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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Vox has defended Michael Bloomberg’s record of wrecking coal mining jobs, against accusations by activists that Bloomberg is not committed enough to climate action.
Mike Bloomberg says he has the best record on climate change. Does he?
The billionaire former New York mayor funded a successful program to close coal power plants. But activists say his plans for the future lack ambition.
By Umair Irfan Feb 25, 2020, 11:50am EST
Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg will soon be on the ballot in the Democratic presidential primary for the first time in 15 states and territories. Ahead of voting on Super Tuesday, March 3, he is flooding the airwaves with $124 million worth of ads.
Bloomberg’s climate change record is a key part of his pitch:
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But some environmental groups disagree with how he’s positioned himself and remain unimpressed with his plans to deal with rising average temperatures.
“I think that’s a very subjective claim to begin with,” said Ryan Schleeter, a spokesperson for Greenpeace USA, which has ranked Bloomberg’s climate plan last among 2020 presidential contenders. “He has committed to doing less than other candidates in the race.”
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In giving the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign more than $100 million, Bloomberg has financed an international effort to take the dirtiest source of energy offline.
“Well, already we’ve closed 304 out of 530 [coal] power plants in the United States and we’ve closed 80 out of the 200 or 300 in Europe,” he said during the Nevada debate.
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If elected president, Bloomberg has promised that he will act on grand plans to limit climate change, aimed not just at coal, but also at natural gas, now the largest source of electricity in the United States.
But activists and fellow presidential contenders have criticized Bloomberg’s vision for the future. His climate proposals aren’t as sweeping as those from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren or Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Bloomberg was also critical of the Green New Deal resolution introduced in Congress last year. He also doesn’t want to ban fracking, a controversial technique for extracting oil and natural gas.
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Read more: https://www.vox.com/2020/2/25/21145525/bloomberg-2020-debate-climate-change-beyond-coal
Bloomberg opposed the Green New Deal, so he will likely never win over Greenpeace and Sanders radicals.
On the other hand the Sierra Club seems a little friendlier, Bloomberg helped them a lot with his hundred million dollar donation to Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign, so maybe Greenpeace just need to be reassured Bloomberg is willing to work closely with them as well.
In my opinion Bloomberg probably has done more personally than the other candidates to wreck the coal industry, investing vast sums of his own money into shutting down demand for coal, making it his personal mission to destroy the coal industry. But Bloomberg has also profited over the years from his fossil fuel investments and clients.
He, they are supporting so-called “Green” jobs in China, or he, they were.
There’s nothing dirty about coal the way modern coal fired power plants work. If anything, we could back off a little bit from the desulfurization intensity because that would increase efficiency and give us back the cooling effect of sulfur aerosol.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/10/23/the-1970s-cooling-anomaly-of-agw/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/03/12/acidrain/
“There’s nothing dirty about coal the way modern coal fired power plants work.”
Oh, OK……
https://www.wri.org/blog/2019/12/china-faces-4-big-risks-if-it-continues-building-more-coal-plants
“China’s deployment of coal has dangerous implications for the environment, for human health and for the country’s economy. Coal combustion is the single-largest source of air pollution-related health impacts in the country, contributing to some 366,000 premature deaths in 2013 alone. These burdens could grow substantially by 2030 if coal plants continue to operate at current rates. Air pollution-related health impacts total $38 billion (267 billion yuan) per year.”
https://endcoal.org/coal-myths/myth-2-coal-is-clean/
“When the industry talks about “clean coal,” it is referring to a range of technologies that burn coal more efficiently, and pollution controls that remove some of the nastiest pollutants from the smokestack. Yet even the most efficient coal-fired power plants only operate at around 44% efficiency, meaning that 56% of the energy content of the coal is lost. These plants emit 15 times more carbon dioxide than renewable energy systems and twice as much CO2 as gas-fired power plants.
Pollution controls can remove sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxides, PM2.5 and mercury from the smokestacks. However, installing these pollution controls can add hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of a new coal plant, making them more expensive than other renewable options, and discouraging their adoption. Today many countries continue to build new coal plants and run existing coal plants without modern pollution controls, seriously affecting the health of their citizens.”
Gee Anthony, you have to make make major changes to broaden your reading material and also produce thoughts of your own if you want to make a contribution to quality critique. You know you can find anything you want to support your biases on the internet, right?
Actually, almost all of the nasty stuff is removed.
Your desire to see only what the far left activists want you to see is cute.
Emitting more CO2 is a good thing. We need to get CO2 levels back to around 1200ppm so that plants can flourish again.
(1) “…Coal combustion is the single-largest source of air pollution-related health impacts in the country, contributing to some 366,000 premature deaths in 2013 alone…”
Of those 366,000 premature deaths, 86,500 (less than 24%) were attributed to coal power plants. Fair to assume only a fraction of those 86,500 are attributable to MODERN coal power plants.
(2) Oh wow, endcoal.org is your source? You posted this with a straight face? You expect to be taken seriously?
Of course, they complain about efficiency, the cost of pollution controls, and CO2…mentioning absolutely nothing “dirty” about MODERN coal plants, just coal plants “without modern pollution controls.” Seems fair to include MODERN pollution controls with MODERN coal plants. That’s a key factor in making them MODERN.
The real problem is GreenSlime King Bloomberg and his money…. money buying the US Democrats.
US Democrats love money. They live by the dollar for their power. But they mistake it for actual power. Bloomberg wants to buy them. The druge dealer vs. the addict.
Billionaire Bloomberg is a climate drug dealer. Rank and file average democrats are the drug addicts. They beliueve the lies of their party. That is, until the checks bounce. When OPM runs dry.
Understanding the distinction between those two groups is vital to understanding what the climate change scam is all about.
Climate Drug dealers (= money). Climate Drug users ( = money junkies).
Sir Michael Bloomberg, a London resident for 30 years, was knighted by the Crown.
Strangely enough I have not seen anyone mention the strict US Constitution limits on foreign titles?
He looks disqualified.
Perhaps he has an Israeli passport too?
If a person is not a citizen of the UK or the commonwealth then any honour is honorary, which I believe circumvents the US constitutional requirements about foreign titles.
Well if we can quickly get 26 more states to ratify “article thirteen”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titles_of_Nobility_Amendment
Bloomie can be stripped of his citizenship for having accepted the (honorary) title which would disqualify him from ever being president 😉
Plus a holder of an honorary title is not permitted to use the title. Yehudi Menuhin was given an honorary knighthood in 1965 but could not be called “Sir” until he became a British subject in 1985 and later was created a baron Lord Menuhin of Stoke d’Abernon.
Nobel Prize is not an honor?
Or a title?
????? Who was talking about the Nobel Prize? Was mini-Mike Bloomberg ever up for a Nobel? Not that I’m aware of.
Look, I know BonBon’s posts can be incoherent at the best of times, but he quite clearly (even for him) mentioned Bloomberg being Knighted (“by the Crown” I.E. by the Queen of England) and what that might mean vis-à-vis the US constitution’s limit on acceptance of foreign titles. and every post under that has been discussing that issue.
As for the Nobel, It’s not just Obama who won one while in Office (in case that’s what you were trying so badly to bring up), so did Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson (as have a handful of other lesser office holders over the years) and it was never considered an issue that needed Congresses attention. At the time the Prize was given to Obama, the DOJ released an opinion on the topic:
https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/2009/12/31/emoluments-nobel-peace.pdf
the TL:DR; is they found that since the Prize isn’t awarded by a “King, Prince, or foreign State,” the Nobel doesn’t run afoul of Article I, Section 9 of the US constitution.
In comparison, a knighthood is very much awarded by the head of state (currently the Queen of England) and thus does fall under the constitutional article in question.
Pardon me Mike ‘Blooper’berg, you’re freudian slip is showing….
In the socialist democrat candidate debate last Tuesday, Bloomberg declared that he spent $100 million and bought the 21 US House of Representatives seats that gave the democrats the majority in the US House, ensconcing Pelosi as Speaker of the House. The video of his freudian slip is provided in an embedded video in the following story:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/02/26/bloomberg-bought-house-seats-n2561913
It seems buying elections is Bloomberg’s preferred modus operandi, as he now attempts to buy the democrat primary election and aspires to the buy the Presidency.
“In the socialist democrat candidate debate last Tuesday, Bloomberg declared that he spent $100 million and bought the 21 US House of Representatives seats that gave the democrats the majority in the US House, ensconcing Pelosi as Speaker of the House.”
Yes, Bloomberg showed just exactly what he thought about what he was doing: Buying congresscritters; buying influence. Bloomberg sounds like he owns them, and that apparently is the way he thinks about them, as things he bought. He probably feels that way about all the assistant state attorneys he has bought in the past. He owns them. They do his bidding. The Man behind the Curtain.
Bloomberg spends 100 mil on 21 congressional elections. Crickets from everyone on the left. Dinesh D’Souza donates $5000 to one campaign and gets federal conviction and liberal outrage. McCain-Feingold Act at work.
To leftists in general, morality is determined by who benefits. Bloomberg’s millions benefited them, therefore it is moral.
D’Souza’s $5000 benefited someone else, therefore it is immoral.
I remember a time when Democrats at least claimed that they were opposed to rich people using their money to buy political influence.
Modern Democrats seem to be proud of it.
We may be moving onto a grand solar minimum the likes of which have not been seen since the Little Ice age…and so we may well need as much CO2 to be vented into the atmosphere as possible anyway, not that it will heat us up cause as you all know, that is bullshit, but because the planet’s CO2 levels will decline dangerously and we might need every little bit we can get.
Who dares predict what the loons will be barking up the wrong tree then? Looking forward to your ideas ha ha.
Bloomberg is very dangerous wrt climate change policy. He has been instrumental in pushing for the divestment of hydrocarbon stocks and has been leading the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures, https://www.fsb-tcfd.org/, a bully pressure group to shame banks and investors to dump fossil fuel investments and shift them to renewables. Bloomberg is also one of the founders, along with Tom Steyer, of Risky Business, http://riskybusiness.org/ , this “think tank” pushes divestment and diverting money into renewables. It’s all cloaked in the language of “risk assessment”. He has been the UN Special Envoy for Climate Change, a position he gave up when he entered the democratic leadership race. He is being replaced by Mark Carney. https://www.bloomberg.org/press/releases/un-secretary-general-taps-un-special-envoy-bloomberg-lead-climate-finance-leadership-initiative/
Correct.
Add in the EU echo chamber of van der Leyen’s GND, echoed by major hedge fund BlackRock (which just happens to be fielding a German Chancellor candidate and is involved in all French parties).
People are being blindsided by XR, Greta and F4F.
As they say, money talks, real money whispers.
Divestment is a good strategy for other investors to make money, especially now with stock prices falling due to corona virus. At some point the stock price will plateau and other realistic investors can by energy stocks at discounted prices.
Energy stocks will not tank because the world simply cannot run without them.
Grumpy Greta is coming to Bristol,
“A huge security operation is being put in place in Bristol for a visit by Greta Thunberg that is expected to attract a crowd of around 25,000, most of them children and young people.
Police and Bristol council officials said there would be significant disruption for the youth climate strike on Friday and warned that they could not be responsible for the care of unsupervised children.”
Never mind coronavirus spread among kids, whose immunity is mostly resistant to Covid-19, but they will take it back to schools and from there to their parents and even more seriously to their grandparents. They have a chance to get rid of most of ‘obnoxious old sceptics’ who are ‘ruining’ their future. The end is nigh.
Is she going to say anything new or offer any solutions to the perceived problem? Unlikely- in which case, what is the bloody point?
From the point of view of the Thunberg family fortune, it’s just another day spent laughing whilst visiting the bank.
“Grumpy Greta is coming to Bristol”
Is she taking the train or walking?
Amazing how much free time one has when one doesn’t go to school and doesn’t have to worry about working for a living.
Just announced:
Court victory for the green lobby and environmentalists over London Heathrow airport expansion
A bit OT:
In the (Glasgow) Herald today a piece called Climate and the rise of the ‘anti-Greta’.
It talks about Naomi Seibt, describing her as ” On the payroll of the Heartland Institute, a climate-denying think tank which is closely allied with the White House.” It goes on in this vein for several paragraphs.
It finishes by suggesting that “climate change deniers want their own version of Greta”, saying “If imitation is the highest form of flattery, Heartland’s tactics amount to an acknowledgement that Greta has touched a nerve, especially among teens and young adults.”
If I didn’t want to know about other things going on locally I would stop taking this rag, but there isn’t any real alternative.
Bloomberg boasting about how many blue collar workers he has forced into unemployment, and boasting about shutting down an industry?
These are the voters he needs to win over. In the last Australian Federal election, this posturing is what killed the radical leftist vote. The ungrateful workers handed a bunch of seats to the Government, giving them an unexpected victory.
Practically speaking, Bloomberg is nearly as disastrously anti-scientific on climate change as Crazy Bernie and Pocahontas, and, so far, Bloomberg has done a lot more damage. Here’s a short article from the Washington Times:
<a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/feb/15/bloombergs-bucks-fund-liberal-mercenaries-crusade-/https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/feb/15/bloombergs-bucks-fund-liberal-mercenaries-crusade-/ (or there’s a saved copy here).
This William Happer talk is quite long, but the first 5 minutes where he exposes Al Gore as a cheap scamming ignoramus are priceless!
https://youtu.be/M8iEEO2UIbA
No wonder the media/marxocrats are in bed w/each other. The money & media coverage between them just flow in volumes. Talk about blatant & obvious corruption.
Bloomberg, as quoted in the above article: ““Well, already we’ve closed 304 out of 530 [coal] power plants in the United States and we’ve closed 80 out of the 200 or 300 in Europe.”
Conveniently left undefined in this quote is who the “we” are. Mike Bloomberg had very little, if anything, to do with initiating the closures of those power plants.
Rather, by all accounts, is was mostly the owners/investors of those AGED power plants that saw the writing on the wall that they could not compete economically with modern, much more efficient natural gas-fueled power plants (e.g. CCGT type), especially considering the governmentally-imposed environmental regulations on the handling of coal, the scrubbing of its “dirty” exhaust products (e.g., sulfur dioxide, particulates), and the disposal of its toxic waste ash.
Mike Bloomberg is true to life of a politician, taking credit for someone else’s accomplishments. Reference any of his TV commercials for his Presidential run for ample additional evidence of this.
So, with all of the CC activity going on how much has any of it affected the climate, or even the weather? 100% virtue signaling for a phony cause.
Why are the democrats bragging on support of a hoax or is it scam? Their campaigns and what is laughingly called debates are a disaster like a stunt man falling short on his motorcycle, crashing into a car he was supposed to go over.
There may be thousands of reasons why they are wrong but only one why not to look like an idiot. It’s called getting elected.
“His (Bloomberg) climate proposals aren’t as sweeping as those from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren or Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders”.
It would seem these people think sweeping proposals on climate change are what the voter wants! No wonder their polls are always so far off the mark (NYT: 98% probability Hillary will be elected – She even wrote a book “What Happened” she forgot to put WTF at the head of the title and a “?” at the end). Savvy politicians don’t enter a race that’s unwinnable. Here’s my, and multimillion others’ thoughts: Trump is 100% a shoo-in for President.
If some wise Republicans can make the changeover to Trump’s new rendition of the Republican Party, the messages and personae of the clutch of clucks on offer from the Dems is the ‘tell’ that the right will be in power for a generation or more. Paraphrasing Max Planck on how sicence advances – one funeral at a time- it will be new blood that forms the next Democrat administration some time around my 100th birthday into the 2030s. They’ll be making proposals to improve the lot of Americans.
How in the world did a mayor “wreck coal mining jobs”?
Last I checked – my daughter lives in Brooklyn – NYC does not have any power plants.
Perhaps this is another attack on the most viable Dem candidate? It would be nice if this forum would steer clear of electoral politics (more wishful thinking; sigh).
I see that once again, you didn’t actually bother to read the article.
Little Mike’s activities do not stop with what he did while mayor.
There are six (6) power plants alone in the borough where your daughter lives. Astoria Generating, Con Ed, and NY Power Authority each have two (2).