Michael Bastasch | Energy Editor
- Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will spend another $500 million to continue his war against the coal industry.
- Bloomberg will fund environmentalist campaigns at the state and local level to replace coal plants with wind and solar energy.
- Conservative critics said Bloomberg’s campaign will kill thousands of jobs and leave communities devastated.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will spend $500 million to close every remaining U.S. coal-fired power plant and stop the expansion of natural gas.
Bloomberg will fund environmental activist lobbying campaigns in state legislatures, city councils and public utility commissions. Activists will demand officials replace coal plants with renewable energy, not natural gas.
“We’re in a race against time with climate change, and yet there is virtually no hope of bold federal action on this issue for at least another two years,” Bloomberg said in a statement Thursday.
For Democratic politicians and environmentalists looking to make climate change the top issue in the 2020 elections, Bloomberg’s funding is most welcome. For conservatives and the coal industry, it’s a nightmare.
“This is about feeding the soldiers of the green left to affect the outcome of the 2020 elections,” Dan Kish, a distinguished senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Bloomberg will announce his “Beyond Carbon” plan during his commencement speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. With this new spending, Bloomberg will have committed roughly $1 billion to the climate crusade since leaving the mayor’s office.
“This campaign will ensure that after the 2020 election, the next Administration inherits a country on its way to a 100 percent clean energy economy,” Bloomberg said.
Beyond Carbon has four goals — lobby states to pass 100 percent “clean” energy laws, funnel more money to environmentalists, expand existing anti-fossil fuel campaigns and get “climate champions” elected to state and local office. (RELATED: EPA Reassigns Top Bureaucrat Critics See As Key Resistor Of Trump’s Agenda)
Bloomberg declined to run for president in 2020, but pledged to use his vast wealth to help dismantle the fossil fuel industry, enact gun control and defeat President Donald Trump.
Outside of election funding, the Sierra Club has been a major beneficiary of Bloomberg’s largess. Bloomberg has given more than $150 million the Sierra Club’s anti-fossil fuel campaigns since 2011.
More than 280 coal plants have closed or been slated for closure since 2010, The New York Times reported. Beyond Carbon, Bloomberg says, will aim to close the remaining 241 coal plants by 2030.
Coal power generation and mining employed 160,119 American workers in 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Department. The coal industry has been in decline over the past decade due to federal and state regulations as well as competition from natural gas.
“The loss of fuel-secure electricity sources, especially coal-fueled power plants, pose an increasing threat to the power grid, as well as to national security,” said Michelle Bloodworth, president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which represents coal producers, utilities and railroads.
“While a political campaign aimed at closing all coal plants may make for an attractive soundbite in some quarters, it is not a responsible plan that our policymakers should adopt,” Bloodworth told TheDCNF.
ACCE estimates coal-fired power plants directly employ 28,000 as of April 2019, Bloodworth said. The latest jobs numbers for May 2019 shows 52,900 coal miners were employed.
The cost to replace all that shuttered coal capacity would also be staggering, ClearView Energy Partners director Kevin Book told The Times. He estimated replacing coal with wind and solar power — and the necessary battery storage — would cost $950 billion.
“It’s not going to be easy to do what he’s talking about doing,” Book told the Times.
“We will employ the same advocacy, legal, and electoral strategies that have proven so successful in retiring coal-fired power plants … and also in passing gun safety background check laws in states around the country,” Bloomberg said.
Conservative critics, however, see Bloomberg’s campaign as an attack on working men and women, often union members, that used to be the backbone of the Democratic Party.
“Bloomberg just made a half-billion dollar contribution to Democrats, who have abandoned American working people and the unions who represent them for the faculty lounge and the students they brainwash to worry about the weather,” Kish said.
This is probably why most of the Democratic Party candidates for President have gone green, appealing to green donors. Bloomberg has a long history of trying the most authoritarian approach to any cause he believes in, from attempting to ban large sodas to gun control.
Rest assured, he drinks whatever he likes and where ever he goes he’s protected by body guards that are equipped with the best firearms.
Like almost all left wing leaders, the rules he pushes are meant to control the polloi, they were never intended for the leadership, such as himself.
Truth where the real Big$$ intrsts lie.
If Bloomberg and his Big$$’d Ilk truly believed in the CO2 scare, they would invest their Big$$ in Renewable energy projects rather than Envirofascist movements to change gonernment to their Fascist version of Socialism.
Bloomberg is the 6th richest american and 9th richest globally with more than $62B. He is one of those signatories promissing to give away 1/2 of his fortune.
If he and around 100 other wealthiest people who are likeminded pooled $10B each, they could create the “Renewable” utopia they seem to want without costing the average joe (Hoi Polloi) or Government a cent.
That way, when it fails to deliver the needed Grid level Reliable energy supply, the Government will not be affected.
Note to Michael Bloomberg:
If you truly believe 100% (Unreliable) Renewables would work, Put your money where your mouth is and create it but leave the Goveronment Of the people, By the people, and for the people alone.
This philanthropist is unusually generous. Coal miners will no longer be dying at work. Now they’ll be dying of hunger.
Make “Doomberg” pay the salaries of all the unemployed coal miners. When he runs out of money, he will shut-up!
To seal a great line from Squidward on Spongebob Squarepants, if I had a dollar for every brain Bloomberg *doesn’t” have, I would have:
ONE DOLLAR.
If he had half a brain and an ounce of common decency he might consider giving 5,000 miners $100,000 each to set up their own businesses instead of mining coal.
But he would rather give it to the elite and leave the working man destitute.
Socialism personified.
HotScot June 9, 2019 at 10:10 am
Excellent point.
Why is it that so many billionaires who made their fortune using the market/capitalistic economic system while living in a (mostly) free society which allow them to do that, want to change it to a socialistic/communistic totalitarian form of government that forbids the path they took? Just wondering.
RetiredEE
So they get even more power and unlimited use of a country to make themselves more money.
I have no problem with people making money. I have a real problem with them using left wing politics to shape the world in their image.
Wealthy folks used to give their money to Church Org.’s, Universities, Medical research, and the like. Now, they tithe their money to the Earth gods in hope for a happy afterlife. Yes, the new Religion of “saving the planet” from Global Warming has supplanted all practical and truly humanitarian causes. HUMANitarian causes are out of fashion … now it is GAIAtarian causes that will “ensure” eternal rest. Soon, these loopy Billionaires may even be funding bio-Terrorism … just to lighten the load on almighty Gaia.
Because they are smart enough to work with the system but too stupid to understand why the system works.
Now that they are rich, they want to lock the doors behind them.
If you researched it, I think you would find these philanthropists are the children and grandchildren of the wealth creators.
The most addictive drug is having power over other people. More powerful than money or sex…
Everybody wants it – from the petty bureaucrat to AOC to the billionaire.
It’s called “pulling the ladder up after you’ve got there”, so nobody else can follow suit! Classic elitist Socialism! They used tobe referred to in the UK as Champagne Socialists, wealthy/rich family backgrounds, privately educated, privilaged, etc! Nothing changes!
Bloomberg knows that he would stand to make 100s of billions of dollars if his ideas become law. Paying 1 billion to facilitate the outcome is small change.
It will be instructive to see how the solar panels go at night and how the wind-turbines go when the wind is not blowing and how the angry residents will cope in the cold and dark. This could all be a major boost for Donald Trump in 2020!
Nicholas
These are advanced, super green renewables whereby the solar panels work at night and wind turbines provide full output even when it is dead calm. Cold and dark are merely states of mind and will be countered by intensive coaching in zen Buddhism.
Tonyb
In Mikes house he has a standby diesel generator ( 175 kw )
I wondered what this is doing for Michael Bloomberg. Then I saw he has his eye on the presidency.
Of all forms of energy production, coal is the deadliest.
https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/06/update-of-death-per-terawatt-hour-by.html
What’s the safest?
In any case, take China and India out of the equation and coal is nearly as safe. And the carcasses of golden eagles and environmental destruction around Baotou China belie the notion that wind and PV solar are clean.
Did you bother to follow the links? Nuclear is the safest.
BTW – wind mills are way down the list of causes of avian deaths.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/21/wind-power-results-bird-deaths-overall/
Avian, probably. RAPTORS, no. They are huge killers of raptors. I suspect that what the wind industry loves—killing the bald eagle, symbol of the county they despise and want destroyed.
Yes I did, tongue in cheek and wasn’t sure you’d admit it.
BTW, but I’ve never seen a house cat kill a golden eagle or any other raptor for that matter. The other way round is more common.
In that viewpoint, killing an elephant is no worse than killing a rat, because if all birds are equal then all mammals are equal.
Jack Dale
Your link is to an article, not a scientific study.
What’s more, it’s a link to a green website, so of course they’ll say wind turbines aren’t a major cause of avien deaths.
But there are two things here, it doesn’t mention bats which don’t need to be struck by blades, just the pressure difference in the vicinity kills them. Nor does it mention the countless offshore turbines where birds can’t be counted because carcasses are washed away.
And as each bat would have eaten a thousand or more mosquitoes a night, their deaths could become a major problem. Greens will no doubt try to blame climate change for the spread of malaria, Zika, west Nile and other infections that have mosquitoes as their insect vectors but it will be due to the windmills killing bats.
So there may be significant deaths caused by wind farms that will not be counted as such.
But wind power is unnecessary for electrical generation and if not “subsidized” would be rarely used. This article compares # of avian deaths with building strikes, car strikes, cat kills, etc. I agree that all pro wind electrical generation individuals, Jack, should not live or work in buildings, move around in fast moving transportation methods or have cats.
I understand wind for water pumping in remote locations, etc. but for electrical production in industrialized nations? I don’t think so.
Here is a nice quote :”Of course these deaths are regrettable, and in an ideal world they would not happen, but again, to continue to round out the full context of annual bird deaths, we need have some perspective.” My perspective, wind electrical generation is not necessary so the bird kill from that source is not necessary! How is that for perspective.
The basis of his article are papers written in 2009. The article was written in 2018. Why such old references? Cherry picking?
Another quote: “Obviously, clean, renewable energy is part of the solution for combating climate change and therefore is reducing its impacts. Thus, its overall effect is positive for animals and birds.
In a single year, US hunters killed about 19 million geese and ducks.
Wind power critics who point to the relatively tiny number of bird deaths caused by turbines and towers and fail to mention the true top causes of bird deaths are deliberately being disingenuous. They don’t know the facts or are omitting them to try to dismiss wind power even though it’s better for birds than fossil fuels and nuclear.
This is grisly stuff to consider, but 8.5 billion chickens were killed in 2014 for consumption in America. Each year, about 240 million turkeys are killed too. Somehow, that is “okay,” but they are also birds and simply by making different consumer choices many of their lives could be spared. Tens of millions of ducks are raised for eating too.”
First, no justification of wind generation, no big problem from climate change, and what portion of total energy from carbon based generation replaced by wind is minuscule.
Second, what a great comparison, so food production is to be compared to unnecessary electrical production using wind as the driver? So I assume again that Jack does not eat chicken, turkey or duck.
Actually I assume that you live in a building, commute by car, eat whatever you like AND HAVE A CAT. So stop killing birds, Jack.
Drake writes that RE is better for birds than nuclear.
What utter, unsupported crap!!!
Why do those affected by green propaganda push deliberate distortions of reality as if lying is a pardonable privilege for them? I simply cannot understand the mind set. I do know that when you approach a quite old age, you can become more personally introspective. You more often ask yourself “What genuine claim can I make that my time on Earth has created net positive outcomes for my fellow Man? Can I still count lies as a positive?” You will find a new force named honesty that can nag you stupid if you then try to lie to yourself.
Geoff
Only because scavengers eat most of the birds before they can be counted.
I’ve read speculation that most of the dead birds cats drop on their owners’ porches were already dead when the cats found them. (Since millions of birds are presumably dying of natural causes regularly, at least some of them will be found and carried away by cats.)
“Nuclear is the safest”
In the UK the government (i.e. the taxpayer) insures nuclear plants. That’s because although the probability of catastrophic failure is low its not zero and if a failure does occur … think Fukushima.
Stick to coal. Cheapest, most reliable and safe.
It’s also good for the environment. Makes the plants greener!
The only reason I can think of for someone to argue against this common sense logic has to do with money.
Hmmmm, you kinda forgot about the “Rare Earth” mining in 3rd World countries (and China) required for your bird choppers and quick fryers….Let me help with that…
https://e360.yale.edu/features/boom_in_mining_rare_earths_poses_mounting_toxic_risks
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution
https://www.techtimes.com/articles/87510/20150925/china-is-mining-this-mongolian-lake-to-death-for-the-sake-of-technology.htm
Not a pretty picture..
Outside of its tier 1 and 2 cities, China is still third world.
Not the cleanest, fer sure, but life isn’t perfect. So what’s your point? You live 75 years in one case, or 80 years in the other with the last 5 years in a nursing home pissing all over yourself. What has humanity gained?
Read your first link more carefully. Diseases of poverty kill twice as many people as outdoor pollution. One of the biggest killers of poor people is smoke from indoor combustion. link
Raising people out of poverty by giving them electricity so they don’t have to kill themselves by burning cow dung would be a huge net improvement even if you account for the pollution caused by coal generation.
You could make a strong case that the most deadly fuel is cow dung.
OK, I’m convinced. Lets ban the use of cow dung energy, at least in urban areas of the US, by the year 2080.
So the second article has no references.
The first does have references, abstract quote for one:
“Here we use a global atmospheric chemistry model to investigate the link between premature mortality and seven emission source categories in urban and rural environments.”
If you read the assumptions, you realize the article is all assumptions. Models tell us everything!
This was meant to be in response to Jack at 10:17
Another question to consider is, “How dangerous is the lack of energy?”
Of course we need energy.
Another question. Why use the deadliest means of energy production when safer and more sustainable means are available?
Answer, we aren’t.
Jack Dale
You’re preaching to the contributors of THIS blog that nuclear energy is the safest?
Other than Griif I’m not sure there’s a contributor to this blog that doesn’t believe that.
And from your link: “Energy production not only has short-term health impacts related to accidents and air pollution; it also contributes to the long-term impact of global warming, the impacts of which (e.g. extreme weather, sea level rise, reduced freshwater resources, crop yields, heatstroke) are likely to be fatal for some.”
And then: “We can, however, use a proxy (a related or substitute indicator) to compare the potential contribution of energy sources to climate change. For this, we use the carbon intensity of energy, which measures the grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted in the production of a kilowatt-hour of energy (gCO2e per kWh). Using this proxy, we can assume that energy sources with a higher carbon intensity would have a larger impact on mortality rates from climate change for a given level of energy production.”
Now whilst I have no doubt almost every contributor to this blog could present a far better argument than I can to these points, I’ll have a stab.
Energy production has nothing whatsoever to do with “the long-term impact of global warming, the impacts of which (e.g. extreme weather, sea level rise, reduced freshwater resources, crop yields, heatstroke)” in fact it’s energy production that mitigates against the effects of ‘extreme’ climate with domestic and commercial space heating, without which, much of the northern hemisphere would be uninhabitable.
And “extreme weather” is normal. We notice there was no mention of an INCREASE in extreme weather, that has been universally debunked, but the term extreme weather is now used to infer it. Sea level rise has been consistent at, I believe, around 1.5mm – 3mm per year, depending on where on the planet you are. Sea levels themselves are not consistent around the planet, nor is sea level rise which has remained consistent for well over 100 years. Again, the commonly used Project Fear term ‘accelerating’ isn’t used here, the hysterical climate alarmist reader is is conditioned to use it.
Freshwater resources are greatly enhanced by desalination plants reliant or reliable fossil fuel power. They simply cannot function using intermittent wind or solar energy. Nor is it a coincidence that those plants are required where population growth has outstripped freshwater resources, probably because there is a very good living to be made in the area.
Crop yields across the planet have outstripped the growth of humanity to the point that disposing of quality food is now more of a problem than growing it.
And finally, heatstroke related deaths are by several times, less of a problem than cold related deaths across the planet. When we get to 50/50 perhaps that’s the measure by which we judge the perfect climate, certainly not by someone’s arbitrary selection of a temperature, or atmospheric CO2 content.
And I will add my usual rider to all this: No one in the history of mankind has demonstrated by empirical means that atmospheric CO2 causes the planet to warm. So of course the UN use a proxy. They can’t demonstrate it by any other means, so unreliable, error riddled proxy’s are their only route to demonstrating what they want to be true.
So whilst the short term human casualty rate of all but nuclear is horrendously high, there is no secondary causes in the terms stated in the article you cite.
In science, mechanism + correlation = evidence of a causal relationship.
The mechanism of CO2 as GHG has been known for 2 centuries.
https://history.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm#contents
A 250 year correlation between CO2 and temperature.
http://static.berkeleyearth.org/pdf/decadal-with-forcing.pdf
Yes, rising and falling temperature is the cause of rising and falling CO2. The mechanism is Henry’s law (law not conjecture). And the correlation of CO2 following temperature is quite well established on long and short timescales. The correlation of man-made emissions from fossil fuels and temperature is sometimes there and sometimes not because the effect is small in comparison to natural processes.
Yes, temperature increases, caused by Milankovitch cycles, did result in the release of stored CO2.
We no longer require Milankovitch cycles to release stored CO2 we do it all by ourselves – 1.5 trillion tonnes of CO2 over the past 2.5 centuries; resulting in a nearly 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 which, using carbon isotope analysis, can be directly attributed to the burning of fossil fuels.
What caused the Minoan, Roman and Medieval warm periods?
Close enough for a working hypothesis but not a theory. The Berkeley chart has CO2 fitted to temperature but one also has a mechanism for rising temperatures causing rising CO2 concentration. The real three questions are what is the temperature sensitivity to rising atmospheric CO2l, what is the natural component of climate change and is rising CO2 concentration a benefit or a liability. The understanding of these three questions has not advanced since FAR in 1990.
Yes Jack A theory with a inconsequential effect. somewhere around 1 to 1.5 degrees C from a doubling. So far no apparent water vapour enhancement, so nothing to worry about.
In a closed environment CO2 can be shown to briefly absorb then pass on or emit infrared energy. It has never been shown in the real world atmosphere that this property of CO2 contributes to warming of the atmosphere.
Needless to say, correlation does not imply causation and in any case in geologic timescales there is no correlation between the concentration of CO2 and atmospheric temperature.
You need to have a proven mechanism.
The only proven mechanism with regards to CO2 is that with all else being equal a doubling should cause a bit less than a degree of temperature increase.
The problem is that out here in the real world, there are millions of potential feedbacks. Some increase the amount of warming, most decrease the amount of warming, caused by a doubling of CO2.
Few, if any of these feedbacks are well understood.
PS, if you you look at the temperature rise, year by year, over the last 100 years, you will see that temperatures go up, temperatures go down, and temperatures stay the same for decades at a time. All while CO2 goes up. The reality is, you are seeing a correlation only because you want to see a correlation. Not because it’s actually there.
PPS: If you believe that we have an accurate measurement of what temperatures were 250 years ago, you will believe anything that fits your world view.
HotScot …
“almost every contributor to this blog could present a far better argument than I”
Oh, I dunno. Seems like you covered it pretty well.
Excellent work, actually!
From what I have read elsewhere, nothing comes close to the number of deaths caused by wind power.
Your propaganda source is almost 4 years out of date.
Show me what you have read, please
WUWT, for instance. Keep reading and open your mind. You might learn what the word “science” means to.
You really need to get out more and read more widely. You indicated that your “read elsewhere”. Where else?
The fact that I post to WUWT is a clear indication that I read it.
But what you post is a clear indication that you have understood none of it.
Baloney. The coal power plant down the road from me emits water vapor and CO2. Nothing else. I don’t feel the least bit antsy about living here. Well, except when I drive by and see only one trainload of coal, instead of the usual four. I get worried that the imbeciles have blocked the trains and my power could be interrupted.
Jack’s goal is to push nuclear. He will back any argument, true or not, that will support that goal.
Of all forms of energy, coal has done the most for human health and prosperity. So called renewables still rely on coal to manufacture them and back them up for the 97% of the time they aren’t effective.
Obviously Bloomberg has never heard of pyrolysis. Coal is the most economical source for Hydrogen, which essential for clean burning Fuel Cells. Idiot.
It’s very close between coal and natural gas, depends on location. Natural gas requires simpler less costly processes and equipment, so its operating costs are superior.
But as someone pointed out the other day, coal is far more reliable at “keeping the lights on” than NG is, simply because the coal-burning Utility (provider) can/has a “stockpile” of 1 to 3 months of fuel “on-site” in the event of a disaster/emergency …… whereas the NG-burning Utility (provider) can NOT do likewise.
That’s true but the NG network is quite reliable as well.
“but the NG network is quite reliable as well.”
However, it’s more vulnerable to sabotage, whose effects would be multiplied (since repair resources are limited) by politically or ideologically motivated coordinated widespread sabotage.
That’s a good reason to keep coal plants on line. I’m surprised that argument is not made widely.
“That’s true but the NG network is quite reliable as well.”
The greenie “warminists” think all fossil fuel pipelines are bad and unreliable.
What will BNSF owners like Warren Buffett have to say? Oil, gas and coal are his bread and butter.
I’m sure someone would pay him to haul train car loads of wind and sun to those places which don’t have much of either.
So are wind turbines. He litters the landscape with them and saves on his “too low” taxes. Yes, he lies a lot.
Close down coal and you put the coal miners out of work. A major US coalfield is the Powder River Basin. Coal is transported from there by rail to the power stations – so you also put all the railwaymen out of work. Already the West Virginia coalfields have been partly closed, thus putting the railroads that used to transport coal from there partly or wholly out of action and putting railwaymen out of work.
Nice try, Bloomberg. Windmills are a 13th century form of energy source – do we really have to go that far back. Remember Don Quixote!
Bloomberg: a home-grown Soros.
Dang, I wish we had the “Like” button still…..lol….. 10 thumbs up !
Wealth has no correlation with wisdom. What Bloomberg is doing with his $500 million has less intrinsic value than a load of manure spread on a field before spring tillage and planting. At least the manure has a positive effect on growth. Bloomberg uses his money in a scorched earth campaign against low cost, small footprint, reliable, 24/7/365 dispatchable power.
“Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will spend $500 million to close every remaining U.S. coal-fired power plant and stop the expansion of natural gas.”
Bloomberg and Tom Steyer are heavily invested in the Renewable Power sectors. They and the Rockefellers are the Billionaire faces of the GreenSlime. As such they need coal and natural gas to die to reap their huge pay-outs. None of this has anything to do with climate change mitigation. Climate change is simply the confidence scheme to scam a naive public. It is simply crony capitalism writ large on the backs of the middle class via higher electricity costs and subsidies and tax credits.
US energy dominance and cheap natural gas are existential threats to the GreenSlime’s energy cost bilking schemes.
Hence, while $500 million is a huge amount of money to you and me, it has now become a necessary “marketing” cost for Billionaires to keep the climate confidence scam from collapsing. So they buy off pols like NY Gov Cuomo to block gas pipelines. And If they can get a Dumbocrat as President they’ll go back to trying to regulate fracking shale gas out of business with very high compliance costs.
All very predictiable actions from criminals like Bloomberg.
It is also a tax write off.
Exactly. He serves not the interests of the American People, but only protecting his shaky investments.
@ Joel O’Bryan – June 9, 2019 at 10:43 am
Joel, excellent posting, …… 99 and 44/100% on the money.
I personally think you should have included “coal” in your following statement, like I interjected below, to wit:
The Obama-Clinton-Bloomberg ….. War on Coal, …… cost the Democrat Party loss of their “70 continuous years of total control” of the West Virginia Legislature ….. and the current Governor that was elected as a Democrat to switch Party registration.
West Virginians have apparently begun to realize that ……. the Democrats have never been supportive of “the working man and his family” …… and have only been spouting lies and false promises for the past 100+ years, ……. at both the state, county and city level of government.
Or, as Ilhan Omar would put it, “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.”
May it work as well as it did in Australia.
Absolutely. People won’t vote for more, rather than less/lesser, climate action.
…is there something in the water in NY?…what’s wrong with these people?….how did they get so far removed from reality?
Must be the sea air. Same problem on the West coast.
Good return on $0.5 B investment to 2020 election with government subsidies. There is a word describing it …
Is he Russian?
Antidote is common sense, not science that sheeple does not understand. Nice weather, milder winter nights up to 0.5 C is a good thing. It is not connected in any meaningful way to coal that it is clean and cheap energy.
Jewish, I think.
You mean this word?
Bloomberg has a very heavy chip on his shoulder. It comes from a life lead requiring him to look up at everyone and the abuse experienced from those insensitive souls who call attention to his lack of physical stature. Folks like him are always looking for a fight but not one in which they can be hurt. An angry little man with too much money for his own good.
Napoleonic complex –
The Napoleon complex is a popular belief that describes an inferiority complex in which short men tend to compensate for their small stature through behavior, such as increased aggression or gossiping.
Had a boss a little like that once upon a time … he passed away early in his life too, just last year, as a matter of fact. RIP Steve Larghi.
Looks like Bloomberg wants to be POTUS – or at a bare minimum buy a puppet
May he prove the saying about a fool and his money … 😉
Does he get chauffeured around in a solar powered limo?
Thought not.
If Bloomberg implements his plan , 1/3 of the people will leave in a year , 1/2 of the remaining people will die due to power outages in the first winter and the people still there will hang the SOB from a lamp post.
“No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”
– Mark Twain.
Michael,
Great piece! Balanced, quiet, and responsible. Let the leaders of this uneconomic Environmental Catechism show the paucity of their economic development thinking.
Steve
“I would rather be known as a poly/humanist than a poly-math kind of guy.”
Anonymous Heins
A useful idiot with money and a chip on his shoulder that doesn’t need persuading to toe the line is the UN’s dream.
He’s worrying about two years?!
Obama and the IPCC gave India and China until 2030 when they will agree to consider reductions; they emit multiple amounts of CO2 compared to the US. How the heck will “bold Federal action” impact the World’s climate in this scenario?
Does this Bloomberg money only apply to shutting down U.S. coal plants, or is he also aiming at Chinese and Indian coal plants?
Someone ought to tell him that shutting down U.S. coal plants while allowing China and India to build as many as they desire won’t reduce CO2.
Until these Alarmists address the China and India problem they are not serious about reducing CO2.
None of this is new. The rich and soulless destroyed the environment and cost people their lives for centuries. Cattle barons just “eliminated” their competition. Others used the law to steal the land needed for their projects. The whole west was populated with the extremely wealthy. Then there were the plantations in the south. The rich and soulless have always done everything they can to destroy anything they didn’t like or couldn’t profit from.
Let’s see how many wind turbines and solar panels can bemanufactured without using fossil fuels. They depend on fossil fuels from cradle to grave.
I believe his goal is energy poverty for the “deplorables” and all the negative consequences that come out of this.
https://www.atr.org/left-wing-billionaire-michael-bloomberg-raising-taxes-poor-people-good-thing
These guys don’t donate or give.
They invest.
Which is why I would consider this as a combination of tax-deduction and capital risk.
However…
We never come to hear of any similar schemes on behalf of equally wealthy and potentially interested in returns from their investments climate skeptics.
Business is business after all, “what you do I can do”. Or not ?
You could look it up:
“…climate change has not produced more frequent nor more costly hurricanes nor other weather-related events covered by insurance…”
-Warren E. Buffett
Chairman
Berkshire Hathaway Corporation
Letter To Shareholders
2015 Annual Report
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2015ltr.pdf
February 27, 2016
p. 26
Count On Coal is a website that runs campaigns for favorable regulations for coal. There is one running right now, so go there if you want to help.
But I am fed up with coals arguments: jobs and economy. True, and the attack on fossil fuel hurts the poor the most. But let’s face it: the costs would be worth it if we would live longer and the ecosystem benefit. The reverse is true.
Coal is saying “we’re selfish,” which is a most ineffective argument. Truth is coal and other fossil fuels are super-renewable in that the CO2 makes plants, including wood, which can then be burned over and over again. That might be a fact around NM and other “renewable” laws. Better, fossil fuels and only fossil fuels make more life possible on Earth. Photosynthesis, elementary, my dear Watson.
I dream of coal miners decorating their coal train cars with
“Burn Me Back To Life: with a lump of coal, arrow, tree. Or coal -> grass->animal
Photosynthesis: CO2 + H2O +sunshine, in a green plant –> sugar and O2
Feed the Poor–burn coal and gas
Coal Makes More Life and Biodiversity
and so on.
How strange that when a Michael Bloomberg or a Tim Steyer donate very large amounts of money to self-proclaimed “environmentalists” and “progressives” they are greeted with very loud and very long hosannas. Let a very wealthy conservative make a large donation to a favored cause and the conservative is trying to bring down our government and rape and pillage the poor.
Why is it that so many “billionaires” and “millionaires” who earned their money (fortune) via their US “capitalistic” business ventures, ……. are now intent on spending a large portion of their fortune to destroy the capitalism that permitted their monetary success?
Maybe they are simply PO’ed at the “Venture Capitalists” who made their gazillion$ “the easy way”.
Steyer was a VC.
Whatever …… the dogs bark and the climate moves on.
What is it about NY that produces these sanctimonious quacks? Like AOC and DeBlasio, Bloomberg is in La La Land. Destroying the coal industry to reduce carbon dioxide emissions will undermine US prosperity. But it will have no effect on the earth’s temperature, because it won’t even affect how much carbon dioxide is in the air.
https://youtu.be/b1cGqL9y548
Remember the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters? “Down with the 1%ers!” or whatever their slogan was.
What happened to them? Is it the same crowd that shows at climate protest?
Do they realize that Bloomberg, Steyer, Soros etc. are all “1%ers” and pulling their strings?
..let him waste his money… we all know Solar and wind cannot replace fossil fuels…
“Douglas MacKinnon: Bloomberg to coal workers: You’re fired!”
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/douglas-mackinnon-bloomberg-coal-jobs
Whatever happened to the “global” in “global warming” . If he really wants to cut CO2 for some reason, the half billion would be better spent helping China and India frac some gas charged shales. Eliminating every lump of coal used in the USA would hardly register on global total CO2 emissions.
The oligarchs will decide your future for you.
Better hurry, time is running out…..
So will the UMW and AFL-CIO be silent on this?
I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out he and/or his cronies are invested in green ‘solutions.’
The only rational alternative to fossil fuel fired power plants is nuclear power plants ant that is where Bloomberg should put his money.
Stranded assets – these FOOLS are determined to ‘load’ onto the books STRANDED ASSETS valued into the BB (billions of dollars).
IF Bloomberg were smart (he’s not) he would have some “due diligence” performed on BrLP and Dr. Mills and take a look at recent progress in their area of developed expertise.
The shame is that plans like Bloomberg’s will work, or at least stand a good chance of doing so, while the companies waiting in line for the guillotine do nothing to support sites like WUWT financially.
While Antony justifiably seems to take pride in not receiving money from such sources, these companies almost deserve what is in store for them by not employing even a few people to better make their case. In today’s political world it seems like a necessary cost of doing business.
This is a great example of the need for a wealth tax.
Except, the “wealth” is mostly in the form of stock and real estate and the like (not money “sitting the the bank” like AOC thinks); would the proposal be to redistribute the “means of production to the people”?
Today, much of that “value” is already owned by employees in 401K accounts and the like, too.
Is there a single progressive policy that doesn’t include destroying entire industries?
So we will need to quadruple our solar/wind production to make up the loss of the coal plants currently generating 1,100 gigawatts per year.
Which doesnt include the all electric car fleet of the near future sucking an additional 800 gigawatts per year which we haven’t planned for.
Easy peasy.
Mikey Bloomberg has imbibed a toxic amount of the climate Kool-Aid. His early career as a high-pressure bond salesman on Wall Street at the notoriously corrupt Solomon Brothers does not inspire much confidence in his integrity, his knowledge, his analytical abilities or his judgement. Regardless of facts, Mikey is on a deluded crusade to “save the world” from itself.
He has, of course, ordered his flying monkeys to proselytize the climate gospel (the one according to Mikey Bloomberg).
I don’t believe a word out of Bloomberg on the topic (and you shouldn’t either); they’re completely bent.
How many tax credits from us to him will be generated?
Imagine if all that money went to a real environmental cause like cleaning up ocean pollution or buying up land for rewilding…
The democrats have doubled down on their plan to destroy not just coal jobs now it’s all fossil fuel related jobs .
Think about this unions support Democrats who plan to destroy union jobs . WTF is that .
Pretend this is not politics . Some $billionaire plans to spend at least half a billion on trying to take out a viable business . Lets just say it was bakeries cause he choked an a doughnut once . You can’t target legitimate businesses because don’t like them . Ok stop buying from them but trying to harm them through a hit job to bury them is not right .
I would bet good money that he has a back end plan on how this $500 million will turn into several billion.
Michael Bastasch | Energy Editor
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will spend another $500 million to continue his war against the coal industry.
Bloomberg will fund environmentalist campaigns at the state and local level to replace coal plants with wind and solar energy.
Conservative critics said Bloomberg’s campaign will kill thousands of jobs and leave communities devastated:
Which would strengthen opioid crisis by unemployment in the US and fire China’s energy sector.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Virginia+unemployed+coal+workers+drug+abuse&oq=Virginia+unemployed+coal+workers+drug+abuse&aqs=chrome.
So what would happen to some $billionaire who said he was going to spend half a billion to harm the US military ? Yet it’s OK to openly try to destroy the jobs and industries that support the entire country including the needs of the military ?
Fossil fuels are legal products and only an eco terrorist would try to shut them down .