Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Democrats have released a bill to shut down all US fossil fuel industries, because of climate change.
House Democrats Introduce Ambitious Climate Change Plan
Legislation will call for a 100% clean U.S. economy by 2050.
By Randy Showstack 6 hours ago
Democrats in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce have released the legislative framework for what they are calling a bold, ambitious, and sweeping plan to achieve the goal of a 100% clean U.S. economy by 2050.
“We’re really treating climate change like the existential emergency that it is,” said committee chair Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) at an 8 January briefing. He said that the legislation, which grew from a series of congressional hearings, is one of the committee’s top priorities.
“The climate crisis is here, and we can no longer afford to address this issue along the margins,” he said. The 2050 goal would respond to a 2018 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that stated that limiting global warming this century to 1.5°C would require net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide to be reduced to zero by about 2050.
…
“But there’s a fundamental problem here, which I’d be crazy not to acknowledge, that most of them are climate deniers. The president, the [Republican] leadership, won’t admit that there’s a human element to the climate disaster that we face. So that’s a huge problem to get them to participate,” he said. Pallone added that he doesn’t know of a single Republican who has agreed to the target of 100% clean energy by 2050.
“What choice do we have? Australia is burning. We can’t just sit here and say, ‘Oh, the Republicans may not like this or the president may not like this.’ We’ve got to keep going and see what we can achieve,” Pallone said.
…
Read more: https://eos.org/articles/house-democrats-introduce-ambitious-climate-change-plan
Representative Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), I think it is very sweet of you to offer to bomb the US economy back to the stone age because you support Australia, but I think most of my fellow Australians would prefer free tickets to Disneyland. Or maybe you could help the Australian Navy deliver emergency beer supplies to pubs cut off by the fires.
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The bushfires in Australia occurred where the uncleared forest fire load was at its greatest not where the temperatures were at their greatest. So where does GlobalWarming / Climate Change relate to that? The contributing factors were the drought, arsonists and lightning strikes, and the prevention of forest clearing by the Greenies who are now hiding behind a GlobalWarming Smoke Screen.
The interesting thing about the long expected serious bushfires (due to a lack of adequate hazard reduction burns) and the nature of Australia, is that both liberal and labor state governments have the same terrible record on this issue, whats going on here ?, they are all still implementing the same failed policy’s revealed in eighteen separate enquiries.
What hidden hand behind the scenes has the power to ensure both party’s quietly adopt the same policy’s in different states while attempting to convince the public they are quite different.
Pete
The sky is falling!
We must do something!
This is something, therefore we must do it!
Idiocracy.
This bill has what Greens crave…Socialist Totalitarianism.
It seems to me the Democrats are too far out in la-la-land to get elected, but I’m old so what do I know.
Pop,
A bill like this is written with the full certain knowledge that it will never become law. Its sole purpose is for Senator Pallone to get in front of a crowd of ignorant partisans in New Joisey and say some nonsense about how “I sponsored the bill to solve the climate crisis, but OrangeManBad opposed it and the Rethuglicans in the Senate voted it down”. It is not constrained by reality, not even the laws of physics, and it can never have any negative impact on a voter the way it would if the nightmare ever could become law. It can promise each constituent free energy, free food, free medicine, free housing, free education, a chicken in every pot, forty acres and a unicorn. Billionaires and trillionaires will pay.
Every Dem candidate at one debate last year raised their hand that illegal immigrants would be eligible for free healthcare. Now that might get weaponized by Trump, but you can be certain that it is going into the memory hole as far as the eventual Democrat nominee is concerned.
It looks like the DNC will make sure Joe Biden is the nominee, probably with Klobuchar as VP nominee to get the requisite balance of X and Y chromosomes necessary to qualify as a Dem ticket under DNC rules. They will need a waiver for being melanin-deficient, but they did that in 2016, so that won’t be a hurdle. (“We had the most diverse field in history”)
In short, by August, with the yeoman work of the people’s propaganda organs (mainstream media), the Biden-Klobuchar ticket will be the reasonable, moderate alternative to the raging erratic madman who has given us worker shortages, a crisis of too much affluence, plus premature peace through reckless war crimes.
The CBC up here in Canada is pushing free healthcare for illegal immigrants too. I notice that they didn’t bother explaining what would happen to the existing rationing (wait times) if the “free” service is extended from 30 million Canadians to all 7 billion Earthlings.
The democrats are going to save Australia even though Australia has not asked nor wants to be saved 🙂
If you want to save us can we ship all our left/greens over you seem to have enough stupids and a few more surely won’t make a difference?
Let’s try it .
In the month of February 2020, by Presdential executive order, disconnect Washington D.C. from the grid, shut down the gas and NG pipelines and bring in some horse drawn carts.
For the entire month, go back to the time of the Founders.
You can re-run the Salem witch trials while you are at it.
Pelosi already has that covered, with her impeachment nonsense.
I propose that all Democrats in the US drive electric vehicles, but they must be recharged using solar power only.
They can also pay a $100 per panel recycling fee.
Australia is not burning.
I just looked out the window. It’s raining.
Weather changes.
While there is a mega fire in Victoria, we will get on top of the bushfires.
Mr. Pallone and the Democrats should understand 2019/2020 is weather.
Climate it is not.
Actually what Australia is experiencing it climate the same climate Australia has had for million of years. The only difference unlike the Bushman, White man don’t burn off the bush periodically. So yes you are experiencing man made climate change, the only problem with the congress man is he too stupid to not know the fires have little to do with CO2.
Looking better every day for Trump!
The President by, of, and for the working class. The concept of work is absolutely terrifying to Democrats, but also to fabulously rich liberal people.
Are Democrats returning to their slave-owner roots?
They never left.
+100
Keep up the crazy talk, Democrats.
The Democrats have lost their minds. Unfortunately, crazy people are always the last ones to know they are crazy.
Australia burning is mainly due to natural causes with some help of few arsonists. Hot weather comes and goes, but with it comes air circulation and atmospheric electrostatic charge, followed by a rapid discharge i.e lightning, the most likely cause of the (eucalyptus reach) forests fires.
This map shows the lightning intensity during 24 hours (on 2nd January 2020) for an area north of Sidney
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/AustLight.htm
link to real time and archive
https://www.lightningmaps.org/?lang=en
Last I heard… seems your “few” arsonists is around 180.
There needs to be, and will I suspect, an accounting of sources of ignition.
Of the 180 mentioned by Alcheson, how many are arson?
Arson is the crime of willfully and maliciously setting fire etc. …
Some are suspected, others known and charged. We await more info.
A study in the USA shows >80% of fires that require involvement of fire-fighters happen because of humans being somehow contributing to the ignition. Most are not deliberate.
Alcheson, hi
In this case my word ‘few’ has same meaning as ‘number of’, hence I will correct to :
“due to natural causes with some help of number of arsonists”
Now you can pick any number from 23 to 200, whichever source of information you choose to be credible.
1974/5 bushfire season v this bushfire season (Dr Roy Spencer)
The climate change over much of Australia over the last 100 years has been towards cooler, wetter weather while atmospheric CO2 increased. This past year has been hot and dry, but not as hot and dry as it used to be. The fires this past year are more the result of environmental laws that prohibit or restrict brush management. As long as those laws are in effect, there will be catastrophic fires every now and then. With intelligent laws there will still be fires, but they won’t be so catastrophic.
A quick glance at the temperature and rainfall data over Australia for the last 100 years should convince even a Democrat that CO2 has nothing to do with it in less than 5 seconds.
“The fires this past year are more the result of environmental laws that prohibit or restrict brush management”.
You nailed it. Either we clear the brush and create fire breaks or nature will. Pretty simple stuff.
And the mean old so and so has cleared some scrub this time. She does not much around ‘down under’. Which is why our indigenous ancestors religiously burned the country for millenia. They had received the memo, loud and clear a long, long time ago. It is only recently when our cities had inner cities and cafe districts that we became isolated from her messaging, dumbed down our approach to such matters and started believing in eco fairies or at least started to let eco fairy believers draft our laws, regulations and practice guides.
You’re asking them to look at naked data instead of listening exclusively to St Greta’s sermons? That’s obscene!
But the reality is that the climate change we are experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no control. If we eliminated all CO2 form our atmosphere, life on Earth as we know would die out yet the Earth’s climate could continue to change unabated. It is all a matter of science. Eliminating all life as we know it on Earth many not be all that good for the economy.
The US has zero chance of going emission free ever. Period. Would some of these alarmist types please gather themselves together somewhere and demonstrate for all humanity exactly how they can live with no electricity, no phone, no communications of any sort, no vehicles, no building materials, nothing made of any type of metal or plastic or made by any sort of machine, no medicines, no prepared foods, no refrigeration, no heating, no fire, no animals, and if I’ve forgotten anything please forgive me. You get the picture. All of the above requires emissions of carbon either when you dig it out of the ground, manufacture something, trade it, transport it or consume it. This demonstration must be done for at least a year. It’s about time all this hysterical nonsense stopped. Either show us how it’s done or shut up and go away.
The Democrats ought to be asked what they are doing personally to stop their carbon dioxide footprint. If they want everyone to go without fossil fuels, they ought to be leading the way by going without fossil fuels. “Do what I say, not what I do” doesn’t cut it. We need good examples of this Green New Deal mentality. Show us how it’s done, Democrats. Personal sacrifices are called for here. Otherwise, you are hypocrits.
They and all other alarmists think that burning fossil fuels is the only way that CO2 is released into the atmosphere. They also have no concept of the fact that to manufacture one solar panel produces more CO2 than using it will save in it’s useable lifetime. Nor do they know that to make an EV or even a hybrid EV consumes more copper and other rare earth minerals that are more expensive economically as well as environmentally to extract that the point of owning or using one is lost. Worse still, all these bright young minds that are so fond of gathering in mobs screeching poorly worded slogans and waving cardboard signs – recycled, of course – and filming it on their phones so they can post it on their socialist media platform of choice have no clue that the world they think they want to live in would not include the freedom to gather in mobs, there would be no platform for virtue signalling and their phones would become environmental hazards being rendered useless.
“their socialist media platform of choice”
Thanks! That made me laugh! 🙂
Nicely stated. They should read Clan of the Cave Bear, or a later book of the series, Shelters of Stone. Obviously an authors creation, but the reality is the fact that those who worked HARDER, SMARTER and LONGER will end up wealthier. The problem with leftists is everything to them is a zero sum game. They think there are only X dollars available, or X houses or X energy. A false premis since the more productive WORK done, the more product produced. But alarmist types only form of production is in making someone else to do their bidding through government coercion. Obama was highly regarded as well qualified for the presidency because he was a COMMUNITY ORGANIZER, a leader of those who got the government to pay for things to be done that they would not do themselves, with OTHER PEOPLES MONEY.
I won’t hold my breath waiting for them to educate themselves, they are not interested in gaining knolwedge, just getting their way.
I’m pretty sure that that demonstration has already been done, Peter. Tell them to go visit the Amish or Mennonite communities. All carbon dioxide neutral!
So Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is the big bad wolf and responsible for every weather induced event in the World, including the bush fires in Australia.
It is ‘estimated’ by those people who know best (!) that the total CO2 in the atmosphere is circa 190-225 Gt, with anthropogenic CO2 circa 5-6 Gt. So, from the total estimate there is a discrepancy of 35 Gt (which is six to seven times anthropogenic produced CO2).
If I take sugar in my tea and I normally have 200 granules of sugar, would I actually notice the sugar pile is smaller or taste the difference if I reduced it by 5/6 granules?
Surely CO2, in the atmosphere, is all carbon dioxide, and doesn’t distinguish between naturally or anthropogenically produced CO2? When the majority of emissions occur from the oceans and with around half-a-million Earthquakes per annum, many occurring in the 70% of ocean covering Earth, the effect of man can not be deemed to be ‘devastating’ or classified as an emergency?
With a huge increase in the population of people on Earth, any ‘reduction’ of CO2 will adversely affect the much needed cultivation of rice (for instance) to feed the billions of underfed and starving peoples of our planet. Cutting back on CO2 will ensure the added suffering of the World’s poorest (not forgetting that 40% of all anthropogenic is taken up by plants and the oceans).
I would be much more sympathetic to reducing CO2 if someone would just tell me ‘what’, and spell out exactly, what the climate emergency looks like.
The Climate Emergency looks like every misfortune anywhere on Earth. It’s the modern version of demons to whom we attribute all human suffering.
A must see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-qBOyrD0-0 Liz Wheeler especially for schoolkids re AGW Greta ect. Apologies if already posted
“The climate crisis is here, and we can no longer afford to address this issue along the margins”
Yes sir. Of course. The scientific evidence is there for all to see
and the evidence is clearly seen once you get past the denialist skepticism.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/03/confirmationbias/
Ironically Australia has one of the highest levels of roof top solar and has been closing down coal fired plants at a rate seriously impacting reliability and affordability. Per head of population we have more renewables than almost anywhere else in the world.
We still had these fires . I don’t think that there is a correlation between the amount of renewable generation and fires otherwise the fires would be getting less intense not more.
I don’t think that the Democrats have thought this through. I think the Australian bushfires should be interpreted as proof that undertaking extreme measures As we have in Australia , rather than reduce fire risk may be making them more intense. Per head of population of the major countries India and China have done the least amount of renewables and increased the number of coal fired plants but rarely have any bushfires. QED. More renewables and less coal leads to more severe bushfires not less.
Must read comment by Mr Zigmaster.
They keep telling us we must prepare for more extremes. More heat, more rain, more wind, more insects, more disease.
I don’t think they know what the word “prepare” means.
This is why I think there really is a climate crisis. It is NOT due to any major changes in the climate, the crisis is due to the solutions that will be foisted on otherwise generally free and independent people. These “solutions” will set the economy back decades while doing very little to any climate change. The solutions will be implemented as demographics in the US will drive it. Younger people are trending more “progressive” in their voting over time.
Making it more of a crisis is that the Chinese economy and government will remain untouched. For some reason the Chinese government can give lip service to mitigating climate change, continue to build coal-fired power plants, increase their CO2 output and still be considered a leader in the area. They will be the last large economic power in the world once the US abdicates in the name of saving the climate. As such they will be influencing other nations and driving global activities.
The interesting thing about the long expected serious bushfires (due to a lack of adequate hazard reduction burns) and the nature of Australia, is that both liberal and labor state governments have the same terrible record on this issue, whats going on here ?, they are all still implementing the same failed policy’s revealed in eighteen separate enquiries.
What hidden hand behind the scenes has the power to ensure both party’s quietly adopt the same policy’s in different states while attempting to convince the public they are quite different.
Pete
Straight from Wikipedia: “Existentialism asserts that people actually make decisions based on subjective meaning rather than pure rationality.”
I would caution that the word existential should not be conflated with Existentialism. An existential threat is anything that threatens our existence. The philosophy of Existentialism uses the word existential as you point out, but Existentialism doesn’t define the word existential. In the same way that Leftism doesn’t usually enter into it when you turn left while driving, Existential angst is not always the reason why existential threats are perceived. There can be objectively true existential threats, not just bogus threats dreamt up by people who define their own reality.
It is instructive though that the sort of politician who talks about the Politics of Meaning (HRC), is likely to refer to the imagined Climate Emergency as an existential threat. Maybe in their case, it should be capitalized as an Existential threat.
““We’re really treating climate change like the existential emergency that it is,” ”
… as long as you don’t expect us to build fission reactors…
That being the case, Rep Pallone will be quite happy to explain – scientifically – what the emergency is and how it relates to the government’s ability to rule, and what changes to the country the switch to a ‘zero-carbon’ economy would mean in terms of civil stability and law.
Harry Passfield. I keep on asking for someone to explain, exactly, what the scientific emergency we are facing and why we only have few years to resolve it. If they know the time frame they know exactly what the problem is!!
If it’s AGW, and in particular, CO2, why is 5-6 Gt of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere the big bad wolf of the 190-225 Gt produced naturally (Note; 35 Gt of discrepancy). Is anthropogenic CO2 much more volatile? (!!)
If it’s beef production and the release of Methane (NH4) why is NOONE discussing the production of RICE grown in paddy-fields, where the production is increasing, and produces more NH4 globally(?) !
CH4 is methane, NH4 is ammonia. Just a FYI.
I’m happy that the existential crisis of a dwindling beer supply is being addressed. We need more carbonated and ethyl alcohol enhanced beverages.
Scissor, “carbonated” is such a descriptive word. Anyone wonder why the non-alcoholic versions are called fizzy drinks?
Regards,
Bob
Is that a regional terminology?
Where I grew up, folks called soft drinks “pop” (short for soda pop). Further East, folks tended to use the term “soda.” I think that soda pop originated from time when such beverages were made by acidifying sodium carbonate of sodium bicarbonate with some acid, e.g. phosphoric acid.
Now, CO2 is used to carbonate such beverages without the need for sodium. I suppose there could be a campaign to ban carbonated beverages.
Scissor asked about Fizzy Drinks, “Is that a regional terminology?”
Britain and I believe one of the lands down under…but I’m not sure if it’s Australia or New Zealand (maybe both?).
Regards,
Bob
In NZ it is fizzy drinks.
not pop or soda.
Soda is just carbonated water without any flavouring. (Note the correct spelling of flavouring.)
“I think that soda pop originated from time when such beverages were made by acidifying sodium carbonate of sodium bicarbonate with some acid, e.g. phosphoric acid.”
Now I know why it was called Soda Pop! One learns something every day around here! 🙂
We call it pop in this neck of the woods. Love my Dr. Pepper!
I grew up on the east coast of the US, we called it soda. I’m on the west coast now, everyone calls it pop.
Another good use of all that sequestered CO2!
Democrats don’t know the difference between weather and climate. They also confuse ‘bushfires and climate change’ in Australia with ‘bushfires and arsonists in Australia’.
A fossil free economy equals an ox cart economy. The Demorat bill is going nowhere.
Rob, I thoroughly enjoyed “Demorat”!
Thanks,
Bob
The Democrats are continuing on their headlong path to a sure loss in the upcoming election, simply by coming out with nonsense like that : The safest way to guarantee a Republican victory. The Dems would stand a fair chance of winning if they just openly stated that ideas about what the weather will be like at year 2100 can of course only ever be theories – and instead concentrated on hammering Trump’s terribly risky, inane and unnecessary policy against Iran.
“and instead concentrated on hammering Trump’s terribly risky, inane and unnecessary policy against Iran.”
Trump is doing just right . If you want to know how to handle murderous dictators, just watch Trump.
If you convince a murderous dictator that you will kill him the next time he attacks you, then he won’t attack you, unless he is genuinely insane. The problem is you have to convince the dictator that he really is in danger from you.
Trump convinced the Mad Mullahs that he was going to lower the boom on them if they killed one more American, and they backed off because they think he is serious. And then along come the Appeaser Democrats taking the side of the Mad Mullahs possibly giving the Mad Mullahs the idea that maybe Trump won’t hit them hard if they kill another American.
The Democrats are giving aid and comfort to our enemies, the Mad Mullahs, with their anti-Trump, anti-war rhetoric. One American Democrat congresswoman who made the outrageous claim that Trump is responsible for the Ukranian airliner being shot down is having her comments being played over and over on Iranian State television. Good move, congresswoman. You have demonstrated your ignorance of the facts and hopefully your are just doing this out of ignorance and not because you want to help murderous terrorists continue their murder spree.
Democrats are totally unfit to defend the United States from its enemies. This Iran situation demonstrates that quite clearly.
President Trump said Soleiamani was targetting four embassies when he was killed. Those plans are still active no doubt, and a new commander can have them carried out, so we should not be surprised if the Mad Mullahs continue their attacks on the U.S., especially after being given encourgement from the Democrats in the United States.
I think I can say without fear of contradiction that if the Mad Mullahs kill any more Americans, Trump is going to hit them very, very hard. If he goes into Iran, he’s going to come out with the Iranian military completely destroyed. Is that what you want, Mad Mullahs? Don’t let an ignorant Democrat lead you into believing you can come out on top with Trump. You won’t. And Congress can’t stop him before he stops you.
Tom Abbott – There is no doubt in which polarized, political camp you belong! To me it is saddening that in neither of the camps we see mentioned the most meaningful aspect of Trump’s Iran policy, namely its immorality. The United States of America broke her solemn word that she, together with a number of other major world powers, would adhere to a written contract. Trump here behaved exactly like Hitler at Munich. Do you remember Chamberlain proudly waving a piece of paper : “Peace in our time”. Hitler had signed it – and to Chamberlain’s old-fashioned mind that was sufficient.
That was what the American Indians could not stomach either : “White man talks with two tongues”. And this, in the long run, will prove the most damaging effect of Trump’s foreign policy : The United States cannot be trusted.
The ‘Iran Deal’, just like the Paris nonsense, was an agreement with Obama, not the US. The ‘Iran Deal’ was not a treaty, and was not approved by Congress. Hence, it has no legal power on anyone but Obama.
Once Obama was no longer President, why should the US abide by it? Obama agreed to it, the US didn’t.
Spot on… Obama refused to send either to the senate for ratification because he KNEW the US would NOT agree with his “deals”. The other countries should have known quite well that unless the US makes it a formal treaty…. it is not worth much more than the paper it is written on as it can be changed just as soon as that president is out of office.
Andy, the U.S. had every reason to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal,because it did not prevent the Mad Mullahs from acquiring nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them, and the U.S. had the legal right to withdraw from it, as all the signatories were aware of when the treaty was signed between Obama and the other parties. They all knew the treaty was solely dependent on President Obama being in Office.
The U.S. cannot allow the Mad Mullahs to acquire nuclear weapons. Can you imagine what they would be threatening right now if they had them? I can.
So Trump is going to do whatever it takes to prevent the Mad Mullahs from acquiring nuclear weapons even if that includes all-out war.
Fact: The United States military is capable of completely destroying all of the Mad Mullahs military assets: tanks, aircraft, ships, missile batteries, etc.
Fact: The Mad Mullahs are aware that the U.S. military can completely destroy them.
Fact: Murderous dictators are psychopaths, but even psychopaths have a sense of self-presevation, unless they are genuinely divorced from reality.
Given these facts, what does it take to deter a murderous dictator who has a sense of self-preservation?
First, you have to convince the murderous dictator that you have the technical ability to do him great harm.
Second, you have to convince the murderus dictator that you have the will to use your technical superiority against the murderous dictator.
If you convince a murderous dictator of both those things, then the murderous dictator will *not* cross the redline laid down.
If you can accomplish this convincing, then you can get your way without resorting to war. But you must be willing to go to war, convincingly so, in order to put your self in this position.
This is the downfall of Democrats. They are definitely *not* willing to go to war to deal with a murderous dictator and they signal this weakness at every opportunty.
And the most important part of this whole deal is the convincing of the murderous dictator that the president means business, which may prevent bloodshed not cause bloodshed, yet the Democrats are blind to this and undermine the president at every turn while the Mad Mullahs and other dictators look on wondering if Trump can really do what he says he will do.
I think the world is going to find out the answer to that question because I think the Mad Mullahs are fanatics who are backed into a corner and their only thought to fix their problems is to react violently.
The Mad Mullah’s militia’s in Iraq have fired a couple of Katusha rockets at an Iraqi base the other day and they lobbed half a dozen mortar shells into a base this morning. This may just be the particular militias acting out on their own, although U.S. intelligence said the Mad Mullahs were putting out the word to the militias to “cool it”.
At any rate, these so far are small attacks. These small rockets and mortars can be set up are fired in a very short time and then those who fire them can run away fast so they don’t get spotted by the helcompters. So these are small-scall harrasement attacks, but they could lead to an American getting killed and if Trump can connect that to the Mad Mullahs then that will be the end of the Mad Mullahs.
Let’s hope for all our sakes that the big demonstrations going on in Iran right this moment against the Mad Mullahs succeeds in ousting the Mad Mullahs. This is the best outcome possible, letting the Iranian people decide, and Trump has signaled them his support and admiration.
So we will see. Just keep in mind that Democrat unity on this issue would serve the cause of peace by putting more pressure on the Mad Mullahs, yet they do just the opposite and side with the Mad Mullahs. The Democrats are unfit to defend us. They don’t have the mentality or the understanding to do so. Fear clouds their minds when it comes to national defense.
And Obama policy worked so well…
If you don’t reduce the fuel load by burning the Aussie bush in a controlled way then it’s going to burn in an uncontrolled way. The current disaster was 100% predictable based on misguided Green policies which fly in the face of 30,000 years of land management practices. To use a pun, climate change is a smoke screen.
What we are now seeing in Australia is an example of what the bush fires were like before the native Australians started to “manage” their environment.
This of course has nothing to do with climate change, but is most certainly an entirely man made disaster.
Hmm. If the US is to achieve a 100% fossil-fuel-free economy in just 30 years, there is a hell of a lot of research and engineering work to be done. Millions of wind turbines, many square miles of solar farms, huge biofuel production facilities to keep the transportation sector running. And much, much more.
My question is: how likely is it that someone with a degree in say, feminist film studies will make any contribution to that vital work? I think very unlikely. So if we were serious about meeting the challenge, we should be serious about making sure the next graduate generation has the right skills.
So why are we continuing to guarantee student loans for degree programs outside the STEM disciplines? We will need those dollars to retrain displaced coal miners as Java coders. Going further, why are we giving federal grants for art, literature, etc., etc.? How are they going to help us develop reliable grid-scale electricity storage? Or why indeed are we allowing tax-deductible status to private gifts for such frivolous purposes? Since foundations set up to support frivolous pursuits are no longer needed, we should confiscate their assets and redirect them to something useful.
It’s clear that if we were serious, whole university departments need to be eliminated to make room for instructors and curriculum that really matter. Students and professors unwise enough to have specialized in irrelevant disciplines can be trained to clean and maintain solar panels, as unlike coal miners they are most likely not capable of learning Java programming.
That is, if we’re really serious.
Alan, how did you get to level 7? I am working hard just to be a denialist level 2. Please explain how you got to level 7? I am just certified tool freak level 3, and working hard on certification to level 4 tool freak, but it is a long way to level 7 Denialist.
Saturday January 11, 2020, French meteorologist Guillaume Sechet writes
The Indian Ocean is responsible for devastating fires in Australia
Since September, the Australian continent has been facing tens of thousands of particularly devastating fires. In early January, estimates now show more than 8 million hectares of vegetation gone up in smoke
This is far more than the fires that affected the Amazon during last August, and 10 times more than the fires that ravaged California during the summer and early fall of 2018.
How is this abnormal situation explained?
The climatic conditions reigning over Australia are influenced by the temperatures of the Indian Ocean. However, at the same latitude, the water temperature is not necessarily homogeneous over the whole of this ocean. Significant differences can be observed between its western part (African coasts) and eastern part (Indonesian coasts): this temperature oscillation between East and West is called “Dipole of the Indian Ocean”
The Indian Ocean Dipole
Identified for the first time by climatologist researchers in 1999, this phenomenon offers three phases: neutral, positive or negative dipole.
-> Neutral dipole: temperature of the Indian Ocean similar in the eastern and western part
-> Negative dipole: temperature of the Indian Ocean higher in its eastern part
-> Positive dipole: temperature of the Indian Ocean higher in its western part
In recent months, the dipole has switched to a positive phase: we find indeed a warmer water temperature than normal in the western part of the Indian Ocean (off Africa) while an abnormally fresh was observed in the eastern part (around Indonesia).
Situation at the end of 2019: a strong positive dipole
This positive dipole phase is exceptional. The peak was reached around October 2019 with an index of around + 2.0 ° C: it is the highest value observed since 1997!
And this is not without consequences in terms of ocean / atmosphere interactions. The warmer the water, the more it is able to humidify the atmosphere and increase its instability (convection and thunderstorm formation). It is then the opposite phenomenon which occurs on the south of Indonesia and on Australia where the waters are cooler than usual: the humidity is found limited and the chances of precipitation are low.
During a positive dipole period, drought is particularly marked on a large central strip of the continent (Northern Territory and South Australia) but also on Tasmania and the State of Victoria (South-East of the country). As far as temperatures are concerned, the usual tendency is to be very hot over a very large part of southern Australia, and therefore synonymous with remarkable or even extreme heat waves (> 45 ° C) in summer.
Has anyone discovered just what that 100% clean energy is supposed to be? Fairy dust is non-combustible.
Joules, at the end of that rainbow.
Magic unicorn flatus?