Climate Hypocrisy

[GURPS]

Protests have stymied gas production in the Netherlands that could replace most of Russia’s supply to Germany​

This winter may see Europeans freezing to death, unable to heat their homes as natural gas supplies dwindle. Unemployment and bankruptcies will soar, as companies find themselves unable to cover their costs due to high energy prices. Germany’s vaunted chemical industry, heavily dependent on natural gas feedstock, is likely to wither on the vine. An economic and social disaster reminiscent of the 1930s is possible. The word “deindustrialization” is becoming real.

And yet, as Bloomberg reports:

Beneath the windmill-dotted marshlands of the Netherlands lies Europe’s largest natural gas reserve. The sprawling Groningen field has enough untapped capacity to replace, as soon as this winter, much of the fuel Germany once imported from Russia.
Instead the field is in the process of shutting down, and the Netherlands is rebuffing calls to pump more, even as Europe braces for perhaps its toughest winter since World War II. The reason: Drilling has led to repeated earthquakes, and Dutch officials are loath to risk a backlash from residents by breaking promises.

Groningen Gas Field​

There is about 450 billion cubic meters of gas, worth a trillion dollars, available now and expansion is possible raising that by 50%. But extraction of the gas has caused subsidence and earthquakes that have damaged some homes in the area:

Wilnur Hollaar, 50, who’s lived in Groningen for almost two decades, is still seething over the way officials ignored his concerns. “When I bought this house in 2004, it was a palace,”
Hollaar says of his home, which was built in 1926 and features stained-glass windows and detailed stonework. But like thousands of homes in the area, it’s been damaged by quakes; it’s full of cracks and the facade is sinking. “My house has turned into a ruin,” he says.

That’s a shame, and Mr. Hollar has my sympathy. But instead of receiving overly generous compensation allowing him to buy an even nicer home, people are going to freeze to death or have their lives ruined by unemployment. What about the “greater good” that utilitarians preach about?

 

[GURPS]

After Trump energy 'renaissance,' Biden 'kneecapped' oil and gas producers: industry spokesman​

"President Trump, to his credit, presided over the greatest energy renaissance in our history," Tim Stewart, president of the Oil and Gas Association, said on the the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "Right before the pandemic, we were producing 13 million barrels [of oil] a day. For all intents and purposes ... we were a net exporter of energy."

Amid buoyant expectations of increasing U.S. production to 15 million barrels per day, the industry was suddenly rocked by consecutive shocks: the pandemic, followed by the Biden administration war on fossil fuels.

"We came out of COVID right into the Biden administration, which then kneecapped us," Stewart recounted. "Between their regulatory assault and the attempt to defund us and to debank us on Wall Street, we're still a million or million and a half barrels behind where we were. And we're 3 million barrels behind where we could be. And that's really unfortunate. And that's unfortunate for our European allies in particular."

Now, even some Democrats are recognizing the administration has taken its crusade against oil and gas too far, too fast, says Stewart.

"I've had some interesting conversations with members of Congress just in the last two weeks, of both the Senate and the House and Republicans and Democrats," he said. "And there are Democrats who are starting to say, 'Maybe we went a little too far.' It's a year too late. But we welcome that."

 

[GURPS]

Summers: We Can’t Have ‘Strategy of Total Hostility to Fossil Fuels’ That We’ve Had, Canceling Keystone, Slowing Permits Were Mistakes​

During an interview aired on Friday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Wall Street Week,” Harvard Professor, economist, Director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama, and Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton Larry Summers reacted to OPEC+’s production cut by stating that “we made a mistake by canceling the Keystone pipeline. We made a mistake by slowing down all kinds of permitting activity. We made a mistake by being hostile as a country to natural gas.” And arguing that “we need a different kind of energy strategy than the one that we’ve had. We need a strategy that is balanced, rather than an unbalanced strategy of total hostility to fossil fuels” but we’re moving in that direction.

Summers said, “Look, we made a mistake by canceling the Keystone pipeline. We made a mistake by slowing down all kinds of permitting activity. We made a mistake by being hostile as a country to natural gas. We made a mistake in the Congress a few weeks ago when we didn’t pass the Manchin program of expanding permitting. We crucially need regulatory relief or we’re not going to get renewables online fast, and we’re not going to get the transmission lines that are necessary for renewables to become a large part of our energy fast. So, the real lesson [of] this is we need a different kind of energy strategy than the one that we’ve had. We need a strategy that is balanced, rather than an unbalanced strategy of total hostility to fossil fuels or God knows the kind of total strategy of favoring fossil fuels that we had, of even egregious favoritism towards Saudi Arabia that we saw during the Trump administration. We need to find a balance. And I think we’re making our way in that direction.”

 

[GURPS]

Biden burns 3,866 pounds of jet fuel flying 72 miles to deliver speech​

 

[Sneakers]

During an interview aired on Friday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Wall Street Week,” Harvard Professor, economist, Director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama, and Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton Larry Summers reacted to OPEC+’s production cut by stating that “we made a mistake by canceling the Keystone pipeline. We made a mistake by slowing down all kinds of permitting activity. We made a mistake by being hostile as a country to natural gas.” And arguing that “we need a different kind of energy strategy than the one that we’ve had. We need a strategy that is balanced, rather than an unbalanced strategy of total hostility to fossil fuels” but we’re moving in that direction.

No shiat, Sherlock.

 

[Sneakers]

Biden burns 3,866 pounds of jet fuel flying 72 miles to deliver speech​

Roughly 580 gallons.

 

[Hijinx]

Biden caused the energy disaster world wide.
Surprised Europeans have not realized this and come down hard on the US for it.

 

[PrchJrkr]

I'm sure it was worth every penny.

 

[Sneakers]

From a logistics point a few.... has to be much much tougher to plan a flight on a 757 for a mere 72 mile flight than even a small convoy of cars. The number of people involved, air crew, ground crew, support staff, special flight clearances, impact to other air traffic in the area... and even then you STILL need the convoy of cars, now not just at one location, but two!

 

[GURPS]

Drive for climate compensation grows after Pakistan's floods ​

Summary by Ground News

Pakistan's monsoon rains dumped three-and-a-half times the normal amount of rain, putting a third of the country underwater. At least 1,300 people were killed, and 33 million people in Pakistan have been affected. Pakistan, which contributed only 0.8 per cent to the world's emissions, now faces damages estimated at more than US$30 billion.

 

[GURPS]

The destruction has intensified the debate over a question of climate justice: Whether rich countries whose emissions have been the main driver of climate change owe compensation for the damage that change is inflicting on poor countries like Pakistan.

It’s an idea that developed nations have repeatedly rejected, but Pakistan and other developing countries are pushing for it to be seriously discussed at COP27, next month’s international climate conference in Egypt.

Pakistan in many ways crystalizes the debate. Scientists have said climate change no doubt helped swell monsoon rains this summer that dumped three and a half times the normal amount of rain, putting a third of the country underwater. At least 1,300 people were killed, and 33 million people in Pakistan have been affected.

Pakistan, which contributed only 0.8% to the world’s emissions, now faces damages estimated at more than $30 billion, more than 10% of its GDP. It must repair or replace 2 million damaged or destroyed homes, nearly 24,000 schools, nearly 1,500 health facilities and 13,000 kilometers (7,800 miles) of roads. Bridges, hotels, dams, and other structures were swept away.

“These 33 million Pakistanis are paying in the form of their lives and livelihoods for the industrialization of bigger countries,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilwal Bhutto-Zardari said on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly last month.

Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman went further, saying rich nations owe reparations to countries hit by climate disasters.

Drive for climate compensation grows after Pakistan's floods

The devastation wreaked by floods in Pakistan this summer has intensified the debate over a question of climate justice: Do rich countries whose emissions are the main cause of climate change owe compensation to poor countries hit by climate change-fueled disasters

www.independent.co.uk

 

[GURPS]

they need a good beat down

 

[GURPS]

Ukraine war will be good for the climate​

The Davos crowd are a menace to humanity.

(Hmm, that reminds me, I have to write a post on the World Economic Forum as a VIP column! So subscribe!)

This episode in James Bond-villainy is brought to you by Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization. The WMO is the UN weather agency, for people like me who didn’t know that until right now.

GENEVA — The head of the U.N. weather agency says the war in Ukraine “may be seen as a blessing” from a climate perspective because it is accelerating the development of and investment in green energies over the longer term — even though fossil fuels are being used at a time of high demand now.
The comments from Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, came as the world is facing a shortfall in energy needs — prompted in part by economic sanctions against key oil and natural gas producer Russia — and prices for fossil fuels have risen.
That has led some countries to turn quickly to alternatives like coal. But rising prices for carbon-spewing fuels like oil, gas and coal have also made higher-priced renewable energies like solar, wind and hydrothermal more competitive in the energy marketplace.

For God’s sake, Germans are on their way to deforesting their country to heat their homes again, as if we were back in the Middle Ages! But this is good for the environment in the long run, we are assured. Because people freezing in the dark is a feature, not a bug (or even Cricket) in the WEF’s Brave New World.

 

[GURPS]

 

[GURPS]

First Martian life likely broke the planet with climate change, made themselves extinct​

Ancient microbial life on Mars could have destroyed the planet’s atmosphere through climate change, which ultimately led to its extinction, new research has suggested.

The new theory comes from a climate modeling study that simulated hydrogen-consuming, methane-producing microbes living on Mars roughly 3.7 billion years ago. At the time, atmospheric conditions were similar to those that existed on ancient Earth during the same period. But instead of creating an environment that would help them thrive and evolve, as happened on Earth, Martian microbes may have doomed themselves just as they were getting started, according to the study published Oct. 10 in the journal Nature Astronomy. (opens in new tab)

The model suggests that the reason life thrived on Earth and was doomed on Mars is because of the gas compositions of the two planets, and their relative distances from the sun. Being farther away from our star than Earth, Mars was more reliant on a potent fog of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen, to maintain hospitable temperatures for life. So as ancient Martian microbes ate hydrogen (a potent greenhouse gas) and produced methane (a significant greenhouse gas on Earth but less potent than hydrogen) they slowly ate into their planet’s heat-trapping blanket, eventually making Mars so cold that it could no longer evolve complex life.

 

[GURPS]

 

[GURPS]

 

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[GURPS]

The enemies of civilization are idiot vandal-savants with moral pretentious, dressed up like dues collectors from 1984′s Junior Anti-Sex League.

Here’s what passes for their thinking:

Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” had nothing to do with climate change, [Just Stop Oil spokesweasel Mel Carrington] said. It was simply “an iconic painting, by an iconic painter” and an attack on it would generate headlines. But the choice of soup was more symbolic, Carrington said: In Britain, many householders were struggling to pay fuel and food bills because of soaring inflation, and some could not even afford to heat up a can of soup. The government should be helping ordinary people deal with “the cost of living crisis,” rather than enabling fossil fuel extraction, she added.

Fortunately, the only damage done was “some minor damage to the frame,” according to an email released by the National Gallery. The painting itself sits safely behind glass.

I’ve been to the National Museum. I’ve seen “Sunflowers.” I’ve seen the protective glass. I’d rather have seen Van Gogh unencumbered, but I understand that the West’s treasures must be protected from the two-legged animals behind groups like Just Stop Oil.

Witness now your so-called moral betters, overgrown children still in need of a spanking:

Eco-Vandals Defaced a Van Gogh for the Stupidest Reason Ever and the Reactions Are Priceless

pjmedia.com

 

[GURPS]