First, what if everything you knew was wrong and, subsequently, everything you wanted to do built off that false premise or assumption was then wrong as well?
Meet the LDAMM and the Religious Left.
It’s important to recognize that the LDAMM — Leftists, Demorats and the American Media Maggots — have an all-out war on science in general, anyway. Much less specifically “global warming.”
Then we have to realize that there is in fact such a thing as the Global Warming Industrial Complex (pronounced “gwick”), and that it pays. Frequently, large dollars. Grants. Massive grants. From the federal government and elsewhere.
But wait. While we’re here, let’s revisit Libertarian John Stossel, whom I met and interviewed at the 2017 Freedom Fest in Las Vegas. He provides another Brain-Bruising Factjob. Strange thing: John Stossel and Michael Medved are remarkably similar in terms of their being about 5’6″ tall and about 125 pounds dripping wet. They are both profoundly dinky dudes. But Stossel’s logic is brain glazing.
Anyone remember Solyndra? Of course you don’t. Because it was a Leftist environmental failure. We can’t have reality injected into our unicorn purple skies.
Why the Solyndra mistake is still important to remember
by Katie Fehrenbacher, 8-27-15
Almost exactly four years after solar panel startup Solyndra filed for bankruptcy, the ghost of the company has now risen again, for seemingly the umpteenth time. And no it wasn’t from another awkward Republican Presidential debate.
This time the haunting is in the form of a report from the Inspector General’s Office.
Stand by.
After more than four years of investigation, it concluded that Solyndra officials used inaccurate information to mislead the Department of Energy in its application for a $535 million loan guarantee. The report also found that there were shortcomings with the DOE’s process of managing and approving the loan guarantee to Solyndra.
Solyndra of course is the once much-hyped solar panel startup that raised over a billion dollars from private investors and lost $5oo million of tax-payer funds, in the form of a loan backed by the DOE, when the company later went bankrupt.
That’s what we get when an administration, in that case Obama 44, decides to pick the winners and losers in terms of corporations and topics. Your American Taxpayer dollars went into this huge enviro-maw and ended up getting pissed and squandered away, never to be seen — or perhaps more importantly, accounted-for — again.
The crux of the biscuit?
More than anything, the report highlights that a startup as high-risk as Solyndra should not have ever been considered for such a large loan guarantee from the federal government.
The LDAMM would explain it this way: “What’s a few million or billion dollars, really? The true measure should be this: we meant well. It made us feel better.”
Solyndra went bankrupt because its costs were far too high, its only customers were paying for its panels at a discount, and the cost of solar panels in China were beginning to drop dramatically. Instead of finding customers willing to pay a premium for its new panels, its solar developer customers could head to China and buy cheap panels there.
Imagine that. Another reason why, perhaps, President Trump is focusing on China and tariffs. A wee bit of initial pain but much less than the the seppuku to be demanded later on the back end. Kind of like, oh, let’s say, 2008.
Remember “too big to fail”? If we’d simply let shite crash, things would have reconstructed in half the time. But no. Friends pulled friend cards. And billions and billions of more American Taxpayer dollars were squandered. Seeing a thread here?
But I digress.
These days let’s cut to, literally, “the chase” — the electric car. The electric car is going to save us all, eliminate want, need, grind our bread, render good and just decisions in every part of our lives, yield equanimity, eliminate the 1%, solve most all our environmental problems and make everyone happy. If you’re moron.
Remember: electric cars will Save. Us. All.
From ZeroHedge.com:
Electric Car-Owners Shocked: New Study Confirms EVs Considerably Worse For Climate Than Diesel Cars
by Tyler Durden, 4-22-19
The Brussel Times reports that a new German study exposes how electric vehicles will hardly decrease CO2 emissions in Europe over the coming years, as the introduction of electric vehicles won’t lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions from highway traffic.
Oh hell no. That’s a load of Rightist propaganda. But even back from January of 2016:
But wait, there’s more. A lot more.
According to the study directed by Christoph Buchal of the University of Cologne, published by the Ifo Institute in Munich last week, electric vehicles have “significantly higher CO2 emissions than diesel cars.” That is due to the significant amount of energy used in the mining and processing of lithium, cobalt, and manganese, which are critical raw materials for the production of electric car batteries.
Let’s get specific. What’s wrong with the batteries and why are they problematic? I mean, really, every form of electric transportation requires batteries — except for trains hooked up continuously to electrical lines overhead. Right? They’re just batteries.
A battery pack for a Tesla Model 3 pollutes the climate with 11 to 15 tonnes of CO2. Each battery pack has a lifespan of approximately ten years and total mileage of 94,000, would mean 73 to 98 grams of CO2 per kilometer (116 to 156 grams of CO2 per mile), Buchal said. Add to this the CO2 emissions of the electricity from powerplants that power such vehicles, and the actual Tesla emissions could be between 156 to 180 grams of CO2 per kilometer (249 and 289 grams of CO2 per mile).
Please remember, this is no Bill Nye “The Science Guy” telling you this (more on him in a bit). It’s a science nerd in Europe, the “center of all things green.”
German researchers criticized the fact that EU legislation classifies electric cars as zero-emission cars; they call it a deception because electric cars, like the Model 3, with all the factors, included, produce more emissions than diesel vehicles by Mercedes.
They further wrote that the EU target of 59 grams of CO2 per kilometer by 2030 is “technically unrealistic.”
Why not? Kalifornia wants five million all electric cars by 2030. And hundreds of thousands of charging stations to keep them running. Who’s going to pay for that massive infrastructure upfit? Only one person: you are.
In Brown’s 16th and his last State of the State speech as governor (he has been governor during the 1970s, 1980s, and 2010s), he outlined an ambitious target that makes previous goals seem like child’s play. That said, the state was already struggling to meet its goal of 1.5 million electric vehicles by 2025 due to a significant lack of charging infrastructure (California currently has about 350,000 electric vehicles, the most in the nation).
The big problem with scaling up so fast, however, is finding a place for so many EVs to charge. California currently has roughly 12,000 charging stations. That’s good compared to the rest of the country, but woefully inadequate for the bump Brown imagines. That’s why his executive order calls for a $2.5 billion investment for a surge in building chargers, with a goal of 250,000 around the state by 2025.
And technological reality keeps getting in the way of all these purple-skied visions.
But the other problem is one of timing. There are around 8,500 gas stations in California, but trips to these stations are usually quick. It doesn’t take long to top off the tank, and if there are persistent lines, drivers start to get annoyed. Current tech means that it takes longer to charge cars than fill them with gas even in ideal conditions. With a single charger connected to a 240-volt outlet, getting a full Tesla charge takes around 9 hours to charge all the way.
While studies have shown that people only drive an average around 29 miles per day, people don’t buy cars because they want to fit into statistical averages. Surveys have shown that “passion in the mind of the buyer” affects car purchases. They don’t want to have to wait a long time to drive their cars, which is why PG&E wants to spend some its money on “fast-charging stations, which can refuel EVs in 20-30 minutes.” Brown’s executive order would up the number of fast-chargers from the current 1,500 to about 10,000.
But again I remind you: regular charging stations or fast charging stations. Who is going to pay for those? You are. Your taxes will simply go up. Again.
Governor Brown is gone. Governor Newsom has not and will not roll back those goals. He’ll just double down. And is. With more taxes. And more. Kalifornia now wants to eliminate the diesel engine wholesale from the state.
Diesel trucks would be nearly eliminated in California under proposed law
by Peter Fimrite, 3-8-19
A proposed law that would phase out diesel trucks in California was introduced Friday in an ongoing effort by state legislators to control pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, but it will likely face major opposition from trucking companies and other businesses that transport products in big rigs.
The bill, by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, would direct the California Air Resources Board to require a 40 percent reduction in diesel emissions by 2030 and an 80 percent reduction by 2050, cuts that experts say would not be possible without a major overhaul of the trucking industry.
Make no mistake. That’s what Kalifornia wants. They want to be the vanguard of the Religious Left, no matter the facts, history, logic, rationality, proportion, common sense, context, intent or cost — budgetarily or societally. Your wallet be damned. That money belongs to Kalifornia, you moron, not you.
“Trucks move this world. That’s nonsense to me,” said Earl, a heavy equipment hauler who declined to give his last name Friday as he stood next to his idling rig at the North Bay Truck Center in Fairfield. “What are they going to use? Electric? That’s not going to work.”
Jim Buell, general manager of the North Bay Truck Center, said that compared with gas engines, diesel engines are much more powerful, last longer — they can last 800,000 miles, a gas engine about 200,000 — and generally get 30 percent better fuel economy.
But wait. It gets better.
The proposed law would join other recent moves designed to help the state meet its goal to cut carbon emissions to 1990 levels. Former Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation last year requiring all of California’s electricity to be from clean sources, such as solar, wind and hydropower, by 2045.
What happens on a cloudy day — or week — on solar? What happens when there is no wind, on bladed bird-killing turbines? I’m sure you’d love to have a 200-foot tall five-bladed turbine hovering over your neighborhood anyway.
And hydro power? How do you get hydro power? That’s right, with rivers, reservoirs and dams because, in its simplest form, you need a gravity-fed-and-directed penstock to turn the impellers. Kalifornia hasn’t built an actual dam in decades, the environmentalists won’t let that occur, and Kalifornia certainly won’t back up rivers or creeks to create reservoirs for the very same reason. And this important factor: what about Kalifornia’s infamous droughts?
It doesn’t matter if these forms are viable or not. Kalifornia is simply decreeing them into existence, no matter — literally — the cost.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency recently committed to replacing its diesel- and gas-powered buses with an all-electric transit fleet by 2035.
“Business would essentially stop without some type of a diesel engine fuel that can be burned,” Howard said. “You’re talking tractors, forklifts, cranes. I just don’t see diesel going away. That fuel is 200 years old and it’s not going to be replaced in 30 years.”
Then there’s this:
Skinner’s proposal falls in line with the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which designated the state Air Resources Board as the agency that would monitor and regulate emissions of greenhouse gases. The Air Resources Board already requires truck owners to install diesel exhaust retrofits that capture pollutants and replace engines older than the 2010 model year by 2022.
It’s the Kalifornia/Religious Left way: make things painful. Who will pay for those diesel engine upfits on engines? Right. Either the independent trucker or the corporation. Or the individual owners of marine engines. If you watch “Deadliest Catch” you already know those engines can cost upwards of $100,000 to replace, or more. Eh. Chump change.
Here’s some hard reality:
“Business would essentially stop without some type of a diesel engine fuel that can be burned,” Howard said. “You’re talking tractors, forklifts, cranes. I just don’t see diesel going away. That fuel is 200 years old and it’s not going to be replaced in 30 years.”
And this point: think of something means of conveyance in the transportation chain that isn’t diesel-powered. Ships are electric-diesel powered. Huge ships. Massive ships. Tanker ships. Container ships. The ships you knock around on cruises with. Does that mean Kalifornia no longer will allow those ships to dock, bringing the goods you require to the state?
What next? The diesel-electric locomotives who bring those goods to a central distribution hub. You think Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Canadian National are going to wave wands and magically change to unicorn-powered locomotives because Kalifornia decrees it so?
Then big trucks. Then smaller trucks. You’re talking about a paradigm shift that affects every facet of the transport chain. Changed overnight. NGH. Not Gonna Happen.
Go back to my first story, and you still have the same problem: the battery.
The reality is, in addition to the CO2 emissions generated in mining the raw materials for the production of electric vehicles, all EU countries generate significant CO2 emissions from charging the vehicles’ batteries using dirty power plants.
For true emission reductions, researchers concluded the study by saying methane-powered gasoline engines or hydrogen motors could cut CO2 emissions by a third and possibly eliminate the need for diesel motors.
“Methane technology is ideal for the transition from natural gas vehicles with conventional engines to engines that will one day run on methane from CO2-free energy sources. This being the case, the German federal government should treat all technologies equally and promote hydrogen and methane solutions as well.”
There is this from WUWT.com:
Tesla car battery production releases as much CO2 as 8 years of gasoline driving
by Anthony Watts
Huge hopes have been tied to electric cars as the solution to automotive CO2 climate problem. But it turns out the the electric car batteries are eco-villains in the production process of creating them. Several tons of carbon dioxide has been emitted, even before the batteries leave the factory.
IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute was commissioned by the Swedish Transport Administration and the Swedish Energy Agency to investigate litium-ion batteries climate impact from a life cycle perspective. There are batteries designed for electric vehicles included in the study. The two authors Lisbeth Dahllöf and Mia Romare has done a meta-study that is reviewed and compiled existing studies.
The report shows that the battery manufacturing leads to high emissions. For every kilowatt hour of storage capacity in the battery generated emissions of 150 to 200 kilos of carbon dioxide already in the factory. The researchers did not study individual brand batteries, how these were produced, or the electricity mix they use. But if we understand the great importance of the battery here is an example: Two common electric cars on the market, the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S, the batteries about 30 kWh and 100 kWh.
Damned facts.
Even before buying the car emissions occurred, corresponding to approximately 5.3 tons and 17.5 tons of Carbon Dioxide. The numbers can be difficult to relate to. As a comparison, a trip for one person round trip from Stockholm to New York by air causes the release of more than 600 kilograms of carbon dioxide, according to the UN organization ICAO calculation.
Another conclusion of the study is that about half the emissions arising from the production of raw materials and half the production of the battery factory. The mining accounts for only a small proportion of between 10-20 percent.
From Politico.com:
Are electric cars worse for the environment?
by Jonathan Lesser
Crunch the numbers, and it looks like all those subsidies might be counterproductive.
If you believe the headlines, traditional automobiles are speeding toward a dead end. All those V8s, V6s and turbocharged vehicles we’ve grown to love will soon be replaced by squadrons of clean, whisper-quiet, all-electric vehicles. And if you believe the headlines, the environment will be much better off.
Policymakers at every level have done their part to push electric vehicles by creating a tankful of subsidies. Thanks to laws signed by both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, electric-vehicle buyers can feast on federal tax credits of up to $7,500 that reduce the initial purchase cost of their vehicles. Not to be outdone, many states also dangle their own mix of goodies for electric vehicle buyers, including purchase rebates as large as $5,000, additional rebates for vehicle chargers, and free use of public charging stations—which, of course, are only “free” because they’re subsidized by ratepayers and taxpayers. Some states even give electric vehicles preferential access to carpool lanes.
Stop. No longer. No free ride in Illinois any more.
Illinois might start charging $1,000 per year to own an electric vehicle: ‘It’s outrageous’
by Robert Channick
A proposed hike in Illinois’ annual registration fee for electric vehicles, from $17.50 to $1,000, is being called unfair by current EV owners, and a sales disincentive by manufacturers — just as the new technology is beginning to gain broader traction.
“It’s outrageous,” said Nicoletta Skarlatos, 56, of Chicago, who bought a Tesla Model S five years ago. “I thought Illinois was progressive and would want to encourage EV ownership.”
Aimed at raising money to make overdue road improvements across Illinois, the proposed legislation would also more than double the state’s gas tax to 44 cents a gallon and raise the registration fee for standard vehicles to $148, from $98, among other elements.
But the kicker is a nearly 60-fold increase in the electric vehicle registration fee — one that is sure to cause sticker shock across a nascent segment of the auto industry, which has depended on government incentives to entice early adopters.
But I digress. Let’s continue.
What I found is that widespread adoption of electric vehicles nationwide will likely increase air pollution compared with new internal combustion vehicles. You read that right: more electric cars and trucks will mean more pollution.
That might sound counterintuitive: After all, won’t replacing a 30-year old, smoke-belching Oldsmobile with a new electric vehicle reduce air pollution? Yes, of course. But that’s also where many electric vehicle proponents’ arguments run off the road: they fail to consider just how clean and efficient new internal combustion vehicles are. The appropriate comparison for evaluating the benefits of all those electric vehicle subsidies and mandates isn’t the difference between an electric vehicle and an old gas-guzzler; it’s the difference between an electric car and a newgas car. And new internal combustion engines are really clean. Today’s vehicles emit only about 1% of the pollution than they did in the 1960s, and new innovations continue to improve those engines’ efficiency and cleanliness.
Question: why don’t you ever hear these issues addressed by the Religious Left?
And as for that electric car: The energy doesn’t come from nowhere. Cars are charged from the nation’s electrical grid, which means that they’re only as “clean” as America’s mix of power sources. Those are getting cleaner, but we still generate power mainly by burning fossil fuels: natural gas is our biggest source of electricity, and is projected to increase. And coal, while still declining, will remain the second largest source of electricity for some time. (Third is nuclear power, which doesn’t generate emissions but has other byproducts that worry some environmentalists.) Even with large increases in wind and solar generation, the EIA projects that the nation’s electric generating mix will be just 30% renewable by 2030. Based on that forecast, if the EIA’s projected number of electric vehicles were replaced with new internal combustion vehicles, air pollution would actually decrease—and this holds true even if you include the emissions from oil refineries that manufacture gasoline.
Oh hell no. That can’t be true. What about Kalifornia?
As for states like California with stringent mandates to use more renewable energy for their power grid, they also have the highest electric rates in the continental US, 50% higher than the US average. And electric rates in those states just keep increasing. So it’s a cleaner power mix, but makes recharging your car more expensive. The higher the electric rate, the lower the incentive for a new car buyer to purchase an electric vehicle.
Stop. When was the last time Kalifornia built an electrical power station? A long time ago. Further, Kalifornia is closing older power plants, like the giant La Paloma power plant. Worse, Kalifornia imports 33% of its electricity supply from neighboring states, with about 65% of that coming from the Southwest and 35% coming from the Northwest. It gets better. High costs and, of course, less reliability. Kalifornia leads the nation with nearly 470 power outages a year as, say, compared to Texas — which has 160 outages a year but produces 125% more electricity.
It’s no surprise, then, that Kalifornia power rates are 45% above the US average.
So, if electric-vehicle subsidies don’t help the environment, what—or who—do they help? Most electric-vehicle buyers are far wealthier than average Americans. A nationwide survey in 2017 found that 56% had household incomes of at least $100,000 and 17% had household incomes of at least $200,000. (In 2016, median household income for the US as a whole was less than $58,000.) So it’s fair to say the subsidies disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor, who cannot afford to buy even subsidized electric vehicles or live in their own homes to take advantage of residential chargers or solar panels.
Not only that, the wires and charging stations needed to charge all those electric vehicles will be paid for by all ratepayers, further raising electric rates. And as more wealthy customers install solar panels to charge their electric vehicles, the costs to provide them back-up power will fall on those who cannot afford to do so.
In effect, the wealthy owners of electric vehicles will enjoy the benefits of their clean, silent cars, while passing on many of the costs of keeping their vehicles on the road to everyone else, especially the poor.
Screw the poor, Kalifornia says. They can go crap in the streets for all it cares. Oh wait. They’re already doing that.
What can you conclude if you’re actually using your head? “What if this entire electric car thing is simply not feasible, is a raper of the environment and, moreover, possibly one of the biggest scams ever created by Elon Musk and others of the Religious Left?
As I said: what if everything you knew was wrong and, subsequently, everything you wanted to do built off that false premise or assumption was then wrong as well? Similar to the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree Doctrine.
Then there’s the false promise of “alternative energy” in the first place, from Forbes.com:
Unreliable Nature Of Solar And Wind Makes Electricity More Expensive, New Study Finds
by Michael Shellenberger, 4-22-19
Solar panels and wind turbines are making electricity significantly more expensive, a major new study by a team of economists from the University of Chicago finds.
Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) “significantly increase average retail electricity prices, with prices increasing by 11% (1.3 cents per kWh) seven years after the policy’s passage into law and 17% (2 cents per kWh) twelve years afterward,” the economists write.
The study, which has yet to go through peer-review, was done by Michael Greenstone, Richard McDowell, and Ishan Nath. It compared states with and without an RPS. It did so using what the economists say is “the most comprehensive state-level dataset ever compiled” which covered 1990 to 2015.
The cost to consumers has been staggeringly high: “All in all, seven years after passage, consumers in the 29 states had paid $125.2 billion more for electricity than they would have in the absence of the policy,” they write.
Look at Solyndra. Leftists, Demorats, the American Media Maggots and the Religious Left, quite bluntly, don’t give a shit about the budgetary or societal costs. They. Have. Decreed. You simply need to STFU and open your wallets some more.
Solar and wind require that natural gas plants, hydro-electric dams, batteries or some other form of reliable power be ready at a moment’s notice to start churning out electricity when the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining, I noted.
And unreliability requires solar- and/or wind-heavy places like Germany, California, and Denmark to pay neighboring nations or states to take their solar and wind energy when they are producing too much of it.
What? Pay to provide electricity to others? I thought they were supposed to pay us?
Previous studies were misleading, the economists note, because they didn’t “incorporate three key costs,” which are the unreliability of renewables, the large amounts of land they require, and the displacement of cheaper “baseload” energy sources like nuclear plants.
The higher cost of electricity reflects “the costs that renewables impose on the generation system,” the economists note, “including those associated with their intermittency, higher transmission costs, and any stranded asset costs assigned to ratepayers.”
But are renewables cost-effective climate policy? They are not. The economists write that “the cost per metric ton of CO2 abated exceeds $130 in all specifications and ranges up to $460, making it at least several times larger than conventional estimates of the social cost of carbon.”
Solyndra, anyone?
Remember I referred to “Bill Nye the Science Guy”? How about Bill Nye the Religious Leftist who outs himself with anger, lies and outright faith, not facts? First, with Tucker Carlson.
Then, on a lovely little rant. Yeah. What a “science guy.”
And about that “science.”
Earth Day: Not a Single Environmental Prediction of the Last 50 Years Has Come True
by Anthony Watts
We should be thankful that the gloom-and-doom predictions made throughout the past several decades haven’t come true. Fear-mongering about explosive population growth, food crises and the imminent depletion of natural resources have been a staple of Earth Day events since 1970. And the common thread among them is that they’ve stirred up a lot more emotions than facts.
“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate … that there won’t be any more crude oil,” ecologist Kenneth Watt warned around the time of the first Earth Day event. “You’ll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill ’er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” Watt also warned of global cooling and nitrogen buildup rendering all of the planet’s land unusable.
From NaturalNews.com:
Over 30,000 scientists say ‘Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming’ is a complete hoax and science lie
by Daniel Barker
The Obama White House’s assertion that 97 percent of scientists agree that global warming is real has been completely debunked. Several independently-researched examinations of the literature used to support the “97 percent” statement found that the conclusions were cherry-picked and misleading.
More objective surveys have revealed that there is a far greater diversity of opinion among scientists than the global warming crowd would like for you to believe.
From the National Review:
“A 2008 survey by two German scientists, Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, found that a significant number of scientists were skeptical of the ability of existing global climatemodels to accurately predict global temperatures, precipitation, sea-level changes, or extreme weather events even over a decade; they were far more skeptical as the time horizon increased.”
Other mainstream news sources besides the National Review have also been courageous enough to speak out against the global warming propaganda – even the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed piece in 2015 challenging the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) pseudoscience being promulgated by global warming proponents.
And, of course, there are the more than 31,000 American scientists (to date) who have signed a petition challenging the climate change narrative and 9,029 of them hold PhDs in their respective fields. But hey, Al Gore and his cronies have also ignored that inconvenient truth, as well.
Simultaneously, globalists want to see the US completely boned — while the truth is that the other nations couldn’t care less about the environment. It’s all talk. There’s a reason President Trump wanted no part of this.
U.S. REDUCES EMISSIONS WHILE PARIS PARTIES’ EMISSIONS GROW
by H. Sterling Burnett, 6-22-18
More than 190 nations signed the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. These nations pledged to cut or cap their greenhouse gas emissions—primarily carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels—to prevent global average temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
In truth, the agreement was a fraud from the start—all style, no substance. To stop temperatures from rising by the required amount would necessitate reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent by 2050. Furthermore, countries would have to become fully carbon-neutral by 2100. Yet the plans submitted by the nearly 200 countries would result in less than half the greenhouse gas cuts required to prevent the 2-degree temperature rise—and the government negotiators knew this all along.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, the Paris climate negotiators truly believed the Earth is threatened by catastrophic anthropogenic climate change, it’s fair to ask whether the countries involved in the agreement are making the reductions necessary to prevent the supposed planetary doom. Are they walking the walk or just talking the talk? The answer is the latter.
For instance, China’s carbon dioxide emissions rose at the fastest rate in seven years during the first quarter of 2018, according to Greenpeace. China is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter and its government data show the country’s carbon dioxide emissions were 4 percent higher in the first quarter of 2018 than at the same time in 2017. If they remain 4 percent higher than 2017 throughout the year, it would mark the largest single-year growth in China’s emissions since 2011.
Read the rest of the article. It also talks about the EU, Asia and India being some world-class despoilers of the environment as well.
But you don’t read about any of that, do you? The Religious Left wants to ensure you never hear those things.
If you want to really find out about what’s going on regarding a given issue, there’s a phrase, applicable here, called “follow the money.” From NationalReview.com:
Global Warming: Follow the Money
by Henry Payne
It isn’t the fossil-fuel companies that are polluting climate science.
Citing documents uncovered by the radical environmental group Greenpeace, a group of media outlets — including the New York Times and the Boston Globe — have attacked global-warming skeptic Wei-Hock (Willie) Soon for allegedly hiding $1.2 million in contributions from “fossil fuel companies.” The articles were the latest in an ongoing campaign by greens and their media allies to discredit opponents of the warming agenda.
But in allying themselves closely with activist groups with which they share ideological goals, reporters have fundamentally misled readers on the facts of global-warming funding.
In truth, the overwhelming majority of climate-research funding comes from the federal government and left-wing foundations. And while the energy industry funds both sides of the climate debate, the government/foundation monies go only toward research that advances the warming regulatory agenda. With a clear public-policy outcome in mind, the government/foundation gravy train is a much greater threat to scientific integrity.
Indeed, experts in the research community say that it is much more difficult for some of the top climate scientists — Soon, Roger Pielke Jr., the CATO Institute’s Patrick Michaels, MIT’s now-retired Richard Lindzen — to get funding for their work because they do not embrace the global-warming fearmongering favored by the government-funded climate establishment.
Despite claims that they are watchdogs of the establishment, media outlets such as the Times have ignored the government’s oversized role in directing research. And they have ignored millions in contributions from left-wing foundations — contributions that, like government grants, seek to tip the scales to one side of the debate.
Last summer, a minority staff report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works gave details on a “Billionaire’s Club” — a shadowy network of charitable foundations that distribute billions to advance climate alarmism. Shadowy nonprofits such as the Energy Foundation and Tides Foundation distributed billions to far-left green groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, which in turn send staff to the EPA who then direct federal grants back to the same green groups. It is incestuous. It is opaque. Major media ignored the report.
Huh. Imagine that. From TheStream.org:
There’s Big Money in Global Warming Alarmism
by William Briggs
A sociologist with no training in the physical sciences is puzzled why most Americans think the world is not doomed by global warming. So flummoxed is Yale’s Justin Farrell that he decided to study the question in the most scientific way possible. And he managed to publish his results, “Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change,” in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
What do you think his conclusions were? Perhaps that thirty years of failed temperature predictions boosted Americans’ skepticism? Or that the obvious eagerness of politicians to leverage exaggerated fears have left many skittish? Or maybe it’s the dearth of severe storms, despite the many promises that floods and droughts would drown and parch us all?
No, none of that. Farrell discovered that private groups spent their own money to say that things were not as bad as alarmists claimed. He told The Washington Post that these “contrarian efforts have been so effective for the fact that they have made it difficult for ordinary Americans to even know who to trust.” Indeed, I, myself a climate scientist, no longer trust anything non-scientists like Farrell tell me about global warming (which he incorrectly calls “climate change”).
Sure. I trust Bill Nye the Science Guy. Come on. He’s a “science guy.”
Farrell is right about one thing: Global warming alarmism is big business. On one side you have Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, Environmental Defense Fund, The Climate Project and dozens upon dozens of other non-governmental organizations who solicit hundreds of millions from private donors and from government, and who in turn award lucrative grants to further their agenda.
You also have the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health, the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture, both Houses of Congress and many more government agencies, spraying global warming money at anything that moves and at staggering rates — billions of dollars.
And then you also have every major and minor university — with contributions from every department, from Critical Literature Theory to Women’s Studies — all with their hands out and eager to provide the support Greenpeace, the government and others desire. Add to that another two or three dozen think tanks which are also sniffing for grants or which support government intervention to do the impossible and stop the earth’s climate from changing.
Every scientific organization which is dependent on grant money has released a statement saying “something must be done” about global warming. They’re supported, fawned over and feted by just about every news and media agency. And don’t forget the leadership of most major organized religions have their own statements — and their hands out.
We’re not done: we still have to add the dozens of Solyndra-type companies eager to sell the government products, to get “green” subsidies or to support its global-warming agenda.
Who’s on the “other side”?
All that is on one side. And on the other? Well, there’s a handful of privately funded think tanks, a smattering of generous individuals and businesses, a journalist here and there, and (ahem) a few skeptical scientists scratching what living they can, all trying vainly to tell the world that the sky isn’t falling and that government intervention isn’t needed.
Big money, folks. BIG. MONEY. And lots of it.
It’s called the GWIC: Global Warming Industrial Complex. And everyone wants a piece of that Big Money.
It doesn’t stop there. Religious Leftists will lie and get caught.
BBC and Attenborough Accused of Fake News Misinformation on ‘Climate Change: The Facts’
by James Delingpole
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has made a formal complaint to the BBC about the series of gross inaccuracies in its recent documentary Climate Change: The Facts.
As wags have quipped, the programme presented by Sir David Attenborough was so riddled with errors it really should have been called Climate: Change The Facts.
Now the GWPF has written to the BBC Complaints department listing just a few of them. The letter can be read here.
According to the GPWF, the programme “went far beyond its remit to present the facts about climate change, instead broadcasting a highly politicised manifesto in favour of renewable energy and unjustified alarm.”
Which brings us to this.
Leftists and the BBC like to say that the argument is over on the topic.
But it’s barely begun, because the science is — in the overall scope of time — so new that an insufficient period has occurred for us to make truly informed models and attempt to foretell the future and thusly try to craft cogent policy utilizing BZ’s Decision Constant. That is to say, mixing
- Facts
- History
- Logic
- Rationality
- Proportion
- Common Sense
- Context
- Intent
. . . in order to yield a good decision. Or a bad decision, if you eschew all these things.
Because of that, the GWIC is actually an art, not a science. It is a matter of clinging to a Leftist belief system — which is why I term those persons the Religious Left. For them, it’s simply a matter of faith.
You’re either a believer or you’re a heretic, an apostate, an unbeliever, a heathen, a disrupter, a malcontent, and — like witches at Salem, you need to be cleansed. Oh, by cleansed, yeah, well, burned. At the stake. Personally, professionally, in social media, in articles, on television, in videos, you name it.
Leftists will readily provide the popcorn, hot dogs and marshmallows-on-a-stick. “Never let a good burning Conservative go to waste” is their motto.
Leftists have doubled down once more in terms of their media vocabulary. From the WashingtonExaminer.com:
Newspaper tells staff to use ‘climate emergency’ and ‘climate denier’ in news stories
by Caitlin Yilek, 5-17-19
The Guardian has directed its staff to use “climate emergency” or “climate crisis” instead of “climate change” in news stories.
According to an internal email the British newspaper — a proud bastion of liberalism — contends “climate change” sounds “rather passive and gentle when what scientists are talking about is a catastrophe for humanity.”
Rather than “climate skeptic,” terms like “climate denier” or “climate science denier” should be used. The email said “global heating” should be used instead of “global warming.”
Righto, because if we haven’t misled enough people, it’s time to corral them all into true PSH territory where idiot politicians think we do in fact only have 12 more years to go before we all blow up, or it rains frogs, camshafts, or Cabbage Patch Kids.
.@AOC on millennials and social media: “We’re, like, the world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change” pic.twitter.com/HjhbVyfFN4
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 22, 2019
“And your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?”
Yes, you remarkably ignorant bint, that’s one of the largest issues extant. You think people — anyone — is going to work for free? You think budgets mean nothing? Apparently so, because here you are in social media saying precisely that. It’s a crisis, crisis, crisis.
Nurse, quickly… pic.twitter.com/NgHcqFn4bu
— David Vance (@DVATW) April 28, 2019
Crisis?
Yeah, it’s a crisis!
Only if you don’t get PAID.
It’s called the GWIC: Global Warming Industrial Complex. And every Religious Leftist wants a piece of that Big Money pie.
BZ