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.
The Department of the Interior is “taking a deep look” at five offshore wind farms that are under construction in the U.S., Burgum said Wednesday without naming the projects.
The Department of the Interior is “taking a deep look” at five offshore wind farms that are under construction in the U.S., Burgum said Wednesday without naming the projects.
Offshore wind has no future as a source of electricity generation in the U.S. under the Trump administration, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said at an energy conference in Italy this week.
“Under this administration, there is not a future for offshore wind because it is too expensive and not reliable enough,” Burgum told an audience at the Gastech conference in Milan on Wednesday.CNBC has the story.
It is the clearest statement yet from a senior Trump administration official that the president aims to shut down the nascent offshore wind industry in the U.S. Burgum oversees the leasing and permitting of offshore wind farms in federal waters as head of the Department of the Interior.
President Donald Trump barred new leases for offshore wind farms on his first day in office through an executive order that was framed as “temporary.” Trump also ordered a review of permits, but the industry had hoped projects under construction would be allowed to move forward.
But the Department of the Interior is “taking a deep look” at five offshore wind farms that are already under construction in the U.S., Burgum said Wednesday without naming the projects.
The offshore wind farms under construction are Revolution Wind off Rhode Island; Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts; Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind; Sunrise Wind off New York; and Empire Wind also off New York.
“Yes, they were permitted but they got moved through a very fast ideologically driven permitting process,” Burgum said at the conference in Italy.
Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta struggled to defend his own lawsuit against ExxonMobil during a Tuesday appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta struggled to defend his own lawsuit against ExxonMobil during a Tuesday appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Bonta’s office filed suit against ExxonMobil on Monday, alleging that the corporation deceived the public about the efficacy of recycling plastics and specifically its “advanced recycling” program, which essentially breaks down old plastics into their molecular component parts that are then used to produce other products. During the interview, Bonta struggled to defend the merits of his lawsuit and was also called out by one of the program’s hosts for being hypocritical about jet fuel given that he seems to have flown into New York City for this week’s “Climate Week NYC” summit. (RELATED: Officials Told Biden’s EPA That Its Aggressive Green Power Plant Scheme Has Serious Flaws, Docs Show)
WATCH:
“They’re lying in different ways. They are saying that essentially, 100% of U.S. plastic could be recycled, and that was the myth they wanted to perpetuate,” Bonta said in response to questions from CNBC’s anchors.
After some more back and forth, Bonta continued to try to explain his lawsuit against ExxonMobil.
“Of all the plastics that ExxonMobil produces, from their product, only 1% goes into the advanced recycling process at all, and of that one percent, 92% becomes mostly transportation fuel,” Bonta said. “So the other 99% of what ExxonMobil produces in plastic and what the world produces in plastic, advanced recycling doesn’t touch.”
“But advanced recycling sounds like a better thing than nothing, than going into a landfill,” CNBC host Becky Quick interjected.
“They don’t get any credit for advanced recycling, turning things into jet fuel that’s emitted into the air or transportation fuel that becomes part of our …” Bonta fired back.
“So your point is we shouldn’t have jet fuel?” Quick said in response.
“My point is ExxonMobil shouldn’t lie. And they shouldn’t point to another lie —” Bonta said, before CNBC anchor Joe Kernen cut him off to point out the irony of Bonta railing against jet fuel after flying to New York City to partake in a climate summit attended by numerous business and political elites.
“You flew here though, right?” Kernen asked.
“We travel,” Bonta replied.
If Bonta flew roundtrip from Sacramento to New York City to appear at Climate Week, he would have flown approximately 5,000 miles and emitted about 2.26 metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to calculations done on Sustainable Travel.
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CNBC recently posted an article reporting on U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s claim that climate change is causing increased turbulence on airline flights. The evidence for this claim is sparse, largely built on computer models. In reality, data show accident rates and injuries associated with turbulence have remained low, possibly even declining, while the Earth has modestly warmed.
CNBC recently posted an article reporting on U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s claim that climate change is causing increased turbulence on airline flights. The evidence for this claim is sparse, largely built on computer models. In reality, data show accident rates and injuries associated with turbulence have remained low, possibly even declining, while the Earth has modestly warmed.
The article, “Climate change is behind increasing flight turbulence, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says,” quotes Buttigieg from an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation” asserting that climate change and its effects are “already upon us in terms of our transportation,” referring to airline turbulence. Buttigieg was clearly not relying on a critical analysis or an understanding of the available literature, including his own department’s statistics, but rather was taking advantage of pre-existing media hype. CNBC insisted on trying to back Buttigieg’s unsubstantiated claim up by citing a single study published in Geophysical Research Letters, in 2023.
CNBC writes that the study “found that there have been increases in clear-air turbulence (CAT) between 1979 and 2020, with “severe-or-greater” turbulence – the strongest category of CAT – becoming 55% more frequent over the North Atlantic over the course of that time period.”
Yet, the study did not look directly at pilot reported clear air turbulence, but rather several sets of reanalysis data from other studies. The study correlated wind and temperature data as a stand-in metric for air turbulence, running that data through computer models. The authors acknowledge that “[a]s with all reanalysis datasets, the quality and quantity of assimilated observational data generally improve over time.” They recommend actually looking at turbulence data from aircraft in future studies, but say “[i]n the absence of a long-term record of quantitative aircraft turbulence measurements, reanalysis diagnostics provide the best available global picture of historic variations in CAT.”
Notably, the modeled reanalysis in that study shows that a similar percentage of the planet has seen a decline or no change in the annual CAT probability. Those results are not discussed by CNBC, and, despite blaming global climate change for the modeled increase in air turbulence, they do not explain why the stand-in metrics for turbulence increased in some areas of the globe while decreasing or seeing no change everywhere else, or why climate change should not get the credit for decreases in turbulence elsewhere. (See Figure below)
Figure 1: Figure from reading study Prosser, M.C. et al. (2023) published by Geophysical Research Letters. Showing absolute change and relative change in the probability of moderate-or-greater (MOG) clear air turbulence (CAT) from 1979 to 2020.
The media is once again placing far too much emphasis on the results of a single study which admits that much of its output is modelled and imperfect. Note again that the above figure is reporting on probability of encountering moderate or greater clear air turbulence, a rather narrow definition of air disturbance type. Also remember that the results are only partially favorable to the claim that climate change is causing increased air turbulence, since it has declined or remained flat elsewhere.
Climate Realismrecently covered a similar claim that CNN tried to peddle shortly after what is at present believed to be air turbulence resulted in multiple injuries and one death of a passenger on a Singapore Airlines flight. H. Sterling Burnett points out that claims of climate change induced increases in air turbulence are undermined by data showing turbulence related airline accidents have not increased despite greater numbers of flights and fliers. A 2021 report by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) shows no increasing trend in turbulence related injuries. (See figure below)
Figure 2: ICAO reported total and turbulence related accident rates, 1989-2018. Normalized by flight hours.
The ICAO says in their report that “there was no obvious trend over time” for turbulence related accidents. Undoubtedly improved air alert technology and aircraft improvements have contributed to improved inflight safety, but the data is still clear that climate change induced air turbulence is not making flying more dangerous for passengers. This is despite the massive increase in flights, passengers, and passenger miles flown, over time.
The DOT’s record under Buttigieg has been awful, with numerous air, rail, and shipping accidents, unjustified delays and transportation shutdowns, and repeated airport SNAFUs. Buttigieg’s blaming the Singapore Airlines’ turbulence issue on climate change, a claim unsupported by evidence, serves two purposes: diverting attention from his DOT’s numerous failures and errors; and, in keeping with the Democrats’ policy of never letting a crisis go to waste, taking yet another opportunity to blame one more tragedy on climate change, the Biden administration’s single biggest Boogeyman. CNBC’s story and defense of Buttigieg’s claims is just one more instance of the liberal media outlet carrying the Biden administration’s water, while promoting the “climate change causes everything bad,” narrative. Who cares about actual airline accident and injury data, when it interferes with telling a good climate crisis scare story?
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