The Week That Was: 2022-08-20 (August 20, 2022)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “Science is a process for learning about nature in which competing ideas about how the world works are measured against observations.” – Richard Feynman (The Meaning of it All)
Number of the Week: 166,000
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: TWTW will begin with a brief discussion of the problem of omission in science. Often “experts” who should know better omit critical data that calls into question their pet theory or calls into question false ideas that receive substantial public funding. Another component of omission is the failure to disclose the limits of knowledge. For example, announcing the results of medical computer models on a new disease (COVID) using data on a previous disease without properly informing the public.
Examples are given, including the sudden rebirth of the Great Barrier Reef after the government of Australia pledged $700 million to protect the Reef, the mangrove swamps in north Australia dying of thirst, and the improper use of the levelized cost of electricity. The last is an excellent concept that is highly misused. The COVID example will not be discussed.
Francis Menton writes that the highly acclaimed Schumer-Manchin deal contained a hidden bullet that was removed at the last minute. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal discusses that Senator Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia triggered its removal.
Discussion of some of the talks at the conference of the Doctors For Disaster Preparedness will be withheld until the videos are available. The video of the talk by Willie Soon is out and will be discussed next week.
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Omission: Omission is a huge problem in climate studies and by omitting important physical evidence climate studies have ceased to be a physical science. This failure applies to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its followers such as the US National Climate Assessment and National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
“NCAR is an NSF-sponsored Federally Funded Research and Development Center devoted to service, research, and education in support of the atmospheric and related science research community. NCAR operates world-class observational facilities and computing infrastructure, conducts extensive in-house research, maintains vigorous programs of education, outreach, and the promotion of diversity, and cultivates extensive national and international collaborations. NCAR also carries out research and development on behalf of other organizations, most commonly other U.S. Government agencies. Major NCAR facilities include the Mesa Laboratory in Boulder, CO; the Research Aviation Facility in nearby Broomfield, CO; the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center in Cheyenne, WY; and the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory on Mauna Loa, HI.”
According to its website the scientific purpose is:
“The NCAR mission is to understand the behavior of the atmosphere and related Earth and geospace systems; to support, enhance, and extend the capabilities of the university community and the broader scientific community, nationally and internationally; and to foster the transfer of knowledge and technology for the betterment of life on Earth. NCAR fulfills this mission with highly integrated programs organized around three overlapping primary areas of activity: cutting edge airborne and ground-based observational facilities, community weather and climate models with many thousands of users, and petascale high-performance computing. These are accompanied by a broad portfolio of programs supporting education, career development, public engagement, and increasing diversity in the geosciences. NCAR scientists also collaborate extensively throughout the academic, private, and government sectors. NCAR’s programs are guided by the NCAR Strategic Plan, which emphasizes three overlapping priorities: 1) enhancing and building on NCAR’s core strengths in fundamental research in the atmospheric and related sciences; 2) promoting integrated Earth System Science; and 3) advancing actionable science, to help address society’s most pressing environmental challenges.” [Boldface added] https://www.nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2022/pdf/66o_fy2022.pdf
Yet, NCAR ignores (omits) over forty years of atmospheric temperature trends and atmospheric data bases such as HITRAN:
“an acronym for high-resolution transmission molecular absorption database. HITRAN is a compilation of spectroscopic parameters that a variety of computer codes use to predict and simulate the transmission and emission of light in the atmosphere.” https://hitran.org/
With a budget of $99.7 million in fiscal year (FY) 2020 and a budget request of $104 million in FY 2022, one would expect that NCAR has the resources to examine the atmospheric temperature trend database by the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the HITRAN database. They are freely available on the web. But such scientific competence and integrity are too much to expect.
Such omissions are generally not considered punishable unless one has the duty to reveal all physical evidence. There is nothing illegal about NCAR’s omissions, but its actions reveal it lacks scientific integrity.
The situation gives some ironic circumstances. A number of state and municipal attorneys general have filed litigation claiming “Exxon Knew” that use of hydrocarbons will lead the significant warming with disastrous consequences. Yet as “proof” they use climate models and climate studies that are contradicted by physical evidence. Are these attorneys guilty of the same civil wrongs they accuse Exxon? See links above and Measurement Issues – Atmosphere.
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False Narratives: On August 6 TWTW discussed that the “dead” Great Barrier Reef remarkably revived itself after the government of Australia promised $700 million for its recovery. For years Jennifer Marohasy has dived the Reef and found that despite reports from aerial surveys, the reef was recovering from threats such a great bleaching event and cyclic crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks. The starfish are marine invertebrates that feed on coral. No doubt, coral have been recovering from such threats for the past 500 million years. (The Great Barrier Reef grew with the rise in sea levels after the last glaciation and the current structure has an estimated age of six to eight thousand years.)
Marohasy writes:
“It is no coincidence that the latest Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) report claiming record high coral cover was released on the same day the net zero legislation passed the lower house of the Australian Parliament, on 4th August 2022.
“In March, AIMS was claiming more than 90% of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) to be severely bleached. That was in the lead up to the federal election, the climate change election.
“Now in August, just a few months later, the same organisation is claiming healthy corals and record high coral cover across more than two-thirds of the GBR.”
“These two results are irreconcilable. It is not possible that 90% of the reef was severely bleached in March and at the same time the corals were healthy and expanding their range.”
“I have sought clarification from AIMS regarding the inconsistencies in the results that claim severe bleaching in the aerial survey and no bleaching in the underwater survey, but none has been forthcoming.” [Emphasis in original]
“I have suggested that the RMIT University [officially the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology] FactLab consider an investigation, but they have not responded
Jim Steele has another readily understandable essay, this one on the dying of the mangrove swamps off the Gulf of Carpentaria, a large shallow inlet in northern Australia, south of New Guinea. Steele writes:
“(The photos and captions are screenshots from BBC: Mangrove forests: How 40 million Australian trees died of thirst.)
“The BBC’s short video begins by showing devastated mangrove forests from northern Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria from a 2015-2016 die-off. The BBC and ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company) framed this natural event as a human-caused climate change disaster, to perpetuate the myth of a climate crisis.
“Mangrove specialist Dr Norman Duke attributed the episodic 2015 die-off to a 40 cm [16 inches] drop in sea level for 6 months due to an El Niño that caused the mangroves to ‘die of thirst’. Duke acknowledged that it is well known that El Niños naturally cause such major drops in sea level in the western Pacific. But there is no evidence, nor any consensus, that El Niño have been made worse by rising CO2. It is known however, that El Niño activity has increased over the last 6000 years as the earth cooled since the Holocene Optimum due to changes in the sun’s orbital cycles.
Francis Menton has a good essay explaining how the very useful concept of Levelized Cost Of Electricity (LCOE) has been corrupted by misuse. Organizations such as the International Renewable Energy Agency, an offshoot of the UN, use it to compare the cost of unreliable wind and solar power with reliable nuclear, gas, and coal-fired power. Of course, such comparisons are immediately trumpeted by promoters of wind and solar.
You cannot buy one kilowatt-hour of midnight solar electricity or one kilowatt-hour of still-air wind energy for a million dollars. The issue is how much will constant electricity cost the consumer twenty-four hours a day 365 days a year with 99.99% reliability. As Menton writes:
“Nobody knows [how expensive it will be to make wind and solar reliable], because there is no functioning demonstration project from which reasonably precise costs can be extrapolated. And frankly, there never will be such a demonstration project, because the costs are so enormous that it can never be done. Meanwhile, everyone just nods along as if LCOE comparisons are meaningful.”
The two projects TWTW has found trying to make wind power reliable with storage, King Island off Tasmania (population 1700) and El Hierro Island the smallest of the populated Canary Islands (population 11,000) both failed. As Menton suggests, no one knows how much it will cost to make German wind and solar power reliable or UK wind power reliable. Yet the International Renewable Energy Agency which compares the costs of unreliable power with the costs of reliable power calls itself a “center of excellence” giving more reasons why the UN is not to be believed. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy and Changing Seas
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The Trap: Menton discusses the bullet we may have dodged in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. To be kind, apparently Senator Manchin did not recognize the bullet (or trap) which would have given grounds for claiming that Congress gave broad powers to the EPA for regulating carbon dioxide emissions. The claim would have been dubious, but the claim by the EPA that greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide endanger public health and welfare is dubious. It is based on deceitful government studies that fail to consider all the physical evidence, namely the atmospheric evidence.
Fortunately, West Virginia’s other senator, Shelley Moore Capito stopped the provision. According to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal:
But the stealth killer was its [the Act’s] grant of authority that would have unleashed regulators on the fossil-fuel industry, especially coal. The Clean Air Act doesn’t say agencies can regulate greenhouse-gas emissions as pollutants, and the issue has been fought over in court. Mr. Manchin’s deal included a provision that explicitly authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to do so under numerous provisions of the law.
This could have nullified coal producers’ ability to challenge regulation under the recent Supreme Court ruling in West Virginia v. EPA that said Congress must clearly authorize agency actions that have major economic significance. In a rejoinder to the coal producers, Mr. Manchin claimed the bill did ‘not provide any new authority for EPA to shut down coal plants.’ Is he really so naive? [Boldface added]
Enter Ms. Capito, who offered an amendment on the Senate floor to strip the bill’s sweeping grant of regulatory authority from the bill, which all Democrats including Mr. Manchin rejected. She then challenged its compliance with budget reconciliation rules, which prohibit measures whose budgetary effects are ‘merely incidental’ to the policy impact.
The Senate parliamentarian agreed and struck the provision from the bill. Still, Mr. Manchin and his fellow Democrats are on record in support of giving EPA unbridled climate-regulation authority, including to impose cap and trade.
Mr. Manchin has pushed back against the coal producers, noting that the industry has been declining for the past couple of decades under Republican and Democratic Administrations. The way he sees it, the bill’s tax credits for carbon capture technology will ease the industry’s death, like painkillers do for a patient with an incurable disease. But carbon capture has never shown economic viability in the U.S. despite attempts by the deep-pocketed Southern Co., among others.
At least Ms. Capito has given the industry a fighting chance to stave off the worst regulation. But there’s a reason the climate left is celebrating Schumer-Manchin as a victory: They think it spells the end of U.S. coal.
Mr. Manchin has declared that his deal will remove restrictions on US oil and gas drilling. But that remains to be seen. There are no guarantees other Democrats will agree to the deal he struck with Senator Schumer, and Mr. Manchin’s critical thinking skills are in question. See link under The Political Games Continue and Article # 1.
April Fools Award: Among the many distinguished nominees for SEPP’s prestigious April Fools Award were Keith Seitter, former Executive Director of the American Meteorology Society; the Department for Climate Change of the University of East Anglia for failure to recognize the difference between tree rings and thermometers; US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, for laughing in response to a question on increasing oil and gas production and pledging $3.5 billion for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which would kill all life on the planet; New Zealand Minister of Climate Change James Shaw for promoting Zero Carbon, which has failed everywhere; Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry who is clueless; and Senators Schumer and Manchin.
At the 40th annual DDP meeting it was announced that the winner was Senators Schumer and Manchin for stagflation preservation. The vote may have been influenced by last minute ballot stuffing in West Texas.
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Number of the Week: 166,000. In 2021 the IRS had 78,661 full time employees. The misnamed Inflation Reduction Act has funds to raise this total by 87,000 (to increase government revenues). By contrast, the FBI employs about 35,000. With the increase the IRS will have about 4.7 times the employees of the FBI. Does this disparity indicate where Washington believes the criminals are?
See: Change in US Administrations, https://www.irs.gov/statistics/irs-budget-and-workforce, and https://www.fbi.gov/about/faqs/how-many-people-work-for-the-fbi#:~:text=The%20FBI%20employs%20approximately%2035%2C000,scientists%2C%20and%20information%20technology%20specialists.
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Science: Is the Sun Rising?
The Sun-Climate Effect: The Winter Gatekeeper Hypothesis (III). Meridional transport
By Javier Vinós & Andy May, Climate Etc. Aug 15, 2022
The Sun-Climate Effect: The Winter Gatekeeper Hypothesis (II). Solar activity unexplained/ignored effects on climate
By Javier Vinós & Andy May, Climate Etc., Aug 7, 2022
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-IIb/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels
By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019
http://store.heartland.org/shop/ccr-ii-fossil-fuels/
Download with no charge:
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/
Download with no charge:
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Global Sea-Level Rise: An Evaluation of the Data
By Craig D. Idso, David Legates, and S. Fred Singer, Heartland Policy Brief, May 20, 2019
Failed Climate Predictions – Willie Soon, PhD
Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, August 19, 2022
Australia’s Mangroves: BBC & ABC’s Disturbing Fear mongering with Scientific Dishonesty and Idiocy
By Jim Steele, A Walk On The Natural Side, Aug 15, 2022
Mangrove forests: How 40 million Australian trees died of thirst-BBC
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 16, 2022
“Even by BBC standards this is breathtakingly dishonest:”
The Completely Fraudulent “Levelized Cost Of Electricity“
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Aug 28, 2022
Good News About Corals – As Legislation Introduced to Devastate Farming
By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Aug 9, 2022
White House climate official sanctioned by key science body
By Ben Geman, Axios, Aug 16, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Jane Lubchenco is the past administrator of NOAA under Obama and is currently the deputy director for climate and environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which is responsible for the upcoming National Climate Assessment.]
Ex-Cabinet minister Lord Frost says there is no ‘climate emergency’ and Britain should end focus on ‘medieval’ wind power
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 10, 2022
Europe wildfires: Are they linked to climate change?–NO!!!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 15, 2022
Defending the Orthodoxy
UN Chief Blames Big Oil For His Own Policies
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 7, 2022
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Climate deniers use past heat records to sow doubt online
By Adria Laborda, Barcelona (AFP) Aug 8, 2022
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Star marine ecologist committed misconduct, university says
Finding against Danielle Dixson vindicates whistleblowers who questioned high-profile work on ocean acidification
By Martin Ensebrink, Science.org, Aug 9, 2022 [H/t Gordon Fulks]
“Dixson is known as a highly successful scientist and fundraiser. She obtained her Ph.D. at James Cook University (JCU), Townsville in Australia, in 2012; worked as a postdoc and assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology for 4 years; and in 2015 started her own group at UD’s [University of Delaware] marine biology lab in Lewes, a small town on the Atlantic Coast. She received a $1.05 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in 2016 and currently has a $750,000 career grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). She presented her research at a 2015 White House meeting and has often been featured in the media, including in a 2019 story in Science.”
Marine Ecologist Committed Misconduct, University Says
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Aug 10, 2022
John Kerry’s climate office rife with ties to far-left green groups
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 16, 2022
Saved by the bill
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 17, 2022
“’The Inflation Reduction Act, the surprise deal that Senator Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer struck last week, would significantly reduce greenhouse-gas pollution from the American economy. If passed, the bill would cut annual emissions by as much as 44 percent by the end of this decade, according to a new set of analyses from three independent research firms. That would make the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, the most significant climate bill ever passed by Congress. No law has ever made such a big dent in U.S. emissions or cut them as rapidly’.”
Bill Gates Approves
By Benjamin Zycher, Real Clear Energy, Aug 15, 2022
Hot Weather Means Climate Change–Cold Means Weather!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 12, 2022
Jordan Peterson: Peddlers of environmental doom have shown their true totalitarian colors
By Admin, Climate Depot, Aug 18, 2022
“Deloitte is the largest ‘professional services network’ in the world. Headquartered in London, it is also one of the big four global accounting companies, offering audit, consulting, risk advisory, tax and legal services to corporate clients.
“With a third of a million professionals operating on those fronts worldwide, and as the third-largest privately owned company in the US, Deloitte is a behemoth with numerous and far-reaching tentacles.”
Change in US Administrations
Biden signs expansive health, climate bill into law
By Alex Gangitano and Morgan Chalfant, The Hill, Aug 16, 2022
Biden Will Get Billions To Spend On Green Programs. Here’s What Happened Last Time He Had That Money
By Jack McEvoy, Daily Caller News Foundation, Aug 11, 2022
Where Biden’s Disastrous Policies Rue the Day: U.S. Virgin Islands
By David Williams, Real Clear Energy, Aug 12, 2022
Seeking a Common Ground
ENSO Impact on the Declining CO2 Sink Rate
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, Aug 9, 2022
Link to preprint: ENSO Impact on the Declining CO2 Sink Rate
By Roy Spencer, ESSOAr, Aug 9, 2022
The Koonin-Dessler Debate
By Andy May, Petrophysicist, His Blog, Aug 15, 2022 [H/t ICECAP]
“In short Andy Dessler said that economic models suggest that climate change is a negative for human civilization and not positive at all. But he avoided putting any numbers to this assertion.
“Dessler believes that wind and solar produce electricity cheaper than fossil fuels, and that they can provide most of our power. Koonin counters that the only reason wind and solar are cheaper is that the cost of fossil fuel backup and the required changes to the U.S. grid are not included in the solar and wind costs. Koonin shows an estimate of $2.4 trillion to upgrade our electric grid to work with mostly wind and solar.”
Apocalyptic versus post-apocalyptic climate politics
By Judith Curry, Climate Etc. Aug 9, 2022
Science, Policy, and Evidence
Inflation Reduction Act could threaten U.S. power systems
America’s baseload power plants are being pushed off the grid
By Terry Jarrett, Washington Times, Aug 18, 2022
The miserable truth is that our leaders don’t want us to have cheap energy–Dan Hannan
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 10, 2022
We’ve Made It Nearly Impossible to Build in America
By Christopher Barnard, Real Clear Energy, Aug 12, 2022
Models v. Observations
Models, Climate Scientists Wrong Again…New Study Finds Jet Stream Strengthening, Not Weakening
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Aug 9, 2022
Measurement Issues — Surface
A Clear Case of Hot, Hotter … Hoodwinked
By Tony Thomas, Quadrant, Aug 14, 2022
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
Global Temperature Report
Earth System Science Center, UAH, July 2022
Map: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2022/JULY2022/202207_Map.png
Graph: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2022/JULY2022/202207_Bar.png
Text: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2022/JULY2022/GTR_202207Jul_1.pdf
“It is interesting to note that the brief but intense heat wave in Britain did not impact the monthly average atmospheric temperature much at all.”
New CDN Feature: Everybody Knows
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 17, 2022
Scientists: The Global Warming Since 1985 Cannot Be Attributed To CO2 Forcing
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Aug 8, 2022
Link to latest paper: Radiative Energy Flux Variation from 2001–2020
By Hans-Rolf Dübal and Fritz Vahrenholt, Atmosphere, Oct 5, 2021
[SEPP Comment: A drop in the albedo over the Northern Hemisphere?]
Changing Weather
The 1540 Megadrought in Europe: Rhine ran dry, fires burned, and no one blamed coal or beef steak
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 14, 2022
Cold weather is 77 times deadlier than hot weather in the UK
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 17, 2022
Where the bodies aren’t buried
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 17, 2022
SuperMonsoon Hits the Southwest U.S. and the Northwest Gets a Piece of It.
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Aug 16, 2022
“Looking at the total rainfall map since June 1, only showing values above 1.5 inches, lots of areas in the southwest have gotten over 4 inches, with a few locations getting 5-17 inches.”
Were Kentucky’s Floods Caused By Climate Change?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 9, 2022
“The harsh reality, however, is that floods like these happen, and have always happened, somewhere or other every year. They have nothing to do with climate change.”
Changing Climate
1,500 Years Of Heatwaves
By Tony Heller, His Blog, ?????
Changing Seas
The Fact Check Ruse – Part 5: John Brewer Reef Fact Check
By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Aug 16, 2022
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
The Most Powerful Molecule In The World
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Aug 19, 2022
Video; https://realclimatescience.com/2022/08/the-most-powerful-molecule-in-the-world-2/
Text: https://realclimatescience.com/2022/08/the-most-powerful-molecule-in-the-world/
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
Why Great Plains agriculture is particularly vulnerable to drought
By Saul Elbein, The Hill, Aug 18, 2022
[SEPP Comment: The overuse of the Ogallala Aquifer has been known for decades.]
In Defense of Fertilizers, Farmers and Food
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Aug 19, 2022
Canada does fertilizer
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 17, 2022
“Lorne Gunter observed that very few Canadians now farm or even know anyone who does, ‘All of which goes a long way to explaining how our prime minister, a trust-fund baby who grew up in the sheltered neighbourhood of Mount Royal, could simply decree a 30 per cent reduction in the use of fertilizers to produce food.’”
Lowering Standards
Is That True Or Did You Hear It On The BBC?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 19, 2022
Book Review
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Making the Barrier Reef Great again
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 17, 2022
“We also note grumpily that while we were away another scare story went extinct without our assistance.”
SEC Attempts to Regulate Indefinable “ESG” Topics
By Richard Morrison, CEI, Aug 16, 2022
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Activist Scientists Have Now Officially Changed A -0.5°C Global Cooling Trend Into A Warming Trend
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Aug 15, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Will NASA-GISS claim that articles of a coming ice age in the 1970s never existed?]
Busted
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 17, 2022
“The audacious PR plot that seeded doubt about climate change.” BBC
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
Andrew Bolt on the GBR Scare
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 8, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Video covering over two decades of propaganda. Why many scientific institutions can no longer be trusted.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Protest
Don’t pay UK protest: thousands of consumers pledge to not-pay their obscene energy bills
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 8, 2022
Expanding the Orthodoxy
Energy Industry Reacts to SEC Proposed Rules on Climate
By Gibson Dunn, Dimm & Crutcher [a law firm] Aug 10, 2022 [H/t Real Clear Energy]
HHS launches community-level environmental justice hazard calculator
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, Aug 10, 2022
Questioning European Green
The Last Optimist: Congress & the “Groundbreaking” Energy Spending Act; Top 10 Truths to Keep in Mind
By Mark P. Mills, 35 min Audio, Manhattan Institute, Aug 15, 2022
Green Party Opposes Carbon Capture–I Wonder Why?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 19, 2022
Green New Deal in Action! ‘Businesses in Spain have to keep summer air conditioning above 80 degrees F under new govt rules’
By Marc Morano, Climate Depot, Aug 11, 2022
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Green Policies Creating an Uncertain Future
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Aug 18, 2022
Southeast Asia at Energy-Climate Crossroads
By Vijay Jayaraj, Real Clear Energy, Aug 10, 2022
Link to report: New-tech American Coal-fired Electricity for Africa: Clean Air, Indoors and Out
By Kathleen Hartnett White, et al. CO2 Coalition, 2020
Funding Issues
19 US States fight back against BlackRock the Political Climate Police disguised as a Monster Investment Fund
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 19, 2022
Claim: Democrats Stayed True to Climate Action Because They Resisted Offers of Money
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Aug 14, 2022
FERC commissioners press financial giant Vanguard over possible efforts to influence utility power portfolios
By Ethan Howland, Utility Dive, Aug 12, 2022
We May Have Dodged A Bullet In The Misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act”
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Aug 9, 2022
Litigation Issues
Comments on Proposed Rule titled “Enhanced Disclosures by Certain Investment Advisers and Investment Companies about Environmental, Social, and Governance Investment Practices” [to SEC]
By the Attorneys General of the States of West Virginia, Alabama, et al., Aug 16, 2022
Energy Issues – Non-US
The Energy-crisis is pulling Europe apart
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 13, 2022
We’re Short Of Power In Summer Now
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 15, 2022
“It is also worth noting that CCGT actually peaked at 9.30pm, because we were quickly running out of pumped storage, which had been used up earlier in the evening, and reduced interconnector supply.”
Germany’s Growing Energy Supply Uncertainty: Electric Heater Sales Up 1000%…In The Summertime!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Aug 14, 2022
Energy Issues — US
Money Won’t Solve America’s Power Grid Problems
By Tsvetana Paraskova, Oil Price.com, Aug 15, 2022
“According to the North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC), extreme weather, inverter issues, and cyber threats pose unprecedented challenges to the grid. “
[SEPP Comment: We never had severe weather before?]
Justice Department, FTC urge FERC to expand competition for building new transmission, deny utility exclusivity
By Ethan Howland, Utility Dive, Aug 18, 2022 [H/t Cooler Heads]
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
Keep This Party Going – The Expansion Of Permian Gas Infrastructure Is Far From Over
By Housley Carr, RBN Energy, Aug 9, 2022
Offshore Drilling Is Coming Back With A Bang
By Alex Kimani, Oil Price.com, Aug 08, 2022
IEA Sees Higher Oil Demand This Year
By Irina Slav, Oil Price.com, Aug 11, 2022
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Neo-Socialist Plan: High-Low, Two-Tier Society
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Aug 15, 2022
“But when Indian Point shut down for good in April 2021, all the wind and solar facilities in New York State combined were producing less than a third of the power churned out by that single plant.”
[SEPP Comment: And even that, not reliably.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
No Stopping Wind and Solar in Cal and NY States
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Aug 10, 2022
How China Dominates The World’s Solar PV Supply
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 8, 2022
Link to: Solar PV Global Supply Chains
By Staff, IEA, July 2022
From the executive summary: Today, China’s share in all the manufacturing stages of solar panels (such as polysilicon, ingots, wafers, cells and modules) exceeds 80%.
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Burning imported wood in Drax power plant ‘doesn’t make sense’, says Kwarteng [UK Business and Energy Secretary]
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 11, 2022
Thanks, Guardian, For Questioning the Virtues of Biomass
By Linnea Lueken, Climate Realism, Aug 12, 2022 [H/t WUWT]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
Who Can Afford Electric Cars?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 8, 2022
Here’s why many electric vehicles are so expensive
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Aug 18, 2022
“But the credit comes with certain stipulations that may be very difficult to meet, at least in the near term. Half of the credit — $3,750 — will rely on where battery minerals come from, requiring a certain, escalating percentage to come from countries with which the U.S. has a free trade agreement. The other half of the credit will be based on manufacturing battery components in North America.”
How China Dominates The EV Battery Market
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 15, 2022
Link to report: Global Supply Chains of EV Batteries
By Staff, EIA, July 2022
From the report:” China produces three-quarters of all lithium-ion batteries and is home to 70% of production capacity for cathodes and 85% for anodes (both are key components of batteries). Over half of lithium, cobalt and graphite processing and refining capacity is located in China. Europe is responsible for over one-quarter of global EV assembly, but it is home to very little of the supply chain apart from cobalt processing at 20%. The United States has an even smaller role in the global EV battery supply chain, with only 10% of EV production and 7% of battery production capacity.
100 EV’s mysteriously destroyed in fire in India
By Jo Nova, Aug 8, 2022
“As commenter DLK says it’s a case of ‘sudden vehicle death syndrome (SVDS)’.”
Charging Electric Cars Like “Spilling Liters Of Petrol”…(Hidden) Losses During Charging Are Huge
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Aug 16, 2022
Health, Energy, and Climate
Climate control speed bump: Vegetarian women were 33% more likely to suffer hip fractures
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 12, 2022
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Boston mayor seeks to ban fossil fuels in new buildings
By Olafminhan Oshin, The Hill, Aug 18, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Perhaps the mayor was impressed by an exhibit in the National Building Museum some time ago. To accommodate wind turbines, the architects had models of buildings that had no facade on several stories so the wind could blow through. The vibrations and low-pitched sound waves would have been interesting, but how does one turn the building so that the turbines face the wind?]
Government Math
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Aug 19, 2022
Eat crickets and stop droughts
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 16, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Organic Cricket Flour? Is there inorganic cricket flour?]
No End In Sight To The Megadrought Flood
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Aug 19, 2022
US Queen-of-Witchdoctor-Congress legislates so Mother Earth does not get angry
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 16, 2022
The Science Was Just as “Settled” 110 Years Ago as It Is Today… Except for the Bits in the Middle
By David Middleton, WUWT, Aug 17, 2022
ARTICLES
1. Capito vs. Manchin on Coal in the Inflation Reduction Act
The GOP Senator kills legislative language in Schumer-Manchin that might have killed the industry.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ, Aug. 10, 2022
TWTW Summary: The key part is discussed in the This Week Section above.
*******************
2. The Inflation Reduction Act’s Energy Winners and Losers
Schumer-Manchin is a renewables-above-all bill. Fossil fuels lost big.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ, Aug. 19, 2022
TWTW Summary: The editorial begins:
“President Biden thanked Joe Manchin on Tuesday when signing the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act. As well he should. The West Virginia Senator provided the crucial Senate vote and the advertising that it is an ‘all of the above’ energy bill. The truth is that it’s a renewables-above-all bill that will raise U.S. energy prices and make energy and electricity supplies less secure.
“‘With this law, the American people won and the special interests lost,’ Mr. Biden said Tuesday. Just the opposite. The bill’s $370 billion in climate spending provides a panoply of tax credits for wind, solar, carbon capture, hydrogen, biofuels, critical minerals, sustainable aviation fuel, green-energy manufacturing and battery storage, among other things.
“The losers are fossil fuels. The bill imposes a new 16.4 cents a barrel tax on crude oil and doubles the current excise tax on coal production. It also includes a new methane fee, though it’s unclear how it will be administered. These taxes along with multitudinous subsidies for renewables will reduce fossil-fuel investment. That’s clearly the goal.
“The tax credits are intended to redirect business investment from fossil fuels to green energy by making the latter much more profitable and the former more costly. The result will be higher energy prices.
“Renewable tax credits will also exacerbate price distortions in power markets caused by the existing subsidies and make the electricity grid less reliable. Renewable subsidies have already caused an oversupply of solar and wind, which are driving out coal and nuclear (and some gas-fired) plants that provide reliable baseload power.
As baseload plants shut down, the grid must rely more on natural gas to back up fair-weather “renewables. But gas-fired plants break down when they are forced to ramp up and down (see Texas). Why should a utility spend to maintain a barely profitable fossil-fuel plant that could soon be forced to shut down?
“Wholesale power prices skyrocket when renewables generate less power than expected. These higher prices get passed to consumers. Average residential retail electricity prices have surged 70% in Texas in the past year. Rising natural gas prices have contributed, but the main culprit is a grid that needs more gas to back up renewables.
“Mr. Manchin’s bill implicitly acknowledges that renewables are threatening grid reliability by providing tax credits for nuclear, hydrogen, battery storage and carbon-capture technology. But these subsidies won’t fix the energy-market distortions caused by the bill’s green-energy subsidies.”
The editorial discusses the non-existence of battery storage and hydrogen. It does not discuss that nuclear needs to operate 24/7 to be competitive. It concludes:
“All of this Democratic climate spending will accelerate the government’s force-fed green energy transition, which will make the electric grid less reliable, raise energy prices and produce more taxpayer-funded boondoggles. Democratic leaders and Mr. Manchin are taking a victory lap. Politicians and green-energy special interests won. U.S. energy security lost.”
1930s, Germany, Frankfurt Marxism fled to the US, where it infected Universities, and students, for the nest 90 years.
Critical Theory is a feature of this brand of Marxism. The Climate, is a Critical Theory instance. Find a minor issue, elevate it, make it big, lie about its impact, and divide society. And in so doing gain power on the back of the chaos created.
It is Globalist Marxism that is taking over, the WHO, the UN, the WEF, are all infected by it.
Our choice is to sit back and be corralled in a Marxist hell or fight back, and for sure we know it is a hell. Every Marxist society ever tried has ended in dictatorship, death, and destruction.
Don’t forget Socrates: “No man is capable of doing great evil unless he first thinks he is doing great good”
All these ideologies, all these ‘brave new worlds’ these Utopias, look good on paper, but try to implement them and all you get is Pol Pot’s killing fields and Stalin’s Gulags.
We must fight this, with much more vigour than we are doing.
Marxism is dead: it died with the soviet Union.
what you are complaining about is ‘anything slightly left of the right wing of the Republican Party’
Do you know anything about it? You dont appear to do. Critical Theory is the mainstay of Frankfurt Marxism, that we see this today is clear evidence it is not only alive but growing in the west.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory
“what you are complaining about is….”
Have a word with your political education officer, griff
It’s Maoism, pure and simple.
Continuing heatwave in China, NZ floods, contiuned drought in Europe after record heatwave… just the latest set of climate related extreme weather this year this site is ignoring…
China drought causes Yangtze river to dry up, sparking shortage of hydropower | China | The Guardian
Oh: fun fact – the NW Passage is open again this year
This is all normal weather and has occurred countless times in the past griff, you do know that.
There were lot of precipitation and floods during the last days in Europe, at least in France and Germany, Switzeland and Austria.
But your Green eyes can’t see that.
“Continuing heatwave in China, NZ floods, contiuned drought in Europe after record heatwave… just the latest set of climate related extreme weather this year “
Are you in your safe space under the table or stairs?
Griff, how long is your record?
Garbage in, add money and politicians, 4x garbage out.
“Science is a process for learning about nature in which competing ideas about how the world works are measured against observations.”
Only the other day we were told that the results of theoretical computer simulations were ‘evidence‘.
Science is a handy fig-leaf of ‘authority‘ and ‘respectability‘ in which any dissenting ideas about how the world works are now insulted, harangued and cancelled.
All hail net zero.
That is one super blue sky in the leading photo. Not much to be said about it other than it’s blue. But now that road looks like it would be a great place to haul ass on a motorcycle or in a sports car!
In a war between the IRS and the FBI, who will win? We the people.
If a bunch of people freeze to death in Europe this winter because of policies imposed as a result of acceptance of the evidence-light “Catastrophic/dangerous, CO2-driven anthropogenic global warming/climate change” CONJECTURE, I hope somebody sues the bloody hell out of NPR, PBS, Michael R. Bloomberg, Bill McKibben, Fat Albert Gore, Jeremy Grantham, the Rockefeller Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Naomi Oreskes, Greenpeace, NRDC, and the rest of the morons who are responsible for this fiasco.
Even if they claim a “freedom of speech” defense, all of them deserve a trip into court somewhere.
They need a good dose of their own brand of lawfare.
“Science is a process for learning about nature in which competing ideas about how the world works are measured against observations.” – Richard Feynman
But who needs observations when you have models, and you can call model runs, “experiments.”
Fake Inflation Reduction Act
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/88185/
Fake beer crisis/Death by GREENING!
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/69258/
Twenty-Five Industrial Wind Energy Deceptions
https://www.masterresource.org/droz-john-awed/25-industrial-wind-energy-deceptions/