be ZNE by 2030
“50% of commercial buildings will be retrofit to ZNE by 2030
“50% of new major renovations of state buildings will be ZNE by 2025.
How many suns will that take? See https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/industries-and-topics/electrical-energy/demand-side-management/energy-efficiency/zero-net-energy and
http://www.caiso.com/todaysoutlook/pages/supply.aspx
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-IIb/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels
By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019
http://store.heartland.org/shop/ccr-ii-fossil-fuels/
Download with no charge:
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/
Download with no charge:
https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Global Sea-Level Rise: An Evaluation of the Data
By Craig D. Idso, David Legates, and S. Fred Singer, Heartland Policy Brief, May 20, 2019
Comment and Declaration on the SEC’s Proposed Rule “The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors,” File No. S7-10-22, 87 Fed. Reg. 21334 (April 11,2022)
By William Happer and Richard Lindzen, CO2 Coalition, June 17, 2022
CO2 Coalition Tells Court Carbon Regulation “Scientifically Invalid”
By Gregory Wrightstone, CO2 Coalition, June 22, 2022
Amicus curie brief (friend of the court) at U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit,
The SEC Should Not Be Setting Corporate Climate Policy
By Paul J. Ray, The Heritage Foundation, June 21, 2022
https://www.heritage.org/government-regulation/commentary/the-sec-should-not-be-setting-corporate-climate-policy
Epstein’s ‘Fossil Future’
By Allen Brooks, Master Resource, June 22, 2022
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Study Reveals how Climate Change Can Significantly Impact One of the World’s Most Important Carbon-rich Ecosystems
Researchers from the University of Portsmouth say a ‘one size fits all’ approach to preserving mangrove forests will not work as new research reveals a delicate blue carbon system
Press Release, University of Portsmouth, June 23, 2022 [H/t WUWT]
https://www.port.ac.uk/news-events-and-blogs/news/study-reveals-how-climate-change-can-significantly-impact-carbon-rich-ecosystem
Link to paper: Biodegraders of Large Woody Debris Across a Tidal Gradient in an Indonesian Mangrove Ecosystem
By Ian W. Hendy, et al. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, May 25, 2022
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2022.852217/full?&utm_source=Email_to_authors_&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=T1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign=Email_publication&field=&journalName=Frontiers_in_Forests_and_Global_Change&id=852217
Study finds climate change reporting can momentarily change minds
“It is not the case that the American public does not respond to scientifically informed reporting when they are exposed to it,” one researcher said.
By Adam Barnes, The Hill, June 22, 2022 [H/t WUWT]
https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/climate-change/3532571-study-finds-climate-change-reporting-can-change-minds-for-a-moment/
Link to paper: Time and skeptical opinion content erode the effects of science coverage on climate beliefs and attitudes
By Brendan Nyhan, et al, PNAS June 21, 2022
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2122069119
Questioning the Orthodoxy
German Physicist: Human CO2 Emissions Responsible For 0.05°C Of The Global Warming Since 1750
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, June 20, 2022
Energy crisis making aggressive green agenda look like peacetime luxury
By Jeremy Beaman, Washington Examiner, June 22, 2022
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy-environment/energy-crisis-shaping-green-agenda-into-luxury
The Many-Analysts Approach
By Kip Hansen, WUWT, June 22, 2022
Australian Intelligence Chief to assess climate threat but ignore risk of running country on windmills and batteries
By Joe Nova, Her Blog, June 23, 2022
“Cunning Plan: New Australian PM to set up an Office of Climate Change Threats, but not an Office to study the Threats of Climate Action.”
As Climate Screamers Spread Alarm, Germany’s Long-Term Forest Fire Trend Has Declined
Help! There’s fire!
By Peter Sommer (Translated, edited by P. Gosselin), Via No Tricks Zone, June 22, 2022
This time will be different
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 22, 2022
“Economist Rudi Dornbusch once warned that ‘In economics, things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then they happen faster than you thought they could’.”
Energy and Environmental Review: June 20, 2022
By John Droz, Jr., Master Resource, June 20, 2022
Change in US Administrations
Biden Got the Energy Market He Wanted
Since day one, he’s tried to limit fossil-fuel supplies, and we’re all paying for
By Karl Rove, WSJ, June 22, 2022
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-energy-market-gas-oil-green-energy-fossil-fuels-production-high-prices-11655924583?mc_cid=48c3be8a3a&mc_eid=4961da7cb1
Via Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 23, 2022
“Team Biden got what it wanted: Daily U.S. oil production dropped from 12.29 million barrels in 2019 to an estimated 11.85 million in 2022, well after demand had rebounded from the pandemic.”
“Mr. Biden blames Vladimir Putin, but prices rose quite a bit before Russia invaded Ukraine. In January 2021, the average price of regular gasoline was $2.33 a gallon. By February 2022, it was up to $3.52. As of May, the average price was $4.44; so 56% of that price rise predated the invasion.”
Biden Ahead of Schedule in Destroying US Offshore Oil Production
By David Middleton, WUWT, June 21, 2022
Why Biden Keeps Lying About Energy
The president finally admits we need more oil refineries but lies about supply
By Michael Shellenberger, His Blog, June 21, 2022
https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/why-biden-keeps-lying-about-energy
“In fact, as I have been reporting, Biden killed a major oil refinery expansion on May 14, just five weeks ago, and killed a one-million-acre oil and gas lease proposed for Alaska on May 12. Some might dismiss Biden’s refusal to open up one million acres in Alaska, but Biden has yet to hold a single onshore lease sale and delayed multiple oil and gas lease sales a second time last week.
“It would be great news if Biden has actually changed his mind and is now planning on licensing the refinery that he killed. But he didn’t promise to do that. And, either way, he should stop gas-lighting the public about what he did.”
President Biden Asks the Saudis to Bail Him Out
By Benjamin Zycher, Real Clear Energy, June 20, 2022
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2022/06/20/president_biden_asks_the_saudis_to_bail_him_out_837932.html
Shellenberger: Why Biden’s Attacks On Energy Are “Absolutely Insane”
By Michael Shellenberger, Zero Hedge, June 19, 2022 [By Bernie Kepshire]
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/shellenberger-why-bidens-attacks-energy-are-absolutely-insane
“Even Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates together could not produce enough oil to offset declining supply from Russia.”
Big Oil to Little Joe: Atlas Does Not Need to Shrug
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, June 23, 2022
Biden’s energy hypocrisy
Want more supply? Stop threatening oil companies
By Amber Athey, Spectator, June 19, 2022
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/joe-biden-energy-incoherence/
Chevron CEO Fires Back at Biden, Slams ‘Political Rhetoric’ in New Letter
By Jack Phillips, The Epoch Times, June 21, 2022
https://www.theepochtimes.com/chevron-ceo-fires-back-at-biden-slams-political-rhetoric-in-new-letter_4548308.html?utm_source=epochHG&utm_campaign=rcp
SEC’s New ESG Rule Hurts America’s Small Farms and Ranches
By Gabriella Hoffman, Real Clear Energy, June 22, 2022
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2022/06/22/secs_new_esg_rule_hurts_americas_small_farms_and_ranches_838700.html
WaPo: Investor response to Biden’s anti-oil policies
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 22, 2022
Problems in the Orthodoxy
It’s that desperate: Even bitter German Greens say we must “burn more coal”
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 21, 2022
China Building Coal Plants To Become Carbon Neutral
By Tony Heller. His Blog, June 24, 2022
https://realclimatescience.com/2022/06/china-building-coal-plants-to-become-carbon-neutral/
Link to article: Why China just can’t seem to quit coal
China is a renewable energy powerhouse. So why are they building coal plants?
By Thor Benson, Popular Science, June 20, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Could it be that the leaders of China do not believe the science by the UN?]
Seeking a Common Ground
Webinar: The Energy Crisis, Causes and Solutions
By Staff, Net Zero Watch, June 23, 2022
Science, Policy, and Evidence
IEA: Europe Should Prepare For Complete Russian Gas Shutdown
By Irina Slav, Oil Price.com, June 22, 2022
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/IEA-Europe-Should-Prepare-For-Complete-Russian-Gas-Shutdown.html
Nanny State rules: French events banned “for the heat” — Climate lockdowns begin
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 19, 2022
Models v. Observations
Climate change fueling fires faster than predicted
By Saul Elbein, The Hill, June 24, 2022
“’Fires are outpacing our models’” Forest Service Chief Randy Moore said in a statement this week.”
[SEPP Comment: Are the models deficient?]
Model Issues
Claim: Australia’s Supercomputer Gadi will Solve the Climate Crisis
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 24, 2022
[SEPP Comment: By itself, a computer cannot solve anything.]
Measurement Issues — Surface
Glaring Inconsistency In Estimating CO2 vs. Solar Forcing Suggests CO2 Impacts Are Wildly Exaggerated
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, June 23, 2022
Link to latest study: Early Holocene Temperature Oscillations Exceed Amplitude of Observed and Projected Warming in Svalbard Lakes
By Willem G. M. van der Bilt, et al. Geophysical Research Letters, Dec 3, 2019
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL084384
CO2 Sample Spacing in Ice Cores
By Renee Hannon, WUWT, June 23, 2022
The delusive [misleading] accuracy of global irrigation water withdrawal estimates
By Arnald Puy, et al. Nature Communications, June 8, 2022 [H/t Climate Etc.]
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-30731-8
“Miscalculating the volumes of water withdrawn for irrigation, the largest consumer of freshwater in the world, jeopardizes sustainable water management. Hydrological models quantify water withdrawals, but their estimates are unduly precise. Model imperfections need to be appreciated to avoid policy misjudgments.”
Hot town, summer in the city
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 22, 2022
Santon Downham–Records Built On Sand
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 22, 2022
“I’ve camped out in the Sahara, and it was a big shock to find how quickly the sand turned from burning hot to freezing cold!
“In other words, Santon Downham is no more representative English temperatures than Heathrow and the other urban sites that consistently appear at the top of the lists every time we have a spell of hot weather.”
Changing Weather
Understanding Australia’s rainfall
By Staff, Climate Extremes, June 8, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Discusses influence of Rossby wavers, El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), and Southern Annular Mode (SAM).]
Expert scientists immediately predict climate change causes triple La Ninas… right after they happen
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 24, 2022
Link to one report: El Niño happening more as climate warms
Review says the models of an increase in extreme weather events are agreeing.
Ellen Phiddian, Cosmos, Aug 17, 2021
https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/climate/el-nino-more-climate-change/
Link to second report: More Frequent El Niño Events Predicted by 2040
Cutting-edge models predict that El Niño frequency will increase within 2 decades because of climate change, regardless of emissions mitigation efforts.
By Rachel Fritts, EOS, 20 April 2022
Wettest Megadrought In History
By Tony Heller, His Blog, June 24, 2022
https://realclimatescience.com/2022/06/wettest-megadrought-in-history/
Precipitation in Northeast Mexico Primarily Controlled by the Relative Warming of Atlantic SSTs
By Kevin T. Wright, et al. Geophysical Research Letters, June 6, 2022 [H/t Climate Etc.]
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL098186
[SEPP Comment: Uses speleothems (stalactites or stalagmites) not tree rings.]
Is Lake Mead Shrinking Because of Climate?
By Steve Milloy, WUWT, June 24, 2022
[SEPP Comment: A look at the history of the lake level.]
Changes in Atlantic major hurricane frequency since the late-19th century
By Gabriel A. Vecchi, et al. Nature Communications, 2021
From the abstract: “To evaluate past changes in frequency, we have here developed a homogenization method for Atlantic hurricane and major hurricane frequency over 1851–2019. We find that recorded century-scale increases in Atlantic hurricane and major hurricane frequency, and associated decrease in USA hurricanes strike fraction, are consistent with changes in observing practices and not likely a true climate trend. After homogenization, increases in basin-wide hurricane and major hurricane activity since the 1970s are not part of a century-scale increase, but a recovery from a deep minimum in the 1960s–1980s.”
[SEPP Comment: With the decline in hurricane activity, the influence of CO2 must be hiding behind aerosols?]
Changing Climate
Two thousand years of Chinese climate history: what it tells us
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 22, 2022
“The five Chinese scientists determined that there were four significant warm periods and four significant cold periods over the past two millennia. And of most interest to us today, they report that ‘the intensity of regional heat waves, in the context of recent global warming, may not in fact exceed natural climate variability seen over the last 2000 years.’”
[SEPP Comment: From a Nov 8, 2016, CO2 Science post.]
Changing Seas
CDN by the Sea: Adak, Alaska
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 22, 2022
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
New polar bear subpopulation update: more background facts and details from the paper
By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, June 19, 2022
“reject the evidence of your eyes and ears”
By Tony Heller, June 23, 2022
Video https://realclimatescience.com/2022/06/reject-the-evidence-of-your-eyes-and-ears-3/
Text https://realclimatescience.com/2022/06/reject-the-evidence-of-your-eyes-and-ears-2/
“Last winter was the coldest on record in Antarctica.”
Southern Beaufort Sea polar bear habitat at the summer solstice is above average
By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, June 23, 2022
“Sea ice is well above recent levels for this time of year in the Southern Beaufort and only time will tell if that’s bad news for polar bears. Seals need the open water that early summer polynyas provide in order to feed, and some polar bears make use of the hunting opportunities…”
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
The great climate food surplus shortage
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 22, 2022
Sri Lanka Food Shortages Due To Fertiliser Ban, (Not Putin)
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 24, 2022
“Notice how prices suddenly shot up last September, long before the war in Ukraine.”
Lowering Standards
BBC/Met Office Heatwave Predictions Backfire
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 22, 2022
“There was inevitably much hype from the BBC/Met Office about a bit of pleasant weather last week, and the inevitable blaming on climate change:”
BBC & The Green Lobby
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 18, 2022
It’s for the greater good
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 22, 2022
[SEPP Comment: All for only $100,000 per person to the National Geographic.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
China Breezes to the Lead of Offshore Wind Power Race
Country accounted for 80% of all new capacity in 2021
By Mamoru Tsuge, Nikkei Asia, June 15, 2022
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Energy/China-breezes-to-the-lead-of-offshore-wind-power-race
“Last year, 21.1 gigawatts of offshore wind generation were commissioned last year, according to the Global Wind Energy Council, roughly equivalent to 21 nuclear reactors.”
[SEPP Comment: And China leads the world in the new nuclear and coal-fired power plant race!]
Did climate change kill 2,000 Kansas cows? Farmers can’t afford to ignore science
Editorial, Kansas City Star, June 17, 2022
https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article262626587.html
No Sky, Floods Are Not Getting Worse In Bangladesh
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 19, 2022
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Climate change could lead to a dramatic temperature-linked decrease in essential omega-3 fatty acids
Press Release, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, June 23, 2022 [H/t WUWT]
[SEPP Comment: How did nature survive previously warm periods? Assumes human caused warming.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Biden administration reverses Trump endangered species habitat definition
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, June 23, 2022
No Andy, EPA Are Not Cherry Picking
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 22, 2022
Communicating Better to the Public – Go Personal.
Top Swedish Meteorologist Attacked By Rahmstorf & Co. …For Optimism Over Future Climate
Lennart Bengtsson – public enemy no. 1?
By Klaus Henkel (Translated/edited by P. Gosselin), Via No Tricks Zone, June 21, 2022
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
Study finds climate change reporting can momentarily change minds
“It is not the case that the American public does not respond to scientifically informed reporting when they are exposed to it,” one researcher said.
By Adam Barnes, The Hill, June 22, 2022
https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/climate-change/3532571-study-finds-climate-change-reporting-can-change-minds-for-a-moment/
Link to paper: Time and skeptical opinion content erode the effects of science coverage on climate beliefs and attitudes
By Brendan Nyhan, et al, PNAS June 21, 2022
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2122069119
[SEPP Comment: Propaganda must be maintained.]
Expanding the Orthodoxy
More climate research, teaching to make greater impact
Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability James Stock looks ahead
Press Release, Harvard Gazette, Oct 18, 2021
New institute to unite, advance Harvard efforts to stem tide of climate crisis
Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability made possible by $200M gift from Melanie and Jean Salata
Press Release, Harvard Gazette, June 21, 2022
The not so great green fleet
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 22, 2022
Link: FACT SHEET: President Biden Takes Bold Executive Action to Spur Domestic Clean Energy Manufacturing
Press Release: The White House, June 6, 2022
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/06/06/fact-sheet-president-biden-takes-bold-executive-action-to-spur-domestic-clean-energy-manufacturing/
Link to Climate Action 2030
By Staff, Department of the Navy, 2022
“The US Secretary of the Navy has declared that ‘I chose climate as a focal point for my tenure as Secretary’ instead of some silly side issue like being able to defeat America’s enemies in a naval fight. And Joe Biden actually boasts of using the Defense Production Act… to make solar panels.”
[SEPP Comment: Solar power essential for national defense? Needed for nighttime operations?
Navy Holding Climate Change Wargame
By: Mallory Shelbourne, USNI News, June 21, 2022 [H/t WUWT]
“The half-day exercise will feature individuals from Capitol Hill, the Defense Department, the defense industry, think tanks and academia, Navy assistant secretary for energy, installations and environment Meredith Berger told reporters during a Defense Writers Group breakfast.”
“’The purpose of the June 29 exercise is “to come together and really think about and experience what it means to operate in a climate-impacted environment,’ Berger said.”
[SEPP Comment; What’s the difference between a weather-impacted environment and a climate-impacted environment?]
Calls for Boris Johnson to pause Net Zero policies after Auditor General warns costs risk spiralling out of control
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 20, 2022
Germany restarts coal power stations
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 20, 2022
“I wonder why they don’t just build lots of windmills instead?”
Questioning Green Elsewhere
The Democrats’ Energy Disaster
By David Harsanyi, New York Sun, Via Not a Lot of People Know That, June 18, 2022
“If the US refuses to commit carbon hari-kari, it is unlikely the rest of the world will. It only remains to be seen how much longer the UK and EU will stay the course.”
Funding Issues
Disclosing the Real “Climate Risk”: Case Study: UK “ESG” Billionaire Behind U.S. Climate Regulatory, Litigation Campaigns.
By Staff, Government Accounting & Oversight, Accessed June 25, 2022
Link to paper: ”: Case Study: UK “ESG” Billionaire Behind U.S. Climate Regulatory, Litigation Campaigns.
By Staff, Government Accounting & Oversight, Accessed June 25, 2022
House subcommittee approves nearly $7B bump to EPA, Interior funding
By Aris Folley, The Hill, June 21, 2022
“The fiscal 2023 spending bill offers nearly $45 billion in funding for the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Wildland Fire Management, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Smithsonian Institution, among other agencies and items. The funding bill marked an 18 percent, or $6.8 billion, increase from the previous fiscal year’s spending levels.”
The Political Games Continue
Second Trump term would push warming past dangerous limit, warns UN climate chief
Outgoing Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa reflects on surviving cancer, Trump and the state of climate talks in an exit interview with POLITICO.
By Karl Mathiesen, Politico, June 13, 2022
https://www.politico.eu/article/un-climate-chief-warn-of-consequences-of-second-trump-term/
Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
Biden officially backs gas tax holiday
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, June 22, 2022
A gas tax holiday sounds fantastic. But there’s a reason Obama bashed it as a ‘gimmick’
By Matt Egan, CNN Business, June 22, 2022
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/21/business/gas-tax-holiday-biden/index.html
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Offshore Wind Farms Still Being Subsidised Under CfD, Despite Higher Market Prices
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 23, 2022
“From 1st April to 13th June, the total cost of subsidies under Contracts for Difference have cost consumers £57 million. True, this is considerably less than historically, but consumers are also, of course, instead paying much more because of high market prices – it’s a case of being burnt or scalded! Either way, the consumer pays through the nose.
“In any event, these amounts are dwarfed by the main subsidy scheme for renewables, Renewable Obligations, which will cost us all £6.6 billion this year.”
EPA and other Regulators on the March
14 attorneys general say proposed EPA guidelines are an overreach
By Steve Bittenbender, The Center Square, June 22, 2022
https://www.thecentersquare.com/alabama/14-attorneys-general-say-proposed-epa-guidelines-are-an-overreach/article_18c4e066-f264-11ec-b9cf-2bff933acdac.html
Forest Service finds mining would pose risk to Minnesota watershed
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, June 23, 2022
“While the assessment is a draft, it proposes a 20-year ban on copper mining on federal lands in the watershed.”
Energy Issues – Non-US
Offshore Wind Outlook 2019
World Energy Outlook special report
By Staff, EIA, November 2019
https://www.iea.org/reports/offshore-wind-outlook-2019
Average annual capacity factors by technology, 2018
Gas 65%, Solar PV 21%, Onshore Wind 45%, Offshore wind 52%
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/average-annual-capacity-factors-by-technology-2018
[SEPP Comment: Strongly doubt the capacity factors for wind. 35% is more likely for onshore.]
Iran’s Threat to Kurdistan Is a Greater Challenge to the Oil Market Than OPEC Quotas
By Matthew M. Zais, Real Clear Energy, June 21, 2022
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2022/06/21/irans_threat_to_kurdistan_is_a_greater_challenge_to_oil_market_than_opec_quotas_838248.html
The Ports Receiving Most Russian Oil And Gas
By Zero Hedge, Oil Price.com, Jun 16, 2022
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Ports-Receiving-Most-Russian-Oil-And-Gas.html
U.S. LNG Exports Deliver Energy Security, Economic Stability in Europe
By Norman R. Seip & Jessica Olcott Yllemo, Real Clear Energy, June 17, 2022
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2022/06/17/us_lng_exports_deliver_energy_security_economic_stability_in_europe_837924.html
Energy Issues – Australia
In perfect hell for grid managers, Global Warming causes coldest start to winter in South-East Australia since WWII
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 18, 2022
In an emergency, we need coal
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 18, 2022
“So it’s a new record. In the 20 years since the National Energy Market formed it has never operated on such a vapor thin margin. Only a few days ago Paul McArdle at WattClarity thought a mere 15% instantaneous reserve plant margin was a headline event, but tonight the grid survived (so far) on a tiny 3% Instantaneous Reserve Plant Margin NEM-wide. Things were so tight the NSW Minister for Energy sought emergency powers to force coal companies to provide fuel to coal generators for the next 30 days on his say so. Presumably next on his list would be emergency powers from God to make the wind blow.”
Energy Issues — US
Focus on Gas Prices – just part of the story
By Joseph D’Aleo, ICECAP, June 23, 2022
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/focus_on_gas_prices_just_part_of_the_story2/
“Will Biden say we just have to tough it out so we can reach their green dream that in countries in Europe turned into a nightmare?”
[SEPP Comment: Despite “global warming” winter will come, and northern US will suffer.]
Ten Policies to Unleash American Energy and Fuel Recovery
By Mike Sommers, Real Clear Energy, June 23, 2022
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2022/06/23/ten_policies_to_unleash_american_energy_and_fuel_recovery_838701.html
Mike Sommers is the President and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute.
Expert reveals how environmental regulations have shut down refineries
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 18, 2022
Video of Mike Summers of the American Petroleum Institute: US refineries running 94% capacity. Eleven oil refineries shut down. Governments offer special tax credits to change refineries.
Regulation Is to Blame for Our Grid Reliability Woes
By Devin Hartman, Real Clear Energy, June 17, 2022
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2022/06/17/regulation_is_to_blame_for_our_grid_reliability_woes_837922.html
Washington’s Control of Energy
No More Drilling For Oil–Biden 2020
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 20, 2022
Video on Biden’s promises from Sky News
An Encore at the Left’s Energy Theater
By Oliver McPherson-Smith & Samuel Buchan, Real Clear Energy, June 20, 2022
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2022/06/20/an_encore_at_the_lefts_energy_theater_837931.html
“Team Biden’s vow to make the American energy industry the savior of Europeans also sits at odds with its own war on domestic production. As a loose indication of the industry’s health, there are currently 727 oil and natural gas rigs operating in the United States. That is a mere fraction of the 1,083 that were in operation in 2018.”
“It should be no wonder that American crude production still sits more than a million barrels a day short of its pre-pandemic levels, and natural gas is around three times more expensive today than when President Biden took office.”
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
Go, Joe, Go: Visit the Home Industry before Saudi Arabia
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, June 24, 2022
Return of King Coal?
Europe wants coal: Austria, Netherlands, switch on old coal plants, Poland pays for coal to homes
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 22, 2022
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
$Trillions For Nothing…Damning Report: Green Energies Grow Only “Paltry Two Percent In Entire Decade”!
Global transition to green energies stagnates
By Kalte Sonne (Translated/edited by P. Gosselin), Via No Tricks Zone, June 18, 2022
Biden teams with East Coast governors to boost offshore wind
By Matthew Daly, AP News, June 23, 2022 [H/t David Wojick]
https://apnews.com/article/climate-biden-and-environment-government-politics-13e5d01c3f43c899e39f337d478c1179
Hurricane risk is real for offshore wind
By David Wojick, CFACT, June 24, 2022
https://www.cfact.org/2022/06/24/hurricane-risk-is-real-for-offshore-wind/
Link to latest paper; Hurricane eyewall winds and structural response of wind turbines
By Amber Kapoor, et al. Wind Energy Science, Jan 14, 2020
https://wes.copernicus.org/articles/5/89/2020/
[SEPP Comment: See link immediately above. With wind shear and salt spray corrosion, what can go wrong with the green dream?]
Invenergy Sues An Iowa County, Uses ‘Nefarious Tactics’ To Push More Wind Turbines
By Robert Bryce, Forbes, June 17, 2022
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbryce/2022/06/17/invenergy-sues-an-iowa-county-uses-nefarious-tactics-to-push-more-wind-turbines/?sh=2cc83af06b6f
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Researchers: Wood Burning Unsustainable, Huge Footprint…” Will Accelerate Warming For Decades”
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, June 17, 2022
[SEPP Comment: England discovered that by the 1760s and shifted to coal, the US shifted to coal by the 1870s.]
UK to save world by burning 120 million trees a year and stuffing some under the North Sea
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 20, 2022
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage
Battery Shortage Hampers Biden’s Transition to Wind and Solar Power
By Staff, IER, June 21, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Delaying the demonstration that storage will be woefully underestimated.]
More bad luck! Snowy Hydro can’t run much because it has *too much water*
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 21, 2022
What the Oil and Gas Industry Has to Offer the Energy Transition
By Kelsey Grant, Real Clear Energy, June 22, 2022
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2022/06/22/what_the_oil_and_gas_industry_has_to_offer_the_energy_transition_838697.html
“For example, the 2.6 million miles of pipelines in the United States, traditionally used for transporting natural gas and oil, could be used as a key link in a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) system. These pipelines have the potential to transport CO2 from emission sources, such as industrial plants, to underground reservoirs where it is stored and kept out of our atmosphere.”
[SEPP Comment: Green dreams!]
Health, Energy, and Climate
Recent Trends in Heat-Related Mortality in the United States: An Update through 2018
By Scott C. Sherida, et al. Weather, Climate, and Society, Dec 14, 2020 [H/t Climate Etc.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/wcas/13/1/wcas-d-20-0083.1.xml
From the abstract: “For the period 1975–2018, we examined the mortality associated with extreme-heat-event days across the 107 largest metropolitan areas.”
“The decrease in heat vulnerability continues among those 65 and older across most of the country, which may be associated with improved messaging and increased awareness.”
[SEPP Comment: A nearly universal adoption of air conditioning in new building in the southern US probably contributed significantly.]
Oh Mann!
What Is Michael Mann’s Real Agenda?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 20, 2022
Video
Environmental Industry
Justice or overreach? As crucial test looms, Big Greens are under fire
The environmental movement embraces a broad array of progressive causes while its own agenda hangs in the balance.
By Zack Colman, Politico, June 19, 2022
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/19/big-green-justice-environment-00040148
“But the Sierra Club and its Big Green brethren – Audubon, Greenpeace and others – are struggling to stitch together the necessary votes. They are now widely believed to be a tool of the Democrats alone, leaving little hope for Republican support in the Senate or leverage between the two parties. A looming Supreme Court decision that could gut executive branch actions to rein in climate change raises the stakes for congressional action before the midterms even higher.”
[SEPP Comment: “..gut executive branch actions to rein in climate change…” that has been occurring for hundreds of millions of years. Biden must be omnipotent – all powerful.]
Other News that May Be of Interest
Due Diligence
By James Chen, Investopedia, Nov 11, 2021
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/duediligence.asp
Investment Adviser Due Diligence Processes for Selecting Alternative Investments and Their Respective Managers
By Staff, Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations1, SEC, National Exam Program Risk Alert Jan 28, 2014
SEC Guidance for Investment Adviser Due Diligence When Using Services Providers
By Staff, RIA Compliance Consultants, July 10, 2012
SEC Guidance for Investment Adviser Due Diligence When Using Services Providers
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
The downside of doomism
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 22, 2022
Climate change responsible for the Owo massacre in Nigeria says Irish president
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 19, 2022
“Palm Trees In Philadelphia”
By Tony Heller, His Blog, June 24, 2022
https://realclimatescience.com/2022/06/palm-trees-in-philadelphia/
The dark side of solar power: A Middle Tennessee couple’s warning for others
By Lindsay Bramson, WSJV4, Published: Jun. 16, 2022
https://www.wsmv.com/2022/06/16/dark-side-solar-power-middle-tennessee-couples-warning-others/
[SEPP Comment: Link the rooftop solar hot water heaters so fashionable in the 1970s during a real energy crisis, not a made up one.]
This just in, summer warmer than spring
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 22, 2022
USDA Food Waste Climate Initiative Tells People How to Compost
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 22, 2022
[SEPP Comment; And what do you do with the compost in the asphalt jungle?]
Ukraine war threatens climate targets
Massive global military emissions often go unreported. That could change as the G7 meets and addresses the impacts of a Ukrainian conflict fueled by Russian oil and gas.
By Stuart Braun, DW, June 23, 2022
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-war-threatens-climate-targets/a-62185483
ARTICLES
1. Never Enough Government, Says the SEC
America’s top stock-exchange regulator gives mission creep a bad name.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr, WSJ, June 24, 2022
https://www.wsj.com/articles/securities-and-exchange-commission-esc-gary-gensle-stock-exchange-climate-change-risk-disclosure-order-flow-administrative-state-11656102971?cx_testId=3&cx_testVariant=cx_4&cx_artPos=1&mod=WTRN#cxrecs_s
“Americans get so much government; they find it nearly impossible to get the government they need or want. It’s an American paradox. Taxpayers spent billions over decades to build up the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and yet Washington’s only really useful contribution to the national pandemic—perhaps accounting for 99% of the medical value of all government interventions—was the Trump vaccine program, run out of the White House hip pocket.
Oodles upon oodles of excessive, useless government are foisted on us by enterprising appointees building résumés for an afterlife as an influence peddler ‘of counsel’ at a D.C. law firm. Examples are legion, but consider the recent initiatives of Joe Biden’s Securities and Exchange Commission chief, Gary Gensler.
Mr. Gensler would ordain that publicly traded companies, as part of their disclosure obligations, report their financial vulnerability to climate change and climate regulation. A fatuous New York Times headline declares that investors ‘deserve’ such information. No, investors want such information, and diligently seek it out, if it bears on the expected value of their investments. Why not require disclosures about the financial impact of every conceivable tax-law change, man-made disaster or asteroid strike? Because markets already price securities in view of all the possible calamities that could cause them to go to zero. Collectively, investors are in a better position to judge such nonproprietary matters than is management, which has a daily business to run.”
OK, this is par for the overgrown administrative state. The press politely pretends otherwise, but Mr. Gensler is merely hitching his agency’s unrelated mission to a White House-desired talking point about climate change.
Bigger ambition is to be found in his sweeping initiative, announced this month, to reorganize the nation’s stock markets based on a devil theory that nobody, least of all the SEC, believes.
The columnist “payment order flow” by the short-term Richard Cordray of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, then concludes:
“But cynicism can carry a bureaucrat only so far. Mr. Cordray’s method was so dishonest, a bipartisan House majority shut him down. If not earning the moral stain he deserved, he at least earned a reputation as a loser. His career has been downhill ever since. He flopped as a gubernatorial candidate in his native Ohio and now serves as an obscure student-aid official in the Biden Education Department. It’s a precedent others would be wise to keep in mind.
Once upon a time bureaucrats came to Washington to do urgent work worth doing. You can see this in histories and memoirs of the early 1940s. War threatened. Time was short. Important tasks awaited. How different from recent decades, when the best in government arrive knowing at least half their job is to protect America from the runaway bureaucracies under their command.”
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2. The Rich World’s Climate Hypocrisy
They beg for more oil and coal for themselves while telling developing lands to rely on solar and wind.
By Bjorn Lomborg, WSJ, June 20, 2022
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rich-worlds-climate-hypocrisy-energy-fossil-fuel-wind-solar-panel-india-poverty-power-battery-storage-11655654331?mod=hp_opin_pos_6#cxrecs_s
The president of the Copenhagen Consensus begins by comparing how wealthy countries try to suppress poor countries in their use of fossil fuels but do not do so themselves. He continues:
“The developed world became wealthy through the pervasive use of fossil fuels, which still overwhelmingly power most of its economies. Solar and wind power aren’t reliable, simply because there are nights, clouds and still days. Improving battery storage won’t help much: There are enough batteries in the world today only to power global average electricity consumption for 75 seconds. Even though the supply is being scaled up rapidly, by 2030 the world’s batteries would still cover less than 11 minutes. Every German winter, when solar output is at its minimum, there is near-zero wind energy available for at least five days—or more than 7,000 minutes.
This is why solar panels and wind turbines can’t deliver most of the energy for industrializing poor countries. Factories can’t stop and start with the wind; steel and fertilizer production are dependent on coal and gas; and most solar and wind power simply can’t deliver the power necessary to run the water pumps, tractors, and machines that lift people out of poverty.
That’s why fossil fuels still provide more than three-fourths of wealthy countries’ energy, while solar and wind deliver less than 3%. An average person in the developed world uses more fossil-fuel-generated energy every day than all the energy used by 23 poor Africans.
Yet the world’s rich are trying to choke off funding for new fossil fuels in developing countries. An estimated 3.5 billion of the world’s poorest people have no reliable access to electricity. Rather than give them access to the tools that have helped rich nations develop, wealthy countries blithely instruct developing nations to skip coal, gas and oil, and go straight to a green nirvana of solar panels and wind turbines.
This promised paradise is a sham built on wishful thinking and green marketing. Consider the experience of Dharnai, an Indian village that Greenpeace in 2014 tried to turn into the country’s first solar-powered community.
Greenpeace received glowing global media attention when it declared that Dharnai would refuse ‘to give into the trap of the fossil fuel industry.’ But the day the village’s solar electricity was turned on, the batteries were drained within hours. One boy remembers being unable to do his homework early in the morning because there wasn’t enough power for his family’s one lamp.
Villagers were told not to use refrigerators or televisions because they would exhaust the system. They couldn’t use cookstoves and had to continue burning wood and dung, which creates air pollution as dangerous for a person’s health as smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, according to the World Health Organization. Across the developing world, millions die prematurely every year because of this indoor pollution.
In August 2014, Greenpeace invited one of the Indian’s state’s top politicians, who soon after become its chief minister, to admire the organization’s handiwork. He was met by a crowd waving signs and chanting that they wanted ‘real electricity’ to replace this ‘fake electricity.’
When Dharnai was finally connected to the main power grid, which is overwhelmingly coal-powered, villagers quickly dropped their solar connections. An academic study found a big reason was that the grid’s electricity cost one-third of what the solar energy did. What’s more, it was plentiful enough to actually power such appliances as TV sets and stoves. Today, Dharnai’s disused solar-energy system is covered in thick dust, and the project site is a cattle shelter.
To be sure, solar energy has some uses, such as charging a cellphone or powering a light, but it is often expensive and has distinct limits. A new study in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, found that even hefty subsidies couldn’t make solar lamps worth their cost to most people. Even in wealthy nations such as Germany and Spain, most new wind and solar power wouldn’t have been installed if not for subsidies.
This is why, for all the rich world’s talk of climate activism, developed nations are still on track to continue to rely mostly on fossil fuels for decades. The International Energy Agency estimates that even if all current climate policies are delivered in full, renewables will only deliver one-third of U.S. and EU energy in 2050. The developing world isn’t blind to this hypocrisy. Nigeria’s vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, articulated the situation elegantly: ‘No country in the world has been able to industrialize using renewable energy,’ yet Africa is expected to do so ‘when everybody else in the world knows that we need gas-powered industries for business.’
Rather than selfishly block other countries’ path to development, wealthy nations should do the sensible thing and invest meaningfully in the innovation needed to make green energy more efficient and cheaper than fossil fuels. That’s how you can actually get everyone to switch to renewable alternatives. Insisting that the world’s poor live without plentiful, reliable and affordable energy prioritizes virtue signaling over people’s lives.”
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3. Bees Are Fish and Other Fake Narratives
These days we accept outrageous falsehoods with a shoulder shrug.
By Andy Kessler, WSJ, June 19, 2022
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bees-are-fish-and-other-fake-narratives-progressive-partisanship-woke-1619-project-words-11655650274?mod=hp_opin_pos_2#cxrecs_s
After discussing that a vegan friend called honey “bee barf,” the columnist states:
“I mention this because last month a California court ruled that bumblebees are actually fish and can be protected by the California Endangered Species Act. This is as silly as the Environmental Protection Agency trying to define puddles and drainage ditches as “navigable waters.” Yes, they were saying that a puddle should be regulated like a lake or river. Even before this, the Army Corps of Engineers had a “glancing geese” test, meaning if a migratory bird ever looked at a wet spot, that spot was under federal jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, we have oat milk and almond milk, even though they obviously aren’t milk. Similarly, oxymoronic “plant-based meat,” which isn’t meat, is really fake meat. Even worse, it’s nasty, chock full of salt, and not even good for you. Be warned, we’re being trained that anything can be anything. The truth has taken a back seat. I don’t like it one bit.”
Mr Kessler discusses officials tolerating not wearing masks during protests but forcing non-protesters to wear masks then continues:
“This is the world we live in today. Who actually believes this stuff? George Orwell said it best in his 1945 ‘Notes on Nationalism’: ‘One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.’ Bertrand Russell had a similarly great line: ‘This is one of those views which are so absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.’ [Boldface added]
It wasn’t only protests. I spent the week after Memorial Day 2020 flipping between CNN and Fox News. I watched Chicago Lake Liquors in Minneapolis repeatedly looted—even the safe was dragged out. I watched rioters throw rocks at police protecting the White House behind flimsy fences. I watched cars on fire in Manhattan and luxury stores with smashed windows and a line of looters stealing goods. In August 2020, CNN famously called protests in Kenosha, Wis., ‘mostly peaceful’ as flames from riots raged behind the reporter. Even my own lyin’ eyes could see it. I must not be part of the learned intelligentsia, who believe that if a puddle is a river, then riots are peaceful.
There’s a reason for all this, according to Nikole Hannah-Jones, the leading voice behind the New York Times ‘ factually challenged’ 1619 Project. Awarded the Freedom of Speech Award by the Roosevelt Institute, her acceptance speech noted that ‘the narrative allows for policy.’ As a presidential candidate, Pete Buttigieg was even more blunt. Gracing the May 13, 2019, cover of Time with his husband, Mr. Buttigieg admitted that ‘the narrative is policy,’ and ‘narrative is how you get people to embrace the policies you’re putting forward.’
Remember the ‘infrastructure bill’ full of social programs? Seventeen Nobel Prize-winning economists—their names are here—wrote a letter in September 2021 insisting that government spending ‘will ease longer-term inflationary pressures.’ I remembered that as I filled my car with $6.99-a-gallon gas last week.
Maybe the intent is to change the subject. Last week President Biden told Californians, ‘I’m doing everything in my power to blunt Putin’s price hike and bring down the cost of gas and food.’ Never mind that prices were already rising before Russia invaded Ukraine. Mr. Biden also told the United Nations COP26 climate conference in November that climate change is ‘an existential threat to human existence as we know it.’ Really? Never trust those pushing narratives that conflict with the truth.
Another example: A New York Times columnist last week, speaking of the Jan. 6 Committee, wrote, ‘Most political theater is tedious and partisan. Cheap meat for a hungry base. But there are times when these theatrics can serve a real purpose for the public at large.’ To paraphrase his thoughts: Spectacles are useful, whether they are true or not. Anyone arguing his point will be flagged on social media for misinformation.
We are so used to this nonsense that it rolls off our backs. Cuba, Libya, China and Venezuela all sit on the U.N. Human Rights Council. This is considered normal. We sigh, shrug our shoulders, and move on.
In the culture wars, I’m OK with anyone identifying as anything, so long as they don’t take advantage of the system—Elizabeth Warren, are you listening? But in March a nominee for Supreme Court Justice refused to answer the question, ‘Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?’ insisting ‘I’m not a biologist.’
A woman named Kellie-Jay Keen, in the stands for a University of Pennsylvania women’s swimming meet, stated that 6-foot-4 Lia Thomas wasn’t a woman, and was taking advantage of the system. Another spectator pushed back and asked, ‘Are you a biologist?’ which now seems to be the established talking point. I’ll spare you the rest of the exchange, but it ended with this zinger from Ms. Keen, ‘Do you rely on stupid arguments because you don’t have an argument?’
Narratives affect our lives, and they aren’t harmless. Look at the effort to promote and subsequent backfiring of the alphabet soup of ESG, CRT, MMT, BTC and on and on. Advocates use stupid arguments—’carbon spewing,’ ‘everyone’s racist,’ ‘free money,’ ‘fiat hedge’—because they don’t have real arguments.
Maybe sanity is returning. Last week the Nonhuman Rights Project, which has been trying to establish ‘legal personhood’ for ‘great apes, elephants, dolphins and whales,’ including Happy the elephant at the Bronx Zoo, was rebuffed in a 5-2 decision by the New York State Court of Appeals. For now, an elephant is an elephant, not a person, though elephants are clearly smarter than two dissenting New York state judges and the humans at the Nonhuman Rights Project.
A bee is a fish, a puddle is a river, protests cure pandemics, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. Beware of manipulative narratives.”
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