In a decisive and bold step, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on January 20, 2025, directing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reexamine the legality and continuing applicability of the infamous 2009 endangerment finding for greenhouse gases. This directive marks a pivotal moment in the battle against overreaching climate policies that have hamstrung American industry and energy independence for over a decade.
(f) Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Administrator of the EPA, in collaboration with the heads of any other relevant agencies, shall submit joint recommendations to the Director of 0MB on the legality and continuing applicability of the Administrator’s findings, “Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act,” Final Rule, 74 FR 66496 (December 15, 2009).
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/unleashing-american-energy/
(section 6F)
For those unfamiliar with its significance, the endangerment finding is the linchpin of much of the EPA’s climate-related regulatory authority. Issued during the Obama administration, this finding declared greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide as pollutants that endanger public health and welfare. This seemingly innocuous determination unleashed a cascade of restrictive regulations under the Clean Air Act, targeting everything from power plants to vehicle emissions.
But here’s the kicker: the scientific, legal, and policy underpinnings of the endangerment finding have never been as solid as its defenders claim. By initiating this review, President Trump has taken the first step toward unraveling the faulty rationale that has fueled countless overzealous climate policies.
Revisiting the Endangerment Finding: Why It Matters
The 2009 endangerment finding has functioned as a regulatory sledgehammer. Once greenhouse gases were deemed pollutants under the Clean Air Act, the EPA gained sweeping powers to regulate industries across the board. The consequences were dire: entire coal towns were hollowed out, energy costs soared, and American manufacturers faced stiff competition from overseas producers who were not burdened by similar regulations.
President Trump’s directive to the EPA to revisit the endangerment finding signals a long-overdue reckoning. For years, skeptics have pointed out glaring flaws in both the process by which the finding was made and the assumptions underlying it. For example:
- Scientific Uncertainty: The endangerment finding relied heavily on computer models that predicted catastrophic global warming. Yet these models have consistently failed to align with observed temperature trends. By overstating the risks posed by greenhouse gases, the EPA created a climate of fear and justified draconian regulations.
- Legal Overreach: The Clean Air Act was never designed to address global climate issues. Stretching the law to regulate carbon dioxide—a gas essential for life—was a legal maneuver that bypassed Congress and concentrated power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats.
- Economic Harm: The regulations stemming from the endangerment finding have been disastrous for American workers and families. High energy costs disproportionately harm the poor and working-class, while businesses face increased compliance costs that stifle innovation and job creation.
The Trump Administration’s Track Record on Climate Policy
This move to reexamine the endangerment finding is just the latest in a series of actions by President Trump to restore balance to U.S. environmental policy. During his first term, he withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, a toothless accord that demanded economic sacrifices from the U.S. while letting major polluters like China off the hook. His administration also rolled back the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era regulation that sought to dismantle the coal industry in favor of expensive and unreliable renewable energy.
Now, in his second term, President Trump has doubled down on these efforts. Within days of returning to office, he:
- Rescinded Biden’s EV Mandates: The Biden administration’s goal of making 50% of vehicles electric by 2030 was not only unrealistic but economically reckless. By overturning this mandate, President Trump has ensured that American consumers—not bureaucrats—will decide the future of transportation.
- Declared a National Energy Emergency: This declaration paves the way for greater domestic energy production, reducing dependence on foreign oil and ensuring affordable energy for all Americans.
- Ordered a Review of the Social Cost of Carbon: This dubious metric has been used to justify excessive regulation by exaggerating the supposed harms of carbon emissions. A recalibration—or outright rejection—of this measure is a crucial step toward rational policymaking.
A Return to Common Sense
Critics of this latest executive order will no doubt claim that it represents a “war on science.” But let’s be clear: true science thrives on skepticism and rigorous debate, not blind adherence to politically convenient narratives. By reopening the discussion on the endangerment finding, President Trump is championing the principles of transparency and accountability.
Revisiting the endangerment finding also aligns with a broader vision of economic revitalization and energy independence. The United States has vast reserves of natural resources, and harnessing these assets is essential for national security and economic growth. Restrictive climate policies have too often treated these resources as liabilities rather than assets, hampering America’s ability to compete on the global stage.
The Road Ahead
The EPA has been given 30 days to submit its report to the White House. While the specifics of this report remain to be seen, the very act of questioning the endangerment finding is cause for celebration. It sends a clear message: the era of unchecked regulatory overreach is over.
If the endangerment finding is ultimately overturned, it could mark the beginning of a new chapter in American energy policy—one grounded in realism, economic prosperity, and scientific integrity. Industries battered by years of overregulation could finally have a chance to recover, innovate, and thrive.
President Trump’s actions are a reminder that leadership requires courage—courage to question orthodoxy, to challenge entrenched interests, and to put the needs of the American people first. By targeting the 2009 endangerment finding, he is doing just that. Let us hope that this bold move inspires a much-needed course correction in environmental policy for years to come.
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Trump, or the people advising him, realized the Endangerment Finding should have been eliminated in his first term. It is an endlessly mischievous claim endorsing bad climate models, and the resulting NetZero madness.
I think Trump and his advisors wanted to wait until his second term to address the Endangerment Finding, but he didn’t get his second term until yesterday. 🙂
I think he’s actually in his third term now 🙂
Unringing the Bell: Time for EPA to Reconsider Its Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding
Authors
David Yaussy, Robinson & McElwee PLLC
Elizabeth Turgeon, Robinson & McElwee PLLC
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/wvlr/vol116/iss3/9/
TESIV
Trump Excuse Syndrome Stage IV
Not sure exactly what you mean, but since I wrote that in 2014 it had nothing to do with Trump.
No one is ever sure what RG means…
If you’d followed the link you would have seen the article was written when Obama was president.
Shooting from the hip just makes you look foolish.
His mind is made up, don’t confuse him with the facts. Ignore and move on.
Great news. The endangerment finding was put into place long before SCOTUS overturned Chevron Deference. Without that, the rule should be withdrawn simply because regulation of CO2 emissions was never authorized by congress.
Exactly! Hopefully this makes it easier and faster to get rid of.
But there should still be a Federal lawsuit based upon the overturned Chevron doctrine so that SCOTUS can overrule any authority by EPA or any other agency to regulate climate. No such authority exists in law.
No authority exists in the U.S.Constitution for the federal EPA or ANY of its regulations.
THIS ^
Isn’t that also true for the IRS, DOE, ED, and all the rest?
To what extent, if any, did the endangerment finding include Mann’s hockey stick? Use the climategate emails. Point out fraud.
At 425ppm, the current ratio of CO2 to atmosphere is one part CO2 in each 2353 parts of atmosphere. In other words, each cubic foot of CO2 is spread across 2353 cubic feet of atmosphere. Such a presence doesn’t constitute a heat blanket as much as it resembles a mosquito net.
The proclamation that CO2 is a pollutant should be changed to it being the basic building block of all life on earth.
Something is wrong with this interpretation of ppm, which is an acronym for Parts per Million. “one part .. in each 2353 parts”?
1,000,000/2353 = 425, i.e., 425 ppm.
More like a fishing net trying to trap mosquitos!
Harold the Organic Chemist Says:
The concentration of CO2 in dry “air” is 425 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air contains a mere 0.835 g of CO2 and has a mass of 1.29 kg at STP.
In air with a temperature of 70 deg F and 70% RH, the concentration of H2O is 14,780 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has 11.9 g of H2O, 0.78 g of CO2, and a mass of 1.20 kg. To the first approximation and all things being equal, the amount of the greenhouse effect (GHE) due to H2O is given by:
GHE = moles H2O /moles H2O+moles CO2 = 0.66/0.66+0.018 = 0.97 or 97%
This calculation assumes that molecule of H2O and a molecule of CO2 each absorb about the same amount of IR energy. Actually H20 absorbs more IR energy than CO2. This small amount of CO2 can heat up such a large mass of air by a very small amount if at all.
The above empirical data and simple calculations falsifies the claim by the IPCC that CO2 causes warming of air, and hence global warming, and that it is the control knob for climate change. The objective these lies is to provide the UN the justification to distribute donner funds, via the UNFCCC and the UN GOP, from the rich countries to the poor countries to help them cope with global warming and climate change.
Hopefully, President Trump put an end to the greatest scientific
fraud since the Piltdown Man and terminate funding to these UN organization.
With regard the energy balance, the H2O gas is a bit player. H2O condensate is a significant player. H2O solid is by far the dominant player.
CO2 influence is unmeasurable. Can be detected as warming over Antarctica and over Andes Mountains. The influence is observed in the atmosphere where there is relatively low water in any form and the surface temperature is below freezing or close to it.
See my reply to David M. Hoffer
Well this is all well and good but it ignores the height of the atmospheric air column. As altitude increases, temps drop and air becomes dryer. So for most of the air column there is little to no H2O, and that changes the equation.
Don’t get me wrong, I think sensitivity and endangerment findings are way over blown, but I like to start the discussion on a firm footing.
Harold the Organic Chemist Says:
RE: Greenhouse Gases: H2O vs CO2
Shown in Fig. 7 is the IR absorption spectrum of a sample of Philadelphia city air from 400 to 4,000 wavenumbers (wn’s).
(A wave number is the number of IR light waves per cm. The scale is linear in energy and for Fig. 7 spans an order of magnitude in energy)
Integration of the spectrum determined that H2O absorbed 92% of the IR light and CO2 only 8%. Since the air sample inner city air, it is very likely that the concentration of CO2 was much greater than that of a remote location such a rural site or the oceans.
From 400 to ca. 700 wn’s H2O and CO2 are absorbing out-going long wave IR light. There are some additional absorptions by H2O down to 200 wn’s. The spectrometer has a cutoff at 400 wn’s. From 700 to ca. 1,250 wn’s is the atmospheric widow. The earth’s IR emission has maximum at 1,000 wn’s.
From ca 1,250 to 4,000 wn’s, H2O and CO2 are in the daytime absorbing in-coming IR light in the sunlight. About 40% of sunlight is IR light. It is this absorption of IR light by mostly H2O that causes heating of the air. After the surface warms up from absorption of visible and IR light, it then start to emit IR light. H2O is the workhorse greenhouse gas.
NB: Fig. 7 was taken from the essay: “Climate Change Reexamined” by Joel M. Kauffman. The essay is 26 pages and be down loaded for free.
Same mistake.
The troposphere is 14 km high.
What happens at sea level is not relevant to the vast majority of the atmospheric air column.
Then where do the CliSciFi climate models come up with the tropospheric hot spot that accounts for their inflated estimates of TCS and ECS?
A “firm footing”? This from the guy who thinks that temperature can be converted directly into power?
Again, we see the magical number 97%.
You have really good memory. Check out this calculation:
If you are in tropics with a temperature 90 deg F and 100% RH, the concentration of H20 is 50,800 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has
40.8 g of H2O, ca. 0.76 g of CO2, and mass of ca 1.16 kg. The amount of the greenhouse effect (GHE) due to water is give by:
GHE =moles H2O/moles H2O+moles CO2= 2.27+0.017= 0.99 or 99%
This why there are hot steamy jungles.
The great scientific fraud is the Harold the Chemists junk science comments
[all taunting is off limits to you~ctm]
But ok for RG.. !
I suggest he doesn’t, Richard, stop that. But he is not in the doghouse.
CR
BeNasty taunting comments would be a big step up from his usual anti-science claptrap.
I AM STARTING A
Let BeNasty Be Nasty protest.
I have ALWAYS been VERY polite and would MEVER taunt BeNasty. That would be like poking a sleeping polar bear with a stick.
I have ALWAYS been VERY polite
LIAR!
Fig. 7 speaks for itself. What I posted is Atmospheric Chemistry 101.
You should use Google Scholar and do a search on:
Harold D. Pierce, Jr. Do the search and come back and tell us
what you have learned.
Suppose the governor of your state decreed on April 1, the carbon tax on fossil fuels will be $100 per tonne of CO2eq and all cars and light trucks are to be phased out by 2035 (cf. California). What would you do?
I live in Burnaby, BC and the carbon tax goes to $95 per tonne of CO2eg. on April 1. Justin T. wanted to increase the carbon tax to $180 per tonne of CO2eg by 2030 but he is gone so this won’t happen.
Carbon taxes are such a scam!!!
Robbing people so politicians have more money to spend.
That’s the best you got? Insults….
Don’t forget the fraud of PM10 and that microparticles are particularly bad for us.
…and a mosquito net with such big holes that it wouldn’t be effective as a mosquito net.
The hockey stick graph was first published in 1999. I don’t recall if it was cited in the EF.
Finally.
The “endangerment” finding should be changed to a “benefit” finding, to match reality.
Enhanced atmospheric CO2 has been, and will continue to be, a massive benefit to the world’s plant life, hence to all human and other life on the planet.
It might not be wise to lump “carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide” into one category. They behave too differently, have different utility and have different health effects..
For example CO2+fire= extinguisher
When will there be an endangerment finding about borrowing money to pay the interest owed on the national debt?
And printing money for that purpose.
Never. Buy Bitcoin 😉
This is one of two areas where a long and messy court fight can be expected, thanks to Loper Bright’s repeal of Chevron Deference. The other is birthright citizenship under 14A section 1. Also the subject of an EO yesterday.
The greenies will argue that IPCC has long established the ‘climate science’. The CAA defines a pollutant as ‘that which pollutes’, and SCOTUS in Mass v EPA said the CAA gave EPA the potential to define CO2 as a pollutant. The simplest counter is that SCOTUS in WV v EPA has since said EPA could not go beyond clear congressional intent, and at the time of CAA enactment NOBODY thought CO2 was a pollutant (it is essential for life) while everybody thought SO2 (acid rain) was. That way you avoid arguing the ‘climate science’ itself, relying on the CAA ‘pollute’ intent as enacted when enacted. Sort of a Scalia inspired response.
As for birthright citizenship, the 1898 Wong Kim Ark SCOTUS opinion is not determinative, as Wong’s parents were in the country lawfully. Won’t also pointed out that Wong’s parents were not acting in any fashion as agents of China, so the ‘children of diplomats are not birthright citizens’ exception did not apply. The key is 14A section one ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof’. Wong’s parents clearly were. The Trump counter to the already filed ‘unconstitutional’ birthright lawsuits is contained in the carefully worded EO. An illegal alien by definition is violating immigration law, so voluntarily chose not to be fully subject to the jurisdiction thereof.
Interestingly, Trump also gave SCOTUS a way to really mail the distinction, because the EO has two parts, the second part specifically includes children borne to those here under ‘temporary protected status’, or TPS. Those aliens arguably are subject to the jurisdiction thereof while enjoying TPS. So I expect ultimately a mixed ruling on the EO that makes the 14A line drawn very clear.
The endangerment finding has no basis in Federal law which does not authorize any regulation by the Federal government of climate. The CAA only authorizes regulation of pollutants, and any claim that CO2 is a pollutant is simply, again, not authorized by law.
“An illegal alien by definition is violating immigration law, so voluntarily chose not to be fully subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
That sounds like the logical conclusion to me.
“An illegal alien by definition is violating immigration law,” that might be the case but they are still subject to the jurisdiction of the law since if the get arrested they will be treated in accordance to the law like anyone else. The only people not subject to the jurisdiction are diplomats who have diplomatic immunity. Everyone else has to follow the law.
There is a subtle distinction, as even foreign diplomats also have to follow US laws, else face expulsion rather than criminal punishment.
The distinction (made by far more versed constitutional lawyers than I) is that if illegal aliens were truly subject to the law they wouldn’t be here, and their children would therefore not be born here. Birthright citizenship should not reward clear lawbreaking. The line of reasoning is implicit in Wong. As 24 Dem AG’s have already sued, this one will, as I suspect Trump intended, end up at SCOTUS where his EO lets them draw the subtle line between illegal alien and an alien with TPS temporarily allowed to ‘lawfully’ reside here. The executive TPS solution is then be careful to whom and when you grant that status.
14th Amendment – Section 1:
‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’
Only a complete dunce would not understand that the ‘intent’ of this Amendment, ratified in 1868, was to ensure that Americans freed from bondage, many of whose ancestors had set foot on these shores centuries prior, could not be denied the full and equal rights of US citizenship.
And Biden didn’t even bother stopping illegals, but then again, nobody except the left thought he was in charge.
It’s more nuanced than that, USA is a party to the 1967 agreement on refugees but it did put a couple of reservations in. You might like to make yourself familiar with the document and the reservations.So there is a treaty authorized by US Congress
https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=V-5&chapter=5
Going beyond that Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980, which incorporated the Convention’s definition into U.S. law and provides the legal basis for today’s U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.
So can I suggest you all start by getting familiar with the act which is US law.
Is the header photo Mordor from LoTR movies? JRRT wrote before global warming became a political game. His Bill Ferny and The Cleansing of The Shire bits were anti-industry. I don’t know which side of this issue he would be on.
“Died: September 2, 1973 (age 81 years), Bournemouth, United Kingdom”
Given this executive order, it’s timely to revisit the the amicus brief filed by CO2 Coalition against the EPA Endangerment finding. In 2022 DC Appeals court refused the petition by Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council and the FAIR Energy Foundation and in 2023 the Supreme Court declined to review it.
In 2009, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, under the auspices of the Clean Air Act, falsely determined that carbon dioxide was a pollutant. This is known as the Endangerment Finding and has been used since then to enable EPA to regulate and control CO2 emissions.
It is this authority that is being used to shut down coal power plants, kill internal combustion vehicles, ban natural gas for home heating and the misguided attempt to achieve a net zero economy.
On October 14th, the Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council petitioned the United States Court Of Appeals For The District Of Columbia for a review of their petition to repeal the Endangerment Findings.
The CO2 Coalition, along with Doctors William Happer and Richard Lindzen, filed an amicus brief in support of their petition.
Our amicus brief found that the Endangerment Findings should be rescinded immediately because they were based on:
In addition, we found that net zero will disastrously reduce food worldwide and eliminate the major source of low-cost energy for the US and people worldwide.
To see the amicus brief that was officially filed October 21, 2022, go here: Happer Linzen CO2 Coalition Amicus Brief–filed
For others who did not know:
An amicus brief is a legal document filed by a person or group that is not a party to a case, but has a strong interest in the outcome. The term amicus curiae is Latin for “friend of the court”.
Leaving aside all the never-ending arguments over how reliable are the computer models that formed the claimed scientific basis of the EPA endangerment finding … the only thing that matters is that the Clean Air Act and its 1990 Amendments do not authorize the attempted regulation of climate by the EPA or any other agency of the Federal government, including the DOE. Absent that authority that Congress never granted to the administrative branch, the entire CO2 regulatory scheme is illegal.
SCOTUS will eventually rule on this, even if made moot at least temporarily by the new EPA and Administration’s actions this year … because it is inevitable that the Dems will try to resurrect the finding and overturn anything this EPA does if and when they get back in power again (let’s hope not!).
This is of a piece with prior SCOTUS rulings overturning various regulatory schemes as not authorized in Federal law.
And the decision that any little trickle of water is part of the navigable waters of the US. Based on the commerce clause, the Federal government only has jurisdiction of waters navigable by commercial shipping (capable of interstate commerce). We need a SCOTUS decision returning creeks to the control of property owners and local government .
This is indeed good news and shows that Trump means business. This is a frontal attack on the twisted regulatory scheme that President Obama threatened and then put into motion when Congress refused to enact legislation earlier in 2009.
But from this post:
“The endangerment finding relied heavily on computer models that predicted catastrophic global warming. Yet these models have consistently failed to align with observed temperature trends.”
It is not the misalignment with observed trends since then that shows the models have failed. From the beginning these models were never capable of diagnosing or projecting the influence of radiatively active non-condensing gases such as CO2, CH, N2O at all. They were circular exercises all along, because the investigation of the climate system response was framed as a “forcing” + “feedback” problem.
Incremental concentrations of these trace gases are fundamentally not capable of “forcing” an accumulation of energy on land and in the oceans as sensible heat to begin with. They add no energy of their own to the climate system. The general circulation was already known to be driven mainly by horizontal heating gradients. The minor improvement in the atmosphere’s radiative absorbing power would simply make it a bit more responsive to the daily absorption of solar energy, incrementally promoting the horizontal heating gradients. And for that matter, the concept of energy conversion in the general circulation was sufficiently understood even before numerical models were developed, to know that a claimed “warming” effect cannot be isolated for reliable attribution of any reported trend in temperature.
So in support of President Trump’s bold efforts, as skeptics of climate alarm, let’s stop conceding the core claim that emissions of CO2 could be capable of driving “warming” or any other metric of climate interest – most certainly not to any significant or harmful extent. No one knows that. The incremental static radiative effect does not force the result when the dynamic response of the circulating atmosphere is properly considered.
Oh, and about clouds, that the models cannot represent with any authority at all – don’t get me going! /rant
Greenhouse gases, including water vapor, don’t add energy. But neither does insulation you use to winterize your house. But given the same rate of energy input, both result in higher temperatures.
Nice to hear from you, sir. With great respect, I encourage you to consider that the emission to space at the top of the circulating atmosphere cannot properly be assumed to be de-rated with incremental CO2. It’s not like a static insulator. Please consider this time-lapse video of plots of the “vertical integral of energy conversion” from the ERA5 reanalysis. A full explanation is in the description text. Please keep up the good work against the alarmist side of the climate debate. I hope to persuade you here toward the view that “no one knows” that a “warming” result down here must be expected.
https://youtu.be/hDurP-4gVrY
Roy, you should also listen to this video from Tom Shula.
And a similar one from Paul Lindsay
Roy has better things to do than listen to the current crackpot theory taking hold among people who label themselves skeptics but are the farthest thing from it.
Paul Lindsay…..Thirty years as a physicist in university physics departments followed by a move to industry until retirement.
Principal Research Scientist, Nonlinear Dynamics/Chaos Theory, Plasma Fusion Center MIT, 1990-1997
Principal Research Scientist, LIGO project, Nonlinear Dynamics/Chaos Theory, Dept. of Physics MIT, 1980-1990
Postdoctoral Fellow, Neutrino Experiment, Dept. of Physics, CalTech, 1976 -1979
PhD student, experimental High Energy Physics, Dept. of Physics, University of Chicago, 1970-1976
—-
In his summary of a van-Wijngaarden and Happer paper, Andy May begins his discussion as follows:
• “The phrase “greenhouse effect,” often abbreviated as “GHE,” is very ambiguous. It applies to Earth’s surface temperature, and has never been observed or measured, only modeled.
In this conversation between Will Happer and Dave Burton…. we find this quite (Will’s answer is in capitals and square brackets)
Will Happer agrees with the thermalisation of absorbed CO2 photons.
I put insulation on my garage walls to keep it cooler in summer.
For those down voting Dr. Spencer:
Perhaps you don’t agree with him, but his knowledge of atmospheric physics is second to none, and you should listen to what he says with an open mind. Down voting him is just being rude.
“Down voting him is just being rude.”
Agreed.
“Perhaps you don’t agree with him…”
Correct, on this particular point. And I can’t for the life of me figure out why he responded to my comment with a static analogy. He knows from “his knowledge of atmospheric physics” that the question of where the energy involved in the static radiative effect ends up – as a final result of the circulation dynamics – cannot be answered with the passive “insulator” concept.
“Down voting him is just being rude.”
I agree. It looks like now that Roy is in the green.
Down votes are not too helpful. A person might agree with one thing said and disagree with another thing said, so how do we know exactly what you disagree with if all we get is a down vote?
I don’t do down votes. I will do up votes.
If you have a disagreement, voice it. More talk is better.
Agreed Tom. I never do down votes.
“But given the same rate of energy input, both result in higher temperatures.”
How much higher? THAT is the question.
HI Roy,
My 16′ high (30 x 60′) pole barn doesn’t have any walls … just a roof.
If I insulate the roof (say R30), in an effort to keep the night time floor temp (2′ off the floor) at 64 degrees on a 32 degree night, how much can I lessen my rate of energy input in doing so?
(Answer; dumb question … not enuf known parameters. And, using estimated input parameters would provide an answer with enough error that renders it useless (for purpose)).
It happened again. Typo – “CH” should be “CH4”. I think my “4” key is suspect.
4 is an unlucky number in Chinese, almost being a homophone with the word for death.
The CCP probably “has my number.”
Homophone?
I just learned a new word and will use it as often as possible before I forget it.
I had assumed a homophone was a phone in rainbow pride flag colors with a show tune ring tone! Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Do you perform before or after Murph and the Magic Tones?
I typed in “CH”, but there was no red wavy underscore. Spell checker needs an AI up date.
Most spell checkers ignore words that are all, or mostly all capitals.
“let’s stop conceding the core claim that emissions of CO2 could be capable of driving “warming”
Perfect strategy to get laughed at and ignored.
Control knob indeed
Poor Richard, are you sure your Almanac of static climate ideas can diagnose the dynamic climate system? Surely by now you should know better. Be well.
This should just be the beginning. Every department that has ever created, advised or enforced a rule or regulation not specifically passed by congress and signed by the president should be put on notice that these rules etc must be proven to be both scientifically and legally sound. Prepare to defend them all.
It would be helpful to conduct some investigations of agencies and start a whistleblower program for all the Sierra Club advocacy operatives.
Also redirect the FBI to investigate the Sierra Club, Green Peace, and CARB for endangerment by their covert actions in agencies.
The CAA requires that EPA, having made an endangerment finding, issue an NAAQS for the “pollutant” purportedly causing the endangerment. It has been 15 years, but still no NAAQS. Admittedly, developing an NAAQS for a “globally well-mixed trace gas” being emitted by every nation on the globe would would be challenging, but 15 years seems like dereliction of duty.
Ed Reid: “The CAA requires that EPA, having made an endangerment finding, issue an NAAQS for the “pollutant” purportedly causing the endangerment. It has been 15 years, but still no NAAQS. Admittedly, developing an NAAQS for a “globally well-mixed trace gas” being emitted by every nation on the globe would would be challenging, but 15 years seems like dereliction of duty.”
Some history is in order here, history which goes back more than two decades.
The 2009 Endangerment Finding was a key milestone in a long term strategy to have CO2 and carbon compounds such as methane declared to be ‘criteria pollutants’ under the Clean Air Act.
When the Clean Air Act was written more than fifty years ago, the act directly specified six pollutants it called criteria pollutants for which the EPA was given broad and explicit authority to regulate and reduce.
The Congress also gave the EPA authority to add new criteria pollutants to the original list through a process of researching and publishing an Endangerment Finding for the targeted ‘pollutant’, followed by developing a National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for that pollutant.
The environmental law community has long held the position that CO2 and other carbon compounds such as methane should be added to the original list of criteria pollutants. They’ve been pushing that position for more than twenty years.
After the US Supreme Court upheld the 2009 Endangerment Finding in 2011, the next step would have been for the Obama administration to develop and publish a NAAQS for CO2 and for other carbon compounds.
Had the CAA’s formal process for adding new criteria pollutants been driven to completion, a very powerful set of regulatory tools against carbon emissions would have been enabled. But this wasn’t done.
What was done instead was to publish the Clean Power Plan in 2013, a plan which was, in my humble opinion, deliberately and consciously designed to fail in the courts.
Why did Obama not follow through with driving the criteria pollutant strategy to completion? Why did he publish the Clean Power Plan instead, a plan consciously designed to fail in the courts?
IMHO, it was because he knew what kinds of disruption that regulating carbon to the maximum extent legally possible would cause, and he wasn’t willing to risk the severe political blowback which was certain to result.
30 days is not very long. You would think that there are a good number of knowledgable engineers and scientists working within the EPA who know the CO2 induced climate change is a scam. This EO gives them oxygen to come out from under their rocks and counter the political motivation that drives the scam.
People who stand up now and point out the stupidity of CO2 induced climate change now have a future. The scammers can crawl back under their rocks.
Please note the precise definition of “energy” and its “production”, as it is pertains to this entire Declaration:
“Sec. 8. Definitions. For purposes of this order, the following definitions shall apply:
(a) The term “energy” or “energy resources” means crude oil, natural gas, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, the kinetic movement of flowing water, and [other?] critical minerals, as defined by 30 U.S.C. 1606 (a)(3).
(b) The term “production” means the extraction or creation of energy…”
Notice what is missing here? [Hint: they’re in the intermittents category]
Aside from ‘biofuels’ (nobody’s perfect alas) and perhaps ‘critical minerals’, these are all explicit references to reliables, none to intermittent sources.
Reasonable conclusion? This is not an ‘all-of-the-above’ or indiscriminate call for general energy / power production, but rather one targeted to what is sometimes called ‘energy security’. ? Comments / objections from the legal-eagles or producers?
Question.
I know what condensate is. But what is “leased condensate”?
Lease condensate · Energy KnowledgeBase
“Lease condensate” is explained here.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017MS001209
“Lease condensate, so-called because it is produced at the lease level from oil or gas wells, is the most common type of gas condensate and is typically a clear or translucent liquid.”
More explanation at the link.
The condensates from nat. gas are hydrocarbons containing five or more carbon atoms. For example pentane, CH3CH2CH2CH2CH3, has a bp of 35 deg C. These hydrocarbons are added to the gasoline fraction from crude oil.
Counting in parts per million is, in and of itself, obfuscation. CO2 is currently around 420 parts per million, increased, they tell us, from 280 ppm in 1850 (estimated from unreliable Antarctic ice cores). That’s a difference of 140 ppm, or in terms more readily understood by the layman, the composition of the atmosphere has changed by 0.014% (14 thousandths of 1%) in the last 175 years. Less than 1 thousandth of 1% per decade. That’s it. That’s the TOTAL ‘carbon footprint’ for the entire planet, and human activity is only responsible for a small part (3-4%) of that increase. This measurement is averaged annually from much higher and lower daily figures. All the development that has occurred in this timeframe, everything we have built, all industry and every drop of fuel burned is included in that calculation. Furthermore, every life form on this planet; on the land, in the sea and in the air is composed of carbon compounds that were once in the air as CO2, and every living thing that has come and gone in those 175 years is incorporated in a figure that doesn’t fall outside of a reasonable margin of error. Methane is less than 2ppm, and various oxides of nitrogen total less than that. Obfuscation, pure and simple.
Man is responsible for only 3 to 4 percent of the daily CO2 emissions but 100% of the total increase over the last 175 years.
The reason for this is that you are ignoring sinks.
Prior to the industrial revolution, sources and sinks of CO2 were roughly in balance. Nature was absorbing the CO2 that nature was emitting. When man started burning fossil fuels, this balance was broken. Man was emitting more CO2 than nature could absorb in short order.
The small addition created by man accumulated, year after year.
We know how much oil, gas, coal were produced over this time. It’s a safe assumption that the amount burned equals the amount produced over the same period. When we calculate how much CO2 would have been produced by the burning of all this fuel, we get a number that is 2 to 3 times greater than the actual increase.
Sinks did increase as CO2 levels rose, but not enough to consume all of the increase.
This article is the usual Trump cheerleading that requires no actual accomplishments. By an incompetent author.
Calling CO2 a pollutant is anti-science ignorance. More CO2 in the atmosphere is very beneficial.
Government leaders and bureaucrats are ignorant on a large variety of subjects. Why expect them to be logical about CO2? Or about electric grid design? A competent bureaucrat is an oxymoron.
Conservative authors have no recognition of the Biden Drill Baby Drill results in 2023:
Record US oil production (new record i 2024)
Record US oil exports
Record US gas production
Recor US gas exportas
Record US coal exports
Trump would be lucky to match these Biden accomplishments in 2025 and after 2025. Biden didn’t even know he had these accomplishments, but he didn’t know a lot of things
Trump’s Energy Emergency is the mark of a dictator seizing power without Congressional approval. There is no energy emergency, but conservatives love the strong talk of a dictator.
Trump 1.0 did absolutely nothing to reverse the CO2 endangerment finding in his four years. Why such optimism now? Wishful thinking?
And what about the Nut Zero nonsense of many US states (24 states, DC and many cities too)? Will dictator Trump arrest the governors to stop their Nut Zero ambitions? If so, I hope he starts with my Governor Witless.
The Supreme Court upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Endangerment Finding in Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA in 2012. The court’s unanimous decision affirmed the EPA’s finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. Did the author forget about this? Or will Trump just ignore the Supreme Court?
The EPA’s endangerment finding has been challenged in court after 2012, but these challenges have been largely unsuccessful, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upholding the finding in 2012 and the Supreme Court declining to review that decision; essentially solidifying the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases based on the endangerment finding.
I believe many (maybe a majority) Republicans in Congress and Republican appointed SCOTUS justices FAVOR CO2 as a pollutant. What is Trump going do about these nitwits? Ignore them like a dictator would do?
Trump excitement is now at a peak
It’s time to WAIT for Trump actions to take effect BEFORE we discuss them. No more teenage girl-like cheerleading. So far the Trump executive orders sound good. But RESULTS are what count.
After Biden, the biggest crook to be President, Trump is now the biggest con man to be President, with his intrinsically worthless meme coin.
Trump’s meme coin is a reminder of crypto’s dumbest use case | CNN Business
“It’s time to WAIT for Trump actions to take effect BEFORE we discuss them”
You mean like 200 Executive orders signed ??
Trump was never a con-man.. just a hard-nosed business man.
Richard, your TDS slip is showing.
Richard, its one thing to be wrong once in a while, heck people make mistakes…but being wrong as often as you are is a very special skill.
How hard do you think it is to look up Supreme Court decisions? SCOTUS did NOT “..affirm the EPA’s findings that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare” (my bolding added).
In their decision they simply affirmed that the EPA had the RIGHT to create a finding and that they went about it the ‘right way’…in fact they EXPLICITLY refused to adjudicate the scientific basis of the finding…and I quote “[a]lthough we perform a searching and careful inquiry into the facts underlying the agency’s decisions,we will presume the validity of agency action as long as a rational basis for it is presented.”
In other words, by and large SCOTUS refuses to adjudicate ‘scientific’ questions on the validity of the science as they are NOT qualified to do so and PRESUME a scientific inquiry is correct provided it is RATIONAL. And ‘rational’ is FAR from ‘scientifically correct’. It was rational at one time to believe that light has an ‘infinite’ speed…it took careful scientific inquiry to demostrate that light has a defined and maximum speed, it would now be irrational to claim otherwise.
I think that ‘by and large’ Trump is a buffoon in his mannerisms, he certainly isn’t ‘stately’, and there’s a lot I don’t agree with him on but he’s NOT stupid and he’s learned from his first administration that he needs to use a hammer not a scalpel (e.g. remove 2 regulations for each new 1) to clear out the swamp.
His EO directing the EPA to reconsider the endangerment finding goes right to the heart of EVERY attempt to regulate & demonize CO2. For a ‘luke warmer’ such as yourself you should be ecstatic at this directive. Since HIS people will be in place they can direct the inquire in a manner consistent with the existing state of the science. Which if anyone is being honest is ‘We simply do not know and have insufficient evidence to know why the planet near the surface may be warming’. Heck, the first question they should even consider is “What if any negative impact does increased energy in the lower atmosphere have on the humans in the US?”
Since the IPCC themselves can find NO increase in ‘bad things happening’ (TM) any expectation that an increase in CO2 can have an impact on ‘bad things happening’ is null & void at this time.
Push comes to shove they simply need to answer the fundamental question “Why is a warming planet a bad thing(tm)?” Importantly that question can not be answered by reference to models or ‘what MIGHT happen’ but what actually IS happening. It was drop dead simple to show that lead causes SERIOUS health issues and was properly regulated to remove it from gasoline. There simply is no obvious detrimental impact of a mildly warming planet even up to 5 degrees C.
Now, don’t just ‘withdraw’ from the Paris Climate Treaty…submit it the Senate for ratification as is required with Treaties (Which Paris clearly is) and when it’s voted down 75-25, we’ll never have to hear about it again!
Looks like Califoolnia will have to drop its diesel truck ban
California Blames Trump As It Ditches Diesel Truck Ban, New Clean-Air Rules – Climate Change Dispatch
Trump also blocking new wind projects.
Trump Halts Wind Projects Over Wildlife Threats, Blocks Idaho’s Lava Ridge Project – Climate Change Dispatch
From the link:
“But yesterday, in a landmark executive order, President Donald Trump ordered that all federal agencies must immediately assess “the environmental impact of onshore and offshore wind projects upon wildlife, including, but not limited to, birds and marine mammals.”
I would love to see Trump put a halt to all windmill activity, onshore and offshore. They are horrible in so many ways, and they can’t do the job society requires: Supplying reliable electricity.
It’s almost as if Trump is the president who believes in science and the other recent occupants of the White House only believed in kickbacks, subsidies, being bribed to destroy American industrial power and encouraging the youngest to pretend to be any other gender than the one nature assigned. The orange man is the new Einstein.
The EPA went rogue when it demonized CO2 as a pollutant during a kangaroo court — as my video illustrates … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYhfrgRAbH4
Next PM2.5?