The Week That Was: 2024-03-23 (March 23, 2024)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “A coincidence of interests is always more powerful than a conspiracy.” ‒Richard Courtney
Number of the Week:100,000 times (greater than background)
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This TWTW addresses scientific integrity and how it is lacking in a great number of government reports. Also mentioned are issues of nuclear waste storage, the need for standardization when different procedures or instruments are used, and a questioning of net zero in Canada.
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Importance of Science Integrity: In his 1974 Commencement Address at CalTech, Richard Feynman discussed Cargo Cult Science, where natives had built runways and followed all:
“… the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land.
Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they’re missing. But it would be just about as difficult to explain to the South Sea Islanders how they have to arrange things so that they get some wealth in their system. It is not something simple like telling them how to improve the shapes of the earphones. But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in Cargo Cult Science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school—we never explicitly say what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty—a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid—not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked—to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.”
Feynman states that scientific integrity is on another level than factual honesty,
“In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.” [Italics in original changed to boldface.]
After giving an example from advertising, he states:
“We’ve learned from experience that the truth will [come] out. Other experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature’s phenomena will agree, or they’ll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven’t tried to be very careful in this kind of work. And it’s this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the research in Cargo Cult Science.
A great deal of their difficulty is, of course, the difficulty of the subject and the inapplicability of the scientific method to the subject. Nevertheless, it should be remarked that this is not the only difficulty. That’s why the planes don’t land—but they don’t land.
We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It’s a little bit off, because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It’s interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of the electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bigger than Millikan’s, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than that, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher.
Why didn’t they discover that the new number was higher right away? It’s a thing that scientists are ashamed of—this history—because it’s apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan’s, they thought something must be wrong—and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number closer to Millikan’s value, they didn’t look so hard. And so, they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that. We’ve learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don’t have that kind of a disease.
But this long history of learning how to not fool ourselves—of having utter scientific integrity—is, I’m sorry to say, something that we haven’t specifically included in any particular course that I know of. We just hope you’ve caught on by osmosis.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So, you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.
I would like to add something that’s not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you’re talking as a scientist. I’m not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girlfriend, or something like that, when you’re not trying to be a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being. We’ll leave those problems up to you and your rabbi. I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to do when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.” [Boldface added]
Many agencies in Washington have the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential – the utter honesty required – scientific integrity. As a result, they mislead the public and are doing real harm. This TWTW will focus on one example – the use of the Linear No Threshold Model and how it was developed. See https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm for the Cargo Cult Science speech.
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Lack of Science Integrity: Edward Calabrese has written extensively on the omission of contradictory evidence in adapting the Linear No Threshold model for cancer risk. This month the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene published Calabrese’s long, thorough, and sad paper “Cancer risk assessment, its wretched history and what it means for public health.” The introduction by Michael D. Larrañaga the editor of the journal clearly states its importance. He writes:
“This commentary presents a cohesive summary of the development of the linear non-threshold model of cancer risk assessment contained in about 100 papers in the peer reviewed industrial hygiene, toxicology, health physics, and radiation health scientific literature. These publications provide detailed documentation spanning the last 100 years, including references to peer-reviewed publications, personal research journals, and private communications of scientists discussed in this commentary with examples of scientific misrepresentations and misconduct to support the conclusions and perspectives offered. Since it was the goal to provide a comprehensive and easy-to-read commentary, it was agreed that the paper would minimize the use of citations and avoid detailed endnotes. I requested that the author provide a comprehensive list of supporting information for the interested reader. A graphical abstract and supporting references are provided in the supplementary material and key citations are provided in this commentary.
The author has previously published two research manuscripts in this journal that provide additional supporting information: (see (a) and (b) below). For the interested reader, a 22-episode Health Physics Society (HPS) documentary of the historical and scientific foundations of cancer risk assessment and the LNT model provides additional context, including key references, personal letters, and other documents cited in Professor Calabrese’s publications (see (c)).
“Muller Misled the Pugwash Conference on Radiation Risks” with Paul B. Selby. DOI: 10.1080/15459624.2023.2268664.
“Background Radiation and Cancer Risks: A Major Intellectual Confrontation within the Domain of Radiation Genetics with Multiple Converging Biological Disciplines” with Paul B. Selby. DOI: 10.1080/15459624.2023.2252032.
“The History of the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) Model Episode Guide” available from HPS.org.
I have read many of Professor Calabrese’s publications and watched the HPS documentary. I find his evidence compelling. I have also reviewed publications that offer alternative viewpoints to those of Professor Calabrese. In the spirit that science should always maintain the capacity for self-correction, JOEH invites manuscript submissions offering alternative viewpoints. Thank you for your interest in this important subject.
Michael D. Larrañaga, PhD, CIH, FAIHA
Editor-in-Chief, JOEH”
The Muller mentioned is the U.S. radiation geneticist and University of Indiana professor, Hermann J. Muller who received the Nobel Prize in 1946. Calabrese’s paper begins with a call to action and introduction which state:
A call to action
The foundations of cancer risk assessment represent a century of significant uncorrected mistakes and scientific misconduct, dominated by powerful self-interests and politicized ideological actions involving the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS), Science journal, multiple Nobel Prize winners, and elite leaders of the field of radiation genetics from the 1920s to the 1990s. This scientific debacle by a “who’s who” of the genetics community, was advanced by extremely troubling publication decisions by the journal Science that promoted such corruption. In its 50 years of operation, the US EPA has done little to understand or correct this problem (Calabrese Citation2019a, Citation2022). In fact, their actions appear to be just the opposite. A recent Freedom of Information Act based article in Junk Science (https://junkscience.com/2023/06/emails-reveal-radiation-safety-establishment-tries-to-censor-blockbuster-debunking-of-the-lnt-and-cleanse-the-health-physics-society-of-lnt-critics) has shown that the EPA continues to stonewall debate on the issue and to threaten those in their organization who ask the key challenging questions. What has brought this issue to a head has been a 22-episode documentary on the historical foundations of cancer risk assessment by the Health Physics Society (https://hps.org/hpspublications/historylnt/episodeguide.html), a documentary based on numerous detailed publications (see References and Supplement #1) in the peer-reviewed literature exposing this massive historical corruption. This Commentary is a Call to Action as it points out that the US scientific and regulatory system is broken based on past uncorrected errors and corruption with a continuing self-serving lack of leadership by the journal Science, the NAS, and EPA. After five decades of failure, it is quite clear that the EPA cannot self-correct on these critical matters, which were based on falsified data, misconduct, and a history of public deception. It is time that the scientific community, including professional associations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Industrial Hygiene Association, Health Physics Society, Society of Toxicology, Society for Risk Analysis, Society of Environmental Journalists, as well as the NAS, and others inform their memberships and elected leaders of this history of public deception and work to correct the scientific record. Finally, what is needed is a Congressional oversight investigation into this troubling history of cancer risk assessment that started in the US and now has affected the chemical and radiological risk assessment policies and regulations of most countries around the world.
Introduction
The story about to unfold in this commentary will be disturbing but perhaps not too surprising now in contemporary society. You will be taken on a path of discovery that explores the history of cancer risk assessment for radiation and chemical carcinogens. This commentary is about a history of errors made by scientific leaders that have long remained hidden and uncorrected. The evidence shows that major biases led to deliberate misrepresentations (i.e., blatant dishonesties) of the scientific record by the very people society was supposed to trust, including multiple Nobel Prize winners. Equally troubling have been the dishonest actions of organizations, such as major advisory bodies, including the US NAS and the journal Science that have repeatedly succumbed to violations of the public trust. As disappointing and upsetting as such statements are, it is hard to believe that this historical record could get even more corrupt, but it does. It has become known that major US scientists conducting important mutation and cancer studies hid data and deliberately withheld results from the public and scientific community. Why? Because the findings didn’t fit their preconceived beliefs and would not enhance opportunities to obtain more funding for themselves and their programs. Yes, the destructive self-interest of the research community, especially governmental and university scientists, in this case, presents a prominent but long-hidden dimension that unfolds in a complex journey of discovery.
Society is faced with questions over who can be trusted in today’s world: government, scientists, prestigious advisory groups, like the United States National Academy of Sciences (US NAS), and major journals like Science, Nature, The Lancet, and others. These have historically all been the entities that society has trusted for decades. The historical record presented here, therefore, involves powerful and high-profile individuals and groups that manipulated the public for personal gain and is presented in the following eight-part expose.
Fear is the human emotion played upon by the government entities, organizations, and individuals promoting deeply flawed science. Calabrese states:
Part 1: Fear—A weapon to exaggerate environmental and radiation risks for political gain.
Fear is an important human trait that enhances survival. However, like most emotions, it needs to be properly controlled and acted upon. Fear can distort reality and be crippling, leading to irrational decisions that hurt people in many ways, affecting how they think, their health, and their very lives. It can lead to not only very poor and self-destructive personal decisions but also harmful government policies that affect just about everyone. Fear has become a weapon used by elected officials, government regulators, such as the leadership of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), and especially many university research scientists to advance their political, professional, and personal self-interests when the data often say just the opposite. This is occurring all over the world with numerous types of chemical phobias, crippling and irrational fears of low-level radiation, and also some of the dire predictions of climate change that are strikingly wrong.
The story of scientific corruption documented here is not a simple one. It has its beginnings about a century ago, traveling through multiple generations of scientists and scientific and regulatory organizations to people in powerful positions today. While this historical record is complex at times, it is important to follow the details and to see how some very smart people corrupted their science, and our world, and why. The good part of this story, however, is that many lies and deceptions of these organizations and leaders have been discovered in a trail of letters and documents that they have left behind, mostly preserved in libraries around the world. See supplementary material. The trail of letters and documents permits these individuals, who have corrupted society for their own interests, to tell the story in their own words, testifying against each other and ironically themselves. The striking thing about this approach is that the historical pieces, like the jigsaw puzzle, nicely fit together and tell a coherent story. Part 2 of this series begins putting this puzzle of scientific corruption and corrupt science together.
Part 2 of the story starts [Boldface added]:
Part 2: Muller lied during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
A major turning point in the corrupted science that many call cancer risk assessment was the Nobel Prize Lecture on December 12, 1946 (Muller Citation1946), of U.S. radiation geneticist and University of Indiana professor, Hermann J. Muller, for being the first to produce gene mutations. Muller did so by X-raying tiny creatures called fruit flies, that like to eat very ripe bananas. While Muller has been a major figure in the history of science, especially in radiation genetics, it is now known that Muller never induced gene mutations, probably fooling himself, at least for a while, but definitely fooling most of the scientific community for decades, and even many to the present time. The doubters of Muller’s accomplishment would be proven correct with Muller himself eventually admitted this mistake in writing, some 10 years after receiving his Nobel Prize (Calabrese Citation2017a, Citation2018, Citation2020a).
While it must have been hard for Muller to finally admit this, he acknowledged that he was only knocking big holes in the fruit fly chromosomes due to the high energy of the x-rays and that he did not discover the tiny point mutations he claimed and was so honored for inducing (Calabrese Citation2017a, Citation2018, Citation2020b), While Muller never deserved the Nobel Prize, Muller understood its power and social utility. He then employed his glory, fame, and prestige to deceive the Nobel Prize audience and the world on the effects of radiation at low doses. Muller used his Nobel Lecture to make the case that there was no safe dose of radiation and that the long-standing use of a threshold dose-response model needed to be discarded and replaced with the linear no-threshold (LNT) dose-response model which suggested that even a single ionization from radiation or even a single molecule of a chemical carcinogen could increase the risk of cancer (Muller Citation1946). It was a striking performance that delivered a powerful dose of environmental and public health anxiety.
About one month before his Nobel Lecture, Muller received the results of a new and powerful study from the University of Rochester by Ernst Caspari (Calabrese Citation2019b) who was working under the well-known geneticist researcher, Curt Stern, that discredited Muller’s LNT idea. Muller was a paid consultant to that study, knew the research team well, provided the fruit flies for the study, and advised the research team of the type of study to be done. Thus, Muller was a true insider. Letters from Muller indicate that he knew the significance of Caspari’s new results and that the people doing the work were competent. Muller therefore knew that the findings of Caspari would discredit his LNT model, and this was a serious problem. While Muller was concerned with Caspari’s new findings, he was unable to offer any technical criticisms. He wrote quietly to Stern and strongly encouraged him to obtain more funding to confirm or refute the challenging findings of Caspari (Calabrese Citation2015).
A handful of people at the University of Rochester likely knew that Muller had just seen the results of Caspari’s study, which was the largest and best study to date on the chronic effects of radiation on fruit flies. That study had shown that at the “low” chronic radiation dose rate (i.e., yet still about 100,000 times greater than background), no radiation-induced mutation effects were found. The study supported the threshold but not the LNT model. However, Muller ignored these findings, only sharing with the Nobel Prize audience the conclusion of a highly flawed doctoral dissertation that he directed about six or seven years before at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland (Ray-Chaudhuri Citation1944).”
Calabrese goes into other flaws in Mueller’s research. However, the key part is that there is a certain minimum threshold before genetic mutations occur which can be passed from one generation to the next. For example:
“Muller did not consider the possibility that the very few mutations that he observed, that is, 400 out of the 20 to 25 million fruit flies (Muller Citation1929; Calabrese et al. Citation2022), could have resulted from the occurrence of vast numbers of spontaneous mutations but with an equally profound capacity to repair such damaged genetic material. This is now known to be the case. In fact, Muller never considered a second option. He simply concluded that the genome was very stable (which it isn’t) and that there were very few mutations. Whatever mutations occurred, those mutations were the “engine” of evolution and natural selection would take over and the beneficial mutations would drive evolution. This was a major assumption because it led Muller to his next major error: that the dose response for ionizing radiation for the hereditary material would have to be linear at a low dose rate and that there would be no repair for radiation-induced genetic damage.”
Calabrese discusses how Mueller used his influence to suppress additional research which challenges the Linear No Threshold Model. The LNT model and suppression of contradicting evidence have been carried forward by the National Academy of Science (NAS), the journal Science by the Association for the Advancement of American Science (AAAS), and the EPA. To TWTW the most absurd example was the suppression of a large study of the offspring of Japanese atomic bomb survivors in favor of flawed fruit fly studies. Calabrese writes:
“Even before [Tracy] Sonneborne read his radiation genetics mantra into the record of the [NAS Genetics Panel], at the very first meeting in November of 1955, a Panel member, James V. Neel, provided a report to the Panel concerning a 10-year study that he directed on the effects of the atomic bombs in Japan on the occurrence of birth defects in the offspring of adults that were exposed to radiation (Neel and Schull Citation1956). The research of Neel was quite massive under the direction of the US NAS with the cooperation of both the US and Japanese scientists. This 10-year study followed 75,000 offspring, testing for all sorts of genetic anomalies. What emerged in the data was no evidence of radiation-related genetic effects. Neel offered the newly completed study to the Panel. Even though there was strong support voiced by James Crow and Tracey Sonneborne for the use of human data, Hermann Muller stood up and strongly challenged the use of the atomic bomb data of Neel, claiming that the negative findings that they showed were illusionary (Calabrese Citation2020b). This study, asserted Muller, should not have any scientific standing, and therefore should not be reviewed. So powerful was the position and personality of Muller that the Genetics Panel, which was created to evaluate potential risks in humans, decided not to evaluate the 10-year human genetics study from Japan. Instead, the Panel derived its views from the discredited Delta Uphoff fruit fly studies.”
We can see the continuation of this corruption in the lack of studies of offspring of Japanese atomic bomb survivors more the 75 years after the bombing, the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster when about 30 died from excessive radiation in about three months and others were treated for thyroid cancer. Given the use of LNT epidemiology techniques by scientists who adamantly defend these techniques, it is doubtful a realistic accounting will ever be made.
Near the end of the paper, Calabrese discusses the complexity of living organisms such as humans. He writes:
“We have learned that Muller was first interested in learning about the mechanisms of evolution, which was thought to be via gene mutation. Soon after his groundbreaking paper in 1927, Muller concluded that background radiation was one of the causes of evolution. However, Muller would be proven wrong again as the most dominating cause of evolution is our metabolism which induces millions of DNA oxidamages per day in each cell, with 99.99999% being repaired each day. If our repair systems were not so exceptionally good, life would not exist. Our metabolism produces about 200 million times more genetic damage events per cell per day than that induced by background radiation. There is no contest between the two. What this means is that our body is our biggest enemy; it also means that it is also our best friend. The body’s great repair mechanisms evolved not to prevent and repair damage from background radiation but to fix the damage that our metabolism induces each day. Thus, the body’s repair systems are designed by nature to protect our bodies against ourselves, with background radiation being a very tiny and insignificant factor.”
Yet the EPA continues to apply the highly questionable LNT model to chemical studies such as inert “forever” chemicals, PM 2.5, and asbestos, failing to distinguish among the types. Before the Conclusion, Calabrese writes:
“Environmental regulation is important, but it must be science-based, not fear-driven. Society is currently being victimized by a public health-based Precautionary Principle that is fear rather than science-based. This public health Precautionary Principle needs to be replaced with an Evolutionary Based Precautionary Principle (EBPP) that sees humans as endowed with the capacity to protect, repair, adapt, and even improve their health when modestly stressed. One can see how the US EPA has lost its way: the EPA states that “the purpose of a risk assessment is to identify risk (harm, adverse effect, etc.), effects that appear to be adaptive, non-adverse, or beneficial may not be mentioned” (EPA Citation2004; Calabrese Citation2006). The wiser and more inclusive goal would be to focus on health assessment and its optimization and to ensure that adaptive and beneficial responses become a central feature of the mission to protect and advance human health.
The continued reliance on LNT for cancer risk assessment hurts society for many reasons. It provides grossly distorted cancer risk estimates that are given to those involved with making risk management decisions. This will almost certainly result in poor policy and resource decisions. This results in illusionary public health protection, a profound waste of limited public resources for no benefit, resulting in “stealing” resources from where they could be properly used to counterproductive areas. The LNT policy has a long history of adversely affecting technical innovations in areas critical to society. It also affects medical practices that can adversely affect patient options and success, the lifestyle decisions of adults, how they raise their children, and what they are taught in schools. The corruption of LNT and its underlying Precautionary Principle philosophy is deep-seated and transforms many aspects of personal and societal life. Even though EPA “science” is not self-correcting, it is hoped that society will convince their elected officials to motivate these self-serving regulatory agencies to revert to first thinking like scientists. This will not be easy since many elected officials, like their regulatory agency counterparts, also are experts in manipulating society with their fear-based strategies and tactics. Nonetheless, successful countries will be those that adopt an evolutionary science-based precautionary principle rather than the fear-driven public health precautionary principle that is damaging society and countless personal lives.”
See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy, the above citations are given in the list of References and EPA and other Regulators on the March.
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EPA Science Integrity: An otherwise excellent report on the difficulty of the US going to Net Zero in Electravision, Michael Cembalest begins with politicized science. He writes:
“• According to the “Silencing Science” tracker maintained by Columbia University, 346 anti-science actions were taken by the federal government during Trump’s administration. Categories include gov’t censorship, self-censorship, budget cuts, personnel changes, research hindrance and bias/misrepresentation.
• Nearly 400 EPA scientists said they observed violations of the agency’s scientific integrity policy in the second half of 2018 but did not report them due to ‘fear of retaliation, belief that reporting would make no difference, perceived suppression or interference by Agency leadership, and belief that politics and policy outweigh science’” [Boldface added]
As discussed in the February 24 TWTW, the latest draft of the EPA’s scientific integrity policy failed to define scientific integrity and the EPA relies on LNT models for its policies as stated above. See links under Energy Issues – US and https://www.sepp.org/twtwfiles/2024/TWTW%20Feb%2024.pdf .
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Nuclear Waste Storage: According to reports, after collecting some $44 billion to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the Obama administration abandoned the project for political reasons. AMO physicist Howard Hayden reports on how nuclear waste from 24 years operation of two Zion power plants in Illinois is safely stored in casks on a concrete pad much smaller than a typical Walmart store. See link under Nuclear Energy and Fears https://www.sepp.org/science_papers.cfm, and https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-104365.
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Standardization or Calibration Period: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines standardization as:
Standardization is a continuous activity to ensure the same test performed by different laboratories will give the same result on the same patient sample, no matter what technology is used. CDC Clinical Standardization Programs (CSPs) make certain that the accuracy, precision, and other relevant analytical performance parameters of a laboratory test are improved and maintained to meet clinical needs.
When a new satellite is launched, Roy Spencer, John Christy, and others at the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) monitor the readings to assure that they are consistent for the life of the satellite. They correct the readings for orbital drift to make sure that the data is consistent over time, now for over 45 years.
When different instruments were used for estimating sea level rise, alarmists immediately claimed sea level rise is increasing from about 7 to 8 inches every one hundred years over the past 3000 or more years. They failed to standardize the reading or, in some cases, used new formulas for calculations. WUWT has an excellent essay by Alan Welch who has worked extensively on the issue of sea level rise. The essay begins with:
“1. The perceived “accelerations” are mathematical accelerations occurring due to the methods of calculation, i.e. quadratic curve fitting, as used by Nerem et al [.pdf] (Ref 4) in their 2018 paper. Also, the start date of Jan 1993 also plays a major role in how the “accelerations” pan out.
2. The ‘accelerations’ are now generally reducing year on year and are predicted to reach levels compatible with the long term (over 100 years) Tidal Gauge values during the next decade or two before stabilizing over the next few decades.
3. A time span of 30 years is much too short a period to calculate actual accelerations with 3 or more times this period being needed.”
Changing wind patterns such as with the El Niño Southern Oscillation can give the appearance of a change in the rate of sea level rise when it is not occurring. See link under Changing Seas and https://www.cdc.gov/labstandards/csp/csp_standardization.html
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A Dark Future? Canadian John Robson states well why Canada is facing an electrical power shortage which applies to the US and European Countries mandating the abandonment of reliable, affordable energy from using coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power. He writes:
“Canadians have apparently resigned themselves to the fact that the people who run our country could create a sand shortage in Saudi Arabia or an ice shortage in Greenland. No country on Earth has had better luck, from geography to resources to a peaceful history founded on constitutional liberty. And, famously, ample rivers for hydroelectric dams, some of the world’s biggest oil and gas reserves and a well-established nuclear industry using homegrown CANDU reactors. And now we face… self-inflicted electricity shortages. It can’t have been easy. But given enough politicians and zealots, anything can turn from a dream into a nightmare.”
See links under Questioning Green Elsewhere.
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Number of the Week: 100,000 times greater (than background). According to Ed Calabrese, Herman Muller knew of the University of Rochester study.
“That [fruit fly] study had shown that at the ‘low’ chronic radiation dose rate (i.e., yet still about 100,000 times greater than background), no radiation-induced mutation effects were found. The study supported the threshold but not the LNT model.” [Boldface added]
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No TWTW Next Week: There will be no TWTW next week, Easter. TWTW will resume on the weekend of April 6.
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SEPP’S APRIL FOOLS AWARD – THE JACKSON
It is time for voting on the Annual SEPP’s April Fools Award – the Jackson. Last year UN Secretary General António “Leave it in the Ground” Guterres beat out the National Science Teachers Association who demanded that representatives of the CO2 Coalition and their
displays be removed from a conference of science teachers. The troublemakers espoused the
radical idea that carbon dioxide is necessary for all green plant life, thus all life. Horrors!
Unfortunately, Mr. Guterres did not attend. Apparently, he could not get enough renewable fuel for his plane.
Get your votes in by July 1, the award will be given at the 42nd annual meeting of the Doctors for Defensive Preparedness on July 5-6. The decision of the judges is final.
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Measuring Earthshine on the Moon
By Staff, Big Bear Solar Observatory, 2016
Link to paper: Earth’s Albedo 1998–2017 as Measured From Earthshine
By P. R. Goode, et al. includes Steve Koonin, Geophysical Research Letters, Aug 29, 2021
Space Weather: March is Aurora Season, Particularly This Year
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Mar 22, 2024
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
Challenging the Orthodoxy – Radiation Transfer
The Role of Greenhouse Gases in Energy Transfer in the Earth’s Atmosphere
By W. A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, Mar 3, 2023
Cancer risk assessment, its wretched history and what it means for public health
By Edward J. Calabrese, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, Online Mar 7, 2024
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15459624.2024.2311300?src= and
file:///C:/Users/Owner/Downloads/JOEH-LNT-Wretched%20History-2024.pdf
Climate, the Movie: A Review
By David Whitehouse, Net Zero Watch, Mar 22, 2024
“A lot of people should pay attention to Climate: The Movie, the latest film by Martin Durkin. This is because whatever you think about catastrophic climate change, it touches on questions about democracy and free speech as well as climate science. But that might not be all that easy because just a day after it was released on March 21, it was shadow banned by YouTube, making it difficult to do a Google search for it. In a way, this proves some of the points made in the second half of the film; that information on climate change is censored and highly-controlled, even if it is true and undisputed.”
[SEPP Comment: The press release states: “Prof Will Happer, Prof Steven Koonin, Dr John Clauser, Prof Dick Lindzen, Dr Roy Spencer, Prof Ross McKitrick, Prof Henrik Svensmark, Prof Nir Shaviv, and Dr Willie Soon are all in this movie.”]
Carbon Dioxide and Air Temperature: Who Leads and Who Follows?
By David Legates, Cornwall Alliance, Mar 11, 2024
Climate change, solar activity, and “realistic” impact and risk assessments for the 21st century
By Nicola Scafetta, Irish Climate Science Forum, Mar 20, 2024
Slides: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gsf.2023.101774
Video: https://youtu.be/Pw7hKU0XDIc.
Link to paper: Impacts and risks of “realistic” global warming projections for the 21st century
By Nicola Scafetta, Geoscience Frontiers, Mar 2, 2024
How did the obsession with decarbonization arise?
By Richard Lindzen, Net Zero Watch, Mar 20, 2024
Negligible future warming from: CO2 – CH4 – N2O
By Ed Hoskins, His Blog, No Date, [H/t WUWT]
“As at its current concentration atmospheric CO2 at 420 ppmv is already more than 85% saturated, its Global warming potential is almost entirely exhausted.
All attempts by Mankind to limit further CO2 emissions will have no further significant controlling effect on Global temperature.
Further actions by the Western minority of Man-kind to protect against a supposed Global Overheating Catastrophe from CO2 emissions are pointless.”
[SEPP Comment: Relies on the work of William van Wijngaarden and William Happer. There is no issue that the influence of CO2 on temperatures is saturated, having little effect with increasing concentrations. But how the 85% saturation is calculated is not clear. The van Wijngaarden and Happer work shows concentrations from zero to 800 parts per million (ppm). At 420 ppm the gas is about 98% to 99% saturated.]
Nasser at CERA: Energy Exceptionalism vs Climate Politics
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Mar 20, 2024
“Aramco President and CEO Amin H. Nasser provided a realist moment to the CERA conference in Houston, Texas this week.”
“’… despite the world investing more than $9.5 trillion on energy transition over the past two decades, alternatives have been unable to displace hydrocarbons at scale.’
‘… many of us have been saying for a long time that the world has been trying to transition in fog, without a compass, on a road to nowhere. Consumers … are demanding a transition that is affordable, reliable, and flexible, and that supports our climate ambitions.’”
Science: Climate Changes Causes Only Bad Things, And No Good Things
By William Briggs, Science Is Not The Answer, Mar 19, 2024
“Climate change” is scientifically unique in this way, being an entirely malevolent force.
Book Review: ‘Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism’
Flipping the script on popular climate change narrative
By Anthony Sadar, Washington Times, Mar 21, 2024
“’Human emissions of greenhouse gases are causing long term catastrophic climate change.’ This is the kind of ‘settled science’ narrative that is countered by “Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism,” edited by E. Calvin Beisner and David R. Legates.”
Humans Add Little to Rising CO2 March 2024
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, March 20, 2024
Link to paper: Net Isotopic Signature of Atmospheric CO2 Sources and Sinks: No Change since the Little Ice Age
By Demetris Koutsoyiannis, Sci, Mar 14, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Unsure about the paper. Clutz adds images and emphasis.]
Defending the Orthodoxy
Climate ‘red alert’ as major global warming indicators smashed in 2023
Scientists say the extreme weather events seen last year were ‘off the charts’
By Tom Bawden, INEWS, Mar 19, 2024 [H/t Climate Brief]
Link to report: State of the Global Climate 2023
By World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 2024
“Professor Jonathan Bamber, of Bristol University, said the new report provided further evidence that climate change was having an even greater impact than scientists had expected just a few years ago.
He led a landmark study, published in 2019, which predicted sea levels could rise by 2m [meters, 6.6 ft] by the end of the century in a plausible worst-case scenario.”
Earth on brink of surpassing key warming threshold: UN weather agency
By Miranda Nazzaro, The Hill, Mar 19, 2024
Link to: Climate change indicators reached record levels in 2023: WMO
Press Release, World Meteorological Oranization, Mar 19, 2024
The state of the climate in 2023 gave ominous new significance to the phrase “off the charts.”
From the report: “The WMO report confirmed that 2023 was the warmest year on record, with the global average near-surface temperature at 1.45 °Celsius (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.12 °C) above the pre-industrial baseline. It was the warmest ten-year period on record.”
[SEPP Comment: The graph shows two datasets, HadCRUT5 and NOAAGlobalTemp with data starting in 1850. Where were the global thermometers in 1850 to give precision to one hundreds of a degree?]
The heat index — how hot it really feels — is rising faster than temperature
A 3-degree F rise in temperature due to global warming may seem endurable, but it can actually feel like 10 degrees F
Press Release, University of California – Berkeley, Mar 20, 2024 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
[SEPP Comment: Try the heat index at minus 40 degrees C or F with a stiff wind.]
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Now that you mention it…
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 20, 2024
“…the head of Greenpeace Germany, Martin Kaiser, that a drop in emissions in 2023 is ‘deceptive’ and that… wait for it… ‘Nobody should confuse a struggling economy with climate protection’. Yet the two are inseparable. The problem here is not just that climate policies have led to economic struggles everywhere they’ve been tried, or that if the economy collapsed, so would emissions, something Maurice Strong once seemed to recommend. It’s that climate policy forces us into the world of trade-offs, yet no one involved will tell us what they really want to do in the face of hard choices.
Sea surface temperature research provides clear evidence of human-caused climate change
Press Release by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Mar 19, 2024 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Link to paper: The emerging human influence on the seasonal cycle of sea surface temperature
By Jia-Rui Shi, Benjamin D. Sante, t al. Nature, Climate Change, Mar 15, 2024
[Comment by Richard Courtney: The article … is yet another in the series of claims from Ben Santer that he has discovered ‘a discernible human influence on global climate’. All his previous similar claims have each been disproven within months of publication.]
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Starting To Notice That The Energy Transition Is Not Happening
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Mar 20, 2024
Link to report: Draft Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse gas Emissions and Sinks, 1990-2022
By EPA, 2024
“Utilities also note that data centers and factories need power 24 hours a day, something wind and solar can’t do alone.” – New York Times
“We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas and instead invest in them adequately reflecting realistic demand assumptions,” — Amin Nasser, the CEO of Saudi Aramco
Uncertainty In Natural Forcing From Wildfire, Dust Aerosols 2 Times Larger Than Total CO2 Forcing
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Mar 22, 2024
Link to latest paper: Opinion: The importance of historical and paleoclimate
aerosol radiative effects
By Natalie M. Mahowald, et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Jan 15, 2024
In tomorrow’s news… doom may loom
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 20, 2024
Namely: in the days and years to come, stuff will happen. You’re welcome. If you want more precision, well, we incline to the view that if the government predicts it, you can usually bet on the opposite occurring. Which might help if your job now requires you to forecast something called “climate risk.” The New York Times celebrates the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission piling a Pelion of miscalculation on an Ossa of misplaced certainty by forcing corporations to calculate it along with something called “nature risk.” They don’t know what next week’s weather will bring, whether China will invade Taiwan this year or whether Vladimir Putin is going to die tomorrow. But they now must determine what their data centre will do to an Arizona aquifer in a decade.
“We do know that humans are remarkably clever, if also remarkably stupid, and the former predominates to a startling degree when we face practical challenges. If, another key lesson of history, we are free to improvise rather than being regimented.”
#Gettingworse: severe storms and tornadoes
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 20, 2024
Energy & Environmental Review: March 18, 2024
By John Droz, Jr., Master Resource, Mar 18, 2024
After Paris!
At Cop29, Azerbaijan must be the anchor for 1.5ºC
Baku has the opportunity to rally the globe behind the green transition.
By Christiana Figueres, The New Statesman, Mar 19, 2024 [H/t Dennis Ambler]
[SEPP Comment: Another “Last Chance for Humanity?”]
Study: No top oil companies aligned with Paris climate goals
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, Mar 22, 2024
Link to: Oil and gas companies are way off-track from Paris Agreement goals, finds new combined alignment scorecard
Press Release, Carbon Tracker, Mar 20, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Surprise?]
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
Arctic’s Inuit Seek Benefits of Fossil Fuel Economy
By Vijay Jayaraj, Real Clear Energy, Mar 18, 2024
“Not only are houses in Utqiagvik powered by natural gas, but the oil economy also funds the city’s municipal expenses and provides the livelihoods of citizens.”
Problems in the Orthodoxy
BP Shareholders Unhappy With Green Strategy
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 17, 2024
SNP retreat is “high water” for Net Zero [Scottish National Party]
Press Release, Net Zero Watch, Mar 21, 2024
Shell Backtracks On Emission Reduction Targets
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 18, 2024
UN says e-waste from trashed electric devices is piling up and recycling isn’t keeping pace
By Moses Ndungu and Jamey Keaten, TechXplore, Mar 20, 2024 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
Why Albedo is the Wrong Measure of Reflectivity for Modeling Climate
By Clyde Spencer, WUWT, Sep 12, 2016
UAH February 2024: SH Saves Global Warming
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Mar 19, 2024
“Clearly NH and Global land temps have been dropping in a seesaw pattern, nearly 1C lower than the 2016 peak. Since the ocean has 1000 times the heat capacity as the atmosphere, that cooling is a significant driving force. TLT [temperatures in lower troposphere] measures started the recent cooling later than SSTs from HadSST4, but are now showing the same pattern. Despite the three El Ninos, their warming has not persisted prior to 2023, and without them it would probably have cooled since 1995. Of course, the future has not yet been written.”
Changing Weather
Weather Extremes in Historical Context
By Ralph Alexander, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 2024
Ed Hawkins’ Wet Weather Claims Don’t Hold Water
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 17, 2024
“For a theory to be validated, it needs to pass all tests, not just a cherry picked one. And the data clearly does not support the theory. On the contrary, what the data shows is the wide range of natural variability.”
Though Europe Was Mild, Winter’s Been A Beast Over Much Of Northern Hemisphere
Cold report No. 11 / 2024
By Chris Frey, Christian Freuer for EIKE., translated by P. Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Mar 19, 2024
Is climate change to blame for the atmospheric rivers impacting California? The evidence says “No.”
By Chris Martz, CFACT, Mar 17, 2024
[SEPP Comment: According to contemporary reports by European descendants in California, before heavy rains (atmospheric rivers) flooded the Central Valley in 1861-62, natives moved to high ground. Did they understand that the weather was about to change?]
The Polar Vortex Is Spinning Backwards
By spaceweather.com team, Via WUWT, Mar 21, 2024
“The current ‘ozone spike’ — the opposite of an ozone hole — is the biggest in the month of March since record-keeping began in 1979.”
[SEPP Comment: Was the ozone spike “caused” by the ozone treaty?]
Though Europe Was Mild, Winter’s Been A Beast Over Much Of Northern Hemisphere
Cold report No. 11 / 2024
By Chris Frey, Christian Freuer for EIKE., translated by P. Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Mar 19, 2024
Ice wine, and not in a good way
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 20, 2024
“We learn that ‘The British Columbia government says farmers will get an extra $70 million to replant and strengthen fruit orchards and vineyards after two years of weather-related disasters.’ Not, it turns out, due to heat but to cold weather in 2022 and 2024, by now in herd-mentality media-speak a mere “cold snap”, plus wildfire smoke in 2021.”
Ominous Changes In The World’s Weather
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Mar 16, 2024
“Climatologists now blame those recurring droughts and floods on a global cooling trend.
It could bring massive tragedies for mankind.”
[SEPP Comment: 1974]
Changing Seas
Measuring and Analysing Sea Levels using Satellites during 2023
By Dr. Alan Welch FBIS FRAS, Via Kip Hansen, WUWT, Mar 21, 2024
Coastal Inundation: Rising Sea Levels Explained
By David Legates, Heritage Foundation, Mar 13, 2024
The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time — Part XXXII (Sea Level Rise Edition)
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Mar 18, 2024
“What’s most interesting about all this is what it reveals about the sea level rise scare story. The claims of “acceleration” prove to be based on dubious extrapolations from data that show only very slight, if any, deviations from linearity. Those slight deviations may reflect some underlying process or may just reflect the effect on a curve-fitting exercise of one or two outlying data points.”
Ocean Cools as El Nino Recedes February 2024
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Mar 18, 2024
Scientists Don’t Know Why Oceans Have Warmed
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 17, 2024
“So instead of lecturing us about fossil fuels, maybe they should try to understand what is going on under the waves!”
Good news for gray whales, as federal researchers declare end to West Coast die-off
By Sharon Udasin, The Hill, Mar 19, 2024
Link to report: 2019-2023 Eastern North Pacific Gray Whale UME (CLOSED)
The Unusual Mortality Event involving stranded eastern North Pacific gray whales along the western coast of North America has ended.
By Staff, NOAA Fisheries, 2024
From the report: “Necropsy findings from a subset of dead gray whales found malnutrition as a common cause of death and did not identify underlying disease. Killer whale predation, entanglement, and vessel strike also caused deaths, and biotoxins were found in some carcasses as in non-UME years.”
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Canadian Arctic ice coverage before there were satellites
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 20, 2024
“Maybe the answer is things are more complicated than we’re often told. Maybe the planet is hugely complicated, and many important weather and climate phenomena depend on cycles, in ocean currents and elsewhere, that run on a scale of centuries, rather than the temperature last week or last month or last year. And sometimes we’re only shown the part of the data that matches the theory.”
[SEPP Comment: Earlier data shows an increase of ice then a decline beginning about 1980.]
Arctic Ice Breaks Max Ceiling Mid-March 2024
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Mar 16, 2024
Yearly sea-ice breakup in western Hudson Bay
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 20, 2024
From the CO2Science Archive.
Arctic Ice-Free By 2040
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Mar 17, 2024
December 2006
The sleeping giant In Antarctica
By David Whitehouse, Net Zero Watch, Mar 18, 2024
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
Academics “bewildered” that UN drops bugs, crickets and fake meat for weather-repair
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Mar 20, 2024
“But the first installment of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) food systems roadmap has left the activists reeling.”
Justin Rowlatt’s Easter Egg
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 21, 2024
“But over time, cocoa production has been steadily increasing, making a nonsense of Rowlatt’s climate doom.
But there are fundamental problems in West Africa, and they have nothing to do with climate change, as Dr Michael Odijie, an economist who specializes in Africa affairs, points out:”
Lowering Standards
Do The BBC Deliberately Lie?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 20, 2024
“Someone questioned whether the BBC deliberately lie about climate change.
It’s a moot point, but in my experience I tend to believe that they are simply not interested in facts and data.
They have their preconditioned beliefs and their reporters have been indoctrinated within the BBC bubble.”
[SEPP Comment: Government supported science cannot be questioned?]
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
Germany’s Murder of Europe
By Drieu Godefridi, Gatestone Institute, Mar 21, 2024
“Climate, of course, is a global issue: if Europe reduces its emissions to zero, while the rest of the world continues to increase them, the effect on the climate will be zero. As a result, the German plan will not save a single euro in terms of the damage caused by global warming and extreme events.”
How a Trump presidency could threaten Biden’s signature climate achievement
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Mar 20, 2024
“Democrats’ sweeping Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has fueled significant progress in the fight against climate change since its passage in 2022.”
[SEPP Comment: The IRA was sold to the public as reducing inflation, yet it is used to subsidize wind and solar in hopes of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. How does the US reducing carbon dioxide emissions reduce inflation?]
“… Hottest Summer Ever, but Climate Change … Barely Made the News”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 18, 2024
“If someone ‘faints’ after a workplace drinking session, climate change is to blame? I can think of some other possible explanations.”
Shock News!! It’s Hot In Sudan, say BBC
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 20, 2024
Wrong, NBC News, Climate Change Doesn’t Threaten Minnesota Ice Fishing
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Mar 18, 2024
What you should know about the new electric vehicle rule
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Mar 20, 2024
“For consumers, this is expected to mean more available and affordable EVs. Some analysts say it could also have the opposite effect on gas-powered cars, making them pricier and less available.”
[SEPP Comment: Consumers will pay more for cars, but EV’s will become less unaffordable than gas powered cars manufactured under EPA unattainable rules on “emissions.”]
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda on Children
“How long before climate change will destroy the Earth?”: Questions from 10-14yr Old Kids
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 22, 2024
Communicating Better to the Public – Protest
‘Climate Protestors’ Are the Dangerous Know-Nothings of Our Time
By Colin Reed, Real Clear Energy, Mar 19, 2024
Expanding the Orthodoxy
Insane War on Plastics Resumes
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Mar 15, 2024
Link to book: The Plastics Paradox
By Chris DeArmitt, 2020
[SEPP Comment: A review of work by Chris DeArmitt that went into writing the above book. DeArmitt has multiple patents and numerous articles on plastic materials.]
‘Trust science’, Paris mayor boasts as city declares ‘there will be no air conditioning in Olympic athletes’ rooms ‘to cut the carbon footprint’ of summer Olympics
By Marc Morano, Climate Depot, Mar 14, 2024
Questioning European Green
Money no object for Net Zero fantasists
By Andrew Montford, Net Zero Watch, Mar 20, 2024
The small problem with National Grid’s Net Zero investment plan is that they can’t afford it.
The Tories are stuck in a Net Zero trap of their own making
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 19, 2024
“’ Furthermore, new gas power stations will be required to be ‘Net Zero ready’ when they’re built. Either they must be able to connect to carbon capture and underground storage (CCUS) or have turbines that can also burn green hydrogen.’”
The heat pump fantasy is dead – only our blinkered elites haven’t noticed
By Ross Clark, The Telegraph, Mar 18, 2024 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
In today’s news… hey, why’d it go dark?
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 20, 2024
Link to: Canada’s declining electricity abundance
Link to report: Facing a looming power supply shortage, Canada needs a coherent strategy that goes beyond punitive measures.
By Andrew Evans, Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI), Mar 7, 2024
Aussie Green Panic: “the nuclear push is designed to bring … renewables to a halt”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 22, 2024
Study: Colorado ban on oil and gas drilling will take a toll on education, destroy jobs, cut GDP
By Scott Weiser, The Denver Gazette, Mar 17, 2024
Funding Issues
Biden Admin Hands Out $500 Million For Oil Drilling In Middle East
By Nick Pope, Daily Caller, Mar 15, 2024
“The U.S. Export-Import Bank — a nominally independent government entity that aims to boost the American economy “by facilitating the export of U.S. goods and services” — approved a $500 million loan guarantee for oil and gas development in Bahrain on Thursday, according to Bloomberg News. The funding follows the Biden administration’s decisions to release the most restrictive offshore oil and gas leasing schedule in American history and cancel seven previously-issued oil and gas leases in Alaska, among other actions intended to rein in domestic oil production.”
The Political Games Continue
Aussie Security Committee Madness: Spy Agency Chiefs Kicked Out, Replaced by Climate Head
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 19, 2024
Litigation Issues
Coalition sues to block Virginia offshore wind project to protect the Right Whale
Press Release, CFACT, Mar 18, 2024
Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
Is your job to be a dolt?
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 20, 2024
“Indeed economists, including ones who buy the basic climate alarm like William Nordhaus, have long said that if you want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions carbon taxes are a more efficient way doing so than regulations. But only, and it is not a trivial point, if they are a substitute for regulation instead of a supplement to it.”
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 20, 2024
Link to: While You Were Sleeping those IWT Robbed You [industrial wind turbines]
By Parker Gallant, Energy Perspectives, Mar 14, 2024
“On March 13 alone, Ontario’s wind turbines churned away in the wee hours, providing 19,177 MW of energy to the grid at a cost of $2,588,575 or $135 per Megawatt hour. Plus $184,680 for 1,539 MW they were paid not to produce. Most of it was sold south for roughly $13 per MWH, leaving Ontario with 383 MW at a net cost of $2,567,937 or, he [Parker Gallant] calculates, a stunning $6,704.80/MWh.”
The Energy Transition Has Become A Big Green Hot Mess
By David Blackmon, Daily Caller, Mar 16, 2024 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
“Receiving less attention is the set of similar subsidy programs that were contained in 2021’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), one of which allocated the princely sum of $5 billion to the Departments of Energy (DOE) and Transportation (DOT) to serve as grant money to subsidize the installation of fast-charging EV charging stations around the country.”
[SEPP Comment: The government did not subsidize gasoline stations, they appeared because the public demanded and used them.]
EPA and other Regulators on the March
Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles
Final Rule, EPA, March 2024
“At the same time, we note that the GHG and criteria pollutant standards are performance based, phase-in over six years, and do not mandate any specific technology for any manufacturer or any vehicle. Moreover, the overall industry does not necessarily need to reach this level of PEVs, or this particular percentage of BEVs and PHEVs, in order to comply — the projection in our analysis is one of many possible compliance pathways that manufacturers could choose to take under the performance-based standards.”
Air Pollution: Do Accidents Matter?
By Fred Lipfert, ACSH, Mar 14, 2024
Link to: Proposed Decision for the Reconsideration of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter (PM)
“On January 6, 2023, after carefully reviewing the most recent available scientific evidence and technical information, and consulting with the Agency’s independent scientific advisors, EPA announced its proposed decision to revise the primary (health-based) annual PM2.5 standard from its current level of 12.0 µg/m3 to within the range of 9.0 to 10.0 µg/m3.”
“We spend 85% of our time indoors, and air conditioning can provide relief when and where we need it. Nevertheless, regulatory agencies continue to press for tighter outdoor emission controls. Their mantra is that lives can be shortened by long-term (years) exposure, no matter how trivial. This is the linear, no-threshold hypothesis currently promulgated by EPA.”
Emissions Are Not a Material Risk to Investors or Companies, SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rule Is
SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rule is Massive Agency Overreach
By Justin Bis, Real Clear Energy, Mar 20, 2024
“The Rule’s legality is highly questionable, which is why, despite being SEC Gensler’s main objective since taking office, it’s suffered delay after delay.”
The Final SEC Climate Rule Is Still Overreach
By Kristen Walker, Real Clear Energy, Mar 18, 2024
Energy Issues – Non-US
£60 Billion More For Grid Upgrades
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 19, 2024
But above all, the bill for this upgrade surely nails the lie for once and for all, that wind power is cheap.
Energy Issues – Australia
Aussie Renewable Investment Slumped 80% in 2023
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 20, 2024
Rooftop solar / battery installations were the exception.
Energy Issues — US
Five important graphs from Michael Cembalest’s Annual Energy Paper
By Roger Pielke Jr., The Honest broker, Mar 15, 2024
Link to report: Electravision
The complicated journey to an electrified future
By Michael Cembalest, J.P. Morgan, 2024
“PJM Interconnection, which oversees the nation’s largest regional grid, stretching from Illinois to New Jersey, is now expecting an additional 10,000 megawatts of demand by 2030 that wasn’t forecast last year. That’s akin to adding another New York City to the system.”
From Electravision: “The foundations of this piece are rooted in the science of the transition, rather than in the imaginary ways that the transition might work. Anyone who supports a clear-eyed analysis should be disturbed when science is distorted for political reasons:
Climate Policy Is a Federal Issue
And the ongoing state/local litigation against fossil fuel producers is meritless
By Benjamin Zycher, Real Clear Energy, Mar 19, 2024
FERC Should Be Independent, Not ‘Green’
Activist Judy Chang should not be a FERC commissioner
By Daniel Turner, Real Clear Energy, Mar 20, 2024
New York Climate Plan Needs Publicly Funded Spin Doctor
By Roger Caiazza, WUWT, Mar 20, 2024
“As a New Yorker this is yet another embarrassment. The State’s narrative is that everyone is on board with this fantastic plan that will ‘encourage other jurisdictions to implement complementary greenhouse gas reduction strategies and provide an example of how such strategies can be implemented’.”
A new surge in power use is threatening U.S. climate goals
By illuminem briefings, Summary of NYT article, Mar 14, 2024
“Electricity demand in the U.S., which had been stable for two decades, is projected to grow substantially by 2028.”
[SEPP Comment: Will we see demands that the US must turn off cell phones and high-tech industries?]
Grid Operator Warns Deep Blue States Their Plan To Rely On Solar And Wind Batteries Has A Fatal Flaw
By Nick Pope, Daily Caller, Mar 19, 2024
“The Independent System Operator-New England (ISO-NE) is warning that the batteries pushed by blue states in the region to prepare the grid for increased solar and wind generation may have significant trouble recharging in low temperatures.”
Washington’s Control of Energy
Biden administration finalizes rule expected to require significant shift to EVs
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Mar 20, 2024
Biden’s newest rule on Auto Emissions set to accelerate the DEATH SPIRAL for auto manufacturers
By Ronald Stein P.E., America Out Loud, Mar 20, 2024
“…America, with 330 million people representing about 4% of the world’s 8 billion on this planet…”
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
Saudi Oil Giant CEO says world should abandon the fantasy of living without oil
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Mar 21, 2024
USA Oil Production Sets World Record… Again
By David Middleton, WUWT, Mar 21, 2024
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Nuclear Notes
By Howard Hayden, The Energy Advocate, March 2024
Nuclear Subsidies Galore …
By Kennedy Maize, Master Resource, Mar 19, 2024
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Swedish Wind Farms Facing Bankruptcy
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 17, 2024
Offshore Wind Area Detailed for Gulf of Maine; New York Project Delivering Power
By Darrell Proctor, Power Mag, Mar 18, 2024
The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has completed its designation of an offshore wind energy area in the Gulf of Maine. The BOEM, in a notice published in the Federal Register on March 18, said two million acres has been earmarked for development in that region.
[SEPP Comment: The Gulf of Maine extends into Canada and includes the important fishing grounds of George’s Bank. The ocean upwelling there promotes highly productive phytoplankton and zooplankton populations that support high fish populations.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Deep Geothermal Can Solve the Need for Baseload Power
By Igor Kocis, Power Mag, Mar 20, 2024
“Now, groundbreaking technological advancements in deep geothermal have allowed us to unearth the biggest battery on the planet. This approach moves past conventional shallow geothermal heat reservoirs to unlock 10 kilometers (km) or more in depths of internal heat, delivering cost-effective, industrial-grade, clean baseload power capabilities that the world desperately needs today.”
[SEPP Comment: Let’s see the demonstration project with fully accounted costs!]
Optimizing Federal Policy to Cut Carbon Emissions in Half By 2030
By Michael McAdams, Real Clear Energy, Mar 20, 2024
Michael McAdams is the president of the Advanced Biofuels Association.
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
Electric lorry maker backed by David Beckham collapses into administration [bankruptcy]
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 19, 2024
“’An electric vehicle (EV) start-up backed by celebrities including David Beckham and Jack Whitehall has put its commercial arm into administration, blaming the Government’s decision to delay a ban on petrol [gasoline] car sales.’”
Hertz CEO Steps Down after Catastrophic EV Losses
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 20, 2024
“Who in their right mind would want a used EV? Especially a used rental EV, which has suffered who knows what abuse?”
[Grocery store] Asda Switches Off EV Chargers
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 22, 2024
The Telegraph appears to have got the wrong end of the stick here. It is not Asda pulling the plug, but BP.
Ebike ‘graveyard’ spotted outside Altens unit after operator pulls out of Aberdeen rental scheme
After it was confirmed that Big Issue Sharebike was pulling out of the scheme, more than 100 of the ebikes have been spotted outside a unit in Altens.
By Lauren Taylor, P & J, (Scotland), Mar 18, 2024 [H/t Tony Heller]
Carbon Schemes
The Tories are stuck in a Net Zero trap of their own making
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 19, 2024
“’ Furthermore, new gas power stations will be required to be ‘Net Zero ready’ when they’re built. Either they must be able to connect to carbon capture and underground storage (CCUS) or have turbines that can also burn green hydrogen.’”
California Dreaming
California’s Electricity Disaster In Seven Charts
Residential electricity prices jumped nearly 12% in 2023 and they are going higher. But the carbon intensity of power generation isn’t falling and low-income ratepayers are subsidizing the rich.
By Robert Bryce, His Blog, Mar 22, 2024
California signs deal with Stellantis to uphold vehicle emissions rules
By Sharon Udasin, The Hill, Mar 19, 2024
“Stellantis has also said it would invest $4 million in deploying public charging infrastructure in California’s rural areas and in federal, state and county parks, as well as $6 million in other states that have adopted California’s emissions standards.
Those states, per the agreement, thus far include Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.”
Evaluating Underground CO2 Sequestration in California
By Edward Ring, His Blog, Mar 20, 2024
Who’s to Blame for High Gas Prices? California’s Democratic Politicians Should Look in the Mirror.
By the Editorial Board of The Orange County Register, Independent Institute, Mar 15, 2024
Link to paper: Pain at the Pump
Blame Politicians, Not Producers, for High California Gasoline Prices
By Robert Michaels and Lawrence McQuillan, Independent Institute, Mar 6, 2024
Health, Energy, and Climate
Plastic Plague: Unwelcome Guests In Your Arteries?
By Chuck Dinerstein, MD, ACSH, Mar 18, 2024
Environmental Industry
Climate organization puts $120M into 2024 election
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Mar 19, 2024
“The League of Conservation Voters, a major left wing advocacy group and funder, will put a whopping $120 million into the 2024 election cycle, the group announced Tuesday.”
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Climate Superheroes plan to rescue Arctic with 10 million wind powered pumps
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Mar 19, 2024
“The ultimate goal of the Arctic experiment is to thicken enough sea-ice to slow or even reverse the melting already seen, says Dr Shaun Fitzgerald, whose team at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Climate Repair is behind the project.”
Let them eat–snake?! Python farming could offer one of the most sustainable sources of meat in the world – ‘Much less carbon intensive’
By Marc Morano, Cdlimate Depot, Mar 14, 2024
“Python produces large slabs of white meat similar to chicken filet.” ABS News
“’Pythons can feel pain and fear, and they don’t want to be slaughtered any more than a cow, pig, chicken, or dog does,’ Danielle Katz, PETA senior director of campaigns, told ABC News in a statement. ‘Experts agree that vegan eating is crucial for stopping the climate catastrophe in its tracks, so adding more animals to the already billions who suffer and die for food every year would be as misguided as it is cruel.’”
[Former environment minister] Zac Goldsmith–Eco-Hypocrite Extraordinaire!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 18, 2024
“’ Tory peer Zac Goldsmith has been banned from driving and order to pay £8,200 after he was caught speeding 11 times in less than two years.’”
“Make politicians afraid to start their cars again”: British Wannabe Ecoterrorist Jailed for 13 Years
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 20, 2024
Unhappy Tesla Owner!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 18, 2024
“’ Speaking as a former climate change activist and current EV driver, I can only see EVs working if you live in a big city and never plan on leaving that big city. The last thing we should be pushing for is to phase out internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035 in Canada. Yes, we absolutely have to take better care of our planet, but EVs make zero sense in the real world.’”
ARTICLES
1. Biden’s EV Mandate Blows Its Cover
The EPA’s new tailpipe emissions rule is a plan to eliminate gas-powered cars.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ, Mar 20, 2024
TWTW Summary: The editorial begins with:
“Biden officials are stressing that the new auto greenhouse gas emissions standards they rolled out on Wednesday aren’t an electric-vehicle mandate. But the liberal press and climate lobby don’t buy it, and neither should Americans.
The Environmental Protection Agency somewhat eased CO2 emissions requirements through 2030 from its proposal last spring while maintaining essentially the same end-point for 2032. That means gas-powered cars can make up no more than 30% of auto sales by 2032. Make no mistake: This is a coerced phase-out of gas-powered cars.
Auto makers lauded the Administration for ‘moderating the pace of EV adoption’ in ‘the next few (very critical) years of the EV transition’ while calling its targets ‘still a stretch.’ The Administration has taken auto companies hostage, threatening to cause financial carnage across the industry with its EV mandate. CEOs are grateful for the delay in execution.
EVs made up less than 8% of new auto sales last year, and more than half were Teslas. They accounted for less than 4% of General Motors and Ford sales. Foreign luxury auto makers such as BMW (12.5%), Mercedes (11.4%) and Porsche (10%) will have an easier time meeting the Biden mandates because their affluent customers can more easily afford EVs.
The average price of a new EV is roughly $50,000, and only two cost less than $40,000 as of December: the Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf. Some makers have slashed EV prices to boost sales, but they are also losing money. Ford ran an operating loss of $4.7 billion on its EV business in 2023, equivalent to $64,731 per EV sold.
The companies are heavily subsidizing EVs with profits from gas-powered cars. This means middle-class Americans in Fargo are paying more for gas-powered cars so the affluent in Napa Valley can buy cheaper EVs. This cost-shift won’t be financially sustainable as the Biden mandate ramps up, and it may not be politically sustainable either.
Most popular gas-powered pickups emit about 430 grams of CO2 per mile. Under EPA’s final rule, trucks will have to average 184 g/mile in 2027, 128 g/mile in 2030 and 90 g/mile by 2032. Ergo, the companies will effectively have to produce one to two electric trucks for every gas-powered one in 2027. The ratio will be closer to four to one by 2032.
EPA claims the rule preserves ‘consumer choice’ because hybrids and plug-in hybrids can help meet the standards in the early years. But auto makers will have no choice but to limit gas-powered, and increase EV, production to meet the mandates. The only ‘choice’ Americans will have in the future is electric.
Stellantis is already reducing deliveries of popular gas-powered cars to states that follow California’s EV mandate. If you like your Jeep, better hope it doesn’t break down.”
The editorial discusses that the White House claim that the standards will boost jobs, reduce pollution and save consumers tens of billions of dollars in fuel costs is false advertising, then concludes:
“As for pollution, gas-powered cars emit more particulate matter and NOx from tailpipes than EVs. But battery-powered cars are heavier and cause more wear and tear on roads and tires, which produces more soot. Generating electricity and producing the batteries that power EVs also creates particulate pollution.
A new Panasonic EV battery plant in Kansas that will receive billions of dollars in subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act is forcing a local utility to keep open a coal plant that was scheduled to close. Congratulations, Mr. President, for increasing coal production.
***
Not long ago, it was cheaper to fuel up an EV than a gas-powered car. No longer thanks to the government’s force-fed renewable transition, which is raising electricity prices. Fueling up a Ford F-Series truck now costs about $17 per 100 miles on average compared to $17.75 for an F-150 Lightning with mostly home-charging and $26.39 with mostly commercial chargers.
Biden officials believe that with enough subsidies, consumers will buy EVs. Beijing thought the same. Yet EVs that Chinese consumers don’t want are now sitting on scrap yards and flooding foreign markets.”
Green leprosy
…the new Science Museum gallery, Energy Revolution, the Adani Green Energy Gallery, has gone down badly – with environmentalists.
Last week they picketed the gallery’s private opening party and confronted guests with banners denouncing the London museum’s decision to accept sponsorship from the Indian energy group Adani, arranged through its renewables subsidiary, Adani Green Energy.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/mar/23/is-science-museums-green-power-gallery-tainted-by-fossil-fuel-cash
A savvy individual or organisation will see that oil companies are saving a few million quid without even trying, and it’s notionally available.
“Cambridge’s decision was first reported by the Financial Times on Monday, which said the university had accepted £19.7 million from oil giants BP and Shell between 2016 and 2023. The university has a target to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2038. It plans to divest from all direct and indirect investments in fossil fuels by 2030.
“The university has recognized the urgency of the climate emergency and taken action to demonstrate leadership,” the Topping report said. “This includes decisions to divest from fossil fuels in the endowment, commit to science-based targets, launch Cambridge Zero and align sources of funding with the University’s own ambition.”
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/united-kingdom/article/2024/03/18/uk-s-cambridge-university-halts-fossil-fuel-funding_6632277_135.html
Academia is so utterly infested with the woke mind virus, I can’t see that anything less than a full-on neural-fumigation will do. At least the dinosaurs can blame a celestial body….
Just remind the enviros that when Hubert Lamb left the UK Met Office to set up the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia the University agreed to match the sum he had already raised for the project. That sum came from oil company Shell.
Incredible moment Senator John Kennedy destroys Olympic skier Gus Schumacher after Democrats invited him to testify as ‘expert witness’ on climate change – and reads out his damning old tweets
– House Democrats presented the young skier as an ‘expert witness’ as the Budget Committee considered the effect of climate change on the recreation industry
– But Schumacher, 23, struggled in a series of excruciating exchanges, claiming that the 0.04 percent of CO2 in the atmosphere was a ‘huge part’
– He also refused to explain his calls to abolish the police and claims that the war on drugs was designed to jail black people
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb8ORrIljuQ
.. I tried to watch the YouTube video of this exchange but found it too hard to bear as Schumacher comes off as “a pretty face in an empty suit”
“The WMO report confirmed that 2023 was the warmest year on record, with the global average near-surface temperature at 1.45 °Celsius (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.12 °C) above the pre-industrial baseline. It was the warmest ten-year period on record.”
Why are these claims allowed to stand?
For 2023, NOAA claimed a GMT of 15.08 degrees C
However…
In 1997, NOAA claimed a GMT of 16.92 degrees C
In 1995, NOAA claimed a GMT of 16.83 degrees C
IN 1940, James Hansen’s graph shows a GMT of 15.4 degrees C
Are we now supposed to believe that the GMTs, regardless of date, have now been updated with much more accurate readings???
Hummmm…..
The long article on the ‘Importance of Science Integrity’ is a fascinating read. The example relating to ‘cancer risk’ is very interesting. Following are some relevant quotes which make complete sense to me.
“Lack of Science Integrity: Edward Calabrese has written extensively on the omission of contradictory evidence in adapting the Linear No Threshold model for cancer risk. This month the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene published Calabrese’s long, thorough, and sad paper “Cancer risk assessment, its wretched history and what it means for public health.” The introduction by Michael D. Larrañaga the editor of the journal clearly states its importance. “
“The body’s great repair mechanisms evolved not to prevent and repair damage from background radiation but to fix the damage that our metabolism induces each day. Thus, the body’s repair systems are designed by nature to protect our bodies against ourselves, with background radiation being a very tiny and insignificant factor.”
It’s well-known that animals tend to stop eating when they become sick. Why, you might ask. The above quote, in my bold, explains it. If the body’s repair system is freed from the task of dealing with the metabolism of ‘new’ food, then it is able to more successfully deal with any damage that already exists in the body, that is causing the feeling of sickness.
Fasting is not just a solution for reducing weight. It also facilitates a healing process within the body, and can even cure cancer, according to some studies.