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.
“Because of greenhouse gas saturation in the atmosphere, methane regulations across the world will have no measurable effect on global temperatures.”
In March, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published new methane emissions regulations for the oil and gas industry. The European Union enacted new rules to reduce methane emissions from the energy sector in May. Agriculture is also being targeted regarding methane.
But methane regulations, even if established worldwide, won’t have a measurable effect on global temperatures. However, they will raise costs for energy and food, impacting consumers and businesses.
On March 8, EPA finalized its rule on methane emissions for the oil and gas sector. The rule is intended to “reduce wasteful methane emissions that endanger communities and fuel the climate crisis.” The new policy will require companies to pay a penalty of $900 for every ton of methane emitted above limits set by the EPA, starting this year. A legal challenge to the EPA’s new rule has been filed by 24 states.
On May 27, the European Union (EU) announced new regulations on methane emissions from coal, gas, and oil operations. These rules will require energy firms to monitor and report methane emissions and to reduce methane flaring from operations. The rules also apply to international firms that ship hydrocarbon fuels to Europe.
Background
Methane (CH4) is also called natural gas. It is emitted from oil and gas operations from flaring or system leaks. CH4 is also produced through the decay of organic material, such as from municipal solid waste landfills. The EPA and the EU have proposed methane regulations to try to fight global warming.
But nature and human agriculture are larger sources of methane than the energy industry. Termites and other insects emit large amounts of methane. We have about 1.5 billion cows on Earth, and numerous other livestock and wildlife, emitting methane from both the nose end and the tail end.
Methane is a greenhouse gas and part of Earth’s greenhouse effect, which is blamed for global warming. Sunlight, which is high-energy radiation, enters the atmosphere and is absorbed by Earth’s surface. Like any warm body, Earth emits radiation. Since Earth’s temperature is lower than that of the sun, Earth emits lower-energy radiation called infrared radiation or longwave radiation, which is not visible to our eyes.
Figure 1.
This longwave radiation seeks to leave Earth’s atmosphere, but almost all of it is absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These gases then re-radiate the absorbed energy, which acts to warm Earth’s surface. The warming caused by the absorption of infrared radiation is called the greenhouse effect. Emissions from human industrial processes add to the effect and increase global temperatures.
But Earth’s greenhouse effect is overwhelmingly a natural effect. Water vapor, not carbon dioxide or methane, is Earth’s dominant greenhouse gas. Water vapor accounts for 70 to 90 percent of the greenhouse effect.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the next most important greenhouse gas, but most of the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from nature, such as CO2 emissions from the oceans and the biosphere. Every day, nature puts 20 times as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as all human emissions and removes about the same amount. Methane ranks only as a distant third as a greenhouse gas.
… methane’s ability to trap heat in the atmosphere is even stronger than that of carbon dioxide. On a 100-year timescale, methane has 28 times greater global warming potential than carbon dioxide and is 84 times more potent on a 20-year timescale.
These widely reported assertions from the EU and other sources are incorrect. Claims about the global warming potential of methane are accurate in the laboratory, but not in the atmosphere.
No one paints a room in their house ten times, because after two coats of paint, no difference is observed. Similarly, greenhouse gases are already saturated in Earth’s atmosphere at the frequencies at which methane absorbs outgoing longwave radiation. Additional methane will have almost no effect.
A 2020 analysis by Wijngaarden and Happer looked at the absorption of outgoing longwave radiation by methane and other greenhouse gases across the radiation spectrum. The researchers found that doubling atmospheric methane, from either natural or human causes, would increase greenhouse gas absorption by only about 0.3 percent, a negligible amount.
Figure 2.
Farming has become a target for efforts to reduce methane emissions. Earlier this year, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued JBS, the world’s largest beef producer, over the firm’s methane emissions and for allegedly making misleading sustainability statements to the public. The costs of this litigation will add to food price inflation for consumers.
Earlier this year, the EU sought to impose the Sustainable Use Regulation (SUR) on European farmers. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, stated that the agricultural sector needed to transition towards a “more sustainable model of production.” Farmers were asked to reduce the size of dairy herds and to limit the use of nitrogen fertilizer to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of methane and nitrous oxide. Germany’s Federal Agricultural Minister, Cem Özdemir, even proposed a consumption tax on meat.
But angry farmers launched intense protests in France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and other nations. Hundreds of tractors blocked traffic in major cities and police were pelted with eggs and liquid manure. The SUR was defeated, and the EU backed away from additional agricultural regulations, including regulations on methane and the use of nitrogen fertilizer.
Possibly the most bizarre law to reduce emissions was the Australia Carbon Farming Initiative Act of 2011, which awarded carbon credits for killing feral (wild) animals, including:
… the reduction of methane emissions through the management, in a humane manner, of feral goats, feral dear, feral pigs or feral camels.
Killing of animals for carbon credits was halted in 2012.
Conclusion
Greenhouse gas saturation in the atmosphere means that methane regulations across the world will have no measurable effect on global temperatures. But to the extent that they are enacted, these rules will raise the costs of energy and food production and prices to consumers and businesses.
———————-
Steve Goreham is a speaker on energy, the environment, and public policy and the author of the new bestselling book Green Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure. His previous posts at MasterResource can be viewed here.
A recent article at The Federalist, “Nearly Half Of Electric Vehicle Drivers Regret Their Purchase,” reports on a recent worldwide survey of car owners which found many consumers of electric vehicles (EVs) would not buy another one. The Federalist points out that this confirms what other recent surveys and polls have shown, suggesting the general push from governments towards electric vehicle adoption is unjustified and unwanted. This is true.
A recent article at The Federalist, “Nearly Half Of Electric Vehicle Drivers Regret Their Purchase,” reports on a recent worldwide survey of car owners which found many consumers of electric vehicles (EVs) would not buy another one. The Federalist points out that this confirms what other recent surveys and polls have shown, suggesting the general push from governments towards electric vehicle adoption is unjustified and unwanted. This is true. While the U.S. government pushing drivers to purchase EVs, public resistance persists largely because of affordability, reliability, and range anxiety issues.
The Federalist article, written by Tristan Justice, explains that a new McKinsey Mobility Consumer Pulse survey, which polled almost 37,000 consumers around the world, found that 46 percent of American EV owners “were ‘very’ likely to opt for a traditional gas-powered car for their next purchase.” Likewise, the average share across all surveyed countries who said they were unlikely to buy another electric vehicle was 29 percent. An even higher number of Australians, at 49 percent, said they would not buy another EV.
Among the reasons for consumers backtracking on previously owned vehicles, and for others hesitance with buying EVs in the first place, are the costs and insufficient charging opportunities, reports Justice.
High costs and low familiarity with electric vehicles along with skepticism of the technology were the highest barriers to embracing the electrical alternatives. Those most likely to buy electric cars were typically younger, wealthy, and urban. Insufficient charging infrastructure and total ownership costs were the most cited reasons for returning to gas-powered cars.
Justice also cites a poll by Ipsos and Yahoo Finance which found “57 percent of the more than 1,000 Americans surveyed reported they were unlikely to purchase an electric car in the first place.”
All of this should be unsurprising to those who follow similar polling and news. As Climate Realism has previously reported, electric vehicles often fail to live up to the hype; they struggle in winter conditions, grid instability causes major problems during heat waves and other weather events, and they can be hard to get insurance for because of the costs of repairing them, especially if their battery packs suffer even minor damage, is exorbitant.
That the typical buyer is reportedly wealthy, young, and lives in urban areas with higher charger density is no surprise, given these facts. Some EV models are better in certain conditions than others, and certainly have some appealing qualities for a particular market, especially urbanites, which is borne out in the polling data. However, they are a tough sell in other markets.
For example, in colder and more remote regions there is more pushback on electric vehicles because of range and battery reliability issues. Tesla was marketed as a cold-weather friendly model in South Korea, but was fined by its government for exaggerating the cold weather range of their cars. In Juneau, Alaska, the city’s first electric public bus could not hold a charge long enough to finish its route on cold days, and required a heated garage to even start properly. It’s one thing when a normal combustion engine’s battery dies in the cold – the car can be jump-started or the battery replaced relatively simply and cheaply, but an electric vehicle battery failure is another matter.
Based on sales data the vast majority of vehicle purchasers each year aren’t sold on the virtues of EVs. Nor are voters in the United States sold on de facto EV mandates pushed by state and federal edicts. Connecticut’s Democrat leadership considered banning sales of new gas-powered cars by 2035, adopting California emissions standards, but the plan was scrapped by the Governor. After the plan was set aside, a poll was commissioned by the Specialty Equipment Market Association, which found nearly 60 percent of voters opposed the legislation, and 51 percent said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate that supported a gas-car ban.
In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin likewise withdrew the state from its plan to adopt California’s standards, citing the fact that electric vehicles were unpopular in the state. Only 9 percent of cars sold in Viriginia were electric in 2023. The Younkin administration acknowledged that the rules requiring 35 percent of all models sold by 2026 to be electric would be an impossible jump.
Whether or not EV technology may eventually meet more consumers’ needs and become more widely adopted through drivers’ free choices in the marketplace is not known, but it is clearly not quite there now. Consumers’ skepticism about EVs’ virtues and fears of their limitations are thwarting efforts to mandate EVs in the United States.
The Federalist should be praised for openly discussing the results of the McKinsey survey, which reveals lingering misgivings about EVs, despite steep praise and heavy promotion of the technology by the mainstream media, which commonly asserts that EVs are wildly popular. In fact, they are not, even among the large percentage drivers who know them best, people who bought EVs and are now saying they will be moving back to vehicles powered by century old internal combustion engine technology with their next purchase. Even among many who praise EVs and stand by their purchase, it turns out they are often second vehicles, put to specific types of uses, usually short trips.
On June 26th just a little over a week ago, David “climate homicide” Arkush and co-authors at his Public Citizen group put out a press release titled “New Memo Details Legal Case for Prosecuting Big Oil for Extreme Heat Deaths,” containing a link to a 51 page proposal for prosecutors in the state of Arizona (Democrat ones, of course including the state’s Attorney General), noting:
Though this memo asks a particular question — how officials in Maricopa County could pursue reckless manslaughter or second degree murder prosecutions for deaths caused by the July 2023 heat wave — its analysis is relevant in most jurisdictions where prosecutors might seek justice for climate victims.
Though this memo asks a particular question — how officials in Maricopa County could pursue reckless manslaughter or second degree murder prosecutions for deaths caused by the July 2023 heat wave — its analysis is relevant in most jurisdictions where prosecutors might seek justice for climate victims.
I already had a tag category at GelbspanFiles dating back over a year concerning Arkush’s ludicrous ultra-lawfare fixation. He’s now taken that fixation likely beyond its breaking point. It’s one thing to push the bizarre “charge fossil fuel companies with climate homicide” idea in ‘scholarly papers,’ but it’s quite another to propose the idea straight to state prosecutors. That’s what he’s presenting in the above press release. Forgive the rather morbid visual analogy here – the man virtually points a loaded revolver at his head and the heads of his co-authors and practically asks law firms defending energy companies in “ExxonKnew” lawsuits to pull the triggers for him.
Before we dive into Arkush’s latest blunder, let’s first review for any new readers of GelbspanFiles what the core faults are with the “fossil fuel industry execs ran disinformation campaigns employing skeptic climate scientists” accusation. Then I’ll show where Arkush dutifully regurgitates them, followed by a simple question for everyone to ask.
• Accusers say “smoking gun” advertorials with imagery of “Chicken Little” and a “Doomsday” planet, along with specific others, e.g. the “Flat Earth” advertorial, are proof of the industry’s attempts to “reposition global warming.”
No, the “Chicken Little” / “Doomsday” / “Flat Earth” advertorials were never published anywhere. One law firm using the Chicken Little ad crops off the bottom of the ad, as does their source, for a reason: the bottoms of the “Chicken Little” / “Doomsday”ads have the never-used PR campaign name – both of them – along with a non existent toll-free number, despite what the “Chicken” says. Ditto for the “Flat Earth” ad.
Those memos and advertorials are the literal best the accusers have in their arsenal, dubiously sourced. Other allegations simply trail behind as a much weaker second-rate efforts, designed to make it look like there is plenty of additional viable accusation material, not just the one solitary “smoking gun” situation above. In my Backgrounder list of keywords / names, I detail what to look for anytime somebody prominent hurls the accusation about ‘industry disinformation campaigns.’ With that in mind, let’s now look at David Arkush’s latest attempt at pushing his “climate homicide” idea.
In my blog post about enviro accusers’ enslavement to the worthless “Chicken Little” advertorial, I noted how it finally dawned on johnny-come-lately David Arkush to include that ad and its hand-in-glove association with the “reposition global warming” memos. I could only guess that he’d been given a stern lecture about being previously inattentive to that accusation’s value. Whatever the explanation may be, he now fully embraces it. The big PDF file primer for AZ prosecutors features the memos / advertorials as a particularly big footnote #116 for what was just a quick reference to the PR campaign they are falsely attributed to.
Who’s the source there? The Union of Concerned Scientists. They didn’t dig up any of that, I covered their inept foray into this situation nine years ago. They couldn’t even get the one-and-only-name-ever-used for the official public relations campaign completely correct. Who’s their source? Greenpeace USA. Who did they thank for their material? Kert Davies, who – don’t forget – worked for both Greenpeace USA and Ozone Action, the latter being the group where the “reposition global warming” memos first got their ongoing media traction. Watch the pattern arise out of that, this is the way the accusation crumbles apart, around a core clique of promulgators. Meanwhile, let’s click off the other checklist items in this proposal from my Backgrounder list of keywords / names:
✓ “Victory will be achieved memos” – the never implemented set. Interesting – isn’t it? – that this primer cites Kert Davies’ ClimateFiles site just 5 footnotes above, but doesn’t cite it for his copy of the API memo set, but instead chooses the Inside Climate News’ copy. They are the same set. Not similar – identical. His same 2013 Greenpeace copy. Again – not similar; identical.
✓ “Exxon paid $1.2 million” – the bribery accusation of skeptic climate scientist Dr Willie Soon, which implodes under hard scrutiny. Unlike the various current “ExxonKnew” lawsuits which bury the source of that accusation behind generic-looking website archive pages which nevertheless always lead to Kert Davies at Greenpeace USA, this primer for Arizona prosecutors commits a ‘citation cascade’ tactic where its source is the above-noted Union of Concerned Scientists’ Mulvey & Schulman dossier collection. Who does UCS cite as their source? Greenpeace / Climate Investigations Center.
✓ Benjamin Franta – right above Supran in the footnotes. The citation paper from Franta is simply irrelevant to Arizona prosecutors and actually aids “ExxonKnew” lawsuit defendants on how Exxon didn’t know. But give Franta credit in that paper for citing Naomi Oreskes 4 times to impugn the credibility of skeptic climate scientists. What can be relevant to opposition to the accusations about ‘fossil fuel industry disinfo’ campaigns is Franta’s own enslavement to key people associated with the accusation — which, David Arkush inadvertently pointed to by recently citing Franta’s Doctor of Philosophy thesis.
✓ “Victory will be achieved memos” – the never implemented set. Interesting – isn’t it? – that this primer cites Kert Davies’ ClimateFiles site just 5 footnotes above, but doesn’t cite it for his copy of the API memo set, but instead chooses the Inside Climate News’ copy. They are the same set. Not similar – identical. His same 2013 Greenpeace copy. Again – not similar; identical.
✓ “Exxon paid $1.2 million” – the bribery accusation of skeptic climate scientist Dr Willie Soon, which implodes under hard scrutiny. Unlike the various current “ExxonKnew” lawsuits which bury the source of that accusation behind generic-looking website archive pages which nevertheless always lead to Kert Davies at Greenpeace USA, this primer for Arizona prosecutors commits a ‘citation cascade’ tactic where its source is the above-noted Union of Concerned Scientists’ Mulvey & Schulman dossier collection. Who does UCS cite as their source? Greenpeace / Climate Investigations Center.
✓ Benjamin Franta – right above Supran in the footnotes. The citation paper from Franta is simply irrelevant to Arizona prosecutors and actually aids “ExxonKnew” lawsuit defendants on how Exxon didn’t know. But give Franta credit in that paper for citing Naomi Oreskes 4 times to impugn the credibility of skeptic climate scientists. What can be relevant to opposition to the accusations about ‘fossil fuel industry disinfo’ campaigns is Franta’s own enslavement to key people associated with the accusation — which, David Arkush inadvertently pointed to by recently citing Franta’s Doctor of Philosophy thesis.
That last one is where the big question needs to be asked concerning what exactly David Arkush / Public Citizen are up to here. As detailed at both the Climate Litigation Watch website and at the Energy in Depth website, those groups describe how CCI is apparently one of the main drivers pushing the prosecution idea opportunity to any gullible state / city / municipality leader in America who’s willing to consider it. There’s every appearance in the world that the “ExxonKnew” traveling circus act, with guest star Geoffrey Supran, is CIC’s exclusive turf. To top that off, who did CCI hire just one year ago as their “Director of Special Investigations”? Kert Davies.
The whole Arkush / Public Citizen proposal here weirdly looks like an effort to muscle in on what the CIC is already doing. Or are they, actually? They wouldn’t want to cross paths with the person who feeds them, would they? Congressional investigators / attorneys defending energy companies in “ExxonKnew” lawsuits / objective, unbiased reporters might want to ask what’s going on here.
I can understand how the San Francisco law firm Sher Edling, handler of 18 of the current “ExxonKnew”lawsuits, is in this climate lawfare realm – they’ll get an enormous cut of the winnings … if they do succeed in winning one or forcing settlement payments from any of the lesser defendants who thing they can solve their own problem by crying “uncle.” I can understand how Roland C “Kert” Davies is in this – he’ll likely get rewarded from a cut of Sher Edling’s winnings. I can understand how Naomi Oreskes is in on this – she also gets a cut by being on retainer with Sher Edling. I can even see how alleged “journalist” Amy Westervelt gets in on this – I had to update the bottom of my Puerto Rico v ExxonPart 2 dissection with a new doc I found where Westervelt apparently seems to be directly supplying Puerto Rico lead lawyer Melissa Sims with Davies-supplied docs info. Thus Westervelt can get her reward portion of the winnings out of that non-Sher Edling lawsuit by directly working with the law firm.
The mystery here is how David Arkush and his associates at Public Citizen get in on the winnings, if that was their plan all along.
They all could lose any remote chance they had of becoming filthy rich out of this show, with Arkush taking the slightly plausible concept of entire companies forced to pay for global warming damages into the far more laughable notion of putting a range of industry executives in prison (others, too??), for murder. The only thing they’ve accomplished here is reinforce how – among any given prominent accusations about ‘Big Oil’ disinformation campaigns – the common thread is worthless ‘industry documents’ promulgated by a tiny handful of enviro-activists.
Nobody has ever been killed from fossil fuel industry-induced wild climate escalation, while more CO2 emissions is actually a huge benefit for billions of people.
The newspapers and newscasts are full of this phrase: “caused by climate change”. The web searching apps reveal this with endless links to web pages and stories containing that phrase (and more here). This phrase is so ubiquitous that in certain quarters it is used as a joke punchline. It seems almost anything you can think of has been claimed to be “caused by climate change”.
The newspapers and newscasts are full of this phrase: “caused by climate change”. The web searching apps reveal this with endless links to web pages and stories containing that phrase (and more here). This phrase is so ubiquitous that in certain quarters it is used as a joke punchline. It seems almost anything you can think of has been claimed to be “caused by climate change”. Of course, it used to be “caused by global warming” and that was a joke too: “10 feet of snow? Yep, must be global warming!”; “Wife pregnant again?” “Yeah, you know, climate change.”
For amusement, readers can supply links to online lists of all the crazy things that have been blamed on global warming/climate change.
The very effective climate communicator, who veers closer and closer to the Climate Realist viewpoint with every passing month, Roger Pielke Jr. recently posted a substack post : Climate Fueled Extreme Weather (at The Honest Broker, to which you should subscribe). Here is an illustration from that post (h/t Pielke Sr, and the National Research Council):
Here’s the home-run quote:
“Let’s correct one pervasive and pathological misunderstanding endemic across the media and in policy, and sometimes spotted seeping into peer-reviewed scientific research:
Neither climate nor climate change cause, fuel, or influence weather.
Yes, you read that right.
Climate change is a change in the statistics of weather — It is an outcome, not a cause.”
And one more:
“Weather can be characterized statistically, but weather does not occur as a result of simple statistical processes. Weather is the integrated result of at least: dynamical, thermodynamical, chaotic, societal, biospheric, cryospheric, lithospheric, oceanic, vulcanological, solar, and, yes, stochastic processes.”
Yes, that’s it. I leave it to you, readers, to make what you will of this.
For the record, I agree entirely with Pielke Jr. Climate Change, if there is such a thing, is an EFFECT, an OUTCOME, a RESULT, and is NEVER A CAUSE.
Whatever is causing some aspect of the climate, some measurable weather/climatic phenomenon, to be statistically different today than yesterday, last month, last year, last decade, last century is a cause but the change (in the statistic) itself is not. For instance, if a cleaner atmosphere is allowing more solar energy to reach the surface of the planet, that could be a cause of some statistical change in “energy reaching the planet’s surface”. Might be fair to say: “Cleaning up the atmosphere allowed more energy to hit to surface of the ocean which caused an increase is sea surface temperature.” (Don’t know if this is true, just an example). While sea surface temperature might be considered a “climate change indicator”, rising sea surface temperature is not caused by climate change.
It is my opinion, mostly unchanged over the last decade (here and here), that we do not understand the over-riding causes and effects in our planet’s climate system. Much of the climate system is too complex, too complicated, too intertwined while other parts are simply chaotic (Chaos Theory definition) and unable to be teased apart at our current level of understanding.
A changing climate statistic — for instance the so-called Annual Global Mean Temperature Anomaly Over Land & Sea — is an effect of something (more probably, a whole lot of somethings). Slightly warmer or colder temperatures, but not the statistic, will cause some other phenomena to also change, but, I believe, only on a local level — statistically higher “global” temperatures don’t affect my spring gardening, only actually experienced local temperatures do that.
Let’s see civil but vigorous discussion in comment.
Even though India now consumes more than Europe and the US combined, there is really only one coal consumer. Just to update those figures…
CHANGJI, CHINA – JULY 04: Transport trucks transfer raw coal in pits as deep as 200 meters at the East Junggar Basin on July 4, 2018 in Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous of China. The East Junggar Basin as one of the largest coalfield in Xinjiang has predicted coal reserves of 390 billion tons. (Photo by Liu Xin/China News Service/VCG)
Remember you are a planet-wrecker, but China just has growing pains
China burns four times as much coal as the second largest coal burner in the world. Everyone else is an also-ran in the coal stakes. For every ton the US consumes, China fries 12 times as much. And poor patsy Australia, for every ton we apologetically ignite, China burns 50. More coal was burned on Earth in 2023 than ever before in human history, and more than half of it was burned in China. Moreover, despite all the Sino nodding to sacred targets, China shows no intention of putting the brakes on the coal train. Around the world, 95% of all new coal power plants built in 2023 were built in China.
Where is the apoplexy?
The UN has met every year for twenty-eight years to badger everyone to stop using coal to appease the Goddess of Trace Gases and Weird Weather — all while China became the coal furnace of the world.
Or perhaps The UN met every year, so China could do exactly that? Lord above, imagine if the bureaucratic starlets of the West could be bought off so easily by trophies, trinkets and photo-opportunities — as a trade strategy, it would be a bargain. And it surely was.
Somehow life on Earth depends on Just-Stop-Oil protestors, but they can’t seem to find the Chinese Embassy. Banker cartels threaten higher interest rates for naughty nations, but no one suggests so much as a boycott of solar panels made with coal.
We’re all in this together, eh?
Supposedly, the developed world caused all the bad weather we have today — leaving the developing world to wallow in the suffering of the coal plants and cars the West invented. But, the developing world just landed a rocket on the moon and bought back some moon-rocks.
The last time NASA did that it was 1972.
A fork in the road for civilization
In a sense, the diverging lines of coal consumption mark the rise and fall of civilizations. They don’t have to — not if the West had upscaled to some better industrial power. But the West upscaled to witchcraft and corruption instead, arrogantly trying to control the weather itself with our power plants in a teenage fashion contest. China took our mistake and smiled and egged us on. They would be crazy if they didn’t support the Greens, and pay off our politicians to cripple our grid.
As CO2 Lover says in comments, it is the Sun Tzu Art of War. “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
A recent post below highlights the many colorful falsehoods perpetrated by UN Chief Guterres. Now he takes his nonsensical word salads to a new level, referring to traditional energy companies as “Godfathers of Climate Chaos,” a label better suited to himself. After all, those companies are only filling the demand by billions of people who depend on affordable reliable energy. What economic demand is Guterres filling?
A recent post below highlights the many colorful falsehoods perpetrated by UN Chief Guterres. Now he takes his nonsensical word salads to a new level, referring to traditional energy companies as “Godfathers of Climate Chaos,” a label better suited to himself. After all, those companies are only filling the demand by billions of people who depend on affordable reliable energy. What economic demand is Guterres filling?
Antonio Guterres urges a 30 percent cut in global fossil fuel production and use by 2030 amid record high temperatures.
“The godfathers of climate chaos – the fossil fuel industry – rake in record profits and feast off trillions in taxpayer-funded subsidies,” he said.
Drawing a comparison with many governments’ restrictions on advertising for harmful substances like tobacco, he said, “I urge every country to ban advertising from fossil fuel companies, and I urge news media and tech companies to stop taking fossil fuel advertising.”
Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels – the main cause wrongly claimed to cause climate change – hit a record high last year despite global agreements designed to curb their release and a rapid expansion in renewable energy. [My edit: see 2024 Update: Fossil Fuels ≠ Global Warming. ]
Coal, oil and gas still provide more than three-quarters of the world’s energy, with global oil demand remaining strong.
Of course Guterres can urge all he wants, without any accountability for his words, since the UN has no authority to decide who agencies take on as advertising clients. It is all bluff and bluster, threatening as though a mafia boss lacking enforcers. Even so, the evidence does not support hydrocarbon fuel emissions as causing temperature changes. Moreover, there’s no reason to believe banning advertising of such products will reduce the demand, which comes from real people purchasing with their own money in free markets.
Background Post UN Chief Wins Junk Science Award
At Financial Post’s Junk Science Week, Terence Corcoran highlights the hysterical alarmist statements by the UN chief promoting IPCC agenda, the article being The UN emperor has no science. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.H/T John Ray.
Guterres Mangles Metaphors To Pitch Extreme Climate Alarmism
History will record that the United Nations has established itself as the greatest organizational perpetrator of junk science in modern times, if not of all time, with current UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres destined to be singled out for his personal contribution to the distorted UN climate alarmism.
Since his appointment in 2019, Guterres and the UN have lived up to our standard formal definition of junk science. It occurs when:
scientific facts are distorted,
risk is exaggerated (or underplayed), and
“the science” adapted and warped by politics and ideology to serve another agenda.
That definition encompasses a wide range of activities among scientists, NGOs, politicians, journalists, media outlets, cranks and quacks who manipulate science for political, environmental, economic and social purposes. It also nicely captures the entire United Nations’ climate crusadeand the work of its institutional creation, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
But no single official can top Guterres as a purveyor of IPCC hype and doom, a living embodiment of Hans Christian Andersen’s fabled emperor who believes he is fully, stylishly dressed but in fact has no clothes.
Our Sinking Planet – Antonio Guterres is a photograph by Photograph by Christopher Gregory for TIME which was uploaded on July 21st, 2020
Guterres, a former Socialist Party prime minister of Portugal (1995-2002) and president of the Socialist International (1999-2005), was in typically ridiculous form on June 5th when he delivered a speech at the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, at an event billed as “A Moment of Truth” and a “special address on climate action.” Guterres talked about a planet on a “highway to climate hell,”rehashing a line he used in 2022 in Egypt at the COP27 climate conference: “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.”
Guterres also has no qualms about mixing and mangling metaphors. He simultaneously told the Manhattan audience that humans are “like the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, we’re having an outsized impact. In the case of climate, we are not the dinosaurs. We are the meteor. We are not only in danger. We are the danger.”
The longer Guterres rambles on, the more confusing, contradictory and senseless the metaphors become:
“We are playing Russian roulette with our planet. We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell. And the truth is … we have control of the wheel.”
Other Guterres’ climate spins include: “Humanity has opened the gates of hell” and “become a weapon of mass extinction.” And: “We must go into emergency mode and put out this five-alarm fire.”
Is Guterres describing reality — or the content of a new AI computer game in which some crazed teenaged human monster drives a flaming meteor through the ozone layer, knocking off dinosaurs before crashing onto a highway and plowing into a Russian Museum of Political Roulette just outside the Gates of Hell?
As UN Secretary-General, Guterres sits atop a hierarchy of agencies such as the IPCC climate science megaplex, which was created in 1988 by two other UN agencies, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). UNEP was cobbled together in 1972 as the brainchild of Maurice Strong, the late Canadian global environmental schemer, who famously mused about a fictional environmental crisis that leads a group of global insiders to decide the only hope for the planet is “that the industrialized civilizations collapse.” The current “de-growth” movement is a version of deindustrialization that reflects Guterres’ off-ramp from the highway to hell. In fact, the word “de-growth” appears 28 times in the IPCC’s sixth and latest Assessment Report .
With these UN agencies as his guide, Guterres’ verbal jumble of science statements is no better than his mixed metaphors. His abuse of climate and environmental facts has often been commented upon, including in a YouTube video titled “Who is Antonio Guterres?,” posted earlier this year by Ottawa journalist John Robson on his Climate Discussion Nexus site. Robson reviews and highlights some of the garbled inaccuracies and misrepresentations Guterres routinely cranks out.
For instance: “Climate-related natural disasters are becoming more frequent, more deadly, more destructive with growing human and financial cost.” Not true . And: “The number of weather, climate and water-related disasters has increased by a factor of five over the past 50 years.” Also not true .
When it comes to policies to deal with his fantastic vision of planetary destruction, Guterres aligns with Maurice Strong’s de-growth agenda. In his Manhattan speech, he repeated the UN call for a “fossil-fuel phase-out” since “economic logic makes the end of the fossil fuel age inevitable.” He urged financial institutions to “stop bankrolling” fossil fuel industries. “Fossil fuels are not only poisoning our planet,” he told bankers, “they’re toxic for your brand.”
The planet would be much better off if national governments stopped bankrolling Guterres and the United Nations and their constant poisoning of our science, economics and politics.
Instead, warmth and elevated CO2 are a boon for humanity.
A new peer-reviewed paper published in The American Journal of Economics and Sociology (May and Crok, 2024) counters the prevailing “wisdom” that says a warmer climate and greener vegetation are problematic.
Instead, warmth and elevated CO2 are a boon for humanity.
A new peer-reviewed paper published in The American Journal of Economics and Sociology (May and Crok, 2024) counters the prevailing “wisdom” that says a warmer climate and greener vegetation are problematic.
The authors detail the horrors of the much colder Little Ice Age that destroyed civilizations (crop failures, summerless years). Half the population of Finland and 15% of Scotland’s citizens died off in the 1690s due primarily to the cold-induced famines and frozen-over water supplies.
Elevated CO2 and warmth are 70% and 8% responsible, respectively, for a much greener, more vegetated landscape across the world since the 1980s.
The incidence and severity of storms, hurricanes, floods, and extreme weather in general have undergone flat to declining trends over the last several decades. Thus, “it is hard to find any unusual weather or weather-related disaster that can be blamed on climate change, whether natural or anthropogenic.”
“52 of 53 studies of disaster losses due to extreme weather were unable to attribute the events to human causes…”
The US government estimates the warming since 1950 has reduced the country’s gross domestic product by less than 0.5%, and an estimated 3°C of warming by 2100 still only reduces the GDP by less than 1%. Considering the US economy grew by 800% from 1950 to present, this means any assumed “damage” from warmth and elevated CO2 would not be detectable.
The quest to “save” the world from warming and elevated CO2 is devoid of scientific and socio-economic merit.
A fine skeptical journal article waded through green pal review. Wonder of wonders!
The journal is the American Journal of Economics and Sociology. The article title is perfectly clear: “Carbon dioxide and a warming climate are not problems”.
A fine skeptical journal article waded through green pal review. Wonder of wonders!
The journal is the American Journal of Economics and Sociology. The article title is perfectly clear: “Carbon dioxide and a warming climate are not problems”.
But it is an “Early View Online Version of Record before inclusion in an issue” so get it before it gets too hot for the Journal. I understand it is very popular so the green screams are deafening.
Alas it is paywalled but the lengthy free Abstract is as clear as the title. Here is the conclusion:
“Observations show no increase in damage or any danger to humanity today due to extreme weather or global warming (Crok & May, 2023, pp. 140–161; Scafetta, 2024). Climate change mitigation, according to AR6, means curtailing the use of fossil fuels, even though fossil fuels are still abundant and inexpensive. Since the current climate is arguably better than the pre-industrial climate and we have observed no increase in extreme weather or climate mortality, we conclude that we can plan to adapt to any future changes. Until a danger is identified, there is no need to eliminate fossil fuel use.”
The authors are Andy May and Marcel Crok and as the first parenthetical reference above indicates they are building on prior work. Their 53 References are not paywalled and quite interesting.
Both authors list as from CLINTEL making this a worthy CLINTEL effort. In fact Croc is a co-founder of CLINTEL. This work certainly supports CLINTEL’s World Climate Declaration that “There is no climate emergency”. See https://clintel.org/world-climate-declaration/ which offers an opportunity to sign, joining the almost 2,000 signatories and growing (including me).
The article is a clear discussion of the basic issues including some of the uncertainties. The overall position is moderate compared to some forms of skepticism (including mine). This makes it a good non-technical entering wedge for the climate debate.
Here is their overall conclusion:
“Clearly, there are two sides to climate change. It will be a problem in the future for some people in some places and a benefit for others in other places. Climate changes, it always has and always will. Is it changing more now than in the past? Or are we comparing current climate change to some fantasy world where climate never changes?
Warmer temperatures and more CO2 will mean more food at a lower price for nearly everyone, but in some areas, drought will increase and in others additional precipitation will cause flooding. However, with modern technology and cheap energy, we can build aqueducts to bring water to dry areas and build dikes and seawalls to protect areas prone to flooding. Sea level rise is currently a very modest two millimeters per year, it may be accelerating at about .02 mm/year, but the rise in the next century will be less than a foot, about a third of the normal average ocean daily tide.
Currently fossil fuels supply about 80% of our energy, reducing this to zero rapidly will devastate the world economy and cause widespread suffering, especially for the poor. Should we do nothing? If so, the President’s Council of Economic Advisors and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget projects that three degrees of global warming will cause a decline of <1% in U.S. GDP. Modern global warming, since 1950, has reduced GDP by <.5%, a trivial amount given that the economy has grown 800% in that time. Using IPCC scenarios, Lomborg estimates that economic growth will decline from 450% to 434% over the 21st century. Will anyone notice?
The infrastructure to replace fossil fuels does not exist and likely cannot be built in a short time. Current realistic estimates of future energy use suggest that fossil fuels will still supply half our energy in 2050 and beyond. Yet, no credible evidence exists that this is a problem or will become a problem. Recent research into climate change has suggested that nature plays some role, and certainly greenhouse gas emissions may play some role as well. What we do not know is how much of climate change is human-caused and how much is natural. No drastic changes to our economy are justified until we can figure this out.”
Please spread the word about this fine article. The more attention it gets the harder it will be to kill.
Numerous trade associations are asking the Supreme Court to review a lower court’s decision that effectively allowed California to push electric vehicles (EVs) on the rest of the U.S.
The coalition of plaintiffs are asking the highest court in the land to take up a review of the D.C. Circuit’s dismissal of a previous challenge against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) approval of a California Air Resource Board (CARB) request to pursue tailpipe emissions standards that are more stringent than federal requirements.
Numerous trade associations are asking the Supreme Court to review a lower court’s decision that effectively allowed California to push electric vehicles (EVs) on the rest of the U.S.
The coalition of plaintiffs are asking the highest court in the land to take up a review of the D.C. Circuit’s dismissal of a previous challenge against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) approval of a California Air Resource Board (CARB) request to pursue tailpipe emissions standards that are more stringent than federal requirements. If the Supreme Court were to take the case and decide favorably for the plaintiffs, the ruling could potentially deal a serious blow to California’s de facto ability to dictate emissions standards and force EVs on the rest of the country, a spokesperson for one of the involved trade associations suggested.
“We are asking the Supreme Court to reverse the D.C. Circuit’s erroneous holding that fuel providers lack ‘standing’ to challenge EPA’s unlawful California waiver, and also to provide long overdue clarity on the authority of EPA and California to mandate electric vehicles,” said Chet Thompson, AFPM’s president and CEO. “California is not a ‘super state,’ its Clean Air Act carveout does not give it special privileges to regulate greenhouse gas emissions standards or dictate what types of car and truck powertrains can be sold in this country. Authority of this magnitude rests with Congress.” (RELATED: Biden Admin Weighs California’s Latest Green Gambit That Could Set Off Chain Reaction Of Economic Pain)
California is unique in that it can apply for Clean Air Act waivers to issue vehicle emissions rules that are tighter than those of the federal government; a number of states have voluntarily attached themselves to CARB’s standards. However, as policy experts have previously explained to the Daily Caller News Foundation, this dynamic is likely to essentially force manufacturers to either produce fleets for CARB-aligned states and non-CARB states, or to simply make their entire fleets CARB-compliant despite the fact that many states do not want to adhere to CARB’s policies.
“As a concurrent challenge of 17 States explains, there are serious constitutional concerns with a statute that allows only California to act as a junior-varsity EPA,” the filing states. “Simply put, the waiver and authority claimed here are key parts of a coordinated agency strategy to convert theNation from liquid-fuel-powered vehicles to electric vehicles.”
Organizations involved in the litigation include the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), the Domestic Energy Producers’ Alliance (DEPA), the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) and the Energy Marketers of America (EMA). The D.C. Circuit previously dismissed an appeal seeking to block the CARB waiver on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing.
“The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected these challenges to clear direction by Congress, which it has repeatedly affirmed in the Clean Air Act over the past 5 decades,” a spokesperson for CARB told the DCNF. “The petitioners are wrong on the facts and on the law in their challenge to sensible, achievable emission standards that the auto industry fully complies with.”
The request to the Supreme Court specifically addresses the Clean Air Act waiver for CARB’s “Advanced Clean Cars I” rules, which required manufacturers to increase EV and zero-emissions vehicle sales over time. If the Supreme Court takes the review and rules against the regulators, the decision could also have implications for CARB’s “Advanced Clean Cars II” rule, which bans the sale of new gas-powered passenger vehicles in the state starting in 2035, the spokesperson for one of the organizations involved in the litigation suggested.
The EPA did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
California is unique in that it can apply for Clean Air Act waivers to issue vehicle emissions rules that are tighter than those of the federal government; a number of states have voluntarily attached themselves to CARB’s standards. However, as policy experts have previously explained to the Daily Caller News Foundation, this dynamic is likely to essentially force manufacturers to either produce fleets for CARB-aligned states and non-CARB states, or to simply make their entire fleets CARB-compliant despite the fact that many states do not want to adhere to CARB’s policies.
“As a concurrent challenge of 17 States explains, there are serious constitutional concerns with a statute that allows only California to act as a junior-varsity EPA,” the filing states. “Simply put, the waiver and authority claimed here are key parts of a coordinated agency strategy to convert theNation from liquid-fuel-powered vehicles to electric vehicles.”
Organizations involved in the litigation include the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), the Domestic Energy Producers’ Alliance (DEPA), the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) and the Energy Marketers of America (EMA). The D.C. Circuit previously dismissed an appeal seeking to block the CARB waiver on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing.
“The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected these challenges to clear direction by Congress, which it has repeatedly affirmed in the Clean Air Act over the past 5 decades,” a spokesperson for CARB told the DCNF. “The petitioners are wrong on the facts and on the law in their challenge to sensible, achievable emission standards that the auto industry fully complies with.”
The request to the Supreme Court specifically addresses the Clean Air Act waiver for CARB’s “Advanced Clean Cars I” rules, which required manufacturers to increase EV and zero-emissions vehicle sales over time. If the Supreme Court takes the review and rules against the regulators, the decision could also have implications for CARB’s “Advanced Clean Cars II” rule, which bans the sale of new gas-powered passenger vehicles in the state starting in 2035, the spokesperson for one of the organizations involved in the litigation suggested.
The EPA did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The wind and solar industries’ so-called ‘social licence’ evaporated, years ago. Now, rural communities are on the war path. These days, they’re better armed and better equipped to take on rent-seeking carpetbaggers who couldn’t care less about destroying their peaceful and prosperous communities.
The wind and solar industries’ so-called ‘social licence’ evaporated, years ago. Now, rural communities are on the war path. These days, they’re better armed and better equipped to take on rent-seeking carpetbaggers who couldn’t care less about destroying their peaceful and prosperous communities. Thanks to sites like this one, community defenders can spot the lies and spin miles off. No longer are they prepared to just sit there and suck it up at carefully staged-managed ‘community information events’ run by wind and solar power outfits (often with the assistance of their political enablers).
As Stan Moore and Louise Clegg detail below, the growing fury in rural communities and their open hostility to industries that couldn’t care less about those communities, is perfectly justified.
Trust deficit? Wind farm fraud a window into the renewables rort The Australian Stan Moore and Louise Clegg 5 July 2024
On the Gundary Plain, where we live near Goulburn, Lightsource BP says it will build a 400MW solar factory. It is one of two proposed solar developments that would see 3600 acres covered by 1.6 million solar panels, 300 inverter stations and two 330KV substations.
When BP arrived in town two years ago it said there would be no impact on property values. Gundary landowners have now obtained valuations from a variety of experts, indicating up to a 36 per cent loss of value.
The local council and chamber of commerce are opposed to the development because of its location. BP persists with its self-described “grid-led” proposal, despite the fact it is causing financial distress, mental health episodes and widespread anger.
Our region has long shouldered a substantial burden of the renewable energy push in Australia. To our south, west and north, the ridge lines – on a stretch of about 200km along the Great Dividing Range – host nearly a dozen wind factories, which will ultimately host nearly 2000 turbines.
Locals have lost track of which offshore entity owns them as they roll through multiple ownerships via bankruptcy or so-called “asset recycling”. Local earthworks and engineering firms, fuel and accommodation providers are owed money by a range of renewables developers who have gone belly up. Fatigued by years of what they openly call “wind farm fraud”, some businesses now refuse credit to any wind company.
But the incursions continue. Land across a 365km, 70m-wide corridor along the proposed HumeLink transmission line is being compulsorily acquired to host mammoth transmission lines through pristine, prized Southern Tablelands properties in some of our best agricultural country.
To our south, yet another mammoth wind factory is proposed on the iconic “Brothers” area of the Monaro.
Unsurprisingly, the social licence for these and a great number of similar proposals is virtually non-existent. There are two common threads that run through this issue. First, for two decades no government or developer has been prepared to deal with the question of remediation.
Country people are gobsmacked that the large-scale renewables sector is not subject to the remediation rules that apply to other land and sea developers in the mining, resources and oil and gas sectors. There has never been an explanation as to why renewables developers are not required to pay upfront for the cost of future remediation as a condition of project approval.
At the outset they should be required to pay into a government-managed trust to ensure abandoned turbines and solar panels do not rot in paddocks and the oceans in decades to come.
Given the scale of the current project – part of a globally unprecedented renewables rollout – it should be regarded as a national scandal the taxpayers of the future will be required to clean up what will become vast industrial graveyards.
At Gundary this permits BP to claim the visual or scenic impacts are, according to the guidelines, merely “low” or “moderate” when the impact of a 7sqkm solar factory on a many times smaller adjoining lifestyle block is in fact catastrophic.
Another example is the method for measuring the quantum of appropriate compensation for so-called “neighbour benefits”. It is measured by reference to the size of the development, rather than the actual impact on neighbours. The guidelines propose a 400MW solar factory (such as the Gundary proposal) should distribute $80,000-$120,000 per annum to impacted neighbours.
In a remote area this might be enough to distribute to a handful of neighbours, yet on the Gundary Plain this permits BP to propose paltry payments to too few.
Rural people are alive to the fact that the development of large-scale renewables underpins a cumulative transfer of wealth from us to others.
The wealth of many on the Gundary Plain will be transferred to the Sydney-based investment banker and property developer who will host the solar factory – and to BP itself.
On BP’s current form, its “normal” recycling of Australian solar assets will see a sizeable chunk of our wealth end up with the likes of the Beijing Energy Company, to which BP has recently offloaded all of its Australian solar assets.
Historically, rural communities in Australia have embraced progress. But our experience is that governments have never taken seriously the unintended consequences of significant large-scale renewables electricity generation.
This – and the failure to hold the renewables industry to account on many fronts – has resulted in entrenched integrity problems in the sector. These problems will only be remedied when governments acknowledge and account for (by actually measuring) the economic, environmental and social costs faced by rural landholders who are being forced to host monster transmission lines or live close to major energy installations – some of which are now literally encroaching on our backyards.
Until then the trust deficit between us and the political, financial and media fraternity who continue to shield the large-scale renewables sector from scrutiny will only widen.
When the bankers, billionaires and trust fund babies – who stand to benefit from the wild renewables-only experiment – insist on a guarantee of remediation of our precious rural landscapes in the future, we’ll start to believe they’re genuinely motivated to save the planet. The Australian
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