Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Financial Times asks, if De Blasio is so hot on tackling climate change, why does he ride in a SUV every day when he visits the gym?
New York’s easy answers on climate change
Fixing infrastructure would be better for the city, and the planet
JANUARY 13, 2018 6 Climate change, New York’s mayor Bill de Blasio declaimed on Wednesday, is “a painful, horrible reality”. He is right, which is why it is disappointing to watch him refusing to face that reality squarely. Mr de Blasio talks a good game on climate change. Some of his initiatives responding to the threat have been worthwhile. But like his fellow Democrat and rival Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York State, he has a weakness for grandstanding instead of tackling the difficult challenges. Transport is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in New York State, and its impact is exacerbated by traffic congestion, dirty vehicles and crumbling infrastructure. Fixing those problems would do more to address the threat the city faces, and to improve the lives of New Yorkers, than attention-seeking stunts.
…
The worst aspect of these initiatives, though, is that they deflect attention away from the politicians’ own contribution to the problem. When Mr de Blasio said this week that it was “time for Big Oil to take responsibility for the devastation they have wrought”, it was a disingenuous oversimplification.
Without those oil companies, New Yorkers would have frozen in their homes in the bitter cold of the past week, and Mr de Blasio would not be able to ride an SUV to the gym every weekday.
It is true that fossil fuel interests have had a generally toxic effect on the debate over climate change in the US, corrupting the Republican party in particular into a reckless refusal to acknowledge climate science and its implications. But rather than looking for easy scapegoats in Texas or Europe, Mr de Blasio and Mr Cuomo should acknowledge their own responsibilities closer to home. Mr de Blasio has opposed a congestion charge for New York City, which would both improve traffic and raise revenue. Mr Cuomo, who controls the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that runs the city’s subway, has presided over mismanagement and under-investment that are bringing the system to its knees. It has been far too slow to adopt technology such as electric buses already used in cities around the world, with the first pilot launched only this week.
…
Read more (paywalled): https://www.ft.com/content/a44ef4e8-f7ad-11e7-8715-e94187b3017e
What a surprise – a climate crusader who rides around in a SUV, who prefers high profile publicity stunts ahead of addressing real problems with solutions which might improve the lives of the people who voted for him, solutions which might even reduce New York’s carbon footprint.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Terrapower and Toshiba had agreements back in 2010 for building traveling wave reactors (TWRs), which is relatively mature technology. In 2015, Terrapower signed an agreement to build a prototype 600 MWe reactor unit at Xiapu in Fujian province, China, beginning this year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower
TWRs can generate electricity from the “nuclear waste” some activists use as reason to abandon nuclear power entirely. You might think such activists would be enthused about neutralizing that waste through additional power generation. That doesn’t seem to be the case.
Sorry, posted in wrong thread. Deletion encouraged.
“It is true that fossil fuel interests have had a generally toxic effect on the debate over climate change in the US, corrupting the Republican party in particular into a reckless refusal to acknowledge climate science and its implications.”
Is it true? What exactly did the oil interests do to the Republican party? How did they persuade half of America to be skeptical? What persuasion methods did they use, and why are they so effective? Why didn’t they use those same methods on Democrats and just end the debate in their favor? Why don’t the environmentalists and the 97% of all of the scientists use the same methods to persuade, instead of the seemingly ineffective methods that they have used for 30 years? How did the oil interests effect the debate, when there was no debate due to the unwillingness for CAGW advocates to even participate?
I don’t know a single skeptic who who was made that way by something an oil company said or did. Not one! Yet liberals are constantly saying that almost all skepticism is the result of oil company propaganda. Anybody here been persuaded by oil company propaganda? Anybody here have any information about how oil interests performed this remarkable feat?
Anybody?
Nope. And what’s more, the propaganda IS AGW, and has had an order of magnitude more money behind pushing it, so it’s hard to imagine that skepticism is based on oil company propaganda when (a) there is little evidence of it and (b) it has been drowned out so thoroughly by “climate change” and/or “global warming” hysteria for the last three decades.
“I don’t know a single skeptic who who was made that way by something an oil company said or did. Not one! Yet liberals are constantly saying that almost all skepticism is the result of oil company propaganda.”
The Left always has to have an target to focus their anger and hate on and in this case its the evil oil companies. In other cases, it’s the Koch brothers, or some other evil manipulator.
Such a criticism by the journals should start by pointing out that decreasing emissions is a waste of time as CO2 does not warm the climate. Then, they should point out that the reason that he rides an SUV to the gym is because HE KNOWS THAT CO2 IS NOT WARMING ANYTHING.
It’s a giveaway in the behavior of liberals that emission decreasing and such is a political scam and not a real threat.
Perhaps I might believe if only I could believe that the Greens actually believed. Here’s a plastic bag and some duct tape. Prove how important fighting CO2 really is.
A realist.
Yes, I’m all for that “put your CO2 management where your mouth is” solution. ;-D
Those who say Al Gore is personally doing nothing to alleviate global warming have failed to notice the increase in his girth. In fact, the Goracle is engaged in personal carbon sequestration. Recent research shows that carbon is sequestered in human fat, and the worst thing you can do in a quest to reduce atmospheric CO2 is to lose weight.
http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7257
well, so long as you get buried, not cremated
California recently licensed a process by which bodies can be dissolved.
Right around the same time Bill Gates wants to start selling incinerators to municipalities, in place of waste water plants.
deBlasio doesn’t even pay for his “tailored to Fit” Armani Suits from Italy.
So who pays?
Coumo? Not!
“Boom Boom” Bloomberg?
Very likely!
Ha ha
We really are dealing with idiots;
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/what-australia-will-look-like-in-2049/news-story/6bf3643963a334491c0282768e3e222f
“Plants have been genetically enlarged for maximum carbon capture and the urban landscape beyond is transformed by an abundant canopy of green.”
I have to repeat that global warming as evoked by big shots like di Blasio is a fantasy dreamed up by a group of pseudo-scientists claiming to be “climate scientists.” This group maintains that increasing greenhouse gases in the air will increase global air temperature. Nothing can be more wrong as Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi a Hungarian scientist, has shown. He studied NOAA radiosonde records of atmospheric temperature and carbon dioxide content that covered a sixty-one-year period when he had access to them. Below is what the radiosonde record tells us. During these sixty-one years the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by slightly over twenty percent. This should not greatly surprise climate workers who keep telling us about the human-caused increase of greenhouse gases. But the second observation from the radiosonde work should put an end to the claims that the greenhouse effect causes global warming. The radiosonde record shows clearly that during these sixty-one years no atmospheric warming took place. This is completely against everv dogma about the greenhouse gases warming effect. But this is also the current dogma of global warming :scientists” who are propagandizing it. The effect of the greenhouse gases on global temperature raise according to radiosonde observations clearly zero, or nothing, or just plainly non-existent. You will find this fact documented in the peer-reviewed scientific article called “The stable stationary value of the earth’s global atmospheric Planck-weighted greenhouse-gas optical thickness” that appeared in the journal “Energy and Environment”, volume 21, issue 4, pp. 243-262 in the year 2010. Further data from Miskolczi’s observations was also shown as a poster display at the EGU meeting in Vienna in April 2011. Clearly if there is no greenhouse effect the huge sums of money spent on emission control are monies stolen from the public under false pretenses. This fact also falsifies Hansen’s statement of 1988 which started the greenhouse madness going. He said that “…the global warming is now large enough that we can describe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and the observed warming.” The statement is totally free of science, but it carried the day for the global warming group who established the IPCC as it is now. That pesky science of which I speak of can is simply ignored by these true believers in the misinformation from he global warming propaganda machine. The fact that Miskolczi’s work. available in open literature for seven years but is practically unknown is proof of the effectiveness of this propaganda machine. As a former teacher I find that these people have not done the homework needed to pass.
Come on, Bill, close the borders of New York City to coal, oil, and gas. The rest of us will appreciate your sacrifice, and enjoy seeing you freeze.
In Germany we have a saying: Der Hehler ist schlimmer als der Stehler. Means: The concealer is worse than the thief.
New York is the big concealer, always greedy taking everything what the thief companies (in their thinking) is delivering.
They’re trying to shakedown the investors, which are largely made of pension plans.
The very green Paris mayor has also been exposed as a hypocrite:
http://www.caradisiac.com/enquete-exclusive-anne-hidalgo-prone-le-metro-mais-se-deplace-uniquement-en-voiture-video-164685.htm#xtor=AD-254
New York Mayor De Blasio looks exactly like a typical Left Wing Dreamer who just talks and talks, but is too lazy to get off his butt and tackle real problems, and certainly would not give up his visit to the gym in his huge SUV and instead, walk, cycle or take public transport as everyone else does.
Dear Mr Mayor
If you research the facts you will find that the historical and future theat to global humanity is the banks that operate within your territory. Their behaviour and destruction are well documented, starting from the reserve Bank down. You may find that they are some of the biggest shareholders and beneficiaries of the oil companies. Take a cup for donations.
Start in your own backyard rather than tackling an intangible such as agw.
With regards
The above article reads (excerpt):
“It is true that fossil fuel interests have had a generally toxic effect on the debate over climate change in the US, corrupting the Republican party in particular into a reckless refusal to acknowledge climate science and its implications.”
NO it is not true – most fossil fuel companies have acquiesced to global warming falsehoods, because their CEO’s and their Boards did not have the courage or foresight to fight this anti-human, anti-environmental nonsense. They have contributed to the hysteria and cost their shareholders and society trillions of dollars.
They had no reason not to acquiesce: way back before the millennium I attended an ‘alternative energy’ conference where the likes of Shell, Exxon and many universities shared their research results.
The conclusions any intelligent person would draw is that none of it was a cost effective solution to anything, and almost none of it was going to result in a reduction of fossil fuel burn.
What it would do, however, is make energy more expensive, this increasing the value of fossil fuel reserves.
The only threat to this would be nuclear power and huge increases in viable fossil reserves via fracking.
Guess what the Greens are against.
Go figure where at least some of the funds come from.
With overlapping and converging interests until there is an irreconcilable conflict of interests, they are trying to have their baby and a-bort her, too.
HI Leo,
I agree that it was obvious to intelligent engineers as early as the 1980’s (and earlier) that intermittent sources of energy like wind and solar power were not going to be economic means of replacing fossil fuels; we wrote this conclusion in a written debate with the Pembina Institute published in 2002.
Exxon opposed global warming alarmist falsehoods on scientific grounds when Lee Raymond was CEO, and I respected that position because it showed integrity.
.
In contrast, Shell and BP “paid lip service” to global warming alarmism and reportedly funded Greenpeace to support a damaging embargo “at the pumps” against Exxon in Europe. Exxon capitulated and some time after that.
I did not respect the conduct of Shell and BP then or now – and you know what we call people who “pay lip service” to a false cause.
Regards, Allan 🙂
More here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/09/its-about-time-exxon-launches-counterattack-against-california-based-climate-conspiracy-lawsuits/comment-page-1/#comment-2713297
Mr de Blasio is just another example of a modern ‘well to do’ whose public ideals are not intended to apply to him. While this is obvious to a rational mind, these folk continue to get elected, so what they say must resonate to a large part of the electorate, an extraordinary outcome as those who are voting for them will be the first to suffer.
mayor, adventurist, and bigot.
Oil companies should respond by suggesting Mr De Blasio promote a $5 per gallon tax on gasoline, diesel and heating oil. This will reduce demand and CO2 emissions, and Mr DeBlasio will be very popular with voters.
Don’t forget natural gas and propane (per equivalent unit), and electricity (generated using such fuels).
Well, one problem New York apparently shares with many UK cities is that of the Greens and their promotion of cycling turning footways into velodromes.
Meanwhile the relatively innocuous Segway and hoverboard are banned. Totally. Which you might think is because they are powered and therefore not carbon-neutral, but then we now have e-bikes being introduced that are likewise powered, and much faster. Which, effectively, amounts to a motorbike that you need no licence, insurance or registration to use on the road. Most being operated with no lights either.
Make sense? Well, only if the objective is to promote a certain business sector. Which I think is what’s behind most of this Green stuff.
I have often bumped in to cyclists on footpaths (Sidewalks), or rather they bump in to me, after which they usually find themselves sprawling about on the floor with a bike on top of them. Don’t take too well to someone running me down on the street.
It’s always fun when those of the Climatist persuasion criticize their own, usually for things like hypocrisy, oblivious of their own hypocrisy. It’s like watching a band of thieves, rapists, and murderers squabbling amongst themeselves. They fail to see the big picture; that they are part and parcel to the biggest lie in history, that lowly CO2 is our enemy, when the exact opposite is true.
Oh dear it’s worse than we thought. Seems our portentous pontificator is not into low gym miles-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4571326/Bill-Blasio-slammed-using-SUV-travel-gym.html
Seems Bill is using the Royal plural here lowly folks-
‘Everyone in our own life needs to change our habits to start protecting the Earth.’
Fourhundred and twenty five million year question: If for all that time CO2 & temperature not associated with #climatechange, why now ? See Davis et al., 2018
Progressives are Out Of Touch on a Biblical Scale; NAACP Should Demand Re-Direction of Climate Change Funding to Inner-Cities
If you go into a black community and poll the residents, I feel confident that none, not a single resident, would rank preventing climate change as one of their top 10 priorities. The social and economic statics of the black community are horrifying, and yet on MLK day 2018, the NAACP claims that “MLK’s Vision Can’t Be Achieved Without Fighting Global Warming.” This, out of all examples, highlights the complete and absolute corrupting force that Climate Change has become. No example I have found demonstrates that absurdity of Climate Change more than the NAACP betraying those whom they claim to represent, and putting the needs of the Democratic Party above them.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/01/15/progressives-are-out-of-touch-on-a-biblical-scale-naacp-should-demand-re-direction-of-climate-change-funding/
It just shows they are not above perverting Martin Luther King’s legacy for political purposes.
God Bless Martin Luther King. He wasn’t a perfect man, and who is, but he stuck to his peaceful protests even in the face of violence, and ultimately, his peaceful way was the right way.
I was in New York City’s JFK airport, headed to Vietnam, when I learned of Martin Luther King’s assassination.
I was in a bathroom and a black man was in there also, and then another black man came in and said to the first, “Hey brother, have you heard the news? Someone has killed Martin Luther!
I’ll never forget the looks on their faces. They were just stunned, and I’m not sure they even noticed me in there, they were so caught up in their own thoughts, and then both of them left, and I went outside to wait for my flight wondering what the future held.
“God Bless Martin Luther King. He wasn’t a perfect man, and who is, but he stuck to his peaceful protests even in the face of violence, and ultimately, his peaceful way was the right way.”
Very true.
And now we have this:
Are Separate Dorms A Good Or Bad Thing For Black Students?
The announcement that California State University, Los Angeles agreed to the demands of black student groups at the school to establish separate dorm housing for blacks ignited the predictable furor.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/are-separate-dorms-a-good_b_11912864.html
I wonder which end of the bus they’re going to demand to sit in…
Rosa Parkes must be doing about 10,000 RPM.
Not uncommon for some of the biggest green washers to ride around with a bike in the back of Suburban/Escalade park three blocks from a public venue and then role in on their bike with barely a hair out of place . Every city has a Moonbeam or two .
Now that the psychiatrist’s have declared open season on politicians whom they have not personally met as patients it should be no problem coming up with a de Blasio assessment for being a danger to society .
But maybe a quicker way is just to see who his bag men are .