Guest post by David Middleton
Much of the sarcasm in this post, as well as some of the material, was borrowed from previous posts of mine.
At first glance, I thought she was flipping the bird at the camera.
Energy and Environment
EPA chief: Trump can’t halt U.S. shift to clean energy
By Brady Dennis November 21
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday gave an impassioned defense of the Obama administration’s energy and environmental policies and insisted the nation’s shift from fossil fuels will continue no matter who occupies the White House.
“The inevitability of our clean energy future is bigger than any one person or one nation,” Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a speech at the National Press Club that was twice interrupted by protesters.
[…]
“Science tells us that there is no bigger threat to American progress and prosperity than the threat of global climate change,” she said. “And if you take nothing else from my speech today, take this: The train to a global, clean-energy future has already left the station. We have a choice. We can choose to get on board, to lead. Or we can choose to be left behind.”
[…]
“Science tells us that there is no bigger threat to American progress and prosperity than the threat of global climate change”… Good fracking grief!!!
Can you say delusional?
The Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy (DICE) model, developed by William Nordhaus at Yale University, which has the highest climate costs of the Obama administration’s three models, estimates that global GDP in 2100 without climate change would be $510 trillion. That’s 575 percent higher than in 2015. The cost of climate change, the model estimates, will amount to almost 4 percent of GDP in that year. But the remaining GDP of $490 trillion is still 550 percent larger than today. Without climate change, DICE assumes average annual growth of 2.27 percent. With climate change, that rate falls to 2.22 percent; at no point does climate change shave even one-tenth of one point off growth. Indeed, by 2103, the climate-change-afflicted world surpasses the prosperity of the not-warming 2100.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442383/donald-trump-climate-change
Setting aside the facts that the Social Cost of Carbon is 100% mythical and that neither 2.27% nor 2.22% growth are paths to prosperity (2% growth is basically treading water). We’re supposed to gleefully spend $44 trillion over the next couple of decades based on a statistically insignificant difference between two rolls of the DICE?
Even with U.S. “leadership,” the commitments made by other countries under the Paris agreement look almost identical to the paths those countries were on already. Thus the agreement’s impact is at best a few tenths of a degree Celsius. MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, for instance, projected 3.9°C of warming by 2100 without the Paris agreement and 3.7°C with it.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442383/donald-trump-climate-change
If Ms. McCarthy defines “prosperity” as the difference between 2.27% and 2.22% GDP growth, she is fracking delusional.
If Ms. McCarthy thinks that our salvation from the “threat of global climate change” rests on the difference between 3.7°C and 3.9°C from 1850-2100, she is delusional… Particularly since almost all of the actual observation-based data indicate that the total warming in a “business as usual” scenario will be no more than 2°C from 1850-2100.
This bit is priceless…
“The train to a global, clean-energy future has already left the station. We have a choice. We can choose to get on board, to lead. Or we can choose to be left behind.”
“The train to a global, clean-energy future” is the tiny green “hockey stick” at the bottom of the graph. It runs mostly on corporate welfare and the “train” literally “can’t get there from here”…
Despite the investment of over $1 trillion of private capital and billions in corporate welfare since 2008, wind and solar have actually grown at a slower pace than natural gas and are projected to have a slower growth rate through 2040. Renewables, including hydroelectric, have barely gotten back to where they were in 1930.
Draining the Swamp
The swamp draining can’t begin soon enough. This will be a good start:
Donald Trump is poised to eliminate all climate change research conducted by Nasa as part of a crackdown on “politicized science”, his senior adviser on issues relating to the space agency has said.
Nasa’s Earth science division is set to be stripped of funding in favor of exploration of deep space, with the president-elect having set a goal during the campaign to explore the entire solar system by the end of the century.
This would mean the elimination of Nasa’s world-renowned research into temperature, ice, clouds and other climate phenomena. Nasa’s network of satellites provide a wealth of information on climate change, with the Earth science division’s budget set to grow to $2bn next year. By comparison, space exploration has been scaled back somewhat, with a proposed budget of $2.8bn in 2017.
Bob Walker, a senior Trump campaign adviser, said there was no need for Nasa to do what he has previously described as “politically correct environmental monitoring”.
“We see Nasa in an exploration role, in deep space research,” Walker told the Guardian. “Earth-centric science is better placed at other agencies where it is their prime mission.
[…]
Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said as Nasa provides the scientific community with new instruments and techniques, the elimination of Earth sciences would be “a major setback if not devastating”.
“It could put us back into the ‘dark ages’ of almost the pre-satellite era,” he said. “It would be extremely short sighted.
[…]
“Without the support of Nasa, not only the US but the entire world would be taking a hard hit when it comes to understanding the behavior of our climate and the threats posed by human-caused climate change,” he said.
[…]
Hopefully President Trump’s first budget will zero out some of this…
Federal funding for climate change research, technology, international assistance, and adaptation has increased from $2.4 billion in 1993 to $11.6 billion in 2014, with an additional $26.1 billion for climate change programs and activities provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009. As shown in figure 1, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has reported federal climate change funding in three main categories since 1993:
- technology to reduce emissions,
- science to better understand climate change, and
- international assistance for developing countries.
The EPA needs to be cleaned out, shut down, and the nest of rats in there charged with crimes against the people and all of them sent to prison.
May well resemble an upcoming scene at EPA, David. This too.
https://youtu.be/MMKFIHRpe7I
Two fingers to you too Gina !
“EPA chief: Trump can’t halt U.S. shift to clean energy”
Neither would he want to, he has always been very clear that he wants clean air and pure water. What he will be able to do is stop the BS misuse of what the words “clean” , “dirty” and “pollution” mean.
The Clear Air Act will get back to being about clean air once anti-science political activists like Gina McCarthy are out of the way.
The problem is this: How clean, is clean enough. Many environmentalists insist that only 100% pure is acceptable, and they don’t care how much of your money they have to spend to reach that goal.
How clean is clean, you ask? Drink a gallon of 100.000% clean water all at once and it can do significant damage to the drinker (due to lack of mineral salts). So achieving the absolute limit isn’t necessarily beneficial; indeed, it is seldom cost effective say nothing of the deleterious collateral consequences.
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/dhm1353035/Spencer_ECI_zps16948f96.png
only 100% pure is acceptable
==================
The perfect is the enemy of the good
Voltaire
in striving for perfection we consume all available resources and do more harm than good.
I wonder if she has decided where she will live out her retirement!
@David Middleton
Many years ago I heard that the rule of thumb for abatement was that each decimal point shift was 10X the cost; if 90% is x, 99% is 10x, 99.9% is 100x, and so on.
Well said!
Well, in some countries, two fingers up is a similar gesture to the middle one alone in the US. Still a kind of “Up Yours” especially where sir names begin witn MC or MAC
I think we need to force the Clean Air Act to make our air 100% pure. We need to start making our air 100% pure Oxygen. Can you imagine the health impact that will have?
I sure hope you guys don’t really believe this is about some clean freaks getting carried away . .
How clean is clean? People should realize what conditions were like in the 1950s and 60s. Things were bad, the Great Lakes were dead from pollution – society was using them for a sewer, coal was burned the old fashioned way…, and no one paid attention. When Nixon created the EPA in 1970, it was needed. By the 1980s most of the cleanup was in high gear and only time was needed for it all to take full affect. Since then, the EPA has grown into a totalitarian monster searching for a mission to justify itself. Truth is, the EPA should be dissolved. Let the Dept. of Interior deal with any “accidents”. At this point economic prosperity will keep things in check: A rich nation will demand a clean environment, while a poor one only works to prevent starvation, leaving the environment to fend for itself.
Izzatta she or one of the other 57 (not including hermaphrodites).
Don’t worry Gina, the free clean green renewable energy program will shut down all on its own, without any help at all from PE Donald Trump.
G
Notice how the rats leaving the sinking ship are all getting uppity as they head out to find useful work.
I would think all engineers are familiar with The Law of Diminishing Returns.
Do you suppose they have any over at the EPA?
@ Rotor,
There is no real “Law of Diminishing Returns”.
There is however the “Law of Conservation of Energy”. Which is where the concept of diminishing returns comes from.
They should also include in that bunch of rats, LISA JACKSON, who SEPP named their April Fools Award after her. The Trophy is a LUMP of coal.
Let’s not forget another EPA lost cause who was convicted of fraud, super CIA spy John Beale, now out of jail and enjoying a lucrative retirement on the taxpayer’s dime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Beale
..Hmmm, I think the “Alarmists” are in the last stages of “Trump D’nile” !!
Science tells us that there is no bigger threat to American progress and prosperity than……the alt left
No, Science doesn’t tell us that – science may provide an answer to why things happen, but it tells us nothing.
It is our previous experience that tells us that the alt left is the biggest threat to progress and prosperity. And based on this previous experience, the sooner we get such deluded people out of positions of power the better.
The left does seem to attract a certain personality type.
“The inevitability of our clean energy future is bigger than any one person or one nation,” Administrator Gina McCarthy said…
This is not alt left. The “inevitability” is the same inevitability we can find in Marx’s Das Kapital – and criticized by Karl Popper under the term historicism. The Don is forcing the leopard to show its spots – is the hunt on?
Observation: A correlation between Leftists in power and a sluggish economy, social disorder, racial tensions, foreign encroachments.
Hypothesis: Leftists in power are bad for the country.
Experiment: Allow Leftists to have complete power for eight years. Almost, but not quite, a destruction test…
Experimental result: An even more sluggish economy, more social disorder, racial tensions at the breaking point, foreign encroachments that extend even into the sovereign territory of the country.
Conclusion: Hypothesis is highly likely to be true – experiment did not demonstrate the null in any way, shape, or form. Advance former hypothesis to the status of theory – or even law of nature.
too funny….they claim the science is settled
“Without the support of Nasa, not only the US but the entire world would be taking a hard hit when it comes to understanding the behavior of our climate and the threats posed by human-caused climate change,” he said.
NOAA can take over any climate duties NASA has at this time.
NASA can still build and launch the satellites.
there is no bigger threat to American progress and prosperity than the anti-science, anti-progress RESPONSE to the farce of global climate change..
USA has to get away from the going down the massively costly, environmental and economically destructive “climate change™” agenda if it is going to survive as the USA.
Trump will be marked as the saviour of the USA IFF he sticks to his promises.
Latitude November 23, 2016 at 7:37 am,
True and how easy things move left: Robert Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics.
1. Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
2. Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
3. The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.
Closely related is the Iron law of oligarchy.
From McCarthy’s NPC speech:
“We’re in a spectacularly different place today than we were when President Obama took office.”
Well, at least she got one thing right.
Yes we are now almost $20 Trillion dollars in debt without anything to show for the doubling except a stagnant economy, the EPA is out of control, destroying the economy and frequently required to step down by the Judiciary with wild undocumented requirements. I have listened to her testify before Congress and I have never heard anyone less competent and unable to answer questions intelligently, while being arrogant toward the people she is supposed to answer to.
Much of the “progress” made during the previous 8 years was due to EPA going after small increments of emissions that cost more and more to remove. The economic justification for the mercury and air toxics rule (MATS) was not due to benefits in reducing mercury, it was from reducing particulates that were already being reduced by other regulations. And even those “benefits” were suspect, being based on, you guessed it, models.
And progress being made at the state level on CO2 is based on 2 factors: 1) greenies in charge of the state government willing to spend other people’s money on the renewables that would not exist without subsidies, and 2) power companies and state regulators trying to get a jump on the CPP. In spite of what many think, planning a whole new way to run and supply the grid takes a considerable amount of time. Beginning to comply in 2022 was a real crunch. If the return on investment is only based on state goals, then many projects will evaporate, I have already seen one do just that.
When the bigs like Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook wake up and see their shareholder value being squandered on paying too much for renewables then a lot of this business will dry up.
Yes and we need answers about the “ILLEGAL HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION” conducted by EPA and exposed on Steve Milloy’s website JUNK SCIENCE. Click the features button and take a walk on the wild side.
Gina, you’re fired.
“It could put us back into the ‘dark ages’ of almost the pre-satellite era,” he said.
They are already there. NASA, our space agency, has long touted the manipulated surface data for global temperature, ignoring the satellite date which wasn’t giving them the answer they wanted. Close down Gavin’s department for sure. It is just a free office and staff for “realclimate anyway.
Trump’s needs to have explained the difference between climate monitoring and all the alarmist climate modelling BS done by GISS.
It would seem appropriate for NASA to be launching satellites : that is “space” and they are a space agency. What they need to defund is the worthless, politicised climate modelling and the IPCC
BTW it is also worth noting that much of the useful climate data has come from the military Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, once that data was declassified and made publicly available.
This is an very interesting point here : Who does actually pay for the GOES satellites? Isn’t that the NOAA as opposed to NASA? The satellite monitoring and data collection are vital for any studies on meteorology, but since there are many agencies (public and – essentially – private) who can build and deliver the satellites (and do the analysis) just what does NASA provide for their funding?
When NASA was the only agency that could put up a satellite, of course they had a role (although their role on the data analysis of terrestrial temperatures has always seemed a bit tenuous to me). Now that they don’t have a monopoly on near earth orbits, they really need to stop their mission-creep and re-focus their goals.
Let us all hope that Mr Trump’s administration realizes that the first A in NASA is aeronautics, and reverses some of the reductions in that part of NASA’s budget.
There is a simple misconception in Ms McCarthy’s statement. In general, NASA neither builds the satellites, nor the instruments. The satellites are built by contractors for NASA, and the instruments are developed either by contractors, universities or labs. NASA manages the satellite development, test and evaluation, launch, on-orbit checkout and operations of the satellites. However, much of the work is contracted out. Deleting the Earth sciences budget and moving some of the work to NOAA will not really change this – NASA can be involved in the satellite work. NOAA can specify what the satellites have to do and handle the data
@Retired_Engineer_Jim
Good points, I doubt very many people understand how that system works.
BTW I am a “Retired Engineer Jim” as well.
If Yale is so sure the DICE model works, let it invest its entire endowment for 10 years based on the model. After ten years we can see if the model actually works.
Well,
Trump + a Republican Congress + a Republican Senate + Trump Court appointments + a ball point pen + a castrated Main Stream Media + EPA over reach + Elon Musks’ coal powered cars + Solyndra
=
an end to “clean energy” boondoggles funded by the taxpayer.
It won’t be the end to “clean energy” boondoggles funded by the taxpayer. There is a lot of inertia built it. I think the best we can expect is for Trump to put a big dent in it.
True…Any that are as a consequence of exec order are over.
Also.. consider the chilling effect Trump et al as above with have on investment speculators. Shorting Clean Energy companies will be high risk….Investment money (with the exception of Gates etc) will go elsewhere.
Trump is not into dents!!!!
Yes, Mr Middleton – lots of inertia. For example, next year’s budget is pretty much ready for submittal to the Congress – the new Administration can adjust it (for example, take Earth sciences away from GISS and transfer soem of it to NOAA), but there won’t be major changes. The US Government “… maneuvers with the stately grace of a battleship.”
And thanks for the article – sarcasm enjoyed.
I have to interject and offer evidence that significant government programs can be stopped cold: the B-2 and the F-22, for example. Both programs were terminated abruptly, even though neither had reached the intended production quantity. The Seawolf-class submarine program was stopped cold after only 4 were produced. The Future Combat System was ultimately canceled after 10 years of no results (which is why I always referred to it as the Futile Combat System). Yes, other programs linger, but the point is to demonstrate that programs can be killed immediately.
All it takes is to pull out the financial plug. Lights out. Flat-line. Room Temperature.
I would also point out that if programs are canceled WITHOUT ANY REPLACEMENT, the program staff will be in a great stir and tizzy to find gainful employment. They will probably not have much time available to run blogs or posture before news cameras. They will probably have to align their careers with actual space or aeronautical science in order to remain on payroll.
Let us remember, we are talking about a president who made his reputation by saying “You’re Fired.”
“Science tells us that there is no bigger threat to American progress and prosperity than the threat of global climate change,” she said
————————————————–
until you look at the data
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2873672
Semantics.
The world will shift to energy sources with lower CO2 output over time as fossil fuel resources become rare and expensive and the costs of other energy sources fall. But the massive taxpayer “incentives” will stop and much of that money will find more productive uses.
Natural gas to nuclear (N2N) is the fastest, most cost-effective pathway.
Currently. 5 years from now it could be different.
I don’t believe in trying to solve future problems with current technology.
Since you can never currently have future technology, how do you solve future problems now?
/Sarc
Try Combined Cycle Gas Turbine over PWR Nuclear Steam. Do it NOW! (And no cooling towers allowed – they waste large quantities of drinking water!)
You are sadly misinformed. I suggest you read Nuclear Scientist Robert Zubrin’s “Merchants of Despair”.
We will never run out of carbon fuels as they are by-products of nuclear daughter reactions.
OH YES WE ARE SITTING ON TOP OF THE NUCLEAR REACTOR IN THE EARTH”S CORE. WITH A VIRTUALLY INEXHAUSTABLE FUEL IN URANIUM & THORIUM .
Who is Ms McCarthy putting up her two fingers towards? The American people, perhaps?
Maybe a bit harsh to all left wing ladies but why do I think they are all trying to look like men and are so unattractive? I had to take a look twice before I saw a woman in the picture ( and it was the finger thing that gave it away).
“The train to a global, clean-energy future has already left the station”
Which platform did it leave from? Platform 9 3/4?
It is actually a hearse, not a train.
One of Hansen’s death trains?
SteveT
Yes, and that train would have never left the station without diesel fuel made from petroleum.
Gonna be that way for a long time, too.
There are electrically powered trains – but the power probably comes from nasty old coal-fired power plants.
If clean energy is inevitable, we can do away with the subsidies.
Exactly! The private sector will embrace and commercialize them when they’re economically viable, and not a moment sooner.
Rocky
Spot on.
My one huge hope for PE Trump, and for Brexit Britain.
If quasi socialist states choose to waste tax-payers’ [yes, other peoples’] money – that is their look-out.
Auto.
If the “train” that Gina McCarthy is driving ever gains steam, we will all be looking at $3,000 per month electric bills. She is indeed “delusional.”
Take a look at this piece that was just published by CBC a few hours ago re: Ontario’s situation.
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/opinion/ontario-hydro-bills-1.3862838
Maybe Josh should do a solar-windmill powered train leaving the station puffing steam, the “greenhouse gas” called “water vapor”, with Gina on the caboose’s rear platform having “the vapors”?
Just a thought. 😎
To see the likes of Gina McCarthy put firmly back in her little box will be one of the great treats of Trumps presidency. It will be priceless. Ta-ta Gina, sweet cheeks.
Draining the swamp should not be confused with mine draining, right Gina?
She should go to jail for that decision.
…with the released drainage as her only water source.
Without subsidies that train will be climbing an ever increasing grade until the wheels are spinning in place.
Alter the Wetlands Act also.
It is merely typical watermelon power-madness. If we had a few more back-bones, they would simply be ignored, their crony socialist budgets cut or eradicated while the rest of us get on with productive, prosperous living.
If SO CALLED “clean energy” is VIABLE, we can do away with the subsidies, because nobody needs subsidies for something that is economically viable.
The swamp is vast and costly. All those enviro degree grads had better bone up on paid protesting, sign making, and troll services.
In a way she is right: “Science tells us that there is no bigger threat to American progress and prosperity than the threat of global climate change,”
Except that the threat is the measures imposed by the EPA to combat an invented problem.
Be sure and fire Gina before she leaves the building and call in security to escort her out. Then start the email searches including the private email accounts.
Regarding 2% (annual) economic growth being “trading water”: That was when population growth was great enough for per-capita GDP growth rate to be no more than 1%. Global population is slowing and expected to be near zero in a few decades.
Another thing in the past few decades, at least in the US: 1% annual growth of per capita GDP being insufficient to cause inflation-adjusted median income to grow is due to increasing income disparity. Mean inflation-adjusted income has been growing while the median has not.
You, Sir are a fool!!!!!
Lame duck EPA chief Gina McCarthy says —
“The train to a global clean-energy future has already left the station. We have a choice. We can choose to get on board, to lead or we can choose to be left behind.”
This is a woman who does not think clearly. The train has already left the station. How can you get on board? Go chasing after a moving train? Well, I guess this is just one of her minor illogics but I thought I would point it out.
This woman has beliefs not backed by reality. I say — as go the subsidies so goes clean energy. And the subsidies are going to go.
Eugene WR Gallun
The major problem is not the political appointees like Gina McCarthy, but the civil service staffers at EPA, many of whom are zealots. It may be required to do a reorganization to RIF the existing staff, as without another very difficult change in law, they are very difficult to fire.
Why doesn’t this EPA buffoon know anything about advanced energy technologies that not only
don’t require subsidies, but that will provide reliable and cheaper power than any other technology, and eliminate the issue of nuclear wastes as well. Think molten salt reactors, children. From several
sources (MIT grads at Transatomic Power, or England’s Moltex Energy , or the Chinese govt crash program) we will get a commercial reactor within 5 years that can be produced in factories, deployed quickly, able to consume nuclear wastes as fuel, never run out of fuel – can even burn Thorium – intrinsically walk-away safe, incapable of spewing radioactive material into the environment or experiencing a core meltdown, can load follow demand, etc Superior operating characteristics and economics will lead all countries to adopt these reactors – no govt subsidies needed. To make decisions about a subject, it is sometimes beneficial to know something about those subjects (sarc.)
The Chinese head of their LFTR programme is on record as saying they expect first commercial Thorium reactor no sooner than 2030
The molten salt reactors will only be able to be operational quickly in the US if (IFF) the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can accelerate its processes. They can only be operational quickly if (IFF) all NGO / nuclear protest legal actions are resolved quickly, decisively and across the whole of the model range (no mor lawsuits for each and every installation – leagally clear them once). They can only be deployed quickly if the anti-nuclear propaganda of the last several decades is publicly shown to be rubbish and protesters laughed at. I should think that by now we would know that valid technology and valid science really don’t mater much – we now live in the world of hopes and reams, where whatever some activist says is taken as ground truth.
I get what you are saying, but the simple fact is that present nuclear reactor technology is safe and has a very low cost per kilowatt-hour. So-called nuclear wastes (used reactor fuel rods) need only be processed to remove the neutron poisons so they can continue to be used as fuel. (This will not be significantly different for thorium, which produces fission wastes according to a very similar spectrum with U-235 or Pu-239, -240, and -241.) There are thousands of tonnes of uranium and thorium in every cubic kilometer of seawater. Reactors built within containment vessels (de rigeur for about half a century in the United States) are “incapable of spewing radioactive material into the environment.” If you are concerned about uranium enrichment or core meltdowns, I recommend the CANDU reactor (look it up), which cheerfully does without either.
Thorium is fine, but it is NOT NECESSARY. There is nothing intrinsically wrong or debilitating with present-day nuclear reactor technology. It is perfectly adequate and economical. What is necessary is to remove the political stigma about nuclear power per se, and this can be done by knocking the nonsense down like a pesky fly. And, as already mentioned, put the permitting process under rational management.
Interesting.
” The train to a global, clean-energy future has already left the station. We have a choice. We can choose to get on board, to lead. Or we can choose to be left behind.”
The last bit of the sentence fits perfectly with President Obama’s tendency to “lead from behind”.
So what is all the fuss about?
While they are kvetching about the distant future productivity cost of NOT doing anything about AGW, how about the cost of doing the WRONG things today. Like negative compound interest, the losses in GDP every year from fruitless ventures will multiply lost GDP in the out years.
Without government’s thumb on the scale and appropriations, the hype on climate change will disappear. Talk about the ultimate echo chamber…
Has EPA penalized itself for the Animas River spill?
‘Bye, Gina! Don’t go away mad, just go away…
To me, Gina McCarthy appears to be a very angry person, even to the point of being filled with hatred. All that such people need to do to satisfy that hatred is to pick a side. Then, any action taken against any opposing side(s) becomes justified, regardless of moral or rational basis to the contrary.
she is a modern liberal so indeed filled with HATE is accurate.
Let us propose a toast to the new TRUMPOCENE!
“The train to a global, clean-energy future has already left the station. We have a choice. We can choose to get on board, to lead. Or we can choose to be left behind”.
Wow, so many questions.
Okay first, if the train has already “left the station”, then how are we supposed to “get on board”? Fly? Secondly, if we managed to get onboard somehow, then what – are we supposed to suddenly, magically “lead” the train by I suppose suddenly becoming train engineers?
Her flawed ‘train has left the station” analogy is understandable though, in that the idea is for us to act now, “before it is too late”. This is a typical ploy for someone trying to sell you snakeoil.
Hansen’s ‘death train’perhaps?
I agree with the EPA and Trump. Can the progress be stopped? Not once it is economically viable to stand on its own. Given the current pace and my personal opinion, I believe 30 – 50 years. Better hedge my bet to an even 100.
“Nasa’s Earth science division is set to be stripped of funding…”
—————–
As long as Gavin Schmidt gets defunded (and ousted,) then the world will be a much better place.
I would like to see Schmidt forced into a mea culpa situation and acknowledge his many erroneous assumptions. Perhaps an intervention is required …
“Science tells us that there is no bigger threat to American progress and prosperity than the threat of global climate change”…
What they are really trying to say there, but won’t is:
“Science tells us that there is no bigger threat to American progress than the threat of prosperity ”…
That’s the way that I see it.
“No greater threat …. than that of global climate change…” Really? Try EMP! – The true threat – now! Avoidable with a fraction of the costs now wasted – and requiring the re-employment of many workers now idled.
I hope Trump keeps NASA’s evidence of Climate Change page up but just annotates it with facts showing it was pure specious crap. The perpetrators of the scam need to be jailed.
I don’t understand why Trenberth is complaining, because his organization stands to benefit from the shift of money from Gavin to him.
What makes you think the money going to GISS will be redirected to NOAA? I think the money to GISS will just stop.
“The cost of climate change, the model estimates, will amount to almost 4 percent of GDP in that year.”
The ‘cost of climate change’ is really the ‘cost of the demonstrably false belief that man has any significant effect on the climate’. It looks like they are seriously low balling the cost of this mistake, because it only seems to include the presumed indirect costs of warming, while the piece of the pie they ignore is all the money and opportunity wasted attempting to mitigate a problem that can’t exist. They actually consider this waste to be positively adding to the GDP!
The most expensive component of this cost is too large to be measured in dollars which is the damage done to the integrity of science by allowing political narratives to drive scientific conclusions.
Where is ol’ Griff when he is needed? AWL!!!
Day out – and some internet problems… apologies to anyone who asked me a question & has had no reply… haven’t been able to make browser work. I love computers…
This should be an easy “your fired” for Trump when the head of the EPA doesn’t know how much CO2 is in the air.
Also I’ve been looking for how much the U.S. spends on climate change per year. I’ve found from tens of billions to hundreds of billions. Anyone have an idea?
This is a little dated (to 2014) but gives a good idea of what the trend has been in the recent past…
Federal Climate Change Expenditures Report to Congress: ~$22 billion dollars per year,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/fcce-report-to-congress.pdf
Wait, wait. I thought the purpose of NASA was to promote the multitude of Muslim accomplishments in the sciences. I don’t wish to be pejorative, but didn’t Obama actually say that some years ago?
Yep,
Obama directs NASA to reach out to Muslims,
http://www.space.com/8725-nasa-chief-bolden-muslim-remark-al-jazeera-stir.html
He most certainly did…
Oops, I misspoke yesterday, “EPA Chief Urges Staff To Finish Obama’s Agenda Before Trump Takes Over”
Nov 11, 2016
Oops! I wrote yesterday that “Gina McCarthy has announced that the EPA has effectively stopped working on a cap and trade scheme and their other ambitious plans related to the Clean Power Plan (CPP), Waters of the United States (WOTUS), etc. to prepare for the orderly transfer of power.”
Self-righteousness rarely goes quietly into that good night “and the world looks just the same and history ain’t changed….” I should have known that the early reports were wrong.
It is still safe to assume that energy, environmental safety, wireless broadband, the electrical grid and their convergence will continue to play a preeminent role in America’s future, even without the moral rectitude and certainty of the current EPA. Steve
I hope the screen door hits her in the ass on the way out
You had to go and give me that visual, didn’t you?
“God will get you for that, Walter.”
I would lie to kick her in the ass. Except my foot would b soiled.
The EPA has developed into a formidable behemoth:
“… Since 2006, the EPA Criminal Enforcement Program spent approximately $715 million fighting ‘enviro-crime.’ With 200 Special Agents, the EPA also spent millions of dollars on military-style weaponry … for example: $2.1 million purchased guns and ammo up to 300MM – the majority of these expenditures were on weapons “up to 30MM” ($1.73 million).
Other checkbook entries included body armor, camouflage and deceptive equipment, unmanned aircraft, night vision, radar equipment, tactical sets, kits, and outfits …”.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2015/10/21/the-climate-change-liberation-army-and-u-s-environmental-protection-agency-epa-adventurism/#26f44e6941b9
And all that must be transferred immediately to the armed forces.
Climate change is on balance good! A Limerick and explanation.
The Epoch named Anthropocene:
Man’s fire appeared on the scene.
CO2, it is good
makes it green, grows more food.
To call it THE threat, that’s obscene.
A longwinded defense of CO2: https://lenbilen.com/2016/11/22/climate-change-is-on-balance-good-a-limerick-and-explanation/
If we could predict the climate, not weather, for 1, 10, 100 yrs ahead, 100% accuracy, what benefit could we derive from that?
Now how much would it cost if we could?
What is the likely cost/benefit?
Now mathematics tells us that we will never be able to predict 1yr at 100% accuracy. So I propose that we stop all climate modelling, all climate research and switch to a sane, expandable energy system and a sane adaptable environmental system.
Not proud of the English in this but I’m tired
The EPA should be relegated to advisory status.
McCarthy should be brought before congress (as should her predecessor), for destruction of public documents and contempt of congress.
Hopefully, once the ‘swamp’ is cleaned out, they can start putting traps out for the rats.
The EPA should be eliminated entirely. Virtually every state in the nation has an EPA of its own. Let each state deal with these issues as it deems fit. 50 states, 50 laboratories. Get the issue down to the local level where it belongs.
The train to a global, clean-energy future has already left the station. We have a choice. We can choose to get on board, to lead. Or we can choose to be left behind.”
The name of that train is: “The Gravy Train” which features billions in government funding, salaries, graft, favoritism, political agenda, biased science and corruption. It needs to have a “train wreck” and we need a new way of doing things that focuses on authentic science, that uses critical thinking and has real world accountability. Apply it rationally to our energy, environmental and other policies.
Go after the real pollution in the air, water and soils. Since the EPA made its political decision to declare CO2 as pollution in 2009 (to regulate it under the Clean Air Act) and we’ve heard all about carbon “pollution” for a decade, many people’s brainwashed minds would probably explode if they tried to comprehend the scientific fact that CO2 is actually a beneficial gas.
Rather than trying to understand it, unfortunately most will instead fight the truth vs going along for a ride on the “reality train”.
I hate that I even know who the EPA administrator is, what she looks like, and what she sounds like. She should be just another faceless (to me) senior administrator, managing the legitimate and beneficial environmental protection functions of the bureaucracy she heads.
“The train to a global, clean-energy future has already left the station. We have a choice. We can choose to get on board, to lead. Or we can choose to be left behind.”
Is getting on board a train that has already departed actually a choice?
Sorry, I think I’m under the confluence of mexed mitaphores.
Speaking of swamps, it was stated recently by a TV personality that Donald Trump created the current toxic divide in this country, that he “created the swamp” that we currently live in. I would disagree with this statement and correct him by suggesting that he, Donald Trump, emerged from that self-same swamp, that he is a product it.
You see, the thing about nature and science is that it behaves as it does regardless of our opinions, that it operates independent of our beliefs and we ignore or disregard that reality to our peril.
There is always the option to take the next train.
The EPA Administrator is just “whistling past the graveyard” when she says the train has left the station already.
The fuel for that train is U.S. taxpayer money, and the money is about to be cut off.
All that the new administration needs to do:
1. Support the lawsuits challenging the new EPA power plant rules. That will certainly kill them.
2. Reopen the EPA endangerment findings with a panel of senior scientists who are experts in physical science, earth sciences, mathematics and statistics (no climate scientists) who will hear presentations and submissions from scientists pro and con on how serious we know global warming to be. Let them decide whether an endangerment finding is warranted at this time. (Most likely not.)
3. Fund only climate research which objectively tries to further our understanding of the climate system. Stop this endless running of super computer models which seems to have little purpose. Fund model work which seriously attempts to validate the models.
4. Subject all green energy proposals to cost benefit analysis. No free ride, must compete for tax expenditures.
5. Send the Paris accord to the Senate, with a deadline for approval. It will not pass and is therefore dead.
No notification to the UN is necessary.
Critics will rant and rave, but it will be clear that they are the “deniers”.
Even if it passes the Senate, Trump sill has to sign up for it.
Here is a view inside the locomotive pulling the climate gravy train that just left the station:
https://youtu.be/WEu-FMS7nXo
A translation would be helpful.
Good first photo! For cultural reason, that works particularly well for a UK audience. Gina McCarthy’s EPA has been giving us all the “two finger salute” (palm facing in, for US readers) for some time now.
Your projection to 2040 is obviously based on a model. I don’t believe in models, and I am sure that Pat Frank would show that the error bars are an order of magnitude larger than the predictions.
She left off a word: “Science tells us that there is no bigger threat to American progress and prosperity than the threat of global climate change [POLICY]”.
Enjoy your retirement Ms. McCarthy…..
You can have Gavin over for some Mahjong. He’ll have plenty of time too….
I once listened to Gina McCarthy testify before Congress. She couldn’t explain the carbon cycle. She’s got a screwy master’s degree in Environmental Health Engineering, whatever that is, and an undergraduate degree in sociology. In short, she’s the perfect choice to run the EPA. She may even be a genuinely stupid human being. She sure as heck knows nothing at all about climate science.
Make sure this crazed pervert and all under her have their emails saved. The letter should go out now. Use Judicial Watch or a similar group to send out the notice not to destroy.
Meet the new member of the Former Club headquartered in the Bay area.
The train to a global, clean-energy future has already left the station.
Good, once the train has left all the fares have been colllected. Nothing more to pay.
Well he can’t, can he?
US corporations, states like California, New York, Hawaii and probably Iowa and Texas will keep installing renewables…
Heck, the TVA is still saying it will retire coal plant and invest $8 billion over the next decade in renewables.
Not if the subsidies disappear.
I am pretty sure you do not understand the post you just made.
How so?
Not all renewable installs rely on subsidy.
why would the states I name change their policy under a Trump administration?
why would large Us corporations entirely stop renewables?
also, S&P just issues a report saying that shale gas was major factor in coal decline, not US climate policy/Obama and said decline would continue, maybe accelerate, given Trump’s proposals on shale gas
“The train to a global, clean-energy future has already left the station. We have a choice. We can choose to get on board, to lead. Or we can choose to be left behind.””
Or we can let the leaders pay through the nose for the less-efficient models, and join everyone else when it’s cheap and reliable.
The leader would be Germany and cheap and reliable would be now…
Germany has approved over 24 new coal fired generators… Because wind and solar is unreliable, pushing their power grid to point of fracture.. It appears they don’t want to be Australia and total grid failure.
Merkel has been a failure but there are signs of sanity.
Yea, we should follow Germany’s example cuz it’s been sooooo stellar (sarc/off)…
A brief history of the “successes” of the German RE initiatives…in no particular order.
Germany Votes To Abandon Most Green Energy Subsidies: DC 2016
“Despite the cut backs to wind power, the German government estimates that it will spend over $1.1 trillion financially supporting wind power, even though building wind turbines hasn’t achieved the government’s goal of actually reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to slow global warming.”
http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/10/germany-votes-to-abandon-most-green-energy-subsidies/#ixzz4EPHQGAW1
2016: Current State of RE in Germany: ‘[Wholesale] Electricity Prices in Free Fall’ Major Utilities headed for collapse; “expensive” RE responsible,
“At the same time, electricity customers are also having to help pay for these distortions. The grid operators are allowed to pass the difference on to the customer between the high remuneration costs of feeding green electricity into the grid and the market price. The lower the market price, the higher this sum, which is known as the EEG levy…Altogether, the EEG levies in 2016 add up to almost €23 billion. Gauged on the current EEX quotation, the green energy produced this year has a value of less than €4 billion.”
https://global.handelsblatt.com/edition/395/ressort/companies-markets/article/electricity-prices-in-a-free-fall
Merkel Allies Call for Renewable Curbs as Wind Overwhelms Grid
“Germany faces “massive network problems,” it said. “Gigawatt targets can’t be chiseled in stone.” Steps taken in 2015 to maintain grid stability cost power consumers more than 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion), said the lawmakers.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-22/merkel-allies-call-for-renewable-curbs-as-wind-overwhelms-grid
Germany’s Energy Poverty: How Electricity Became a Luxury Good
“The government has high hopes for the expansion of offshore wind farms. But the construction sites are in a state of chaos: Wind turbines off the North Sea island of Borkum are currently rotating without being connected to the grid. The connection cable will probably not be finished until next year. In the meantime, the turbines are being run with diesel fuel to prevent them from rusting.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288-3.html
…Confused by Germany’s Green Energy Failure
“In fact, these policies are harming Germans by raising electricity rates and pushing jobs to lower-cost countries. Transitioning from affordable and reliable energy to expensive and unreliable energy is nonsensical. Simply put, the German model is one to be avoided—not emulated.”
http://americanenergyalliance.org/2015/05/07/germanys-green-energy-failure/
Gone With the Wind: Weak Returns Cripple German Renewables
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/wind-power-investments-in-germany-proving-riskier-than-thought-a-946367.html
High Renewable Energy Costs Damage the German Economy
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/338781/high-renewable-energy-costs-damage-germanys-economy
“In other words Germany is dirtying the planet in the name of clean energy – and sticking its citizens with an ever-escalating tab so it can subsidize an energy source which will never generate sufficient power.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/03/14/germanys-green-energy-disaster-a-cautionary-tale-for-world-leaders/
Germany’s Expensive Gamble on Renewable Energy: Companies Worry Cost of Plan to Trim Nuclear, Fossil Fuels Will Undermine Competitiveness,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/germanys-expensive-gamble-on-renewable-energy-1409106602
Germany’s Energy Policy Is Failing the Poor, While Being a Poor Way to Help the Climate
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140321133218-322580126-german-energy-policy-is-failing-the-poor-while-being-a-poor-way-to-help-the-climate
http://www.cfact.org/2014/12/16/germanys-energy-transformation-unsustainable-subsidies-and-an-unstable-system/
German’s set to cut back on green subsidies
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/german-industrial-risk-green-energy-shift-fails-151906863–business.html#RVqz0bg
Germany’s renewable power problem
http://notrickszone.com/2013/10/18/germanys-green-energies-lead-to-skyrocketing-electricity-prices-feed-in-rates-increase-more-than-10-fold/
If you contend with any of the sources for this information, or have verifiable evidence that any of this is false please quote you issue from the text and supply links to source material for you refutations.
[snip . . . mod]
isk – cut and paste is never a good idea without reading and understanding what you are pasting…
And pasting partisan information like notrickszone is no use whatever.
You need to post primary data from German sources.
Germany continues to roll out renewables, it has overwhelming public support for that, even with high electricity prices – Germans use less of that expensive electricity than people in the US and very likely have some renewables or a share in them to offset cost.
The government has reformed and directed its renewables industry so the FIT payments will be affordable and while it waits to complete its major grid upgrade.
Griff please stop trying to make out that Germany’s system is utopia because it isn’t. They have an off shore wind farm that has now cost over a billion and yet has virtually produced no power. They have closed down Hydro systems because they have become uneconomical because of the subsidies for wind and solar and at one point Poland were looking at disconnecting from the German grid because the fluctuations could bring down their own. That is total insanity when Hydro is probably about the greenist power of the lot.
People in Germany are now finding it impossible to pay their power bills because of the rise in costs.
I am all for green power where it is practical but there is just too much insanity in the industry now.
“Germany continues to roll out renewables, it has overwhelming public support for that, even with high electricity prices”
So, all this proves is that Germans gullible. Too bad for them.
Bill, it agreed on those 24 coal plants in 2008 – all except one stalled one are now complete, are more efficient than the col plant replaced and shut down and get this – they are not building any more. They finished building coal, they will never star another one. (they were originally intended to replace nuclear).
People – if you are going to post on Germany, please do check this. There are no German coal plants building now, certainly none involved in any replacement or fail of renewables.
(One element of the plants may not ever open)
mikeb
I’m trying to show a realistic picture of Germany, warts and all, not a ‘it failed and they are building coal because it failed’ , which is completely inaccurate.
They did have a problem connecting one offshore windfarm – it is now operational. As are several others
You need to keep checking, because renewables change fast… the problems flagged up in sites unfriendly to reenwables may well be fixed later.
“Berlin, 18 July 2016 – In the first six months of 2016, 43 new offshore wind turbines were connected to the grid, with an overall capacity of 258 megawatts. By 30 June 2016 there was a total of 835 offshore wind turbines feeding 3,552.2 megawatts of power into the grid. Another 54 turbines, with a capacity of 324 megawatts have already been erected and are due to go on grid shortly. Foundations have been erected for a further 142 turbines. The industry anticipates that in the course of the year new offshore wind turbines will feed a further 700 megawatts into the grid in Germany. This means that by the end of the year there will be a total output of almost four gigawatts on grid in the German North and Baltic Seas. The average capacity of each turbine connected to the grid has risen from a good four to six megawatts. More efficient turbines with longer rotor blades now have the edge.”
http://www.gwec.net/expansion-of-offshore-wind-energy-in-germany-in-the-first-half-of-2016/
(you will see this is billed as only moderate growth in a situation limited by slow grid expansion)
In the photo at the top of the article, Gina McCarthy clearly had two points to make.
Calling CO2 pollution is science incompetence. Calling it carbon makes it sound more ominous and distracts from attending to possible real atmospheric pollutants from coal such as particulates, NOX and sulfur (as the Chinese are experiencing, especially with the smog in Beijing. Technologically advanced countries use precipitators to remove the real pollutants).
CO2 does not have, has never had, and will never have a significant effect on climate.
Few Americans understand how their government works. Until recently, regulations came from legislation. The legislative branch would pass a bill to address a problem. The regulators would propose regulations and after a comment period issue the regulations.
Before the internet, I had the latest version of 10CFR50 on my desk. Sometimes it is as simple as following industry codes and standards.
There is a relief valve on your hot water heater because it is required by code. However, there was a time when steam explosions killed people. Good engineering practices resulted in steam systems with relief valves. Laws and then regulations enforced safety on those who might try to save money at the expense of safety.
Then the ‘feel good’ agenda started. Legislation to require low flow shower nozzles for example took effect around 1986. This had nothing to do with safety. Since this saved money in the long run, most of the gripping was personal freedom and government intrusion. Nothing said you could not have as many low flow nozzles as you want. In my last house I had a steam shower. Worth every penny in extra energy cost.
Next it was light bulbs. There is not safety or environmental justification.
Much of the old legislation was justified based on not needing to build new nukes. The irony is nukes are the best for climate change.
Of course congress has refused to pass legislation to regulate ghg. The problem with slippery slopes, as the current head of the EPA is finding out, is sliding out the door.
Ret – “Few Americans understand how their government works.” One example of our failed public/government education system.
Eventually it will be more widely known that non-condensing (in the atmosphere) ghg have no significant effect on climate.
Is that the same Gina McCarthy who a couple of years back could not provide an accurate answer to a question about how much CO2 (same CO2 she came to warn about) was currently in the atmosphere – while getting questioned by a Congressional Committee, if I recall correctly?
Yes, that one.
“Science tells us that there is no bigger threat to American progress and prosperity than the threat of global climate change,” she said.
Actually, genuine science tells us that there is no bigger threat to American (or name your own country here) progress and prosperity than the cost imposition of the implementation of CAGW (it’s global warming they keep pushing via the “hottest day/week/month/year evvaaaaah!”) scam the likes of the EPA, IPCC, Obama, Gore et al and the green washers and carpet baggers keep pushing.
“Science” loves me, this I know.
Because Gina tells me so.
Gina deserves to ” retire “in S California surrounded by the other fruit , nuts and fakes until
global warming causes California to shake rattle and roll .