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.
In May, most of the Arctic ocean basins are still frozen over, while the melting of ice extent is underway in the marginal regions. During the last 30 days, on average according to MASIE, Arctic ice extents lose 1.4M km2. The few basins where open water appears this time of year tend to fluctuate and alternate waxing and waning.
Research ship drifting along with Arctic ice, May 2019 US Naval Institute
In May, most of the Arctic ocean basins are still frozen over, while the melting of ice extent is underway in the marginal regions. During the last 30 days, on average according to MASIE, Arctic ice extents lose 1.4M km2. The few basins where open water appears this time of year tend to fluctuate and alternate waxing and waning.
The graph below shows the mid April to mid May patterns for ice extents on average, this year and some other years of note.
The graph shows the 18-year average loss for April is 1.4M km2. 2024 started this period with a slight deficit and ended 136k km2 above average. SII showed higher throughout, and much greater extents in May (still awaiting the number for Day 136). Other recent years have been nearly average, while 2006 ended with a large defict of ~400k km2.
Region
2024136
Day 136 Ave
2024-Ave.
2006136
2024-2006
(0) Northern_Hemisphere
12740271
12604358
135913
12157814
582457
(1) Beaufort_Sea
1059379
1045092
14287
1066139
-6760
(2) Chukchi_Sea
962124
924541
37582
956734
5389
(3) East_Siberian_Sea
1081877
1081548
330
1074876
7001
(4) Laptev_Sea
892100
879228
12872
889990
2109
(5) Kara_Sea
875173
876506
-1333
839569
35603
(6) Barents_Sea
562240
406857
155382
182554
379686
(7) Greenland_Sea
666605
613812
52793
519337
147268
(8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence
984569
1059633
-75065
892335
92234
(9) Canadian_Archipelago
838357
841188
-2831
828806
9550
(10) Hudson_Bay
1117021
1177260
-60239
1071342
45679
(11) Central_Arctic
3216321
3225072
-8750
3169225
47096
(12) Bering_Sea
370480
285787
84693
478464
-107984
(13) Baltic_Sea
14356
5552
8804
15239
-883
(14) Sea_of_Okhotsk
98529
179953
-81424
168615
-70086
The table shows regional ice extents in km2. Note that Hudson and Baffin Bays have started melting, and Hudson will likely go to open water in a few weeks. Sea of Okhotsk on the Pacific side is down 81k, offset by a similar surplus in Bering sea. Note the huge surplus in Barents sea on the European side. Everywhere else is mostly in surplus, especially the seas of Barents, Greenland and Bering. 2006 had 582k km2 less ice extent than 2024 (more than half a Wadham).
The polar bears had a Valentine Day’s wish for Arctic Ice.
And Arctic Ice loves them back, returning every year so the bears can roam and hunt for seals.
Footnote:
Seesaw accurately describes Arctic ice in another sense: The ice we see now is not the same ice we saw previously. It is better to think of the Arctic as an ice blender than as an ice cap, explained in the post The Great Arctic Ice Exchange.
The emergence of the Isthmus of Panama, starting around 5Ma, due to uplift of the Caribbean plate was a major event in Earth’s recent climate history. It altered the depth of cyclic glaciation, which resulted in oceans being 138m deeper than the present level 23,000 years ago. This article looks at the cycles that drive the climate trends that create glaciation and interglacials.
The emergence of the Isthmus of Panama, starting around 5Ma, due to uplift of the Caribbean plate was a major event in Earth’s recent climate history. It altered the depth of cyclic glaciation, which resulted in oceans being 138m deeper than the present level 23,000 years ago. This article looks at the cycles that drive the climate trends that create glaciation and interglacials. Chart 1 provides the reconstructed temperature history based on EPICA Dome C and the Spratt 800kyr sea level reconstruction over the past 800kyr.
Chart 1 also shows the top of the atmosphere (ToA) solar electro-magnetic radiation (EMR) for July at 15N (left hand scale). The basic frequency of the solar EMR is 23kyr corresponding to what is termed Earth’s axial precession cycle, which is modulated by eccentricity of the orbit around the sun and axial obliquity, Over the last 1Myr, eccentricity has exhibited a period of 89kyr and obliquity a period of 39kyr.
Fourier Transform of Temperature and Sea level Histories
Fourier transformation of time based data transforms the data from the time domain to the corresponding frequency domain to tease out the significant cyclic components in the data. Chart 2 displays the frequency components inherent in the change in sea level for the sea level shown in Chart 1.
There are three period peaks in the frequency domain. The two shorter periods, 23.3kyr and 39.4kyr align reasonably well with precession and obliquity cycles. The peak at 102.3kyr is a little longer than the period of eccentricity in the present era. It is noted here that the time interval for the sea level data is 1kyr with 512 data points so the resolution for longer periods is quite poor.
Chart 3 provides the frequency domain for the change in temperature for the temperature data displayed in Chart 1.
Again the periods for eccentricity and obliquity are clearly apparent. The longer period merges into a broad spectrum of lower relative amplitude.
It is worth noting here that when a higher frequency signal is being modulated by lower frequencies, the resultant signal will have side bands created by the modulation. Table 1 sets out the sidebands for a carrier of 23kyr being modulated by 39kyr and 89kyr.
The temperature data exhibits sideband periods of lower relative amplitude than the three dominant cycles and close to the expected periods for the sidebands.
Combining both the temperature and sea level data into a scatter plot as in Chart 4 is used to correlate the two variables.
The regression coefficient of 72% for the polynomial fit indicates good correlation. The best fit occurs when sea level lags temperature by 5kyr. This aspect is covered in more detail later. It is noted here that the assessed temperature range covers 14C.
Frequency Domain for Solar EMR Data
Given that orbital cycles are clearly apparent in the historical temperature and sea level records, it should be possible to gain insight into the process of glaciation by examining how ToA solar radiation varies across the Northern Hemisphere. Panel 1 provides a series of frequency domain transforms for the solar signal at nominated latitudes and time of year as well as certain combinations nominated in the chart title. A section of the time domain data is shown overlaying each chart. These charts are based on 1Mkyr of data at 500 year intervals.
The top panel shows the dominance of the precession cycle in solar EMR in July at 15N. Truncating this data as shown in the second panel brings out the lower frequency modulation. Then integrating the truncated data amplifies the lower frequency component as shown in the third chart.
The fourth chart in the panel looks to the frequency components in the solar EMR for December at 65N. Here the obliquity component dominates and the sidebands of the precession cycle are also evident. The bottom panel combines the July 15N and December 65N to produce obliquity and precession components of similar amplitude to those observed in the sea level and temperature histories.
This panel provides guidance on how the solar EMR from various northern latitudes can be combined to resemble the frequency components of historical data for climate change.
Detailed Observation of Termination of Interglacials
Having assessed that Earth’s orbit plays a significant role in glacial cycles it is useful to consider what circumstances applied during the termination of previous interglacials. A question pertinent to the present time.
The above analysis indicates that there is a combination of factors that give rise to glaciation. Further observation revealed that one possible combination is the July solar EMR at 15N being above a certain threshold to provide atmospheric moisture along with sufficient September EMR at 65N to sustain the atmospheric moisture while the land cools below freezing. The latter produces an enabling window as depicted in Chart 5.
The termination window can be envisaged as an essential advection component at high latitude where the July solar EMR at 15N is not sufficient alone to have enough moisture in the atmosphere but has to be supported by high moisture being sustained into September.
Panel 2 looks at eight previous interglacial terminations applying the notion of a termination window as shown in Chart 5 in combination with July solar EMR being above 443W/m^2. Temperature and moisture curves use the left hand scale in (m) and (C ) and the July solar above threshold, the right hand scale in (W/m^2).
In chart A of the panel, the window opens at the same time the solar is higher than the threshold and sea level begins to fall. In chart B, the sea level started to fall in year -696kyr but the window closed and the sea level rose despite the July solar at 15N being well above the threshold; essentially ice accumulation was advection limited. In Panel C, the window opened while the July solar was declining but still above the threshold enabling sea level to fall. Panel D has false starts while the window is open but the July solar is too low. Sea level began to fall as soon as the July solar exceeded the threshold.
In Panel E the July solar is low and similar to the present time but the sea level is almost 12m higher than present as well as the temperature being correspondingly higher. The window is open and there is a false start at -404kyr while the July solar is reducing but the solar does not fall below the threshold enabling the sea level to decline from -400kyr but then levels out until the July solar begins to increase at -395kyr.
The temperature generally remains high until accumulation begins and then drops faster to its minimum than the sea level to its cycle minimum. The temperature remains close to its minimum once the sea level is 40m below the zero datum while sea level descends further at each upswing of the July solar.
Chart 6 presents the same data as the charts in Panel 2 but for the present time with projections based on now rising July solar and the termination window being open. July solar EMR will be above the threshold within 2000 years. There will need to be a substantial increase in land ice extent before the sea level falls at the projected rate. The temperature forecast is based on the sea level correlation from Chart 2 and the sea level projection is based on the rising July solar as correlated to the circumstances after -395kyr in chart E of Panel 2. The termination that began 395ka had a false start soon after the termination window opened but then recovered before a second false start 400ka but sea level did decline to the zero datum before the July solar reached the threshold and the decent accelerated from 395ka. It is likely Greenland was able to increase ice extent over the 5,000 years from 400ka to 395ka despite the July solar being lower than the threshold.
An important observation with regard the end of glacial episodes is that sea level begins ascending when the July solar starts to increase from its minimum. The solar intensity can be well below the solar intensity needed to initiate glaciation. This implies that there is a limiting factor to the amount of ice the land can carry before glacier calving cools the ocean sufficiently to slow the water cycle and the rising sea level accelerates the calving and mobility of large icebergs that were grounded before the sea level started to rise.
Further Observations & Conclusions
In terms of geological time, modern glacial/interglacial cycles are very short but in terms of human lifespan they can be observed as trends. The axial precession cycle that drives the cycle of glaciation is the climate trend setter from human perspective. The changes are detectable over modern human lifespans. For example, 246kyr ago, the sea level increased by 24m in 1000 years or average of 24mm/year according to the sea level reconstruction. This is ten times the current trend. From 17ka to 7ka the sea level rose 101m or average of 10mm/yr for 10,000 years; four times the current trend. At the maximum of the last glacial period, the temperature was 9.8C cooler than the average of the last millennium. 407ka the surface temperate was estimated to be 2.5C above the average for the last millennium.. Over the last 800kyr, the estimated temperature has ranged over 14C.
At the depth of the last glacial period, the sea level was 138m below the present level. Taking the ocean surface area as3.6E14m^2, the amount of ice sitting on land then compared with now was 50,000Gt. The area of land north of 40N is 5.3E13 so a drop of 138m in sea level corresponds to an average increase in elevation of 937m of that land or a difference to sea level of 1075m compared with the present. The linear change in temperature with sea level equates to 72C/km, which is approximately ten times the average lapse rate and consistent with a combination of the ratio of sea level to difference in sea level and average ice level over land north of 40N as well as the obvious fact that it is not possible to get a block of ice much above 0C. At the depth of glaciation, the glacier calving would be having a significant impact on lowering ocean surface temperature and reducing atmospheric moisture.
There is no doubt that Earth’s orbital cycles dominate the climate trends. The combinations of solar EMR with selected months were based on some knowledge of the snow forming process over land, which is energy intensive as well as dependent on autumn and winter advection from ocean to land and lower land latitudes to higher land latitudes. July solar EMR at 15N is the most significant contribution to atmospheric water in the northern hemisphere. At the present time, the solar intensity at 15N is almost constant from May through to August and is more than sufficient to fuel the boreal summer Hadley Cells.
The existence of the strong obliquity signal in the data indicates that the solar intensity at high latitudes also plays a role. Snow accumulation is a balance between snowfall and snow melt but the melt also increases with rising July solar EMR. History demonstrates the rising snowfall eventually dominates when sea level is high and most northern land is ice free. It is also likely that the ice accumulates first on high ground and northern slopes then advances downward from the high ground as the average temperature reduces due to the increasing ice coverage. It is noteworthy that the interglacial termination window has been open for 7kyr while the July solar has been above the threshold but melt has continued to dominate apart from minor periods of accumulation in the past millennium. The July solar EMR is now just below the threshold required to initiate glaciation. The oceans of the NH now have a strong warming trend that is producing increased snow extent and new snowfall records are a common occurrence. So far only Greenland is showing an increase in permanent ice cover with some parallels to 395ka.
In terms of interglacial termination windows and July solar, the state of Earth’s climate now is similar to 400ka with Greenland fully covered in ice by then and temperature now similar to then. It is already apparent that Greenland is gaining ice extent per Chart 7 and the summit is gaining elevation. These trends should at least be sustained and will accelerate when the July solar exceeds the threshold.
Other early indicators of the interglacial termination are reduction in depth of permafrost thaw particularly northern slopes near the Arctic Ocean. For example, the thaw depth of permafrost on the northern slope of Mount Marmot in Canada was reducing to 2002 before the site became inactive. Other examples of permafrost thaw depth reducing are Inigok and Awuna, both in Alaska within 150km of the Arctic Ocean.
The last 7kyr has been a relatively benign period in Earth’s climate with minor excursions in sea level and surface temperature compared with what will be observed over the next 2000 years and beyond. There are already early indicators of the changes ahead.
Footnote
This article was prompted by a comment from Tim Gorman on my last article where I mentioned Fourier Analysis. He made the observation that few climate publications use signal analysis tools common in engineering.
Part 2 will be what I term Weather Maker because it will look at shorter term cycles including a proposal from Bob Weber regarding solar variability.
The Author
Richard Willoughby is a retired electrical engineer having worked in the Australian mining and mineral processing industry for 30 years with roles in large scale operations, corporate R&D and mine development. A further ten years was spent in the global insurance industry as an engineering risk consultant where he developed an enduring interest in natural catastrophes and changing climate.
This latest story is conclusive evidence that climate “science” has lost all scientific credibility, and is no more than politicised propaganda:
The summer of 2023 was the hottest for 2,000 years in the northern hemisphere, according to new Cambridge University analysis.
Humanity has not known hotter weather since the early days of the Roman Empire and the birth of Jesus Christ, the latest study shows.
Overall, last summer was 2.2°C hotter on land than the average temperatures for the years between 1AD and 1890AD, when the industrial revolution was in full swing, pumping huge amounts of climate warming greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.
It was also almost 4°C hotter than the coldest summer in 536AD – when an ash cloud from a volcanic eruption is thought to have caused temperatures to plunge.
‘When you look at the long sweep of history, you can see just how dramatic recent global warming is,’ said co-author Professor Ulf Büntgen, from Cambridge’s Department of Geography.
Reliable weather records produced by scientific instruments only date back to 1850 when the industrial revolution was getting under way.
But by analysing tree rings, scientists were able to calculate how hot summers have been by the growth of the tree ring and chemical composition of the wood.
Trees have narrower growth periods – creating narrower rings – during cold periods and wider rings during hot periods.
So they claim to know the exact temperature of the NH to hundredths of a degree for the last 2000 years just by using tree rings, something that we do not even know now.
And tree rings are pretty much useless as an indicator of temperature, because they can vary in width because of changes in precipitation, not to mention CO2.
But what we do know about the climate that far back strongly suggests it has been much warmer during that time.
We know for instance that Greenland was considerably warmer than now during both Roman and Medieval times:
With Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filing the “climate” lawsuit that campaign supporter Michigan LCV had lobbied her to file against energy companies, and the UM law school faculty putting the shoulder to the wheel as well, GAO recalls the recently unearthed record of just how occupied Michigan’s government is with donor-financed “climate staff”.
With Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filing the “climate” lawsuit that campaign supporter Michigan LCV had lobbied her to file against energy companies, and the UM law school faculty putting the shoulder to the wheel as well, GAO recalls the recently unearthed record of just how occupied Michigan’s government is with donor-financed “climate staff”.
First, recall Nessel’s embrace of taking in an activist lawyer provided by Michael Bloomberg to file this suit, just as Bloomberg-provided lawyers have filed numerous others for AGs from New York to Oregon:
And Michigan’s Public Service Commission asking for Bloomberg-provided “staff”, brokered by a renewable energy trade association “founded and funded” by Tom Steyer to push his agenda:
A Whitmer administration official hinted that Bloomberg’s group maybe might sprinkle a few more elsewhere:
To join the rest throughout the Whitmer administration, provided by “US Climate Alliance” (Hewlett Foundation, United Nations Foundation)(including the PSC Chair’s spouse):
Screenshot
It gets confusing which donor groups are to underwrite what state climate activism:
Asking them for three more each from USCA and the Rockefeller joint “Invest in Our Future”:
And, to top it off (so far as the public so far knows), telling Energy Foundation, come “invest in Michigan” government, with more bespoke climate “staff”:
On social media, one Buzz Smith appeared, bragging about the new EV truck he had ordered. He was getting criticism, and I chimed in. The cowboy-looking fellow has his picture and “Getting ready for the electric pickups!”
On social media, one Buzz Smith appeared, bragging about the new EV truck he had ordered. He was getting criticism, and I chimed in. The cowboy-looking fellow has his picture and “Getting ready for the electric pickups!” But here is his normal Facebook picture:
I responded how EVs had never been competitive with this link.
He responded: “Yeah, electric technology hasn’t changed a bit in the last 120 years, GeeZ!” To which I replied that the situation was the same now as then: relative energy density and the weight of batteries. I also shared that the average price of an EV was $55,000 versus $35,000 for a conventional vehicle with this link.
He then replied: “The difference is the public now knows what Exxon knew in 1977, that their product was going to change the climate….”
But before I knew it, I was BLOCKED from his feed.
Buzz Smith is the founder of The EVangelist. Oddly, he started his career in oil & gas. He left that industry, after ten years, during one of the many oil “busts.” In 2012, his life was changed by a car accident. His car was totaled. Gasoline was expensive, so he leased a Chevy Volt. He loved it so much, he started a blog called, “My Electric Vehicle Journey.” Less than two months later, his wife Bonnie leased a Chevy Volt too. (they re-Volted!)A year later, his Chevrolet dealership hired him as a salesperson, focusing on plug-in vehicles. For the next 6 years, Buzz was the #1 plug-in vehicle salesperson, for the entire state of Texas, with 35% of his sales being plug-in vehicles.
But funny thing: Buzz brags about “No oil to change” and “No spark plugs” and “no Transmission fluid” and “regenerative brakes” but does not evangelize about the 21 problems of EVs. He is a goofball who is selling snake oil to a public that is too wise to follow his mysticism.
British power company Drax has drawn up plans for the world’s first wood-powered cargo ship, claiming that the controversial power source can help to cut greenhouse gas emissions from sea freight.
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
British power company Drax has drawn up plans for the world’s first wood-powered cargo ship, claiming that the controversial power source can help to cut greenhouse gas emissions from sea freight.
Drax, which operates a tree-burning power station in the UK, has signed a deal with three Japanese shipping companies to develop a “bioship” fuelled by wood chips instead of marine diesel. It hopes to see the first wood-fuelled cargo ship set sail by 2029.
Drax is best-known in the UK for its giant power station in Yorkshire, which last year generated around 6pc of the country’s electricity by burning 6.4m tonnes of wood – equivalent to 27 million trees – mostly imported from North America.
For comparison, the New Forest in Hampshire has around 46 million trees.
Drax and its supporters argue that wood is a sustainable energy source as trees can be grown to replace those cut down for fuel and the plants capture carbon while they are developing.
However, critics point out that trees grow much more slowly than the time it takes to use them for fuel, raising questions as to how sustainable they really are.
The UK Government supports the use of wood as a fuel and has given Drax subsidies for producing green energy, which amounted to £617m in 2022 and £587m in 2023.
In February, Drax chief executive Will Gardiner said he wanted to build more wood pellet plants in the US, doubling production to 8m tonnes by 2030.
Green campaigners said the plan was designed to exploit loopholes in carbon accounting rather than to save the planet.
Merry Dickinson of Axe Drax, which campaigns against the company’s plans to expand wood burning, said: “Burning wood pellets emits as much carbon as coal. This latest move is nothing more than another greenwashed scam from Drax.”
Sally Clark from Biofuelwatch said: “Using wood pellets to power ships will only lead to more climate-wrecking emissions, harm to wildlife and pollution of communities. If we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate breakdown, we need to protect and restore the world’s forests, not allow big polluters like Drax to send our futures up in smoke.”
Drax is already burning the equivalent of half the New Forest every year. Heaven knows how many more forests will be cut down to satisfy Will Gardiner’s lust for more wood pellets.
And as we already know, burning trees adds far more CO2 into the atmosphere than any other fossil fuel, in terms of the energy produced. The theory that trees will eventually grow back to replace them is highly dubious, as many come from virgin forests which may never regrow. Even if they do, it will take decades to offset the CO2 emitted from burning, by which time billions of other trees will also have been burnt.
Burning wood was of course man’s main source of energy for millennia; now we seem to be intent to regress to those days.
As for Drax, they are in a bit of a hole, being totally reliant on government subsidies. If these are stopped, they don’t have a viable business; hence their desperation to expand operations, regardless of the environmental destruction they will wrought.
The glut in solar power in Australia is so big that next year solar panel owners in Sydney will have to pay 1.2c a kilowatt hour to offload their unwanted energy between 10am and 3pm. Nearly a million homes in Sydney have solar panels, but only 7% of them have batteries, which means basically, thousands of homes installed hi-tech generators that aren’t very useful. Worse, other homes were forced to pay part of the costs for them. The only winner was China.
The glut in solar power in Australia is so big that next year solar panel owners in Sydney will have to pay 1.2c a kilowatt hour to offload their unwanted energy between 10am and 3pm. Nearly a million homes in Sydney have solar panels, but only 7% of them have batteries, which means basically, thousands of homes installed hi-tech generators that aren’t very useful. Worse, other homes were forced to pay part of the costs for them. The only winner was China.
Finally, a tiny part of the strangled free market is re-asserting itself, which might slow down future installations, or trick a few people into installing a $9,000 battery. Naturally this unpredictable rule change will hurt the poorest solar owners, but benefit those wealthy enough to afford a battery.
The biggest electricity distributor on the east coast plans to charge households with solar panels to export their electricity to the grid during the middle of the day.
Ausgrid will impose a penalty of 1.2¢ a kilowatt-hour for any electricity exported to the grid between 10am and 3pm above a free threshold that varies by month. During peak demand times, between 4pm and 9pm, Ausgrid would pay 2.3¢ an hour as a reward to customers exporting solar to the grid.
The tariff will be charged by Ausgrid and the retailer will decide how to package it. It is opt-in from July this year, and mandatory from July next year.
The Sydney Morning Herald naturally thinks this is backwards and unfair, and in a sense it is, homeowners were led up the garden path. No one was given realistic information before they purchased another useless panel. But where was The Sydney Morning Herald? — it was selling the garden path. If they interviewed a few skeptics they could have told the hapless homeowners that the forced transition was artificial, unmanageable, and the conditions were doomed to be “adjusted” sooner or later.
Solar power at noon is electrical sewage
The wholesale market was trying to send the message. Negative spot prices show that solar is essentially a waste product at lunchtime which needs to be disposed off, a bit like electrical sewage.
You might wonder why any generator would keep generating during a glut so bad they had to pay for every watt they generated. But it’s logical in a screwed market — the negative prices are close to the value of the “Renewable Energy Certificates” the government forces us all to pay to solar and wind operators. So solar owners can produce a product the market essentially doesn’t want, but the government forces us to pay to make it profitable. See how this works?
The point of a free market is that stupid ideas are supposed to be free to lose their own money. That’s a signal to stop doing it.
And if there was some use for solar power at midday, negative prices would have found it. If there was an AI supercomputer that needed to sleep 18 hours a day and only work at lunchtime, the owners would have been beating down the door to get paid to use that solar juice. It didn’t happen.
Here’s the solar power contribution to the NSW grid this month.
During the solar spikes, hundreds of tons of exquisitely tuned infrastructure that could have kept running, just sits around and waits in case a cloud rolls over. And efficiency gained by solar is lost by the rest of the system.
In Episode 434 of District of Conservation, Gabriella speaks with meteorology student and rising climate thought leader Chris Martz. Chris chats why he is interested in weather/climate issues, if climate change underpins all natural disasters, how to challenge the climate crisis narrative, and analyze Professor Bill McGuire’s crazy climate culling statements and the new Monmouth poll showing diminished support for prioritizing climate change among 18-to-34 year olds. Tune in to learn more!
“If there’s no climate emergency, there’s nothing to be concerned about. If it’s not that big of an issue, then there’s no reason for the scientists to continue being funded. If there’s no use for all these bureaucrats to, quote unquote, manage the crisis and come up with these policies that they want to implement, then they’d be out of a job.” — Chris Martz
In Episode 434 of District of Conservation, Gabriella speaks with meteorology student and rising climate thought leader Chris Martz. Chris chats why he is interested in weather/climate issues, if climate change underpins all natural disasters, how to challenge the climate crisis narrative, and analyze Professor Bill McGuire’s crazy climate culling statements and the new Monmouth poll showing diminished support for prioritizing climate change among 18-to-34 year olds. 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
Ah, The Guardian, ever the beacon of balanced journalism, has outdone itself yet again. With a flourish of melodramatic despair, they’ve painted a portrait of Donald Trump as an eco-villain, brandishing policies like a black cape in a horror show of environmental doom. Let’s dive into their latest apocalyptic prophecy.
Ah, The Guardian, ever the beacon of balanced journalism, has outdone itself yet again. With a flourish of melodramatic despair, they’ve painted a portrait of Donald Trump as an eco-villain, brandishing policies like a black cape in a horror show of environmental doom. Let’s dive into their latest apocalyptic prophecy.
Donald Trump has vowed to immediately halt offshore wind energy projects “on day one” of a new term as US president, in his most explicit threat yet to the industry and the latest in a series of promises to undo key aspects of the transition to cleaner energy.
The drama unfolds with Trump, the presumed puppet master of planetary destruction, vowing to dismantle the beloved wind projects. Never mind that the industry might warrant a critical inspection of its impacts; The Guardian is more interested in framing this as an opening scene of a Shakespearean tragedy.
Trump repeated false accusations about wind projects as being lethal to whales during a rally on Saturday in Wildwood, a resort city on New Jersey’s coast, promising to stamp out an industry that has been enthusiastically backed by Joe Biden.
Here, Trump is almost comically vilified, conjuring images of dead whales washing up by the dozens, courtesy of those nefarious wind farms. The Guardian, in its infinite wisdom, assures us these claims are “false,” brushing aside any pesky nuances about the environmental cost of these structures.
“They destroy everything, they’re horrible, the most expensive energy there is,” Trump said of the wind turbines. “They ruin the environment, they kill the birds, they kill the whales.”
One can almost hear the ominous music swell as Trump lists the crimes of these whirling dervishes of doom. Of course, The Guardian couldn’t possibly entertain the thought that he might be exaggerating but not entirely fabricating. Instead, they prefer their villains cartoonish and their plots black and white.
And just when you thought it couldn’t get more theatrical:
McLeod said that there has been a concerted misinformation campaign, funded by oil and gas interests, to mislead voters. “Big oil is benefiting from all of this fear mongering,” she said.
The plot thickens with the introduction of Big Oil, the shadowy antagonist lurking behind the curtain. According to The Guardian’s script, anyone who questions the sanctity of wind power must be a marionette dancing on petroleum-coated strings.
Finally, Trump’s distaste for the Paris Agreement is presented not as a policy position but as a nefarious scheme to single-handedly warm the globe:
“In one of the most vivid illustrations of his stance towards the climate crisis, Trump removed the US from the Paris climate agreement during his first White House term.”
…
“The Paris climate accord does nothing to actually improve the environment here in the United States or globally,” Mandy Gunasekara, Trump’s former EPA chief of staff, told the Guardian in February.
In the world according to The Guardian, this statement is less a legitimate argument and more a declaration of war against Mother Earth, conveniently ignoring any substantive issues with the agreement.
In this latest piece The Guardian crafts a narrative so richly woven with bias that one could mistake it for a tapestry of fiction. Trump’s environmental policy positions, whether one agrees with them or not, deserve a platform for discussion rather than dismissal as the raving of a would-be planet plunderer.
So here’s to The Guardian, our tireless sentinel against the apocalypse, ever vigilant, ever fearful, ever entertaining. If journalism ever tires them, there’s always a spot open in Hollywood script writing. Cheers to that!
Brendan O’Neill makes the connection in his Telegraph article Queen Greta has exposed the truth about the green movement. Shape-shifting is so easy because the underlying motive is disdain for modern society. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.
So,Greta Thunberg has a new cause. She’s found a new crusade to throw her weight behind. Forget saving the planet – now she wants to save Palestine.
Yes, the pint-sized prophetess of doom has swapped raging against industrialism for raging against Israel. Mother Nature will just have to wait – her erstwhile valiant defender is busy fixing the Middle East now.
Yesterday, Greta was snapped at the protest in Malmo, Sweden against Israel’s inclusion in the Eurovision Song Contest.
She looked the part. She had a keffiyeh draped over her shoulders and a smug look on her face: the two must-haves of every puffed-up bourgeois activist who gets off on fuming against Israel.
The keffiyeh really has become the uniform of the self-righteous. Go into a hip coffee shop or overpriced Soho burger joint and I guarantee you’ll see a Gen Z’er decked out in the Palestinian scarf.
Whatever happened to the sin of “cultural appropriation”? Not long ago, the right-on raged against white dudes who wear their hair in dreadlocks and white women who don kominos. “Stop stealing other people’s culture!”, they’d yell. Yet now they themselves spend their days in Arab attire.
That image of Greta in Malmo, looking very satisfied with herself, summed up the role the keffiyeh plays in the life of the 21st-century activist. Keffiyeh-wearing is less about drawing attention to the plight of the Palestinians than drawing attention to you. Look at me in my Arab garb, aren’t I good and hyper socially aware – that’s the needy cry of these hipster appropriators.
Yet beneath their radical chic, darker sentiments lurk. Their boilerplate hatred for Israel can have horrible consequences. So while young Greta was signalling her virtue on the streets of Malmo, another young woman was holed up in her hotel room for fear of mob assault. It was Eden Golan, the Israeli-Russian 20-year-old who sang for Israel in the Eurovision finals in Malmo.
Golan’s inclusion in Eurovision sickened the anti-Israel protesters. Israel, they said, must be given the boot over its “genocide in Gaza” – their juvenile and historically illiterate term for Israel’s war against Hamas.
A mob even swarmed around the hotel Ms Golan was staying in. She received death threats. Things were so bad that she was warned not to leave her room. She was given a 24-hour security detail.
Is this really “progressive activism”? It looks more like bullying to me. The bullying of a young woman by a baying mob of Israel-bashers.
How galling that Greta should have been in the thick of such a regressive protest. This is someone who has spoken out about her own experiences of bullying. Who has said that women in the public eye get too much flak. Yet now she preens at a protest that has had the consequence, intentional or otherwise, of filling a young woman with such dread that she has essentially become a prisoner in her own hotel.
We might call this woke privilege. Because Greta subscribes to chattering-class correct-think on every issue – climate change, transgenderism, Israel – she is granted the freedom to go about her business as she sees fit.
Ms Golan, on the other hand, is denied such basic liberty. Her national heritage, her devotion to her homeland, marks her out as morally suspect. And thus she must hide. “Shame!”, protesters shouted, as if she were a modern-day witch deserving of a dunking.
It is tempting to see Greta’s conversion from the climate-change cult to the anti-Israel religion as just bandwagon-jumping. Perhaps her saviour complex, her burning sense of virtue, just needs a new outlet. So, like others of her generation, she ditches climate and trans and all the rest and moves on to “Palestine solidarity”. That’s the issue on which you can really make moral waves these days.
But I think there’s something else going on, too. The truth is that climate activism and anti-Israel agitation are very comfy bedfellows. There are even some creepy commonalities between green agitation and Israel’s greatest ideological foe: radical Islam.
Both, at root, represent a disgust with modernity. Both the privileged Western weepers over industrial society and the Islamist haters of Israel share an aversion to the modern world, to progress, to Enlightenment itself.12
Hence we can even have a situation where Muslim activists who yell “Allahu Akbar” can be elected as councillors for the Green Party.
The upper-middle class recycling obsessive in Hampstead might seem a million miles from the bearded radical who publicly sings the praises of Allah – but they share an instinctive revulsion for capitalist society.
One sees it as a crime against Mother Nature, the other as an affront to Muhammad.
To both sides, Israel is the pinnacle of the modernity they hate.A young, confident, entrepreneurial nation that rendered the desert a land of plenty? Boo. Hiss. Cast its people from our social circles.
So it makes sense that Greta has temporarily ditched Gaia for Gaza. For this crisis, too, furnishes her with an opportunity to advertise her pious rejection of the modern world.
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