Articles of Note

Articles of Note May 12, 2024

I have been so busy lately with net-zero transition implementation issues that I have not had time to put together an article about every relevant topic I have discovered. This is a summary of articles that I think would be of interest to my readers.

I have been following the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) since it was first proposed and most of the articles described below are related to the net-zero transition. I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Videos

The Heart of Climate Deception Temperature. Good summary of the issues related to global temperature measurements
Roger Pielke, Jr. on the best kept secret of climate science
Mapping Offshore Wind Projects And Critically Endangered Whales Robert Bryce produced a four-minute video that clearly shows:

The Biden administration has approved a slew of projects that could result in hundreds of offshore wind turbines being placed right in the middle of the North Atlantic Right Whale’s habitat. As you likely know, the North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) is one of the world’s most endangered whales. Only about 360 individuals are left. So why are so few climate NGOs speaking out against the industrialization of our oceans and the danger that offshore wind poses to the whale?

The Climate Industry’s Misdirection Campaign

Jessica Weinkle has written a highly recommended description how institutions are being delegitimized in the name of climate catastrophism. She concludes:

Dark money may or may not be a problem the public wants to address.

Concerning however is the extent to which the sprawling empire of the multifaceted climate industry has managed to discredit critique of its methods.

Those who do are dubbed obstructionists, and in no insignificant part by the billionaires moving money around in opaque ways.

Policymakers unwilling to acknowledge this dynamic are also turning their back on genuine problems in scientific integrity, misleading policy, courts, public health research, and threatening food security and development. The public is left with a sea of technocratic propaganda and limited ways to engage because the expertise barrier is too high.

Robbins claimed that “it is not what you look at that matters… It’s what you see.” All around us we look at the massive influence of the climate industry on climate change science and public messaging. But what most see are flashy graphs, dire futures, and get rich quick investment opportunities.

All the while, the legitimacy of our democratic and scientific institutions are being snatched before our very eyes.

Climate Change Reality

The CO2 Coalition published a paper prepared by Richard Lindzen, William Happer, Steven Koonin on April 16, 2024 titled Fossil Fuels and Greenhouse Gases Climate Science that is an excellent summary of reasons why there is no climate crisis. Three sections are included: There will be disastrous consequences for the poor, people worldwide, future generations and the west if fossil fuels, co2 and other ghg emissions are reduced to “net zero”; The IPCC is government controlled and thus only issues government opinions, not science; and Science demonstrates fossil fuels, CO2 and other GHGs will not cause catastrophic global warming and extreme weather. John Robson at Climate Discussion Nexus also praises the paper: “The paper does not break new ground, but summarizes the grounds for skepticism about the real impact of climate policy, the credibility of the IPCC, the reliability of climate computer models and claims that CO2 has made the weather worse and will only continue to do so”.

Judith Curry gave a great presentation Climate Uncertainty and Risk to the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Video of the presentation [here]. Powerpoint slides can be downloaded here [ GWPF uncert & risk (2)]. She makes the point that the political strategy by the UN and New York’s Climate Act is “deeply polarizing, whereas the strategy on the right seeks to secure the common interest of communities.” She concludes that:

Once you separate energy policy from climate policy, the way forward for energy policy is fairly straightforward. A more pragmatic approach to dealing with climate change drops the timelines and emissions targets, in favor of accelerating energy innovation. The goal is abundant, secure, reliable, cheap & clean energy.

The problem with climate policy is that it is a “wicked problem” that necessitates an approach that recognizes the deep uncertainties we have associated with climate understanding. Of course those concerns are routinely ignored by the advocates for the Climate Act.

Social Cost of Carbon

The Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) is a contrived parameter used to justify policies that are designed to eliminate fossil fuels. It is a difficult parameter to describe and show how it is used. Jonathan Lesser from the National Center for Energy Analytics wrote an excellent article that describes it well.

Electric Vehicles

Ford lost a lot of money on each electric vehicle it sold in the first quarter of 2024. CNN claimed that Ford sold 10,000 electric vehicles for a loss of $132,000 per vehicle but Robert Bryce said Ford sold 20,233 electric vehicles for a loss of “only” $65,272 per vehicle. Words fail to describe this madness.

Chinese EV manufacturers are poised to flood the American car market with cheap, high-quality SUVs by exploiting loopholes in tariff laws utilizing plants built in Mexico as the jumping-off point. This will happen even sooner. Chinese-owned carmaker Volvo (a subsidiary of China’s Geely) is about to beat the competition as soon as this summer with the introduction of a small battery electric SUV, the EX30, in the US.

The EX30 will directly compete with the Tesla Model Y in terms of performance and features, but at a price tag of $35,000, $8,000 less than the Model Y’s current cost. Reuters writes that, “[t]he competitive price reflects an unusual combination of Geely’s China-specific cost advantages and Volvo’s ability to skirt US tariffs on Chinese cars because it also has US manufacturing operations.” Even better, Volvo says that, even at that market-undercutting price, it expects to realize a 15-20 per cent profit margin on the EX30, meaning it has room to cut the price further should Tesla or other companies find ways to meet its initial price tag.

Used EV timebomb – Many EVs could become almost impossible to resell because of their limited battery life.

Experts said that the average EV battery guarantee lasts just eight years. After this time, the battery may lose power more quickly and so reduce mileage between charges. Many EVs will lose up to 12 per cent of their charge capacity by six years. Some may lose even more.

The cost of a replacement battery can be more than the value of the car. As a result used EVs have little value which increases the total lifetime cost of an EV compared to a internal combustion engine.

Irina Slav describes the possible last straw for EV that i wrote up for Watts Up With That. She notes that governments need to start thinking about a tax to replace their lost income from fuel duty collection when EVs predominate. There is no option that will not either add to the purchase price or be regressive. Her conclusion sums it all up:

For the umpteenth time, then, we have our dear Western governments try to have their transition cake and eat it, too, and not gain a single ounce of extra weight. They wanted combustion engine cars out but forgot that these cars bring in billions in tax income. They wanted a fully electrified transport but forgot it wouldn’t bring in money unless they made it more expensive. They wanted a revolution but forgot rule #1 for revolutions: the successful ones never start from the top. They start from the bottom.

Videos

Good news about climate Judith Curry explains why the climate and environment is going fine.
More praise for Climate Change the Movie. Fergus Kelley writes “A rare and refreshing rebuttal of that incredibly powerful climate change conspiracy.”
Climate Discussion Nexus has a “backgrounder” video look at “how scientists use temperature proxies to estimate past climate conditions … and in some cases misuse them because they’re so sure what the evidence should say that they ignore what it does say.”
Steve Milloy discusses the economy-killing ‘climate’ agenda with Stuart Varney on FOX Business.

Zero-Emissions Freight Sector Fantasy

Charles Rotter wrote a masterful takedown of the latest net-zero transition fantasy – the national goal of a zero-emissions freight sector.

The Biden-Harris zero-emissions freight initiative, with its lofty ambitions and sweeping promises, is emblematic of a broader trend in contemporary environmental policymaking: prioritizing grandiose goals over grounded feasibility studies and economic realism. This plan, rather than being a practical roadmap for any type of environmental improvement, is a political statement intended to signal virtue rather than effectuate its stated goals.

In summary, this “strategy” is nothing more than a modern-day environmental quixote, tilting at windmills of pollution with a lance of impracticality and a shield of buzzwords like “environmental justice.”

The Climate Act is no different than this strategy.

Impact of NYS GHG Emissions on Global Temperature

Parker Gallant Energy Perspectives published Actual Impact of CO2 Emissions On Global Temperature that was written and researched by Pav Penna. Penna researched the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent teport:

IPCC estimates that the impact on temperature of a trillion tonnes of atmospheric CO2 emissions is “likely in the range of 1.0 to 2.3°C” – a very broad range indeed. This is equivalent to 0.00001 to 0.000023°C per megatonne. IPCC’s “expert opinion” suggests a “best estimate” of 1.65°C per trillion tonnes of CO2.

Using that number, if New York’s 2021 GHG emissions were eliminated the impact on global temperature would be 0.00044 deg C. A quantity that cannot be measured.

Net-Zero Transition Issues

Epic Emissions Engagement: Irina Slav describes the inevitable collision of the Big Tech companies who are counting on carbon credits to achieve net-zero status and the staff at the Science Based Targets initiative that these companies fund. She concludes:

It’s a catastrophe unfolding in slow motion and it was unavoidable. Call it a case of Frankenstein’s monster and while the monster of climate activism cannot run away from its corporate creators and wreak havoc on the global village, taming it has become increasingly hard. The monster has developed an overwhelming sense of mission that has trumped any and all other considerations, including survival. The fight between green money and green muscle may end up being the show of the decade.

Mark P. Mills – When Politics and Physics Collide. The belief that mandates and massive subsidies can summon a world without fossil fuels is magical thinking.

While policies can favor one class of technology over another, neither political rhetoric nor financial largesse can make the impossible possible. Start with some basics. It’s not just that currently over 80 percent of our energy needs are met directly by burning oil, natural gas, and coal—a share that has declined by only a few percentage points over the past several decades; the key fact is that 100 percent of everything in civilized society, including the favored “green energy” machines themselves, depends on using hydrocarbons somewhere in the supply chains and systems. The scale of today’s green policy interventions is unprecedented, targeting the fuels that anchor the affordability and availability of everything.

Bjorn Lomborg explains that Trillions in taxpayer subsidies haven’t made wind and solar power cheaper or better for Americans:

A new study looking at the United States shows that to achieve 100% solar or wind electricity with sufficient backup, the US would need to be able to store almost three months’ worth of annual electricity. It currently has seven minutes of battery storage. Just to pay for the batteries would cost the US five times its current GDP. And it would have to repurchase the batteries when they expire after just 15 years.

Francis Menton describes a report by Thomas Pyle of the Institute for Energy Research put out a list of “200 Ways the Biden Administration and Democrats Have Made it Harder to Produce Oil & Gas.” He goes on to show there is not much to show for all those efforts. He concludes: “Our current rulers think that they have infinite ability to tell the people how to live, and infinite money to force the people to change their ways. They are wrong, and reality will catch up to them, if only gradually.”

Electric Vehicles

Robert Bryce has been skeptic about electric vehicles for 14 years and prepared ten charts that explain the current situation. Also of note is that electric car demand plunges across Europe.

Natural Climate Change

One of the main points in Climate the Movie is that clouds are a major driver of climate change. This article describes a theory that explains long-term solar variation and its effects on clouds. Javier Vinós concludes that there are two pieces of good news.

The first is that solar activity cannot rise above the 20th century maximum. It is not like CO₂, which can keep going up. The Sun’s activity can stay high or go down, but it cannot go up, so the warming should not accelerate and should not be dangerous. The second piece of good news is that if much of the 20th century warming is due to the Sun, then there is no climate emergency.

Articles of Note April 14, 2024

Videos

Weekly dose of climate insanity – electric logging trucks
John Robson at Climate Discussion Nexus has prepared a new video that addresses why loony climate decisions keep getting made. In his latest “Fact Check” video “When Backroom Met Zealot” he shows how green zealots spewed misinformation at an Ottawa City Council committee that then voted unanimously and without debate in favour of their proposal. He debunks the zealots, so you will know what to say when they show up in your town.
Hurricane threats to offshore wind turbines There is a summary of the video and links to documentation available here. Spoiler – The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities in charge of permitting offshore wind projects said that the Atlantic hurricanes are a significant potential threat. More alarming is that the BPU has stated that there’s been really little technical research um about the effects of hurricanes on the offshore wind projects.

State of the Climate

Honest Story of Climate Change Guus Berkhout & Kees de Lange explain why there is no climate crisis.

Proposed Alternate Strategy Guus Berkhout & Kees de Lange propose a gradual energy transition to nuclear

Swiss Climate Decision

According to a recent decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Switzerland has failed to comply with its duties to stop climate change. Chris Morrison makes the case that:

The “real plaudits for the recent idiotic climate change verdict from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) belong to the elite billionaire paymasters behind lawfare activists such as Greenpeace and Client Earth. Greenpeace bankrolled the Swiss ladies and Client Earth supplied some of the legal arguments. The case is likely to throw a spotlight on the role that a few moneyed forces are playing in using the judicial system to enforce their insane Net Zero collectivisation on populations around the world.

Always insightful and rational, Judith Curry has prepared a response “to help innoculate us from this fresh new climate hell of litigation.”. The entire article is worth a read. Her summary states:

There will be a continuing need for fossil fuels. Rapid restrictions to fossil fuels before cleaner energy is available interferes with more highly ranked sustainability goals – no poverty, no hunger, affordable and clean energy, and industry-innovation-infrastructure. There is no human right to a safe or stable climate. Apart from the lack of an international agreement, such a “right” contains too many contradictions to be meaningful.

Defending the Narrative

When it comes to reporting on climate-related issues please be aware that the Associated Press makes no attempt to provide any information that contradicts the climate alarmist narrative.

Facebook Censorship due to a Science Feedback: “Fact Check” Andy May notes that Facebook’s “independent and nonpartisan fact checks” of “Climate: The Movie.” is totally out of hand.

Reality is the Narrative is Falling Apart

Illustrating The Absurdity Of New York’s Energy Transition: Francis Menton highlights some of my findings from a lengthy blog post at this site and a somewhat different version that also appeared on Watts Up With That at about the same time. Tom Shepstone also re-published the article.

The Absurdity of the Electric Vehicle Transition: The Institute for Energy Research explains the flaws in the Biden Administration emissions tailpipe rule that will force electric vehicles on us all. To which I can add an anecdote. I have a friend in the car business who is familiar with the electric vehicle market. He told me this weekend that Tesla announced a 50% increase in the cost of replacement batteries. This makes buying a new one more viable and fosters the sales of EVs. All the regulations require new EV sales but there are no incentives to keep them on the road.

Joke of the Week – well maybe a tragic commentary on these times. ‘Spirit Whales’ (which ‘no-one believes exist’) hold up Australia’s most expensive energy project. “If the gas project was to go ahead, the Spirit Whales would be endangered. And if the Spirit Whales were killed, none of the creatures of the sea would know what do to. Short of Aqua Man stepping in to save the day, the planet would be sunk. How did the Federal Court know all of this? Raelene Cooper! Ms Cooper, or as her activist friends like to call her, the Custodian of Whale Dreaming, speaks to the Spirit Whales. And they speak to her. Seriously. This was in evidence presented to the Federal Court.”

Articles of Note March 31, 2024

Podcast/Videos

I highly recommend watching this video “Climate the Movie”. It exposes the climate alarm as an invented scare without any basis in science. It shows that mainstream studies and official data do not support the claim that we are witnessing an increase in extreme weather events. It emphatically counters the claim that current temperatures and levels of atmospheric CO2 are unusually and worryingly high. On the contrary, it is very clearly the case, as can be seen in all mainstream studies, that, compared to the last half billion years of earth’s history, both current temperatures and CO2 levels are extremely and unusually low. We are currently in an ice age. It also shows that there is no evidence that changing levels of CO2 (it has changed many times) has ever ‘driven’ climate change in the past.

The film explores the nature of the consensus behind climate change. It describes the origins of the climate funding bandwagon, and the rise of the trillion-dollar climate industry. It describes the hundreds of thousands of jobs that depend on the climate crisis. It explains the enormous pressure on scientists and others not to question the climate alarm: the withdrawal of funds, rejection by science journals, social ostracism.

But the climate alarm is much more than a funding and jobs bandwagon. The film explores the politics of climate. From the beginning, the climate scare was political. The culprit was free-market industrial capitalism. The solution was higher taxes and more regulation. From the start, the climate alarm appealed to, and has been adopted and promoted by, those groups who favour bigger government.

Today’s technology impresses me. In particular, the ability to do a pod cast in New Zealand from my house. Reality Check radio interviewed me on the folly of a net-zero transition.

Climate Discussion Nexus has a new “Fact Check” video on heat waves “Dousing The Hot Hype”, that refutes the alarmist claims that they are becoming more common or more severe or even that the models expect

Alex Epstein notes that the world faces a serious crisis, one that will ruin whole economies and lead to needless suffering and death. The crisis is related to climate change, but not in the way you’re probably thinking. It’s the global energy crisis—a man-made crisis created by climate change policies.

Climate Act

This is a very nice letter to the editor arguing that the Climate Act should not be rushed.

Dennis Higgins comments on the State’s proposed public relations campaign asking: ”Will the public fall for NYSERDA’s efforts to put lipstick on this pig?”

One usually overlooked feature of the Climate Act is the requirement to try to minimize impacts to disadvantaged communities. The Climate Act requires the State “to invest or direct resources in a manner designed to ensure that disadvantaged communities receive at least 35 percent, with the goal of at least 40 percent, of overall benefits of spending.” Essentially that means that everybody else will be subsidizing that constituency. Potentially that could lead to something like a California electric rate structure initiative or here to “charge people based on their income rather than what they actually just use.”

In New York there is tremendous pressure to shut down existing natural gas fired power plants and the mere suggestion of building a new facility brings howls of outrage. In Europe 72 GW of gas plants are being built as nations realize the cannot power an electric grid on solar and wind alone.

One of the greatest misleading claims for the transition to wind and solar is that it will be more resilient. I don’t agree with that because they are relatively fragile sources of power. I feat that when New York becomes reliant on offshore wind that a hurricane will eventually damage those facilities. In Texas theory and reality collided as a hail storm caused major damage at a 3,300 acre 350 MW solar project. There are fears of toxic pollution too.

The failure of New York to acknowledge the problems observed in Europe can only mean that the state will have the same problems. The German energy transition threatens to be an unaffordable, unrealizable disaster, according to the government’s own independent auditors

At this time the New York State plan is to build as much wind and solar as possible as fast as possible. In order to expedite this development the concerns of local communities and environmental issues have been squashed with the passage of laws slipped into the budget negotiations. Now there are rumblings that “comprehensive permitting reform” is needed to expedite construction of green energy projects. However, Democrats in Washington have not been able to agree on how this should be done. Incredibly, Democrat-backed permitting reform bill unveiled in December would hand out billions in grants for eco-activist nonprofits to conduct environmental reviews on green government projects. Always follow the money.

State of the Climate

Although it gets into the weeds an article by Javier Vinós at Climate Etc. raises some important issues. Vinós notes that “Beginning in June 2023, the last seven months of the year marked the warmest period on record, significantly exceeding previous records.” Dr. Vinós downplays the role of the current El Niño that is usually associated with an uptick in temperatures. He says that the January 2022 Hunga Tonga underwater volcanic eruption, that boosted upper atmospheric water vapor by a remarkable 10%, is the most likely cause of the recent warming. As the excess water leaves the atmosphere, observes Vinós, it will induce a cooling effect at the surface potentially lowering temperatures for the next three to four years. Importantly, neither the El Niño nor the volcano effect are represented in the climate models that claim that CO2 is the control know for climate.

A new report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation challenges the popular but mistaken belief that weather extremes – such as flooding, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires – are more common and more intense today because of climate change.

End Game

Ronald Stein argues that “renewables will destroy America’s lifestyle back to the pre-1800s”.

At the same time, World Health Organization “Special Envoy for Climate Change & Health” Vanessa Kerry, daughter of multi-millionaire John Kerry, says: “We must accept that there is no other way forward than to phase out our reliance on fossil fuels”. My comment to her: you go first and get back to me when your carbon footprint is lower than mine.

Emissions in China

China’s energy sector CO2 emissions increased 5.2% in 2023. Based on the following figure I estimate that the average increase in emissions over the 2020 to 2023 time frame was 404.548 million tons from the energy sector. Total New York GHG emissions for all greenhouse gases and all sectors in 2021 was 268.302. Anything we do in New York will be subsumed by Chinese energy sector emission increases in less than a year.

Articles of Note February 18, 2024

I have been so busy lately with net-zero transition implementation issues that I have not had time to put together an article about every relevant post I have read. This is a summary of posts that I think would be of interest to my readers.

I have been following the. Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) since it was first proposed and most of the articles described below are related to the net-zero transition. I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Videos

Temperature Trend Manipulation

Frightening Data

US Debt Clock Debt is $34.2 trillion for a debt of over $260,000 per taxpayer

NY Debt Clock Debt is $409.9 billion and spending is ahead of revenue over $100 billion

Electrify Everything Slammed by Court

Robert Bryce describes a court case which could have implications to New York:

Last month, the Ninth Circuit denied the city of Berkeley’s petition to re-hear its case after the city’s ban was ruled illegal last April. The January 2 ruling has national implications and is an enormous loss for the electrify everything movement, the lavishly funded campaign that seeks to ban natural gas stoves, water heaters, and other gas-fired appliances in the name of climate change.

He explains the history of gas bans and the dark money subsidizing the campaign then goes into the details of the case. He concludes with reference to New York State because there is a similar case under consideration here.

On October 12, Jorgenson filed suit on behalf of a group of plaintiffs, including propane dealers, homebuilders, and plumbers. In a press release, Jorgenson’s firm said the “The drastic step of requiring ‘all-electric’ new buildings despite an already-strained electric grid stands at odds with the public’s need for a reliable, resilient, and affordable energy supply. New York’s gas ban is preempted by federal law, is contrary to the public interest, and harms plaintiffs and the members they represent.”

If Jorgenson prevails in New York, and she should, the next stop on the litigation is the U.S. Supreme Court, which should weigh in and declare that the electrify everything effort, is, as Jorgenson says, “contrary to the public interest.”

Ontario Generation Costs

Parker Gallant summarizes what each generation source actually cost Ontario ratepayers/taxpayers to see if the claims that wind and solar are cheap are true. He found:

The only energy source cheaper than natural gas is hydro. Natural gas, hydro, and nuclear are all cheaper than wind and solar.

Electric Vehicle Stories of the Week

Ford Lost $4.7B On EVs Last Year, Or About $64,731 For Every EV It Sold – How is this supposed to work out?

EV transition is coming undone Jo Nova note that sales of EVs are slowing down

Energy Transition Status

Francis Menton at the Manhattan Contrarian updates news on the supposed energy transition is going.

Natural Gas Is the Indispensable Resource

Tom Shepstone notes that the American Gas Association has put up a nice web page illustrating the numerous reasons why “natural gas has quickly become the indispensable energy source for America’s energy system.”

Mann – A Bad Day for America

You may have heard about this recent court decision:

As many of you already know, a Washington, DC jury today found the Defendants (Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg) liable for defamatory speech and reckless disregard of provable facts. Putting aside the monetary damages, the real damage done by this case is to every American who still believes in the First Amendment.

The precedent set today, and as alluded to by Justice Alito when the case was petitioned before the U.S. Supreme Court, means that disagreement and/or criticism of a matter of public policy — the founding principle of this country — is now in doubt. And should you choose to give voice to any dissent, you can be brought before a jury, held responsible, and fined.

I recommend Judith Curry’s two articles on the science behind the claims and Dr. Mann’s behavior towards her. In short his science deserved ridicule and the man has no ethics.

Cooking the Books

Tony Heller has a stunning graphic that shows the games played to contrive the answer that CO2 affects temperatures.