Last night, there was this tweet:
The fellow works for Buzzfeed, and highly liberal and pro-climate outfit. It was quite an admission. Since existing climate plans are almost certain to be on the scrap heap now, here’s a new plan from Christopher Monckton. I agree with most of it, except item 7 “Abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency”. That’s not really practical. Before “climate change” became the universal boogeyman for any enviro-ailment, real or imagined, the EPA actually did useful work in dealing with real, tangible, pollution issues. We have cleaner air, cleaner lakes, and cleaner waterways today because of that. So rather than abolish it, which would allow resurgence of those problems by the unscrupulous, I think a significant curtailment, plus a revocation of their powers of enforcement – putting enforcement in the hands of law, is a better choice.. – Anthony
Guest opinion by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
1. U.S. withdrawal from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, from the Paris climate agreement and from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: The President of the United States should invite the Secretary of State to serve upon the Secretary General of the United Nations, qua Depositary, immediate notification of withdrawal from the Framework Convention on Climate Change and from all protocols or agreements thereunder, including the Paris climate agreement, in terms of Article 25 [withdrawal] of the Convention, which provides for a year’s delay before the withdrawal takes effect. Under Article 28 [withdrawal] of the Paris climate agreement, notification of withdrawal from the Framework Convention entails automatic withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement and from any obligations thereunder. Pour politesse, the Government of France, qua Depository of that agreement, should also be given immediate notification of withdrawal. Separate immediate notification of withdrawal should be given to the Secretary General of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
2. Termination, on environmental and humanitarian grounds, of all Federal Government payments to foreign entities in connection with climate change: The President should invite the Secretaries of State and to the Treasury to terminate all payments to foreign entities in connection with climate change at the earliest permissible dates, and to report the savings achieved to the White House Chief of Staff at monthly intervals until all such payments have ceased.
3. Termination, on environmental grounds, of all Federal Government subsidies for climate change research and for “renewable” energy. The President should invite the Secretary to the Treasury to terminate all climate subsidies at the earliest permissible dates, and to report the savings to the White House Chief of Staff at monthly intervals until all such subsidies have ceased.
4. Nullification of all previous Executive Orders mandating any action on climate change. The President should invite the Chief of Staff to put before him a draft executive Order nullifying forthwith all Executive Orders concerning climate change and related matters.
5. Program of U.S. humanitarian assistance with the installation of coal-fired power stations and electricity grid infrastructures in regions without electric power. The President and the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury and of Energy should jointly announce a program of U.S. humanitarian assistance with the intention of preventing the millions of deaths each year among the 1.2 billion people who do not have the life-saving benefits of electric power. Coal-fired power is preferable because it is cheaper per TWh generated than any other form of power, and because stocks of coal are plentiful, and because the clean technology of the current generation of power stations is easier for third-world nations to maintain than any other form of power.
6. Independent inquiry into climate change science. The President should invite the Secretary of Energy to establish an independent inquiry into climate change science, to address the questions 1. At what rate will our enrichment of the atmosphere with CO2 and other greenhouse gases warm the world? and 2. Is mitigation of global warming today cost-effective compared with adaptation to its consequences the day after tomorrow? Scientists and economists sympathetic to the President’s opinion should be appointed to the inquiry, whose effect will be to provide ample justification for the President’s earlier decisions to resile from international climate agreements and to terminate climate-related payments and subsidies.
7. Abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency: The President should exercise his influence over Congress to enact at the earliest opportunity a Bill to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA’s activities run counter to the interstate commerce provisions of the U.S. Constitution, and its functions would be better performed if transferred to the States.
8. Approval for the Keystone XL pipeline: The President, after consulting the cabinet, should at the earliest opportunity announce approval for the Keystone XL pipeline.
9. Reversal of scientifically-unjustifiable measures such as the listing of polar bears as endangered should be carried out at the earliest opportunity.
10. Investigation of scientific and economic frauds in connection with climate change science and economics, and with renewable energy, should be set in hand at once.
Your program sounds generally constructive, Lord Monckton. I would add that research thus far conducted has not been of a character that supports governmental regulation of Earth’s climate yet regulation of Earth’s climate has been attempted by the government of the U.S under previous administrations, including the one of Mr. Obama. Missing in the minds of the managers of this research has been the idea that is called the “mutual information” in information theory. The mutual information is nil of all climate models thus far constructed bur non-nil mutual information is required for regulation of the climate. Therefore as soon as possible, president-elect Trump should replace current management of this area of research with management possessing the necessary skills for delivery to regulators of a model providing non-nil mutual information.
The EPA needs major surgery. We could reform this beast. The other option is to get rid of it and start over and come up with an org structure that does not become a tool of unelected and unaccountable groups like the wwf and the sierra club. Recall that the first NAPAP report on acid rain was scrapped and its lead author Dr. Kulp was fired because green groups did not like the conclusions that have since been proven correct. I will post a link later about this incident.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2857442
The EPA is scientifically incompetent but this incompetency could be reversed through education of its staff. To educate its staff may be more cost effective than scrapping the EPA and starting over.
For number 7 I recommend Dr David L Lewis who used to work there to be put in charge. He also wrote a great book (Science for Sale) about the major issue of our time (IMHO).
The scientific method has got us this far and we abandon it now at our own peril.
Thanks, a great plan, and money saving too. The new crowd in light of their reported rejection of global warming might even go for it. CONGRATULATIONS ON THE WEBSITE AWARD. K G
Sent from my iPad
>
I love the irony of 10. RICO investigation……
Gawd, people! The world has not changed. Politicians have not changed. Big money donors have not changed. The media have not changed. Bureaucrats have not changed. Academia has not changed. Other nations have not changed. Nothing has changed!
Hillary’s march to power has been stopped, that’s all.
Wishful thinking will not change the AGW dynamic. Ronald Reagan tried to derail the watermelons and failed. Rent-seeking is the norm.
It will take legislation to, at the most, deflect the trajectory of climate alarmism. Not stamp it out, just deflect it. It is “baked-in” into the current system. Decades of propaganda have worked. Green/socialist NGO’s are rampant. That is where the money is.
Get out your checkbooks to support contrarians. Most of the elites and their media enablers will relentlessly attack any reform efforts. I believe only The Donald has the cojones to shout down the anti-capitalists.
Education might change the dynamic. If employees were to come to realize that non-nil mutual information from the climate model was required for regulation but unavailable from currently existing climate models perhaps they would come to their senses. If not we could fire them.
“Hillary’s march to power has been stopped, that’s all.”
That’s enough in itself.
The USA and the world are SO lucky not to have this woman direct our course anymore. By the skin of our teeth, freedom prevailed on election night.
Executive authority (Law Enforcement) resides solely in the Office of the President. Not Congress, not the Judiciary, and not “Independent Agencies”.
Legislative power resides solely with Congress. Nobody else. If Congress wants experts to advise it on a technical matter, on a continuing basis, it could such organization, reporting to a committee, or sub-committee, and answerable to Congress. That would be constitutional.
The Administrative Law Act (a New Deal abomination) and every agency existing based on it, are and always have been, unconstitutional.
So, yeah, abolish the EPA and a hole slew of other agencies, who have become politicized anyway. Abolish the Administrative Law Act. Create such agencies that seem needful in accordance with the constitutional division of powers, which mean enforcement agencies are answerable to the President, no “regulatory” agencies, Laws passed by Congress, and only Title III judges, not agency “administrative law judges”.
The Clean Air Act worked, but its goals have been reached. And the EPA, like most bureaucracies, has jumped the rails in search of more power, unwilling to merely maintain goals that have been reached. Business conditions, from time to time, force corporations to trim back their bureaucracies, but government bureaucracies have to be forceably hacked back with an axe. It’s past time. Replace the Clean Air Act, create an executive branch agency to monitory and enforce it, but not “regulate”. Legislation belongs to Congress, nobody else.
“Program of U.S. humanitarian assistance with the installation of coal-fired power stations and electricity grid infrastructures in regions without electric power”
Well, this is just stupid…
The people without electricity (598 million approx. in Africa alone) already have their plans to get power and they don’t involve coal…
solar is cheaper; the grid doesn’t exist many places; the countries do not have their own coal in many cases and could not afford to import it; they may not have the water resources coal plants require.
why not invest in sending them horses and stagecoaches? That’s the same level of tech transfer.
India is installing 175GW of renewables by 2022… most of it solar.
The Germans and Chinese are getting most of the non-Indian contracts. US industry should try for a share of that…
Eek, I’m agreeing with Griff. There isn’t so much coal present in Africa for it to be considered a sensible source for power going forward. I’m not sure if that means solar is the answer, though. Gas could be an option as well, as gas is more prominent in Africa than coal. I think Nuclear is off the table for them, for obvious reasons (highly unstable Governments, in a lot of cases).
But, Griff, I’m not sure if India will realistically meet their solar goal/target/aspiration. They announced 100GW, for Solar, but that is huge when you compare they only have 240GW total right now. I think what you will see is countries like China and India ramping up coal as well before their 2030 targets come into place.
John, try googling something like India solar in news section of google.
You’ll probably need to refine that search because of the sheer number of new solar schemes it will throw up.
They seem also to be getting the finance and the cost of newest schemes is coming in well below coal.
Also, for African cities/states where a lot of power currently is diesel generators, putting in solar is great because it more that 50% reduces use of expensive imported diesel fuel…
solar is also quick to build (South Africa’s new coal plant is years late)
This added 50% to Rwanda’s grid in less than half a year:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/23/how-africas-fastest-solar-power-project-is-lighting-up-rwanda
That’s just for grid connected areas… cheap solar LEDs and this sort of thing is massively improving off grid areas…
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/ignite-power-will-bring-solar-to-250000-homes-in-rwanda-by-2018
https://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/21/ghana-off-grid-households-benefit-100000-solar-systems/
Griff, if you indeed checked it, you will note that to meet the goal, they would need to increase pace by 300% every year until 2022. As each year slips by that they don’t, that increase needs to become bigger and bigger.
I’m just gonna call it. India will not gain an extra 100GW of solar sourced power by 2022. I don’t think they will even get to 40GW.
Yes John…
That’s the sort of pace increase solar/renewable installs are seeing worldwide.
If we are still here in 2022, I’ll remind you of your prediction…
Anthony and Christopher,
I should be pleased if you would make a change to one clause, that is:-
Para. No. 5 – “third world nations”.
Please use instead:- “POOR nations”.
Thank you.
Regards,
WL
I also agree with Anthony regarding the EPA. The EPA should be reduced in size and scope in line with the fact that much of the mess it was created to address has been cleaned up. The way forward is zero-based budgeting, not cost-benefit analysis of its operations.
The Viscount Monckton stated, “Termination, on environmental and humanitarian grounds, of all Federal Government payments to foreign entities in connection with climate change.”
This ought to include the World Bank and Asian Development Bank lending and grant-making operations.
The way to do this is via US representatives on the Boards of Governors of these banks and in the case of the World Bank the President of that institution.
The world bank is currently funding the programme to bring electricity to all Kenyans…
If its a good idea to roll out electricity to all as in point 5, why shut down institutions actually doing that?
The EPA is as relevant to protection of the environment as is an STD to a person’s good health. The 50 states should be able to look after their own development programmes.
In the UK the national rivers authority (NRA) was concerned with good drainage to prevent flooding and pollution control to protect fresh-water fish stocks and to rehabilitate rivers like the Thames and Tyne following 19th and 20th C pollution.
The NRA morphed into the environment agency (EA) becoming increasingly or overly concerned with wildlife and climate change, stopped dredging rivers because of (a) disturbance to habitat and (b) pollution from ‘toxic’ dredged material. Consequently in the south west there was wide spread flooding with homes deluged and communities cut off only to supplied by boat with roads under water.
This state of affairs prompted The Guardian’s George Monbiot to gleefully proclaim that the flooding was the result of global warming and that the people would have to suffer and live with it until the EU/IPCC emission controls brought back a utopian pre industrial climate. In fact all that had happened was the main drainage river in 2014 was half as wide as it had been in the 1950s when regular dredging took place. Dredging was resumed along with massive pumping to drain the flooded areas after the intervention of the PM.
The EA never prohibited dredging and the after flood report showed that dredging would not have prevented all homes flooded in Somerset from flooding (and that improved pumps later installed were major factor in future reduced flood impact).
the Somerset floods -and major flooding in the UK in all years but one since 2000 have been the result of increased, more intense, slow moving rain systems (and more intense summer storms). The UK climate has changed.
2015/16 winter floods in Cumbria saw the second set of 1 in 100 year flooding in Cumbria/Carlisle, overwhelming new flood defences built to handle 2005 floods and impacting even on dredged rivers in the area.
Compare photographs of the rivers Parrett and Tone in the late 50s early 60s with 2015 and they were twice as wide then seriously affecting the drainage of the Somerset Levels. This was due to low priority given drainage maintenance.
The UK climate has changed.
2015/16 winter floods in Cumbria saw ……
What has caused the UK climate to change Griff is it due to natural causes?
the climate is changing
acc. to MY results currently at a rate of -0.015K/annum since 2000, but it is speeding up.
Naturally.
Gleissberg & all that stuff.\\
http://virtualacademia.com/pdf/cli267_293.pdf
refer to tables II and III
we are in the cooling mode….
Thanks for that HenryP; what you are saying is that climate is changing and has changed naturally over millennia due to changes in solar output. The cooling that you mention since 2000 must also be natural as no-one ever mentions anthropogenic global cooling.
don’t want to sound alarmist but count back 86.5 years from now: where are we? 1930. Only 2 more years to go and you have the dust bowl drought [great plains of America]
that was a bad time….
count back another 86.5 years: 1845
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/habitat/documents2/Woodhouse.pdf
the affected areas are currently the breadbasket of the US.
I have a funny feeling that the big shots in governments know exactly what is coming [naturally] but blaming mankind itself on the coming drought disaster will be easier???
Move the few anti-pollution enforcement roles of the EPA to Interior and replace it with a non-cabinet ECA (Environmental Coordination Agency) whose sole role is to investigate and arbitrate environmental disputes between the states.
The EPA now goes beyond what is needed and appropriate far too often. They need a firm hand to guide them.
My complaint against the EPA is that they have abandoned science as the basis for policy making and substituted pseudoscience.
An argument against the EPA is that they can’t be trusted, at least in their present configuration. I believe their bungling which led to the 2015 release of toxic waste water from the Gold King Mine into the Animas River was deliberately done to create a superfund site which they would then control. A retired mining engineer stated this in an op-ed letter over a week prior to the “accident.”