Climate Hypocrisy
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Al Gore and illegitimacy: No one voted for net-zero emissions by 2035
From the air-conditioned comfort of his private jet, he has fumed that the presence of oil and gas companies at the conference somehow delegitimizes the entire proceeding.
He may have a point about the legitimacy of the operation. But the idea that the presence of energy companies is out of bounds — at an event littered with people who have the largest carbon footprints on the planet and which would be literally impossible without aviation fuel, natural gas-generated electricity, gasoline-powered limousines, etc. — is the kind of thing that makes normal people derisive toward self-parodying figures like Mr. Gore.
Back to the legitimacy of the proceedings for a moment. Given that the United Nations presents itself as a quasi-government organization, it is worth wondering how these particular people came to make these decisions, even if they are comically unenforceable.
I didn’t vote for any of these people, and I don’t know of anyone who did. No one voted for the Kyoto Protocol, which forms the basis of the U.N.’s efforts on climate change. No one voted for the Paris Accord, which supposedly committed the United States to reduce greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050 or to net zero by 2050. It’s a little unclear.
Here at home, no one voted for net-zero emissions by 2035 or 2050 or whatever the date might be. No one voted to ban gasoline-powered automobiles by 2035. Those were wisps of ideas by former President Barack Obama that President Biden and his stenographers in the legacy media talk about as if they represent some grand, universally accepted national commitment.
They are not. In fact, just last week, in the first actual vote on any of this, the House of Representatives — all of the Republicans and eight Democrats — voted to amend the Clean Air Act to specifically preclude a ban on gasoline-powered vehicles.
Clem72
Well-Known Member
Not that I care about any of these climate goals or treaties or whatnot, but what is this guy smoking. Since when do we vote on federal laws, or treaties, or executive orders? This is a republic, not a democracy.
Western Energy Alliance warns U.S. of adopting European EV climate policies that have already proven failure
Kathleen Sgamma, President of Western Energy Alliance warns Americans of following after European electric vehicle and climate change mandates after the continents recent reversal of once revolutionary policies. Sgamma says, these policies once heralded have gotten Germany “into real trouble and they have the second highest electricity rates in Europe because they just didn't have enough energy. [The U.S. is now] sending natural gas to Germany, and they have increased their coal production and use because wind and solar don't work, they only work a portion of the time, and they have to be backed up. So we see what's happened in Europe, we know that Europe has backed off of EV mandates. But now we have all these other states following and saying we're all going to be EV’s by 2030 or 2035. Well, Europe has backed off on their EV mandates, because they know they don't have the electricity to power them and they know that consumers don't want them.” Remarking, “there are literally car lots full of electric vehicles in China that can't be sold for acres and acres with weeds growing on them. Because people don't want a vehicle that they can't charge or it doesn't have the range, it's too expensive.”
Devastating risks of transitioning to 'green' energy: Mining for electric-powering minerals has left 23 million people exposed to toxic waste, 500,000km of rivers polluted and 16 million acres of farmland ruined
- Toxic byproducts of metals mining also pollute 10.7 million acres of flood plains
- Researchers estimate the pollution also impacts 5.72 million livestock worldwide
- Scientists hope their new global database and mapping tool helps stem the tide
- READ MORE: The toxic secrets behind your mobile phone REVEALED
Tens of millions of people — more than live in the entire state of Florida — are now exposed to toxic water runoff from metal mining, a new study has found.
The report lays bare the devastating impacts that can follow a reckless transition to 'green' energy, compounding the ecological damage wrought by over 150 years of drilling and mining for fossil fuels.
The researchers found that 23 million people worldwide, as well as 5.72 million in livestock, over 16 million acres of irrigated farmland and over 297,800 miles worth of rivers have been contaminated by mining's toxic byproducts seeping into the water.
This metal mining includes many so-called 'rare earth elements' essential to the manufacture of high-tech electronics, solar cells, wind turbines and all the batteries needed to store sustainable 'green' energy (and power electric cars and iPhones).
While the new study focuses on environmental impacts, global metals mining has recently faced shocking lawsuits against major tech firms, including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Tesla, over child slavery in the Congo, where 70 percent of the industry's cobalt is sourced.
Climate Change Alarmist Al Gore Declares War on Fossil Fuel Industry
Mr. Gore, whose climate rants have grown progressively more unhinged, said this week that fossil fuel companies are “digging and drilling and pumping up the fossilized remains of dead animals and plants and burning them in ways that use the atmosphere as an open sewer, threatening the future of humanity.”
Like many prophets of climate Armageddon, Gore has sought to pin the blame for opposition to alarmism on the selfish interests of fuel companies, rather than recognize a growing scientific challenge to claims of a climate emergency.
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It is helpful to recall that in 2006, Gore declared that unless drastic measures were implemented, the planet would hit an irreversible “point of no return” by 2016. That year has come and gone with no catastrophic results, despite the employment of no “drastic measures.”
Then in 2008, a video of the opening of a German museum showed Gore saying that “the entire North polar ice cap may well be completely gone in five years,” a prediction that proved spectacularly false.
This past January, Mr. Gore made the remarkable assertion that greenhouse gas pollution was “boiling the oceans,” causing “rain bombs,” and setting the stage for “a billion” climate refugees, during an address at a World Economic Forum (WEF) event in Davos, Switzerland.
“That’s what’s boiling the oceans, creating these atmospheric rivers, and the rain bombs, and sucking the moisture out of the land and creating the droughts, and melting the ice and raising the sea level, and causing these waves of climate refugees, predicted to reach one billion in this century,” he thundered.
Meanwhile, saner voices have begun to prevail in the scientific world, notably with August’s World Climate Declaration, which flatly denied the existence of a so-called “climate emergency.”
The Declaration, whose 1,600 signatories include two Nobel Prize winners, notes that climate models have proven inadequate for predicting global warming, that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant, and that climate change has not increased natural disasters.
“The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases,” the Declaration states. “The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.”
Report: Al Gore’s home uses 34 times as much energy as average home
A new report from the National Center for Public Policy Research says former Vice President Al Gore’s Nashville home uses significantly more energy than the average home.
www.wivb.com
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WIVB) — A new report from the National Center for Public Policy Research says former Vice President Al Gore’s Nashville home uses significantly more energy than the average home.
According to the report, Gore’s home energy usage averaged at 19,241 kilowatt hours (kWh) per month, which is 34 times higher than the average dwelling’s usage of 901 kWh per month.
The report reiterates that point by saying “Gore guzzles more electricity in one year than the average American family uses in 21 years.”
Energy Vanguard says an “efficient” home uses between 5-10 kWh per square foot in a year.
To put these numbers in perspective, Gore’s home is 10,070-square-foot and has 20 rooms.
“In 2010, Gore announced that he and wife Tipper were divorcing after 40 years of marriage,” the report said. “According to media speculation, Tipper likely lives in the $8.9 million California home the couple purchased weeks before the separation. The Gores have four grown children who no longer live at home. That leaves the former vice president as presumably the only occupant of the home, making his energy consumption even more staggering.”
Net Zero by 2050 Still Remains Possible With Rapid Renewables Expansion, Says IEA
- The record growth in clean energy technology, such as solar panels and electric vehicles, provides hope that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is still possible. The increase in solar power capacity and electric vehicle sales since 2021 is aligned with targets set for the transition to cleaner energy.
- To achieve this goal, the world would need to invest nearly $4.5 trillion per year in the transition to cleaner energy starting from the next decade, which is a significant increase from the expected spending of $1.8 trillion in 2023. The current global average temperatures have already risen by 1.1 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial average.
- The 2015 U.N. Paris Agreement aims to keep global temperature rises below 2 degrees Celsius and limit them to 1.5 degrees Celsius to prevent severe consequences like droughts, floods, and increased wildfires. The need for a tripling of renewable capacity, doubling of energy efficient infrastructure, increased heat pump sales, and more electric vehicle use by 2030 is emphasized by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Has Bill Gates bailed out on the climate crisis?
At the New York Post this week, the Blogfather, Glenn Reynolds, poses the question, “Has the air gone out of the climate crisis balloon?” He suggests that it’s at least deflating a bit, along with several other panic-inducing liberal themes of the moment. (I would argue that the “gun violence crisis” is still going full steam ahead on the left, but perhaps that’s the exception to the rule.) He points to a few examples where leftists seem to be losing their endless enthusiasm for screaming about climate change and making demands that everyone must sacrifice everything they hold dear to Save The Planet. Greta Thunberg doesn’t seem to be drawing the same rave reviews that she used to routinely enjoy. But perhaps more than anyone else, Instapundit points to Bill Gates, who has recently started saying some things that are very unpopular on the left. And almost nobody from his camp appears to be calling him out over it. It’s just strange.
All Bill Gates is doing here is speaking common sense, a practice that is typically verboten in his circles when it comes to climate change, but when you’ve given that much money to leftist causes, I suppose you get a pass. He’s pointing to basic human nature. If you push people too far over a subject they might not fully understand but might sympathize with you over, they’re going to buck sooner or later. He’s also bringing up something we’ve discussed here endlessly. No amount of tweaking of emissions we do here is going to overcome the impact (whatever that may or may not be) of the emissions of “developing” nations like China and India, who do virtually nothing while being among the biggest polluters on the planet.
Meteorologists, Scientists Explain Why There Is ‘No Climate Emergency’
"Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific," the declaration begins. "Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures."
The group is an independent "climate watchdog" founded in 2019 by emeritus professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and science journalist Marcel Crok. According to the group's website, its objective is to "generate knowledge and understanding of the causes and effects of climate change as well as the effects of climate policy." And it does so by objectively looking at the facts and engaging in scientific research into climate change and climate policy.
The declaration's signatories include Nobel laureates, theoretical physicists, meteorologists, professors, and environmental scientists worldwide. And when a select few were asked by The Epoch Times why they signed the declaration stating that the "climate emergency" is a farce, they all stated a variation of "because it's true."
"I signed the declaration because I believe the climate is no longer studied scientifically. Rather, it has become an item of faith," Haym Benaroya, a distinguished professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Rutgers University, told The Epoch Times.
"The earth has warmed about 2 degrees F since the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850, but that hardly constitutes an emergency—or even a crisis—since the planet has been warmer yet over the last few millennia," Ralph Alexander, a retired physicist and author of the website "Science Under Attack," told The Epoch Times.
US Department of Energy beckons clean energy development at Hanford
The government is calling this new plan “Cleanup to Clean Energy,” but developing 30 square miles of sagebrush-dotted land into a power exporter and commercial zone is complex. One man, Bill Kipnis, a senior developer with Avangrid Renewables of Portland, Oregon – that develops wind, solar and hydrogen projects – brought up water as a big need for many cutting-edge technologies.
"Anybody have a sort of high end evaluation of water availability on the site?" Kipnis asked the panel of DOE officials.
The crowd laughed as one of the panelists, Brian Harkins, Hanford Site Assistant Manager for Mission Support, sighed audibly. “Next question,” the moderator Ingrid Kolb, director of DOE’s Office of Management and Chief Sustainability Officer, said.
Turk also made the point that Hanford is an area that has been intensely studied and monitored over decades.
“We have lots of data,” Turk says. “So, we can hopefully work with you. We can speed up on the environmental side. Do it the right way, of course. Do the cultural work that we need to do and should do – but we’ve already done a lot of work. So, that gives us a head start here.”
Greenpeace Canada Co-Founder Confounds Climate Scolds
Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace Canada, is taking on the climate change alarmists.
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Here's the thing about climate, the earth, and especially models used to "predict" the climate for decades and centuries.
First, and maybe foremost, it is the height of human arrogance to assume we know what the planet's "correct" temperature setting is. Through much of the planet's 4.55 billion-year history, it's been both warmer and colder than it is now. As recently as the Pliocene, between 4 and 10 million years ago, the earth was on average 2-4 degrees C warmer than now; in the Eocene Thermal Maximum, around 50-60 million years ago, it was between 12 and 14 degrees warmer. Temperatures ranging back that far are determined with indirect means, obviously, including such things as oxygen isotope ratios taken from the ocean floor and sedimentary rock samples, but the trends are very clear. Do humans have an impact on the environment? Sure. But it's not worth wrecking a modern economy over our effect when one good volcano can spew out more greenhouse gases in an afternoon than mankind can produce in a year.
Second, the Earth’s climate is a huge, chaotic system, and we've only been here for a tiny eye-blink of the geological time scale. The climate has always changed and will always change. So, “Put not thy trust in princes,” or in politicians, nor in guys in white lab coats pushing a political agenda, and especially not in autistic Dutch teenagers. They’re pushing an agenda, and it’s not one that will work out in your favor; meanwhile, regardless of what people do, the Earth will keep ticking along, following the old feedback loops and patterns it has followed for four and a half billion years now, regardless of what we tiny little humans do.
Home wreckers? All the appliances the Biden administration plans to regulate more aggressively
“According to the current federal Unified Agenda, a government-wide, semiannual list that highlights regulations agencies plan to propose or finalize within the next 12 months, the Biden administration is additionally moving forward with rules impacting dozens more appliances,” according to Fox News.
The federal Unified Agenda is a complex chart that lists the plans and proposals in rather obscure terms. The Unified Agenda for just Department of Energy changes and proposals is very revealing in itself.
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In December, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced that the administration had taken 110 actions on energy efficiency standards in 2022 alone. She claimed that the regulations strengthened U.S. leadership in "the race towards a clean energy future."
Here is a partial list of both recent and soon to be regulated appliances:
- Gas stoves
- Ovens
- Clothes washers
- Refrigerators
- Refrigerator freezers
- Freezers
- Air conditioners
- Dishwashers
- Pool pumps
- Battery chargers
- Ceiling fans
- Dehumidifiers
- Microwave ovens
- Portable electric spas
- Air compressors