Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Guardian author Oliver Milman is worried that despite solid assurances of commitment to climate action, Democrats are failing to deliver the climate measures greens expect of them.
Climate change tightens grip on US west coast despite progressive aspirations
California, Washington and Oregon have led criticism of Trump’s climate policies, but change hasn’t been easier closer to home
…
“The states are struggling to fill the gap for the federal government on climate change,” said Nives Dolsak, of the school of marine and environmental affairs at the University of Washington.
“In Washington, we are holding a very good policy hostage because it’s not perfect. Inclusion and equity concerns means we are losing momentum and public support on climate change.”
…
Last week, an effort to introduce the first straight tax on carbon dioxide emissions failed in Washington state, with governor Jay Inslee admitting it couldn’t pass the Democrat-controlled senate. “On the arc of history, we’re not quite far along enough on the arc,” said Inslee, a Democrat and vocal proponent of action on climate change. “That day will come, but it wasn’t quite here yet.”
The tax, which would’ve started at $20 per ton CO2 emitted, faced criticism it would increase the cost of energy or, conversely, that it wouldn’t generate sufficient money for clean energy programs. Meanwhile, in Oregon, another state dominated by elected Democrats, lawmakers failed to agree on a cap on greenhouse gases and will instead revisit the issue in 2019.
The stuttering progress of climate change policies sits awkwardly with international assurances from the broad coalition opposed to Trump that the US has not given up on tackling dangerous global warming.
…
I suspect what we are seeing is the collapse of the green lie that climate policies help the economy. Even California sees the occasional Democrat mutiny over the introduction of job destroying green policies.
As President Trump’s initiatives drive up national economic growth, at least in states which care about jobs and prosperity, politicians in green states will face increasingly difficult questions from angry voters demanding to know why their state is being left behind.
I suspect what we are seeing is the collapse of the green lie …
Don’t hold your breath.
Yes, unfortunately. The green blob a weed that keeps spreading, like the deadly dodder, that sucks the life out of everything it touches.
Kudzu comes to mind
Dodder (Cuscuta spp.) is an apt symbol for the Blob. It’s parasitic on just about any other plant it contacts. some of it’s common names give you an idea of what it’s like: strangle tare, scaldweed, beggarweed, lady’s laces, fireweed, wizard’s net, devil’s guts, devil’s hair, devil’s ringlet, goldthread, hailweed, hairweed, hellbine, love vine, pull-down, strangleweed, angel hair, and witch’s hair.
See the Wikipedia description and substitute the Blob in for dodder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuscuta
If anyone wants to know how to grow kudzu, here’s an excellent tutorial.
http://www.walterreeves.com/how-to-archive/how-to-grow-kudzu/
All natural systems follow a normal distribution. There is an initiation, rise, rapid acceleration, peak, then rapid decline. Fads operate this way, and climageddon is a fad. It has peaked.
Steve I would agree. All we are seeing from those three states is fear of the unknown. Trump and the supposed populist movement that brought him to office scares the heck out of Democrats. While I no longer get information about “internal polling” and focus groups results I am betting that the results the Democrats are seeing are either very confusing or moving away from those Democrats presently in power. We will hear a lot about the “generic Congressional ballot.” Seldom if ever since such polling was conducted did Republicans come out on top on the “generic ballot” yet when the gap narrows dramatically Democrats generally suffer huge losses both locally and nationally.
Wait until 2019, and the green blob will be back.
I’ll be voting Democrat, as always.
What I like about them is their absolute lack of conviction, which ensures zero follow-through on their insane electoral platforms. Can you say the same about your precious GOP, huh? Can you, huh?
“…Democrat, as always…”
Definition of partisan (Miriam Webster)
1 : a firm adherent to a party, faction, cause, or person; especially : one exhibiting blind, prejudiced, and unreasoning allegiance.
+1
Nice snark. but I used to live in California. Those puppies do eventually do something, very expensively and very inefficiently.
Notanist
“…..person; especially : one….”
By simple Three Word Quotation, it can be shown that your comment is meaningless.
“…Webster) 1 : a…”
Huh?
Eric
+1 for the +1, but I’m afraid you’re in a small minority by virtue of getting my point.
Tom Halla,
“Nice snark.”
Thanks, and yes, I did forget the /nicesnarc tag, d’oh.
It’s not the election promises, it’s the regulations.
Good one Brad, actually got a laugh, not just a grin. Thanks.
Democracy has
failednot failed!Brad, the US is not a democracy. Democracy is mob rule.
Isocrates (a Greek teacher of 2400 years ago) had this to say about democracy.
Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.
So what are you proposing instead?
An isocracy? A Galactic Republic? A Central Soviet?
Yes, yes, I’ve watched enough West Wing episodes to know the answer is “a republic.”
But surely it’s a democratic republic? Or am I thinking of China?
A wise man, that Isocrates!
Freedom has come to mean a sense of entitlement to do what one wants regardless of it’s impacts on society. Freedom sans civic responsibility. Equality of outcome is neither possible nor just. Equality of opportunity is a delusion; it will never happen as long as there is great inequality, and free market capitalism tends to accrue wealth in the hands of the few.
That’s because we live in a Representative Republic and the libs are always trying to change it to a democracy, which will always fail—-our time is drawing nearer with $$200T in debt and promises mostly attributable to Democrats.
Brad Keyes,
Think Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Any country that has Democratic as a part of their official name most certainly isn’t.
And then again, perhaps it is they who really understand the meaning of the word “democratic” and it is we who are confused and wandering in the darkness?
As long as someone else and evil corporations were paying the bill nobody cared. After all, “they were saving the earth for their children”. They don’t even realize that China is replacing the CO2 emissions they avoided, and paid for!
How about an affordable method of CO2 removal from the exhaust of combusted fossil fuels?
It’s good for the Environment and the Economy and it won’t affect electricity prices.
That looks as credible as Solar Freakin’ Roadways.
Yes, it’s nonsense. Using amines that are recycled for scrubbing CO2 is a well established, but expensive, method. CO2 is regenerated and has to be disposed of. The cost is basically energy.
The bright idea here is to use CaO to absorb the CO2. But how do you get CaO? By calcining CaCO3, creating CO2. It just (expensively) shifts the problem of sequestering CO2 to somewhere else.
You could pump the CO2 into seawater that has natural Ca in it. That’s where most of it ends in any case. But, I guess I’ll get strangled for this opinion by both ‘mentalists and hard core plant foodists.
Nick, if you don’t want to have it somewhere else you may reuse (recycle) the CaCO₃ at the site 😉
CtM, the amine process works well in a reducing environment. It is how CO2 is scrubbed from natural gas before putting the gas into pipelines. It is a disaster in an oxidizing environment, as both Beaver Dam in Canada and Kemper in Louisiana have shown.
cm wrote: That looks as credible as Solar Freakin’ Roadways.
Thanks Charles.
That got the day’s biggest chuckle from me.
It wasn’t an exciting day!
I stopped watching as soon as I saw the video falsely represent CO2 (a colorless, odorless gas) as dark puffs coming from the stack. This happened at the 12 second mark.
Besides, why limit plant food? The earth is greening, trees are healthier and crop yields are up.
Precisely. The MOST effective way of sequestering CO2 is to encourage plant growth.
A couple of nukes desalinating the sea and irrigating greenhouses in the sahara sounds right to me
Also, unfortunately-we are not warming!
Sid Abma – Removal of CO2 from exhausts or from anywhere else would not be good for the environment (witness the marked increase in global plant mass in recent years, as measured by sarellite), it would be economy-destructive to the extent that it used people’s time and money that could have been better used elsewhere (as per Bastiat’s Window), and its cost would obviously be a direct additional cost for power generators.
obviously, pitching your line here on WUWT, is not to find venture capitalists.
heh- but that 1950’s cartoon diversity portrait is so funny.
Who f**************kn cares about removal of CO2?. We need more CO2 in the atmosphere NOT LESS. However If someone wants to capture CO2 from coal then go ahead and turn it into any non toxic product you want. The marketplace is there Go for it.
@ Sid Abma
After viewing the video, a few questions come to mind.
1) The top output stream is CaCO3. Presumably the source of the Ca is the treated farm waste input stream. What is the expected amount of Ca in the input stream, and what is the Ca content of the raw farm waste. Can you provide the amount of Ca in terms of lbs./acre farmed. This would give us an idea of the farm yield.
2) The second output stream is biofuel of some description. The farm waste input stream must be largely cellulose. The chemistry of reacting cellulose with CO2 to produce a fuel is not obvious to me.
Could you please sketch out the chemistry and provide one or two of the predominant reactions.
As the biofuel production is a key claim of the process, I think it is important to have such a central reaction described in at least broad brush terms.
Thanks in advance.
Yes, the video is a bit light on details.
The underlying patent seems to be here. The calcium seems to come as CaO input, created of course ultimately from calcium carbonate, which is described as a product. Calcining the carbonate creates one molecule of CO2 for each absorbed.
The biofuels seem to be just the beet residues co-precipitated. I can’t see anything that enhanced their fuel effectiveness. It is basically a sugar purification process, rebadged as carbon capture.
@ Nick Stokes:
Good find on the patent.
Just So, you seem 100% correct that this is sugar beet processing renamed as CO2 sequestration.
1) The video makes no mention of CaO input. Particularly as it comes from roasted (energy consumption) CaCO3. So the process is actually CO2 neutral, as you observe, except for the energy input to roast the limestone.
Why did Sid Abma not mention this little detail? Must have slipped his mind.
2) I wonder what the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) might have to say about the exhaust from burning coal with all of the bad things in it, used for food stuff production? I hear that the FDA can get a bit fussy about chemical contamination of foods.
In any event, Sid Abma seems utterly unwilling to engage us here at WUWT. The WUWT community has wide ranging, and in depth knowledge across all the scientific and engineering disciplines. Yet he does not engage with us. I wonder why that is?
Thanks Nick.
We already have an affordable method for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It is called trees…You have probably seen a few around.
Just imagine how better the world would be if trees had been planted with all the funds wasted on questionable energy schemes. 🙂
The ocean actually does it better than trees it holds about 85% of the CO2 in circulation.
One of the more interesting areas of research from actual hard scientists is the use of the enzyme Carbonic anhydrase to actually increase the uptake by 200-500 fold basically dropping CaCo3 out of solution. There are lots of thoughts around how it might be deployed in nature.
In OZ a few years back we had a prime minister that did not believe in the scam of climate change,but to placate the maddening throng came up with his plan to fight climate change. A ship load of money was pumped into planting trees to sequester CO2. It was tongue in cheek but was very successful.
Pump the scrubbed flue gasses through oyster beds. They filter algae and use the CO2 to build shells. Win Win .. and tastes great too.
Trees certainly look better than wind turbines.
Displaces food production which may result in a jungle being cleared elsewhere.
– Again – CO2 is not the problem!
This is the third time this guy has posted this link.
I wonder how much he has invested.
What’s all the worry. CO2 is good for life on earth it is an essential plant food.
“As President Trump’s initiatives drive up national economic growth, at least in states which care about jobs and prosperity, politicians in green states will face increasingly difficult questions from angry voters demanding to know why their state is being left behind.”
The key phrase is those last two words “left behind”. And that’s exactly where many Democrat states will find themselves throughout this year as Trump’s economic agenda continues to unfold.
And do you want to explain how a 25% tariff on steel will drive up national economic growth?
Tariffs hurt in the short term but help in the long term, as domestic production starts to fill the gap. Any tariff war another country cares to fight will almost invariably hurt them more than us. It’s a push for fair trade over so-called free trade. It’s about seeing the long game, something a businessman like Trump has much experience with and career politicians have almost none.
Dred,
The issue is not that domestic production will increase but that it is more expensive
and so the economy will be worse off overall. There are in the USA 125000 jobs in
steel manufacturing but almost 1.5 million jobs using steel. So 1.5 million jobs will
see a loss since their costs will be higher but only 10% of that number will see an increase.
‘steel manufacturing but almost 1.5 million jobs using steel. So 1.5 million jobs will
see a loss since their costs will be higher but only 10% of that number will see an increase.’
Not sure that one should judge this tariff decision immediately.
Trump tends to play a long game.
This is the opening play./
next he will approach other nations and ask,’what can you do for us’.
He is arguing that steel and aluminium are strategic materials, so there will not be a push back according to the rules.There is no international agreement preventing the imposition of tariffs on strategic materials.
In the meanwhile the USA is well positioned to manufacture aluminium,’solid electricity’, because of its low electricity costs, and so prices, the envy of us Australians.
Similarly its coal is available and there is no successful campaign, unlike in Australia, to prevent the mining of coal.
Bluescope steel, an Australian company,could even profit from this decision.
http://www.afr.com/markets/trump-tariffs-to-boost-bluescopes-bottom-line-analysts-20180305-h0x0n6
Canada could be brought to heel, the US card being ‘What’s in it for US.’ if we lower the tariff wall.
Low coal and electricity prices will reduce the home produced costs of these materials, with the cost of freighting them across the Pacific not an issue, a lid can be put on local prices.
Over time Trump will lower the tariffs, as long as other ‘Free Trade agreement’ countries sing along.
Its been done before, Bush did it.
Germonio, it is a carbon tax to reduce steel use and CO2 emissions in China. We are guilty of emissions in China (or at least ‘we’, if you are ‘white’ and ‘male’.)
Ah – a Warmunist clueless about economics pretending to “care” about economics. Priceless.
Tariffs hurt in the short run, and hurt even more in the long run.
Yes politically favored industries do benefit, but everyone else suffers as jobs are lost in the rest of the economy due to increased prices which limit consumer purchasing power and reduced exports because the tariffs result in American products becoming uneconomical in the world market.
BTW Dred, the minute those tariffs are removed, domestic production collapses, just as it did the first time.
When the Chinese government subsidizes building steel plants so they can produce huge amounts of steel to be sold at cost or at a loss, again subsidized by the Chinese government, with the intent to dominate the world market you call that free trade.
When in Mexican auto plants they don’t have a minimum wage, they have a maximum wage, you call that free trade.
But don’t listen to me, I have only been in manufacturing for 30 years. What would I know?
If China wants to tax it’s people in order to subsidize our consumption, what’s wrong with that?
Even China will run out of money eventually. In the mean time our manufacturers make hay by taking that cheap steel and using it to build products that take market share from China in every other market sector.
You seem to feel that it’s only “free trade” when all other countries are as hampered by the stupidity of their respective governments as we are?
BTW, skilled craftsmen make way more than minimum wage, even in places like Mexico.
Well, if you care about the environment, and, want to stop CO2. Look at it from this perspective. China’s production of electricity, hence steel production, is twice ours in terms of CO2 emissions. How high of a carbon tax would you place on their goods?
A little quick research on the costs/benefits of President Bush’s year and a half of 8% to 30% steel tariffs and corresponding reprisals came up with a few studies on the subject. As far as I can tell, a median estimate was that it cost 20 million dollars. This is out of a ~7 trillion dollar economy. Total jobs increase/decrease is hard to ferret out and swamped by larger economic trends.
Seems that it really doesn’t make much difference one way or the other.
I’m generally a free-trader, but I’m not getting all spun up about this.
China is taxing their people to subsidize our consumption? Good lord, that is about as dumb as it gets. You truly don’t get it do you? Once the industry that makes strategic materials is dead in our country and in other countries around the world, what will they do? What will we do if we go to war with China?
And you honestly think (baa ha ha ha ha!) the Chinese people are paying for those steel mills. You really don’t get it. The Chinese people make pennies on the dollar to what we make. They aren’t getting rich, there is no massive tax bonanza to be had there. We are paying for those steel mills! What do you think a trade deficit is all about? Do you know our imports to China have heavy tariffs?
No offense, I realize you are just ignorant. You have no idea how trade with China or Mexico works.
I suppose you think China is raking in billions of US dollars for our benefit, right?
Yet California reported the lowest unemployment numbers for over a decade this past month. Guess we aren’t shooting ourselves in the foot too badly, at least not yet.
It’s called a cycle and Calif. will get theirs on the next downswing after the cumulative effects of investment exodus are factored in.
The whole country is producing record low unemployment numbers. The fact that CA is following that trend is neither surprising nor praiseworthy.
The question is, how much has unemployment dropped in CA compared to the national average.
A rising tide lifts all boats. At number 30 in rankings, I wouldn’t crow too loudly.
No DC demonrats to fund their fraud, huh? They can always reduce C02 by shutting their idiot mouths.
On the arc of corruption, they aren’t quite far enough along on that arc. They will be someday, but not today.
Against the odds, I hope that we are seeing the start of a realisation by some of the left that ‘Climate Change’ Policies would destroy the economy. It is a tide of emigration from California that shows what voters think of lunatic Green policies. President Trump’s initiatives ignore ‘Climate Change’ and restore the National economy. This obvious relationship makes voters question Democrat/Green policies in State Legislatures. The more voters think about the ‘Climate Change’ Fraud, the clearer they will see reality again.
Thank heavens for the failure of this measure in the Oregon legislature. I had a back and forth discussion on this with our House rep, who was one of the sponsors of the bill. They could not explain exactly how $4/gal gas, 20% more expensive food, and higher electrical rates would result in even a miniscule difference in the climate. That, coupled with the fact that Oregon is ALREADY at the bottom on the emissions scale and decreasing (due to industry moving away) could not possible be justified.
Just as bad is that they are calling this “Cap and Invest”. The reason it’s not “Cap and Trade” or “Cap and Tax” is because they require a 3/5 majority to raise taxes and think they can dodge by saying “invest” instead of “tax”. Just like the Obamacare mandate was judged a tax to make it constitutional, but Democrats kept denying the fact.
Forwarned is Forearmed. I am seriously considering putting out a youtube video with a few TruthBombs to counter the weird junk the greens are putting out about this very issue.
One can only hope that this will die a quiet death, but I think silence just means deals in the dark for more tax revenue, which is what the carbon caps are all about anyway.
Nick Stokes wrote:
“Yes, it’s nonsense. Using amines that are recycled for scrubbing CO2 is a well established, but expensive, method. CO2 is regenerated and has to be disposed of. The cost is basically energy.”
It’s the same method submarines use… monoethanolamine (MEA) CO2 scrubbers with monosodium diethanol glycine (VFS) and tetrasodium ethylenediaminetetraacetate (EDTA) stabilizers. The CO2 is then compressed and pumped overboard.
It should be noted that EDTA is kinda hard on the kidneys… so continually injecting its vapors into the air in a massive CO2 scrubber is likely to cause more than a few people some amount of concern.
Having spent a great deal of time aboard a fast-attack submarine, I can tell you that expanding alkanolamine CO2 scrubbing to the totality of the globe would be a Very Bad Idea… unless you like a fine mist which attaches to the oils on your skin, giving you acne breakouts… and a smell that’s somewhat akin to a cross between axle grease and fermented dog diarrhea (not that I’ve ever mixed axle grease and dog diarrhea… honest!).
We used huge electrostatic precipitators to try to clean the air, but it didn’t do much. When you came off a long deployment, you had to shower three times and wash your clothes three times to get the stink out before your woman would even think of coming near you.
I guess the eco-wackos don’t mind the entire world smelling like a dog-poo littered French street, though.
Charming. To say the least.
Sounds like just the thing to deploy on an industrial scale just upwind of the San Francisco Bay area.
Those people are always complaining about the evils of CO2. This gives them the perfect chance to *do* something about it.
“eco-wackos”
I think these folk are sugar refiners.
I can back your argument up, having spent 21 years in the British Submarine Service. In fact it’s one of the reasons I ended up going to diesel boats instead. It wasn’t the nuclear reactor 20 feet from my head that bothered me but the atmosphere in the boat with electrolysers, oxygen candles and CO2 scrubbers. At least on diesel boats we could go to periscope depth nightly and get some real fresh air down the boat. The only flip side was not being able to wash for weeks at a time.
We only had to have one shower before any woman would come near – but that was probably down to submarine pay !
For those that believe in the AGW conjecture, the real culprit is not CO2, but H2O. H2O is a lot more abundant in the atmosphere and molecule per molecule, H2O is a much stronger absorber of IR radian than CO2. In the states we are talking about a lot more H2O enters the atmosphere but nothing is done to stop it. In the city where I live in California, the greenhouse gas, H2O becomes so concentrated that it sometimes condenses out of the atmosphere as a liquid. The city knows about this problem but all they do is collect the liquid greenhouse gas in an underground network of pipes and dump it just ourside of the city limits where it is allowed to evaporate back into the atmosphere. Neither the state of California nor the EPA has done nothing to abate this problem. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate change we are experiencing is cauaed by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no control.
The gas in the Earth’s atmosphere that is primarily responsible for the atmosphere’s insulating effects is neither CO2, H2O, or any of the so called greenhouse gases but rather N2. Significantly reducing the amount of N2 in the Earth’s atmosphere will definitely result in lower average surface temperatures. If they really want to curb global warming, N2 is the gas they should be most concerned with. More heat energy in our atmosphere is held by N2 then any other gas in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Yes, but when draining 10 percent of a swimming pool, the remaining 90 percent of the water will have temperature unaltered by the draining process.
Draining a gas atmosphere into a hypothetical sinkhole is not exactly the same operation, but the ideal gas law remains operational. In the form PV/n equals RT, as n is drained, then either P or V (or both) will fall to maintain the same ratio on the left side of the equation. A real gas pump removes volume, but the remaining atmosphere would expand to fill the removed gas just as fast, so both P and V will fall simultaneously. If pressure dropped faster than the volume, then the temperature would also go down.
The surface temperature of the Earth is determined by the surface albedo, the solar constant and the thermal heat capacity. The solid surface emits LWIR proportional to the temperature, with some energy being conducted into the boundary later, which then heats, expands and is convected upward. The massive convection bypasses the IR opaque atmosphere, expanding and cooling on the trip to the tropopause, where the IR energy can radiate into space.
For the mechanical engineers, the machinery to pump 1 cubic kilometer per second of the atmosphere would take 133 years to remove the entire mass of Earth’s atmosphere. Assuming the entire 5.15E18 kilograms of atmosphere had the same 1.225 kilograms per cubic meter density at the standard surface. That’s 4.22E18 cubic meters, or 4.22E9 cubic kilometers. 4.22E9 seconds divided by 31557000 seconds per year is 133.7 years.
I can’t imagine how much energy would be needed to pump that much mass per second away from the planet. Compressing the gas into a liquid and pumping the liquid underground would be equally impossible.
At steven wright would say, you can’t have everything, where would you put it?
The insulating characteristics of the atmosphere are a function of the surface pressure, the heat capacity of the atmosphere and the height of the troposphere. Reducing the amount of gas in the atmosphere reduces the surface pressure and the height of the troposphere. It is clearly expressed in calculations of the lapse rate. There is no practical way to reduce the average surface pressure on Earth. In general, the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oveans over which Mankind has no control. We cannot even change one weather event let alone change global climate.
Democrats care mainly about the *promises* they can make to prospective voters. When the reality check bounces, they blame Republicans anyway.
Fortunately it is organisations like this http://www.c40.org/ that are solid proof that counteracts some of the blatant lies on WUWT. And it is not just C40 cities but a host of other organisations that are moving the US forward with or without the help of Donald Trump and his corporate lobby loving lackey Scott Pruitt: https://mankindsdegradationofplanetearth.com/organisations-and-individuals-fighting-the-good-fight/
Which blatant lies appear here?
Ok. Perhaps this is too strong language. Cherry-picking the parts that agree with the anti-AGW agenda and not including the parts highlighting the pro-AGW risks. So let’s say slanting it to suit the argument.
So we are all liars? Wow. Just wow.
As per the article except when it really costs money because to go the full CAGW monty makes you unelectable in the most green parts of the USA.
Plenty of evidence that renewables uptake is already ameliorating the impact of fossil fuels and this is set to continue as prices fall even further. Any smart politician would back this trend rather than seek to maintain the status quo by maintaining that AGE is a chinese-inspired hoax: https://wp.me/p8BEgP-Da
Plenty of evidence that renewables uptake is already ameliorating the impact of fossil fuels and this is set to continue as prices fall even further. Any smart politician would back this trend rather than seek to maintain the status quo by maintaining that AGW is a chinese-inspired hoax: https://wp.me/p8BEgP-Da
What evidence?
There has been no decrease in the rate at which CO2 concentrations are increasing.
As to your claim that costs are decreasing, absent growing subsidies, that is clearly not true.
Here in NC (home of the first solar tax credit) we have done such an excellent job with our “Renewable Energy Plan,” that, Duke Power is seeking a 16.7% increase in rates. That is after a 20% increase in rates over the past 8 years as liberal politicians rode Obama’s coattails into office. We are now paying massive amounts for coal ash remediation. We are paying for a nuclear plant in SC which will not be completed. We are paying to install peeker plants due to what is known in the business as “limp” sources (eg. wind and solar). And, now the vexatious litigators (same liberal crowd), is, suing over a new natural gas pipeline which will provide for peekers when the sun doesn’t shine.
Reality is the only green many of the global warming crowd are after is money. There are four sides in this: 1) The vocal environmental foot soldiers (aka. Lenin’s useful idiots); 2) The green mafia insider organizers and litigators who only exist as rentiers; 3) The utilities who love renewables that drive up their total cost curve because they have a guaranteed profit margin from the State Utility Commission; 4) and, the consumers who pay for it all.
There are no renewables which reduce use of fossil fuel — They may in fact increase such consumption. To guarantee a kilowatt of energy delivered, you have to install a substantial amount of fossile fuel of the least efficient type. Any proclamations otherwise are completely erroneous and wishful thinking based upon leaving a host of exogenous variables left out the equation — to include the multiplier effect in the economy that a cheaper watt of electricity delivers.
Da, Ivan! Is good!
Report back to Vlad. West is sinking due to excellent efforts of Boris, Natasha and Ivankinsman.
I’m still waiting for Ivan to produce something from a source that isn’t blatantly propagandist.
Of course he still declares that anything that his religion disagrees with is a lie.
Are you trying to tell me that individuals who want to do something about CO2 emissions and other climate issues are capable of doing it without the federal government’s intervention? Could it be that state or even local governments have the power to regulate industries as they see fit without ceding authority to the national government?
ASTOUNDING!
Next you’ll be telling me that concerned citizens are free to invest their own money in alternative energy research and development even if the government chooses not to force them to do so.
“I suspect what we are seeing is the collapse of the green lie that climate policies help the economy. Even California sees the occasional Democrat mutiny over the introduction of job destroying green policies. ”
No, what you are seeing is the dawning realisation that you may be accountable for implementing what you advocated.
But you did not advocate it with a view to implementing it at all. The reason you advocated was, paradoxically, that you thought neither you nor anyone else would ever have the slightest chance of doing it.
This made it perfect as a long lived organizing issue, for use strictly in radicalizing the citizenry.
Now to your horror they may not have become radicalized in the way you wanted, but they have believed the nonsense you were using to try to organize them and they are expecting you go get in there and do it.
For many of you this is the first time you are thinking seriously about doing it, and its very sobering. For the elite among you, this is the point at which you realize you have a serious problem. You knew all along it was nonsense. But you thought it was a useful issue. Now you are going to have to either back off in some way, or start implementing stuff you knew all along was idiotic, and which will lose you all your organizing gains if you try.
What to do? I guess double down. Refuse to do the measures you have been advocating previously on the grounds they ‘do not go far enough’? Dunno, it will be interesting to see. Blame some right wing conspiracy? If you can find one. Blame Trump?
Also, let’s see what else this article has to say:
* The quibbling comes as climate change tightens its grip on the west coast. San Francisco can lay claim to being one of the greenest cities in the US, through its embrace of clean energy, mandated recycling and banning of single-use plastic bags, yet it faces a steep challenge to avoid the ravages of sea level rise. Researchers using satellite-based radar and GPS have discovered large areas of land beside the San Francisco bay is sinking, exacerbating the threat from sea level rise and storms. Places such as San Francisco airport, Foster City and Treasure Island are subsiding by as much as 10mm a year, doubling the area previously considered at risk of flooding by the end of the century, according to the Science Advances-published study.
* California is facing a buffeting from increased flooding – around $763bn if its assets are exposed to inundation – at the same time as parts of its agriculture base declines due to rising temperatures. Recent University of California research found that the yield of some crops could drop by 40% by 2050, with the situation becoming so severe by the end of the century that peaches, walnuts and apricots may be unviable in the central valley. Almonds, avocados, cherries and strawberries also face sharp crop declines.
Moral of the story: we need to make climate change a bipartisan issue
San Fran needs a good bath to wash all of the poop and drug paraphernalia from its streets. As far as flooding of other parts, nothing compares to the Great Flood of 1862 during which the central valley was an inland sea up to 30′ deep for months. A catastrophic multi-year drought followed immediately after. Periodic weather disasters are just the natural California climate.
Agreed but sceptics fail to see the point that the chances of these increasing and being exacerbated are much higher with climate change.
They don’t see that point because there is no evidence that it is true. Rational minds don’t acknowledge circular reasoning as evidence.
” are much higher with climate change”…
Got any idea when this is supposed to kick in?….right now everything is going in the opposite direction
As always, Ivan sees what he’s told to see.
The fact that there has been no increase in wild weather doesn’t matter. It’s going to start happening, any day now, just wait for it …
Ivan please do some research on the real reasons things are changing. The sun has become sombulent with its magnetic field decreasing. The earths magnetic field strength is in free fall with the poles wandering. Without our magnetic shields we are being bombarded with stronger doses of cosmic rays.
This does a few things that are not good, it increases earthquake and volcanic activity, check for yourself. It makes the jet stream loopy and increases cloud cover. These things are happening and all of them cool the world. The sun even tho’ it is sleepy puts out the odd eruption sometimes toward us, with the severe decrease in our defences and a minor X flare could shut down the entire worlds electrical system, not just shut it down burn it up so it would take years to fix.
It is not a AGW that is likely to happen and throwing money away on BS rather than preparing for real threats is a crime against humanity.
Ivan doesn’t do research. As a troll his one and only aim here is to spew the lies he’s been fed, which he Believes with all his heart, because it is a sort of religion. He’s here to testify.
Ivan is a true believer. Independent thought is not required. It’s actually contra-indicated.
The point you are missing is that your alleged costs won’t bet met by the people voting now, they will all be dead. You are basically appealing to the be kind to your kids appeal with plays with about 5-10% of the population 🙂
You are trying to create costs and treat them as real across generations. I will bet the local area you grew up in looks nothing like it did 50 years ago both economically or enviromentally. We don’t trust your climate models, we don’t trust your economic predictions and we don’t trust your enviromental outcomes … now good luck selling us this story. That is a nutshell is why the CAGW support is collapsing as per the story.
CAGW support is certainly not collapsing here in Europe. As more people become educated about CAGW and its causes and effects, the more this support increases. Awareness is on the up and, as such, more action being taken.
As you sit comfortably in your house, someone living on the edge in an environmental region critically at risk to even small climatic changes has a rather different perspective. Plenty of areas around the world already exposed to the impact of AGW – you just choose to ignore the evidence. Try to think beyond a blinkered approach to just the USA – yours is a population that is just a small fraction of the ca. 7 billion.
There has never been a real focus (outside a self-deluded small elite) in CAGW in Europe. Just ask what people are concerned. They are concerned on uncontrolled immigration, unemployment, political instability, war-making Russia, terrorism, European Union regulating us to death, name it.
Environment is the least of these concerns, ivankinsman. The deluded elite is a problem, because it makes life difficult for the poor that it so much loves.
yeah you keep telling yourself that after teh German and Italian elections 🙂
‘single-use plastic bags’
As I use my plastic bags always more than once, I wonder how you ban single use, and when obviously such law has passed, I just ‘thank’ for the idiocy which has a marginal (equalling no) effect on anything, but luckily makes Leonardo DiCaprio happy in his private jet. Good for him! I guess the world is now saved. /heavy sarc
The funny side here is that shops have risen the price of bags (hit the poor policy) because they see it appropriate way to collect money, when in practice paper bags have a higher environmental load. It is just that the plastic bag falls in the same category of hated things with nuclear power, chemicals, meat, furs, horse wurst etc. You can’t help it when the mob lynches. Sensible opinions on those will be disregarded by the leftist-populist media.
We’re living in a idiocracy, and no, it’s not Trump.
Well this is an example of a country suffering plastic pollution and now wants to also ban single use plastic bags. If you are happy swimming in a plastic polluted soup then be my guest; I’d rather not: http://mankindsdegradationofplanetearth.com/2018/03/06/plastic-plastic-plastic-british-diver-films-sea-of-rubbish-off-bali/
The place is a shithole and it could turn much worse by banning hygienic plastics. But even if not, the problem is not plastic, it’s the government that’s now trying to get out the easy way.
How is Bali’s garbage collection? Is there even a widespread system? In some (many?) countries, there is no widespread garbage disposal or collection available, so trash just piles up unless it is burned. Culture also plays a role. In many places (including parts of the US, unfortunately), it is normal and acceptable to just toss trash out the window, in a culvert, or anywhere else, really. That is not climate change, that is not the fault of bag manufacturers. It is end-user irresponsibility, often compounded by a lack of capability for proper disposal. I agree that pollution is a problem, but I question the effectiveness of bans without cultural change and/or enabling mitigation of the cause. You cannot ban everything.
I re-use plastic grocery bags for a variety of things, including household garbage collection. When I had pets, I used them for waste collection. I use them for transporting things that may soil or leak onto other belongings, and then for disposal of trash. If I do not re-use them, I take them to my grocery store for recycling. I think this is all better than purchasing and using small plastic trash bags, which generally are not banned. I am still trying to form a better habit of carrying cloth reusable bags, and if I buy something small, I often refuse a shopping bag. I remain unconvinced that these bans are about anything other than generating revenue, which often is not actually used for cleaning up the existing pollution or mitigation.
All the government owned news organizations toe the government line.
So obviously the whole country agrees with Ivan.
You state yourself that the San Francisco bay area is SUBSIDING by as much as 10mm a year – so what the hell has that got to do with CO2?
Show me the evidence that California’s agricutlar base is declining due to “rising temperatures”. Are we talking degrees here or 10th of a degree?
Evidence is here my friend: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/15/california-drought-costs-to-top-600-million-dollars.html
What did the last floods, mud slides, etc cost?
So now drought is climate change and we play invent a number games … $550M is projected loss of earnings it isn’t real money you realize … no you probably don’t 🙂
Ivan, your link needs historical context
https://sierrafoothillcommentary.com/2015/04/16/california-drought-report-10/
Got any evidence that the flooding was caused by CO2, or are you just going to assume that they were because that’s what you are paid to believe?
I suspect at least some of these flooding and subsidence problems are caused by unsustainable water usage. Draining aquifers has caused areas in California to drop a couple dozen feet or more. This would also affect agriculture, since less water is available locally. From what I have read, many, if not the majority of agricultural problems are more related to the fact that California is not a particularly “wet” state in many areas, and is exiting a period that was much wetter than normal. Much of the current agriculture is not appropriate for the normal natural climate.
It would also help if people would stop building on flood plains and right on coasts. Yes, there is a lot of infrastructure that is already in such areas, but new construction could be limited. Simple fix with a relatively guaranteed effect.
San Francisco is facing record emigration as more an more people can’t afford to live there and are unwilling to put up with the nonsense.
BTW, I love the way Ivan just assumes that if anything bad is happening, that CO2 must be causing it.
As exposed in the last round of earthquake damages, SF allows the building of major buildings on infill land along the Bay. Shaking of that infill created major financial impact needlessly. Don’t count bonehead policy and permit decisions as climate change dollar impacts.
Ivan: If you really believe all this why not run an experiment. Say CA has 60% lefties and 40% others. You should invest all your resources in a “gas station” located next to several other stations. You will most assuredly get 60% of the traffic because all your friends will willingly pay the carbon tax you are charging so that they have the opportunity to reduce their CO2 tire prints. You will do very well – isn’t capitalism great! If you have the space, put a runway behind the station for private jets. Wouldn’t it be fun to chat with Al, Bill and Leonardo while you fill em up with high price aviation fuel that includes offsets for “carbon’!
Trump uses more jetfuel than all the Dems you mention. The turd flies his big jumbo to his rich man’s club every other weekend. Get real you idiot.
This has caught my eye:
“an effort to introduce the first straight tax on carbon dioxide emissions”…
Are you planning on taxing all living things now? You know – they all emit Carbon Dioxide…
Madness.
Governor Inslee’s “arc of history” rationale is absolute nonsense and has no basis in logic or history. It is nothing more than wishful thinking packaged for the politically fashionable.
Interesting considering Washington is one of the greenest states due to large hydro resources. So, I would guess there aren’t any coal plants to get rid of and this is mostly just a simple tax on fuel. And yet they still couldn’t stomach it.
Some people are pushing for dam removal. Part of me would love to see how they would do with losing power (since there probably is not capacity to replace it), but there are a lot of innocent people who would also suffer.
Would be interesting to see an honest assessment of the environmental effects of replacing the dams with other forms of power generation. I suspect the actual cost of wind and solar would be much higher, particularly as the physical area needed would be quite large. How many spotted owls would be displaced?
I snark, but this has the potential to cause some real problems, not just for humans, but for wildlife as well. There is no such thing as a free lunch, so we have to consider the full costs, not just what “feels good”. Even if you do not like natural gas (fracking!) or coal or nuclear or whatever, if using those forms of power is ultimately better for the environment for the foreseeable future, that should be what you support, assuming your main concern is environmental costs.
@homey44 – “and this is mostly just a simple tax on fuel”. Jay Inslee was for a while toying with the idea of using the revenues raised to cover the black hole in education funding. No voices were of course raised locally as to how that would be deviating from the original purpose of a carbon tax.
Wait – you mean that the “We Are Still In” campaign was all just virtue signalling yammering? That nobody expected to actually have to PAY for idiotic “planet-saving” climate policies? It was all just for show? I am shocked – shocked, I tell you. And disillusioned. And dismayed. Say it ain’t so, Joe, say it ain’t so! Boo – hoo-hoo! What on earth are we gonna tell them at the next climate
jamboree jabberfestconference, in Katowice, Poland next December? The dog ate our climate homework? Oh, woe is us!Oh the weather outside is frightful (yes, it is)
But the shadenfreude is delightful
And since we’ve got no place to go
Let it snow, what children won’t know, let it snow!
Oregon, oh Oregon. 0.6% of the national output of CO2, and our bonehead state DEM legislators think we need to do something. Chalk us up to another state democrat rule has ruined. We have the state all funds budget close the Pennsylvania, but 1/3 the people. Thanks Kate Brown!!
Wait ! I have it ! Oregon could grow more trees. Then they could cut some trees down and build houses with the harvested wood. But then they would have to build a bunch more paper mills to better harvest the waste wood. Ever driven near a paper mill in Oregon ? The oderous aspect is especially detected on the downwind side for about 20 – 30 miles. Pretty disgusting but probably not the evil CO2. I spent 5 years as a recovering hippie in the great western wilderness of western Oregon back in the 1960s.
Erase Inslee governance and his money arc before he erases you, your job, and your families’ future. A political slush fund would be more efficient to satisfy the Party needs.