Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
Residential and commercial buildings throughout the United States are in the bull’s eye of a White House plan “intended to help move the building sector to net-zero emissions.”
Residential and commercial buildings throughout the United States are in the bull’s eye of a White House plan “intended to help move the building sector to net-zero emissions.”
A “pre-decisional” draft quietly circulating since December outlines the vast scope of an initiative aimed at nothing less than the decarbonization of one of the nation’s largest economic sectors.
“A broadly accepted minimum definition of a zero-emissions building, as well as a pathway for documentation, is foundational to efforts by public and private entities to transition the building sector to zero greenhouse gas emissions,” the draft states. “The intent of the National Definition of a Zero Emissions Building is to create a standardized, consistent, measurable basis for zero emissions buildings.”
“This clear market signal and consistent target, backed by measurable data, is intended to help move the building sector to zero emissions,” the White House draft continues. “The definition may serve as a framework that users can achieve through multiple pathways to influence the design and operation of buildings to substantially reduce building sector emissions.”
And which buildings are to be included in this definition? “This definition can be applied to existing buildings and to new construction of non-federally owned buildings,” the White House explains. “The definition applies to whole building operational emissions, including those from tenants.”
To meet the administration’s net-zero emissions criteria, a building must be highly energy efficient, free of on-site emissions from energy use, and powered solely from “clean energy,” defined as “carbon-free sources.”
Verification of each building’s compliance with the zero-emissions regime is a key element of the Biden program. “EPA’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager will generate standardized documentation that can be independently verified through licensed professionals and/or third-party certification bodies or others as determined by organizations using the zero-emissions building definition.”
A Roadmap to Control
Anyone wishing to know how the administrative state seizes power needs look no further than the White House’s net-zero building emissions plan. It starts with a “broadly accepted minimum definition of a zero-emissions building … to transition the building sector to zero greenhouse gas emissions.” The White House fails to say by whom the definition is “broadly accepted” but quickly moves on to a scheme that will put the federal government in every building – existing and not yet constructed – in every community in the country.
Several well-trodden pathways are at its disposal, including regulation of fossil-fuel sources of energy that might otherwise make their way into buildings. Another is EPA’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, who is accountable to absolutely no one but nevertheless has the power to generate standardized documentation that can be “independently verified” by third parties with a financial stake in the net-zero program. The White House draft places no restrictions on the size of the buildings subject to the program, meaning even smaller structures could fall under its net.
Building Codes
The administration’s move comes amid a nationwide fight — playing out in such places as North Carolina, Michigan, and Idaho — over efforts to adopt “climate-friendly” building codes at the state and local levels. Climate advocates, often under the banner of energy efficiency, demand that building codes for homes be updated to include thicker insulation, super airtight windows, and upgraded wiring to accommodate all-electric appliances and in-home chargers for EVs.
With home prices already at record-high levels, the 140,000 members of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) are mobilizing against state and local efforts to enact what are said to be more energy- efficient building codes for residences. Last year, NFIB’s North Carolina affiliate successfully lobbied against a Tarheel State plan to tighten energy efficiency standards designed to lower the carbon footprint of residential buildings. Ron Jackson, a home builder in predominantly rural Moore County, worried that the code would put the affordable housing he specializes in out of reach for nurses, police officers, and teachers.
“All that energy code was going to do in my price range is make it where the working man and woman would not be able to buy a home,” he toldThe Washington Post (Feb. 25). Jackson, who sells homes in the $250,000 range, cited figures from NAHB’s North Carolina affiliate, saying the code would add $20,000 to the price of such a home.
What the White House says is merely a “definition” of a zero-emission building won’t stay a definition for long. It will be a launching pad for regulations – ideally at the federal, state, and local levels – that mandate which materials can go into a green building. Politically connected purveyors of those materials stand to profit handsomely from this arrangement.
On the other hand, prospective home buyers, particularly those on a tight budget, will ultimately pay the price exacted by the administrative regulatory state and its partners, the climate cartel.
Murdoch’s cheeky Daily Telegraph mocked up a picture of Conroy in Stalin’s uniform. Outraged progressives demanded an apology. The Teleapologised, but to Stalin not Conroy:
… we would just like to say: We’re sorry, Joseph.
Murdoch’s cheeky Daily Telegraph mocked up a picture of Conroy in Stalin’s uniform. Outraged progressives demanded an apology. The Teleapologised, but to Stalin not Conroy:
… we would just like to say: We’re sorry, Joseph.
Yes, it is true that Stalin was a despicable and evil tyrant who was responsible for the death of many millions. However, at least he was upfront in his efforts to control the media instead of pretending he supported free speech and then suggesting that cheeky, satirical or provocative newspaper coverage might be against the law.
We also note that, despite his well-documented crimes against humanity, Stalin at least managed to hold a government together for more than three years. Nonetheless, we pay tribute to our new Commissar Conroy and stand ready to write and publish whatever he instructs us to.
Conroy’s Bill to save Australia from the media was based on the flimsy pretext that in England, Murdoch’s News of the World journos had been hacking phones, not just of royalty but even the families of murder victims. (Some of Britain’s non-Murdoch press had also been into hacking). Murdoch shut down News of the World in response. Nobody claimed anything like the phone hacking had occurred in Australia.
Still, it was a chance for Gillard. Pushed by the Greens, she gave Judge Ray Finkelstein and a stray journo called Matthew Ricketson the job of drafting improved media regulation. They came up with a PIMA or “Public Interest Media Advocate” to oversee self-regulation. Under the Bill, if Mr or Ms PIMA felt self-regulation wasn’t strict enough, he/she/it would cause the offending newspaper, in practical terms, to be delicensed.[1] Newspapers would be obliged to publish mandatory statements of error and, should editors demure, contempt-of-court penalties would apply — in other words, they could be locked up and kept behind bars indefinitely. This modest proposal ended in parliamentary tears for Conroy, Gillard (hello, Kevin Rudd 2.0)[2] and the Labor government itself, downed by Tony Abbott.
Politicians’ memories are short and down the turnpike now comes Prime Minister Albanese’s bill, via Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, to censor online “misinformation”. The pretext this time is that fake and malicious information on social media is wrecking our minds and unravelling our hitherto resilient society.
The rigmarole seems templated on Gillard’s lamentable model. Labor will give an “independent” regulator power to oversee voluntary censorship codes by the tech giants like Meta, Google and Twitter. If they. are seen to falter, the regulator — namely the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) run by Nerida O’Loughlin on $610,000 per year (p88) — imposes its own standards. And she enforces it with fines literally up to billions of dollars per day ($6.88 million or 5 per cent of global turnover, whichever is biggest).
You can bet the tech giants will rush to self-censor any posts that might remotely annoy Nerida or the government. So goodbye to online “misinformation” like ‘renewables are expensive and unreliable’, or ‘compulsory Covid vaccines are somewhat unproven and dangerous’.
If you think the bill itself defines the sort of “misinformation” that causes social “harms”, forget it. The definitions are broad as the earth and sky. Sure, actionable “misinformation” has to be “reasonably likely [to] cause or contribute to serious harm” but the “serious harm” test is just jelly.
Labor’s reworded bill arrives any month now. The Coalition hasn’t gained traction against it: after all, Scott Morrison’s team created the plan in the first place. ScoMo’s ethos, you might recall, was “freedom of speech doesn’t create one job.”[3] When Albanese kicked out the LNP in 2022, he merely dusted off and hardened the LNP’s handiwork. You might think Labor’s penalties are pretty draconian (Draco would execute an Athenian for stealing a cabbage). But for the leftist mobs, Minister Rowland’s onslaught against social media freedom doesn’t go nearly far enough.
The submission by the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) on August 6 takes the cake. I’m serious, ATSE applauds the draft and wants Labor to extend censorship to cover not just online screeds but all “traditional” media — newspapers, radio, TV, Quadrant and even private messaging. Why? Because “An ongoing flood of misinformation and disinformation through online platforms risks damage to Australian democracy, institutions and society.” That’s why. So we get
Recommendation 5: Expand ACMA powers to enable enforceable industry standards on traditional media sources, including print news media.
With the Murdoch press obviously in mind, ATSE continues (emphasis added),
Some Australian news providers have been shown to be havens for science denialism and science misinformation (Lowe, 2018), while other media outlets can unintentionally amplify misinformation in well- meaning attempts to debunk it. Furthermore, it is much harder for digital platforms to police information coming from traditional media sources, as these sources may produce a mix of misinformation and factual information. Given this oversized role of traditional media in spreading misinformation, any attempt to fight misinformation that does not address the role of traditional media will be insufficient.
ATSE’s favorable citation of “Lowe 2018” is the giveaway. Ian Lowe AO was Australian Conservation Foundation president 2004-14, and his cited piece “Climate of Denial” is up on ATSE’s own website.Here he spells it all out:
We are now seeing a determined campaign of misinformation by the Murdoch press. At one level, it consists of putting forward amateur contrary views as if they hold equal weight with the [climate] science. The Australian featured on its front page a sun-tanned Bondi surfer who said he had not noticed any rise in sea level, as if this anecdote cancelled out decades of analysis of about 10,000 tide gauges around the world.
With respect, Ian, the Fort Denison tide gauge in Sydney Harbour has shown a puny 110mm of sea rise per century — that’s two-thirds the length of my iphone.
At another level, it is deliberate misrepresentation … There is now no real possibility of communicating climate science through our commercial media … The good news is the community overall has clearly moved on and the denialists in power are increasingly out of touch with reality. [His piece refers to the Coalition era].
Don’t imagine ATSE is some mickey-mouse show gone rogue. Its president from 2013-15 was the urbane Alan Finkel, who became Australia’s Chief Scientist a few years later, as well as a Fellow of the Academy of Science.. ATSE is currently headed by Dr Katherine Woodthorpe AO.[4] Her ATSE biog includes that she’s a past director of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and Vast Solar, which is now installing the $200 million Port Augusta Solar Thermal Project with the help of $65 million federal funds.
ATSE has another 900 fellows, billed as our brightest boffins. Here’s how ATSE imagines itself:
[A] Learned Academy of independent, non-political experts helping Australians understand and use technology to solve complex problems. Bringing together Australia’s leading thinkers in applied science, technology and engineering, ATSE provides impartial, practical and evidence-based advice on how to achieve sustainable solutions and advance prosperity.
ATSE wants WhatsApp to deliver “functionality nudges” (an Orwellian term reminiscent of a former NSW Premier’s Department’s “Nudge Unit”) to curb any “misinformation” on it. ATSE not only wants dissemination of “misinformation” labelled and limited across the board, it also wants (Recommendation 4) the censorship reach to extend to those private messaging services, subject to concerns about privacy and “weakening of encryption”. ATSE’s submission agrees piously that Australians’ trust in government is already low and falling, “so it is essential that legislation designed to tackle misinformation does not undermine what trust remains. This is reinforced by the fact that Australians are particularly concerned about misinformation from the government and politicians.”
The ATSE submission goes on to support indoctrination of school students based on the playbook of climate psychologists John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. They and ATSE prescribe “inoculation” of kids with supposedly truthful climate alarmism to condition kids’ brains against any reference to harmless warming and net zero impossibilities they might later encounter. Cook, whose research team indulged in some truly bizarre behaviour, was lead author for the 2013 paper falselyclaiming a 97 per cent scientific consensus for the orthodox warming hypothesis).[5]
ATSE’s big program for schools was established by future chief scientist Finkel (above) himself. This program uses global warming alarmism as a bait to excite Year 5-10 kids about science. Or in ATSE’s words, it is “tapping into the high level of concern that most students have about global warming, climate change and sustainability.” This is circular as the ATSE alarmists helped stir up kids’ climate neuroses in the first place.
It gets worse for the reputation of science. The 2022 joint ATSE/Science Academy submission to DIGImirrors the 2023 ATSE job. DIGI is Meta (Facebook), Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and TikTok. The DIGI players are, of course, the linchpin of the new Misinformation Bill.
The two academies urged DIGI to censor and harass any Australians who circulated what they insultingly labelled “climate denialism misinformation”. They made no bones about urging the tech giants’ power to be wielded against Murdoch’s “Sky News Australia and its media personalities”. And the regime shouldn’t stop at online censorship. They urge censoring “misinformation” in the traditional media too.
Recommendation 2: Include misinformation from professional news content within the scope of the Code.
A COP26 paper,Deny, Deceive, Delay, which the Academies’ submission also cited with approval referred to “political right-wing … top influencers” as part of a conspiratorial “intellectual dark web”. Its alleged members included best-selling psychologist Dr Jordan B. Peterson and humourist Scott Adams and his Dilbert cartoons. The paper, incidentally, was particularly aggrieved that Sky News’ Rita Panahi had called Prince (now King) Charles a climate hypocrite and idiot. Would that be misinformation or treason?
Another paper cited and approved by the two academies was another far-left conspiracy rant “The Toxic Ten — How ten fringe publishers fuel 69% of digital climate change denial.” To smear sceptics by association, the list includes “Russian state media”. Big Tech blocking these key right-of-centre outlets with their 186 million followers would be a huge win for the net-zero enforcers. Not all of the 600 science fellows viewed the submission as a credit to their Academy. Garth Paltridge, a fellow for 30-plus years, is a retired atmospheric physicist.[6] He told us at the time,
The bottom line is that research on climate change is indeed still highly controversial – both in the prediction of the extent of the change and (even more so) in the prediction of the impact of the change on society. I just cannot understand how any science academy that is supposed to operate through rational debate can behave like this – that is, to use pure political brute force to prevent one side of the argument from putting its case.
I can only assume that the Academy is subconsciously ‘chasing the money’ and is influenced by the vast funding available these days for the support of alarmist climate research. Certainly there is virtually no money to support scientists brave enough to put their heads above the parapet with a contrary view. That might be why the critical scientists seem largely to be retired.
The Commission holds serious reservations about the current version of the Exposure Draft Bill’s ability to strike the correct balance. Legislation that necessitates censorship to fight misinformation and disinformation must do so in a way that prevents harm without unduly silencing reasonable minds we disagree with. Unfortunately, this initial Exposure Draft Bill has not found that equilibrium.
The HRC is not my favourite institution.[7] It lost me when then-president Gillian Triggs opined in Hobart in 2017, to a standing ovation of Greens supporters, “Sadly you can say what you like around the kitchen table at home.” But on this Misinformation BIll, HRC President Rosalind Croucher has monstered the censorship-lovers. Censorship is contrary to fundamental Australian values, she argues, and also contrary to UN human rights treaties signed by Australia. She warns that the Bill could “restrict public debate, censor unpopular opinions and enforce ideological conformity in Australia.”
Truthful information can be labelled as ‘fake news’ and delegitimized, Croucher says. “Similarly, categories [in the Bill] such as ‘harm to the health of Australians’, ‘harm to the Australian environment’ and ‘economic or financial harm to Australians, the Australian economy or a sector of the Australian economy’ are each categories about which reasonable people may legitimately have different perspectives and views.” She complains about the Bill’s free pass to any government information, true or false, “given the enhanced legitimacy and authority that many people attach to information received from official government sources.” Arguing in surprising parallel with the Institute of Public Affairs, HRC is alarmed that government has immunity while it can get its critics censored.
As for other submissions, the draft bill is even making the ABC nervous, as its iView and Listen apps could get caught in ACMA’s censorship wringer. The ABC also complains the Bill lacks provision for ABC journos to protect their sources.
The journos’ leftist union, MEAA, like the ABC, loves the censorship Bill in principle for targeting “misinformation” that contradicts their woke opinions. MEAA’s submission complains that authorities during the Referendum failed to suppress “deliberate campaigns distributing incorrect, misleading, and damaging information”by No advocates. The MEAA — trust them, they’re journalists
At the same time, the MEAA feared the enhanced ACMA blowtorch could burn its many freelance journos and small online publishers. These small-timers, unlike mainstream publishers of “professional news content”, are likely targets for the official censorship. MEAA also feared ACMA could misuse its power to censor “harmful” accounts involving “disruption of public order or society” such as street protests. In MEAA’s words, “there is a long history of important social movements being considered ‘disruptive’ by governments and powerful interests.” I’m sure the union likes rioters for Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion and the “Gas the Jews” mob, but not the peaceful anti-lockdown protestors which, in Victoria’s case, involved Dan Andrew’s troopers firing rubber bullets into them as they fled.
The MEAA solution goes like this: instead of exemptions for “professional news content”, make it exemptions for all those subscribing to the MEAA’s Code of Ethics. These (I presume) union members can be relied on for “a commitment to the highest standards of honesty, fairness, independence, and respect for the rights of others.” The MEAA’s other faux solution to “misinformation” online, echoing ATSE, is for kids to get “media literacy” training, under the watchful eye of the leftist fact-checkers.
Even through its leftist goggles the MEAA can see that the censorship regime looks a bit dicey given its green-light exemption for all propaganda from all levels of government:
It is simply unreasonable that the view of governments beprotected from the reach of this Bill’s definition of “misinformation” and paves the way for government to politicise valid criticisms of it[self] while engaging in misinformation of its own.
Other leftist submissions on the Bill are nervous that giving such powers to their friendly government might backfire when wielded by a cabinet of conservatives.
I’d better close now, I’d hate to give you any misinformation.
Tony Thomas’s latest book from Connor Court is Anthem of the Unwoke – Yep! The other lot’s gone bonkers. $34.95 from Connor Court here
[1] “Death by a thousand consent forms”, as one analyst put it at the time.
[2] Gillard in desperation negotiated to replace PIMA with a three-person panel, appointed by a 12-person committee, six of whom would have been appointed by the Council of the Order of Australia, three appointed by the journalists’ union and three appointed by the Australian Press Council. The bill collapsed anyway.
[3] Actually, his phrase was, ” As a senior figure in this government … I know this issue [free speech] doesn’t create one job, doesn’t open one business, doesn’t give anyone one extra hour. It doesn’t make housing more affordable or energy more affordable.”
[4] Dr Woodthorpe previously chaired the National Climate Science Advisory Committee and currently chairs the Government’s “Vision 2040” committee.
[6] Paltridge from 1990 to 2002 was professor and director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Oceans Studies at the University of Tasmania and at the same time, from 1991–2002, chief executive officer of the Antarctic Co-operative Research Centre at the University of Tasmania.
[7] From October 14 to January 28 the HRC website had nothing to say about the country’s wave of “Gas the Jews/Where’s the Jews?” anti-Semitism, though it had earlier spent four years hounding and legally impoverishing some blameless QUT students who’d objected to being kicked out of an Aboriginal-only computer room. On January 29 it posted this sludge,
The Commission is extremely concerned about reports of rising incidents of anti-Semitism, neo-Nazi rallies, Islamophobia, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism. We will continue to support and engage with all communities in our society for an Australia free from racial hatred, discrimination, and unlawful harassment.
On February 19 it announced
further anti-racism work to support communities in Australia affected by the war in Gaza and the Middle East, supported by a $2 million grant from the Commonwealth. The grant responds to an increase in racism targeting Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, and Jewish communities within Australia since the outbreak of the conflict.
Tut. Tut. Tut. New Scientist gently chides us for being the sort of modern prejudiced people who think cannibalism is taboo. Its just your colonial roots that do that to you, right?
They don’t mention the “sustainable” word, but you know they want to. Right from the start they’re selling it to us:
Ethically, cannibalism poses fewer issues than you might imagine. If a body can be bequeathed with consent to medical science, why can’t it be left to feed the hungry?
Why can’t we feed our bodies to the homeless indeed, apart from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, prions, parasites, heavy metals? And if cannibalism pops up on the menu often enough, who knows what other problem will pop up on the radar? Things at the top of the food chain (and we are at the top) tend to accumulate all kinds of unwanted chemicals, like lead, PCBs, and pollutants.
Not to mention the spiritual questions and the mental health issues. Who knows? Relatives might feel a bit miffed if Aunty Betty was carved up for canapes and offered up to the crowd at the local alcoholics shelter.
Welcome to dystopia. We can devalue human lives, but think of the cows we’ll save!
And the CultureWar continues
Tut. Tut. Tut. New Scientist gently chides us for being the sort of modern prejudiced people who think cannibalism is taboo. Its just your colonial roots that do that to you, right?
If you don’t like cannibals you are just a racist:
Our aversion has been explained in various ways. Perhaps it is down to the fact that, in Western religious traditions, bodies are seen as the seat of the soul and have a whiff of the sacred. Or maybe it is culturally ingrained, with roots in early modern colonialism, when racist stereotypes of the cannibal were concocted to justify subjugation. These came to represent the “other” to Western societies – and revulsion towards cannibalism became a tenet of their moral conscience.
Once human bodies are reduced to being meat to feed the poor, euthanasia is almost a gift to the world, really. And science is just, well, one of many ideologies, not something special.
The New Scientist output is just another article chipping away at the pillars of Western Civilization. The fact they don’t even consider pollutants and diseases, nor the soul sapping mental health issues is just embarrassing for a supposedly “scientific” magazine.
For whatever its worth, after half a billion years of evolution, predators almost never eat other predators, and most species don’t eat their own kind. Perhaps there is a reason…
The Department of Justice on Friday announced that Donald Zepeda of Maryland and Jackson Green of Utah have been charged with felony destruction of government property following a climate change stunt that involved dumping red powder on the encasement protecting the U.S. Constitution in the National Archives Rotunda.
…
The climate activist group Declare Emergency was behind the act.
In its press release, the Department of Justice said that Zepeda and Green’s stunt had caused more than $50,000 in damage.
They also say in the release:
Green previously was charged in a separate act of vandalism at the National Gallery of Art that occurred on November 14, 2023. Green was charged with one count of destruction of National Gallery of Art property for that offense. As a result of that offense, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson had ordered Green to stay away from the District of Columbia and stay away from all museums or public monuments. On February 22, Judge Berman Jackson ordered that Green be held in the D.C. jail for violating the conditions of his release.
A young girl in a hoodie draws a knife, kneels beside an SUV, and slashes two of its tires. She slaps a paper on the windshield — “Why I sabotaged your property.”
A young girl in a hoodie draws a knife, kneels beside an SUV, and slashes two of its tires. She slaps a paper on the windshield — “Why I sabotaged your property.”
This is the opening scene of a movie you can stream right now on Hulu, or rent from Amazon, called “How To Blow Up a Pipeline.” It is adapted from a book by the same name.
In this lyrical manifesto, noted climate scholar (and saboteur of SUV tires and coal mines) Andreas Malm makes an impassioned call for the climate movement to escalate its tactics in the face of ecological collapse. We need, he argues, to force fossil fuel extraction to stop–with our actions, with our bodies, and by defusing and destroying its tools. We need, in short, to start blowing up some oil pipelines.
“We have to show how vulnerable the oil industry is by hitting something big, like a refinery,” says the hoodie-girl (looking to move up from slashing tires), “what do you know about Texas?” What do you know about building a bomb?” her friend replies.
Next scene they’re wiring a bomb.
What better way to normalize eco-terrorism than invite us to follow along and identify with an appealing PC cast of multicultural young people as they attack our nation’s infrastructure?
“This is coming not from just some lone nut like the author of the book “How to Blow Up a Pipeline”; this is coming from NPR, Bloomberg, and the New York Times. It’s coming from NASA. In 2010, NASA’s lead global warming scientist endorsed a different book that called for ridding the world of industrial civilization. He literally said they should essentially be blowing up dams. James Hansen, the former NASA scientist in endorsing this book said the author has it right, the system is the problem… This is nothing short of eco-porn in the form of hard core terrorism.”
“If the American empire calls us terrorists,” the movie bomb-maker says, “than we are doing something right.”
Who will be held accountable when an impressionable young person watches this anti-American call to violence and translates their fantasies into action?
Clearly these evil CO2 molecules have developed the ability to tunnel backwards in time, and cause climate disasters before they were even released into the atmosphere.
Update (EW): Pakistan is investing in advanced remote monitoring systems to detect landslides before they happen, by measuring millimetre scale deformations of the ground. Perhaps Network Rail should send a scientific team to Pakistan, so their people can catch up to Pakistan’s scientific advances.
In Episode 419 of District of Conservation, Gabriella has a roundup on the latest conservation news you may have glossed over: two federal public lands bills, 2023 National Park Service lands visitor numbers, and oyster recovery in the Chesapeake Bay. Tune in to learn more!
“The BLM regularly transfers public lands to local governments and nonprofits for a variety of public purposes. These transfers are typically accomplished under the provisions of the Recreation and Public Purposes (R&PP) Act or through direction from specific Acts of Congress. As a matter of policy, the BLM generally supports these legislative conveyances at no or low cost if the lands are appropriate for disposal and will be used for public purposes consistent with the R&PP Act. The BLM understands that the proposed management of the lands for conveyance to the State of Utah for inclusion in the state parks would be for public purposes.” — Thomas Heinlein, Assistant Director for National Conservation Lands & Community Partnerships at Bureau of Land Management
In Episode 419 of District of Conservation, Gabriella has a roundup on the latest conservation news you may have glossed over: two federal public lands bills, 2023 National Park Service lands visitor numbers, and oyster recovery in the Chesapeake Bay. Tune in to learn more!
In Episode 579 of District of Conservation, Gabriella discusses the permitting reform bill – aka BAAJA – that is gaining traction in Congress now. The Senate will hold a cloture vote starting at 3:30pm ET in a motion to proceed. Gabriella discusses the status quo without permitting reform, how BAAJA is good for the environment and affordability. Tune in!SHOW NOTESBipartisan Policy Center: BAAJA ExplainerEstimating the US Energy System Impacts of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act
The Version 6 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for February, 2024 was +0.93 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean, up from the January, 2024 anomaly of +0.86 deg. C, and equaling the record high monthly anomaly of +0.93 deg. C set in October, 2023.
The Version 6 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for February, 2024 was +0.93 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean, up from the January, 2024 anomaly of +0.86 deg. C, and equaling the record high monthly anomaly of +0.93 deg. C set in October, 2023.
The linear warming trend since January, 1979 remains at +0.15 C/decade (+0.13 C/decade over the global-averaged oceans, and +0.20 C/decade over global-averaged land).
A new monthly record high temperature was set in February for the global-average ocean, +0.91 deg. C.
The following table lists various regional LT departures from the 30-year (1991-2020) average for the last 14 months (record highs are in red):
YEAR
MO
GLOBE
NHEM.
SHEM.
TROPIC
USA48
ARCTIC
AUST
2023
Jan
-0.04
+0.05
-0.13
-0.38
+0.12
-0.12
-0.50
2023
Feb
+0.09
+0.17
+0.00
-0.10
+0.68
-0.24
-0.11
2023
Mar
+0.20
+0.24
+0.17
-0.13
-1.43
+0.17
+0.40
2023
Apr
+0.18
+0.11
+0.26
-0.03
-0.37
+0.53
+0.21
2023
May
+0.37
+0.30
+0.44
+0.40
+0.57
+0.66
-0.09
2023
June
+0.38
+0.47
+0.29
+0.55
-0.35
+0.45
+0.07
2023
July
+0.64
+0.73
+0.56
+0.88
+0.53
+0.91
+1.44
2023
Aug
+0.70
+0.88
+0.51
+0.86
+0.94
+1.54
+1.25
2023
Sep
+0.90
+0.94
+0.86
+0.93
+0.40
+1.13
+1.17
2023
Oct
+0.93
+1.02
+0.83
+1.00
+0.99
+0.92
+0.63
2023
Nov
+0.91
+1.01
+0.82
+1.03
+0.65
+1.16
+0.42
2023
Dec
+0.83
+0.93
+0.73
+1.08
+1.26
+0.26
+0.85
2024
Jan
+0.86
+1.06
+0.66
+1.27
-0.05
+0.40
+1.18
2024
Feb
+0.93
+1.03
+0.83
+1.24
+1.36
+0.88
+1.07
The full UAH Global Temperature Report, along with the LT global gridpoint anomaly image for February, 2024, and a more detailed analysis by John Christy, should be available within the next several days here.
The monthly anomalies for various regions for the four deep layers we monitor from satellites will be available in the next several days:
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