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.
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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 .