Art Speaking Energy Truth, for Once
Apologies to anyone offended by an oilman’s vocabulary.
Month: November 2024
IPCC Crusade Built on Science Mistakes
“Mistake” definition (American Heritage Dictionary)
Noun
- An error or fault resulting from defective judgment, deficient knowledge, or carelessness.
- A misconception or misunderstanding.
Five Major IPCC Science Mistakes
♦ Surface stations records have warmed mostly from urban heat sources, not IR-active gases.
♦ Solar climate forcing varies more than IPCC admits.
♦ Experiments show more CO2 does not make air warmer.
♦ On all time scales temperature changes lead and CO2 changes follow.
♦ IPCC climate models exclude natural climate factors to blame all warming on GHGs.
Mistakes on Temperature Records and Solar Forcing
The first two misconceptions are described in a recent paper by CERES (Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences). My post below provides the details.
Overview of CERES Study
Our review suggests that the IPCC reports have inadequately accounted for two major scientific concerns when they were evaluating the causes of global warming since the 1850s:
1. The global temperature estimates used in the IPCC reports are contaminated by urban warming biases.
2. The estimates of solar activity changes since the 1850s considered by the IPCC substantially downplayed a possible large role for the Sun.
We conclude that it is not scientifically valid for the IPCC to rule out the possibility that global warming might be mostly natural.
Fatal Flaw Discredits IPCC Science
By way of John Ray comes this Spectator Australia article A basic flaw in IPCC science. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.
Detailed research is underway that threatens to undermine the foundations of the climate science promoted by the IPCC since its First Assessment Report in 1992. The research is re-examining the rural and urban temperature records in the Northern Hemisphere that are the foundation for the IPCC’s estimates of global warming since 1850. The research team has been led by Dr Willie Soon (a Malaysian solar astrophysicist associated with the Smithsonian Institute for many years) and two highly qualified Irish academics – Dr Michael Connolly and his son Dr Ronan Connolly. They have formed a climate research group CERES-SCIENCE. Their detailed research will be a challenge for the IPCC 7th Assessment Report due to be released in 2029 as their research results challenge the very foundations of IPCC science.
The climate warming trend published by the IPCC is a continually updated graph based on the temperature records of Northern Hemisphere land surface temperature stations dating from the mid 19th Century. The latest IPCC 2021 report uses data for the period 1850-2018. The IPCC’s selection of Northern Hemisphere land surface temperature records is not in question and is justifiable. The Northern Hemisphere records provide the best database for this period. The Southern Hemisphere land temperature records are not that extensive and are sparse for the 19th and early 20th Century. It is generally agreed that the urban temperature data is significantly warmer than the rural data in the same region because of an urban warming bias. This bias is due to night-time surface radiation of the daytime solar radiation absorbed by concrete and bitumen. Such radiation leads to higher urban night-time temperatures than say in the nearby countryside. The IPCC acknowledges such a warming bias but alleges the increased effect is only 10 per cent and therefore does not significantly distort its published global warming trend lines.
Since 2018, Dr Soon and his partners have analysed the data from rural and urban temperature recording stations in China, the USA, the Arctic, and Ireland. The number of stations with reliable temperature records in these areas increased from very few in the mid-19th Century to around 4,000 in the 1970s before decreasing to around 2,000 by the 1990s. The rural temperature recording stations with good records peaked at 400 and are presently around 200.
Their analysis of individual stations needs to account for any variation in their exposure to the Sun due to changes in their location, OR shadowing due to the construction of nearby buildings, OR nearby vegetation growth. The analysis of rural temperature stations is further complicated as over time many are encroached by nearby cities. Consequently, the data from such stations needs to be shifted at certain dates from the rural temperature database to either an intermediate database or to a full urban database. Consequently, an accurate analysis of the temperature records of each recording station is a time-consuming task.
This new analysis of 4,000 temperature recording stations in China, the USA, the Arctic, and Ireland shows a warming trend of 0.89ºC per century in the urban stations that is 1.61 times higher that a warming trend of 0.55ºC per century in the rural stations. This difference is far more significant than the 10 per cent divergence between urban and rural stations alleged in the IPCC reports; a divergence explained by a potential flaw in the IPCC’s methodology. The IPCC uses a technique called homogenisation that averages the rural and urban temperatures in a particular region. This method distorts the rural temperature records as over 75 per cent of the temperature records used in this homogenisation methodology are urban stations. So, a methodology that attempts to statistically identify and correct some biases that may be in the raw data, in effect, leads to an urban blending of the rural dataset. This result is biased as it downgrades the actual values of each rural temperature station. In contrast, Dr Soon and his coworkers avoided homogenisation so the temperature trends they identify for each rural region are accurate as the rural data are not distorted by the readings from nearby urban stations.
The rural temperature trend measured by this new research is 0.55ºC per century and it indicates the Earth has warmed 0.9ºC since 1850. In contrast, the urban temperature trend measured by this new research is 0.89ºC per century and indicates a much higher warming of 1.5ºC since 1850. Consequently, a distorted urban warming trend has been used by the IPCC to quantify the warming of the whole of the Earth since 1850. The exaggeration is significant as the urban temperature record database used by the IPCC only represents the temperatures on 3-4 per cent of the Earth’s land surface area; an area less than 2 per cent of the Earth’s total surface area. During the next few years, Dr Willie Soon and his research team are currently analysing the meta-history of 800 European temperature recording stations. When this is done their research will be based on very significant database of Northern Hemisphere rural and urban temperature records from China, the USA, the Arctic, Ireland, and Europe.
This new research has unveiled another flaw in the IPCC‘s temperature narrative as trend lines in its revised temperature datasets are different from those published by the IPCC. For example, the rural records now show a marked warming trend in the 1930s and 1940s while there is only a slight warming trend in the IPCC dataset. The most significant difference is the existence of a marked cooling period in the rural dataset for the 1960s and 1970s that is almost absent in the IPCC’s urban dataset. This later divergence upsets the common narrative that rising carbon dioxide levels control modern warming trends. For, if carbon dioxide levels are the driver of modern warming, how can a higher rate of increasing carbon dioxide levels exist within a cooling period in the 1960s and 1970s while a lower increasing rate of carbon dioxide levels coincides with an earlier warming interval in the 1930s and 1940s? Or, in other words, how can carbon dioxide levels increasing at 1.7 parts per million per decade cause a distinct warming period in the 1930s and 1940s while a larger increasing rate of 10.63 parts per million per decade is associated with a distinct cooling period in the 1960s and 1970s! Consequently, the research of Willie Soon and his coworkers is discrediting, not only the higher rate of global warming trends specified in IPCC Reports, but also the theory that rising carbon dioxide levels explain modern warming trends; a lynchpin of IPCC science for the last 25 years.
Willie Soon and his coworkers maintain that climate scientists need to consider other possible explanations for recent global warming. Willie Soon and his coworkers point to the Sun, but the IPCC maintains that variations in Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) are over eons and not over shorter periods such as the last few centuries. For that reason, the IPCC point to changes in greenhouse gases as the most obvious explanation for global warming since 1850. In contrast, Willie Soon and his coworkers maintain there can be short-term changes in solar activity and, for example, refer to a period of no sunspot activity that coincided with the Little Ice Age in the 17th Century. They also point out there is still no agreed average figure for Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) despite 30 years of measurements taken by various satellites. Consequently, they contend research in this area is not settled.
The CERES-SCIENCE research project pioneered by Dr Willie Soon and the father-son Connolly team has questioned the validity of the high global warming trends for the 1850-present period that have been published by the IPCC since its first report in 1992. The research also queries the IPCC narrative that rising greenhouse gas concentrations, particularly carbon dioxide, are the primary driver of global warming since 1850. That narrative has been the foundation of IPCC climate science for the last 40 years. It will be interesting to see how the IPCC’s 7th Assessment Report in 2029 treats this new research that questions the very basis of IPCC’s climate science.
Abstract
A statistical analysis was applied to Northern Hemisphere land surface temperatures (1850–2018) to try to identify the main drivers of the observed warming since the mid-19th century. Two different temperature estimates were considered—a rural and urban blend (that matches almost exactly with most current estimates) and a rural-only estimate. The rural and urban blend indicates a long-term warming of 0.89 °C/century since 1850, while the rural-only indicates 0.55 °C/century. This contradicts a common assumption that current thermometer-based global temperature indices are relatively unaffected by urban warming biases.
Three main climatic drivers were considered, following the approaches adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s recent 6th Assessment Report (AR6): two natural forcings (solar and volcanic) and the composite “all anthropogenic forcings combined” time series recommended by IPCC AR6. The volcanic time series was that recommended by IPCC AR6. Two alternative solar forcing datasets were contrasted. One was the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) time series that was recommended by IPCC AR6. The other TSI time series was apparently overlooked by IPCC AR6. It was found that altering the temperature estimate and/or the choice of solar forcing dataset resulted in very different conclusions as to the primary drivers of the observed warming.
Our analysis focused on the Northern Hemispheric land component of global surface temperatures since this is the most data-rich component. It reveals that important challenges remain for the broader detection and attribution problem of global warming: (1) urbanization bias remains a substantial problem for the global land temperature data; (2) it is still unclear which (if any) of the many TSI time series in the literature are accurate estimates of past TSI; (3) the scientific community is not yet in a position to confidently establish whether the warming since 1850 is mostly human-caused, mostly natural, or some combination. Suggestions for how these scientific challenges might be resolved are offered.
Mistake on CO2 Warming Effect
Thomas Allmendinger is a Swiss physicist educated at Zurich ETH whose practical experience is in the fields of radiology and elemental particles physics. His complete biography is here.
His independent research and experimental analyses of greenhouse gas (GHG) theory over the last decade led to several published studies, including the latest summation The Real Origin of Climate Change and the Feasibilities of Its Mitigation, 2023, at Atmospheric and Climate Sciences journal. The paper is a thorough and detailed discussion of which I provide here the abstract and the excerpt describing the experiment. Excerpts are in italics with my bolds and added images. Full post is Experimental Proof Nil Warming from GHGs.
Abstract
The actual treatise represents a synopsis of six important previous contributions of the author, concerning atmospheric physics and climate change. Since this issue is influenced by politics like no other, and since the greenhouse-doctrine with CO2 as the culprit in climate change is predominant, the respective theory has to be outlined, revealing its flaws and inconsistencies.
But beyond that, the author’s own contributions are focused and deeply discussed. The most eminent one concerns the discovery of the absorption of thermal radiation by gases, leading to warming-up, and implying a thermal radiation of gases which depends on their pressure. This delivers the final evidence that trace gases such as CO2 don’t have any influence on the behaviour of the atmosphere, and thus on climate.
But the most useful contribution concerns the method which enables to determine the solar absorption coefficient βs of coloured opaque plates. It delivers the foundations for modifying materials with respect to their capability of climate mitigation. Thereby, the main influence is due to the colouring, in particular of roofs which should be painted, preferably light-brown (not white, from aesthetic reasons).
It must be clear that such a drive for brightening-up the World would be the only chance of mitigating the climate, whereas the greenhouse doctrine, related to CO2, has to be abandoned. However, a global climate model with forecasts cannot be aspired to since this problem is too complex, and since several climate zones exist.
4. Thermal Gas Absorption Measurements
If the warming-up behaviour of gases has to be determined by temperature measurements, interference by the walls of the gas vessel should be regarded since they exhibit a significantly higher heat capacity than the gas does, which implicates a slower warming-up rate. Since solid materials absorb thermal radiation stronger than gases do, the risk exists that the walls of the vessel are directly warmed up by the radiation, and that they subsequently transfer the heat to the gas. And finally, even the thin glass-walls of the thermometers may disturb the measurements by absorbing thermal radiation.
By these reasons, quadratic tubes with a relatively large profile (20 cm) were used which consisted of 3 cm thick plates from Styrofoam, and which were covered at the ends by thin plastic foils. In order to measure the temperature course along the tube, mercury-thermometers were mounted at three positions (beneath, in the middle, and atop) whose tips were covered with aluminum foils. The test gases were supplied from steel cylinders being equipped with reducing valves. They were introduced by a connecter during approx. one hour, because the tube was not gastight and not enough consistent for an evacuation. The filling process was monitored by means of a hygrometer since the air, which had to be replaced, was slightly humid. Afterwards, the tube was optimized by attaching adhesive foils and thin aluminum foils (see Figure 13). The equipment and the results are reported in [21].
Figure 13. Solar-tube, adjustable to the sun [21].
Figure 14. Heat-radiation tube with IR-spot [21].
Due to the results with IR-spots at different gases (air, carbon-dioxide, the noble gases argon, neon and helium), essential knowledge could be gained. In each case, the irradiated gas warmed up until a stable limiting temperature was attained. Analogously to the case of irradiated coloured solid plates, the temperature increased until the equilibrium state was attained where the heat absorption rate was identically equal with the heat emission rate.
Figure 15. Time/temperature-curves for different gases [21] (150 W-spot, medium thermometer-position).
Conclusion
Finally, the theoretically suggested dependency of the atmospheric thermal radiation intensity on the atmospheric pressure could be empirically verified by measurements at different altitudes, namely in Glattbrugg (430 m above sea level and on the top of the Furka-pass (2430 m above sea level), both in Switzerland, delivering a so-called atmospheric emission constant A ≈ 22 W·m−2•bar−1•K−0.5. It explained the altitude-paradox of the atmospheric temperature and delivered the definitive evidence that the atmospheric behavior, and thus the climate, does not depend on trace gases such as CO2. However, the atmosphere thermally reradiates indeed, leading to something similar to a Greenhouse effect. But this effect is solely due to the atmospheric pressure.
Mistake on Warming Prior to CO2 Rising
Changes in CO2 follow changes in global temperatures on all time scales, from last month’s observations to ice core datasets spanning millennia. Since CO2 is the lagging variable, it cannot logically be the cause of temperature, the leading variable. It is folly to imagine that by reducing human emissions of CO2, we can change global temperatures, which are obviously driven by other factors. Most recent post on this:
Mistake on Models Bias Against Natural Factors
Figure 1. Anthropic and natural contributions. (a) Locked scaling factors, weak Pre Industrial Climate Anomalies (PCA). (b) Free scaling, strong PCA
In 2009, the iconic email from the Climategate leak included a comment by Phil Jones about the “trick” used by Michael Mann to “hide the decline,” in his Hockey Stick graph, referring to tree proxy temperatures cooling rather than warming in modern times. Now we have an important paper demonstrating that climate models insist on man-made global warming only by hiding the incline of natural warming in Pre-Industrial times. The paper is From Behavioral Climate Models and Millennial Data to AGW Reassessment by Philippe de Larminat. H/T No Tricks Zone. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.
Abstract
Context. The so called AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming), is based on thousands of climate simulations indicating that human activity is virtually solely responsible for the recent global warming. The climate models used are derived from the meteorological models used for short-term predictions. They are based on the fundamental and empirical physical laws that govern the myriad of atmospheric and oceanic cells integrated by the finite element technique. Numerical approximations, empiricism and the inherent chaos in fluid circulations make these models questionable for validating the anthropogenic principle, given the accuracy required (better than one per thousand) in determining the Earth energy balance.
Aims and methods. The purpose is to quantify and simulate behavioral models of weak complexity, without referring to predefined parameters of the underlying physical laws, but relying exclusively on generally accepted historical and paleoclimate series.
Results. These models perform global temperature simulations that are consistent with those from the more complex physical models. However, the repartition of contributions in the present warming depends strongly on the retained temperature reconstructions, in particular the magnitudes of the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. It also depends on the level of the solar activity series. It results from these observations and climate reconstructions that the anthropogenic principle only holds for climate profiles assuming almost no PCA neither significant variations in solar activity. Otherwise, it reduces to a weak principle where global warming is not only the result of human activity, but is largely due to solar activity. Full post is here:
Man-Made Climate Change A Good Thing?
Selwyn Duke writes at American Thinker Let’s say man is changing the climate. So what? Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.
The temperature is rising!” “The temperature is dropping.” “The temperature is staying the same.”
We argue the “facts” of climate change (even as parts of New Jersey were just buried under 11 inches of global warming). One side wants the facts to show that man is disrupting the climate, while the other wants them to show that he’s not. But an almost never posed question should be asked:
Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that our industry
is causing global warming. So what?
No, I’m not a guy who “just wants to see the world burn” (and that would be literally). Rather, if anthropogenic climate change were occurring, why should we assume it wouldn’t be beneficial?
Greening of the earth from CO2 and warming.
Oh, it’s not just that the Earth is greener and crop yields are higher when CO2 levels are greater; it’s not just that relative warmth breeds life. It’s also this:
Some scientists have said the Earth will soon enter, or has already entered, a significant cooling phase. Others even contend that another ice age is nigh. And if this is so, any man-caused temperature increase would merely mitigate this naturally induced but deadly phenomenon.
One of these scientists was the late Professor S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric and space physics expert who had been a founding director of the Science & Environmental Policy Project. “I have recently become quite concerned about ice ages and the dangers they pose to humans on our planet,” he wrote in 2015 — “and indeed to most of terrestrial ecology.”
Singer explained later in his article that there “are two kinds of ice ages”:
(i) Major (Milankovich-style) glaciations occur on a 100,000-year time-scale and are controlled astronomically. (ii) “Little” ice ages were discovered in ice cores; they have been occurring on an approx. 1000-1500-yr cycle and are likely controlled by the Sun.
The scientist then warned that the “current cycle’s cooling phase may be imminent….”
Now, this is a frightening prospect. Even the liberal New York Times admitted in 2017, reporting on a Lancet study, that “cold weather is responsible, directly or indirectly, for 17 times as many deaths as hot weather.” That’s in our relatively warm time, too. What would happen during a major ice age?
Well, “The coolings are quite severe,” informed Singer. “[T]he most recent one, ending only about 12,000 years ago, covered much of North America and Europe with miles-thick continental ice sheets and led to the disappearance of (barely) surviving bands of Neanderthalers; they were displaced by the more adaptable Homo Sapiens.”
In other words, another major ice age would likely be a Hollywood-like, apocalyptic disaster. In fact, Singer insisted that we should be prepared to use scientific interventions to mitigate such an eventuality (while Bill Gates wants to do the same to cool down the Earth). To be clear, though, while Singer said that another ice age could begin tomorrow, it could also be tens of thousands of years away. And my article isn’t about hashing out the details, assessing probability, or recommending mitigation measures. (you can read Singer’s work for that). It is about this: prejudice.
Again, accepting for argument that man is significantly warming
the planet (not my belief), why assume this is bad?
In reality, moderns’ thinking so often reflects a kind of misanthropism or, at least, a bias against Western-triumph-born modernity. People believing that extraterrestrials furtively visit our planet never assume the aliens’ matter-of-course environmental impact could be malign; they’re too advanced. People pondering a hunter-gatherer tribe (e.g., the North Sentinelese) generally assume they just must live “in harmony with nature” and be innocuous; they’re too primitive. Never mind that American Indians deforested stretches along, and caused the sedimentation of, the Delaware River long before Europeans’ New World arrival (to provide just one perspective-lending example). The activities of man, or modern man or Western man, depending on the precise prejudice, just must be harmful for the simple reason that he engaged in them. So, yes, racial profiling is a problem — against the human race.
In fairness, we can do and have done much to damage the environment. In fairness again, though, forested area in the U.S. is greater than it was a century back and our water and air are cleaner than they were 60 years ago. And in recent times the Great Barrier Reef has actually increased in size (this isn’t necessarily due to man’s activities). So we can also be good shepherds of the Earth.
See more at Barrier Reef Great Again.
The odd thing, though, about the misanthropic prejudice is that implicit in it is an idea that man is akin to some unnatural, artificial presence. This, coming from people who generally also believe man is himself only an animal, a mere product of evolution; in other words, just another part of nature. And, of course, whether the result of divine creation or evolutionary happenstance, part of nature (or Creation) is precisely what man is.
As for the world’s fortunes, 99.9 percent of the species of life that have ever existed are extinct, partially due to ice ages. So ironically, if man’s activities — either accidentally, intentionally or both — mitigate the coming ice age, we humans may be responsible for counteracting the next great extinction.
Source: Phanerozoic_Biodiversity.png Author: SVG version by Albert Mestre
“Misinformation” Means “Shut Up”
Daniel B. Klein reveals the power play currently destroying our civil discourse in his Brownstone article Misinformation is a Word We Use to Shut You Up. Excerpt in italics with my bolds and added images.
Writing at Discourse, published by the Mercatus Center, Martin Gurri describes “disinformation” as follows:
The word means, ‘Shut up, peasant.’ It’s a bullet aimed at killing the conversation. It’s loaded with hostility to reason, evidence, debate and all the stuff that makes our democracy great. (Gurri 2023)
That is from Gurri’s excellent piece, “Disinformation Is the Word I Use When I Want You to Shut Up.” The piece prompted the present essay, the title of which is a variation on his.
With such titles, Gurri and I are being polemical, of course. Not all usages of “disinformation” and “misinformation” come from people intent on shutting someone up. But a lot are. The “anti-misinformation” and “anti-disinformation” projects now afoot or in effect are about shutting up opponents.
In 2019 the Poynter Institute for Media Studies published “A Guide to Anti-misinformation Actions around the World.” There you survey examples of anti-misinformation and anti-disinformation projects and policies, which have no doubt soared further since 2019.
The policing of ‘information’ is the stuff of Naziism, Stalinism, Maoism, and similar anti-liberal regimes. In my title “Misinformation Is a Word We Use to Shut You Up,” anti-liberals are the “We.” To repress criticism of their dicta and diktats, they stamp criticism as “misinformation” or “disinformation.” Those stamps are Orwellian tools that anti-liberals wield in the hope of stamping out Wrongthink—for example, on:
- climate,
- election integrity,
- origins of the Covid virus,
- therapeutics such as Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine,
- effectiveness of masking,
- effectiveness of the Covid injections,
- safety of the Covid injections, and
- effectiveness of lock-downs.
“Anti-misinformation” could be deployed in keeping with whatever the next THE CURRENT THING might be, with associated slogans against, say, China, Putin, Nord Stream, racists, white supremacists, MAGA Republicans, “deniers,” et cetera. And then, of course, there’s all that “misinformation” disseminated by “conspiracy theorists”.
In speaking of “policing,” I mean government throwing its weight and its coercion around against “misinformation” or “disinformation.” And, besides government coercion, there are allies. These allies often enjoy monopolistic positions, stemming either from government handouts, privileges, and sweetheart deals, as with broadcasters, universities, and pharmaceutical companies, or from having cornered certain network externalities, as with certain huge media platforms. Allies of various sorts sometimes do the bidding of the despots because they themselves are threatened and intimidated. The ecosystem leads to their debasement.
To support governmental policing of “information”
is to confess one’s anti-liberalism and illiberality.
Even worse, it is to flaunt them. The motive is to make and signal commitment to anti-liberalism, in a manner parallel to how religious cults set up rituals and practices for making and signaling commitments (Iannaccone 1992). Vice signals vice, the ticket in some spheres to promotion and advancement.
Also, vicious action spurs more of the same to defend against exposé and accountability for past wrongs. In protecting their rackets, the wrongdoers verge upon a downward spiral.
When despots label opposition “misinformation” or “disinformation” they abuse language. They invoke presuppositions built into the word information, presuppositions that are false. When despots label opposition “mis-” or “disinformation, they are, at best, objecting in the interpretation and judgment dimensions of knowledge, or, at worst, they are speaking in a way that has abandoned civil engagement altogether, instead using words as instruments of wickedness.
Defence offered by Facebook in Stossel defamation lawsuit.
Usually, what people argue fervently over is not information, but interpretations and judgments as to which interpretations to act on. What is being labeled and attacked as “misinformation” is not a matter of true or false information, but of true or false knowledge. The projects and policies now afoot styled “anti-misinformation” and “anti-disinformation” are dishonest, as it should be obvious to all that those projects and policies would, if advanced honestly, be called “anti-falsehood” or “anti-falseness” or “anti-foolishness” or “anti-untruth” campaigns. But to prosecute an “anti-falsehood” campaign would make obvious the true nature of what is afoot: The persecution and silencing of Wrongthink. In misrepresenting matters of interpretation and judgment as one of “misinformation,” they misrepresent the nature of their projects and dodge the responsibility to account for how they judge among vying interpretations.
In ordinary private-sector affairs, outside of politics and outside of
heavily governmentalized affairs, lying at the level of information
is naturally checked and counteracted.
Again, the “information” implies reference to working interpretations. Getting things rights should not be difficult or tricky—issues there are all within the working interpretation. Sure, mistakes are made; but such mistakes are readily and easily corrected.
Liars about information lose the trust of their voluntary associates, whether those voluntary associates are friends, customers, trading partners, or employees. If liars lie about simple features of their products or their services, they could be subject to law suits from their trading partners, to public criticism, and to rival exposé by competitors. In ordinary private-sector affairs, everyone has reputational incentives not to lie systematically, and especially not to lie about information, and most of us have strong moral incentives within ourselves against lying. We dread the disapproval of “the man within the breast”—an expression Adam Smith used for the conscience.
So, you might ask: If private actors without government privileges and immunities scarcely spread false information dishonestly and programmatically, is disinformation really a thing? Before addressing that question directly, let’s turn to the Godzilla of programmatic lying.
Propaganda: Government’s programmatic lies
It is government, especially, that lies programmatically. The lying can be at the level of information, but it usually makes more sense to say that its lying is at the level of interpretation: The government promotes interpretations—for example, The Covid virus came from nature—, interpretations that it, the government, itself does not particularly believe. It lies about the virus having come from nature, as it lies about many other big interpretations. It propagates big lies.
And it lies with confidence. Government is the only player in society that initiates coercion in an institutionalized way. Its coercion is overt. What’s more, it does so on a colossal scale. That is the most essential feature of government. Every government is a Godzilla, and we must learn to live with our Godzilla and mitigate the destruction it wreaks.
The traditional term for government’s programmatic lying is propaganda—a word that once did not necessarily imply falseness (instead meaning simply ideas propagated), but is now generally used in that necessarily-pejorative sense. The falsehoods of propaganda are typically lies, in that the propagandizers usually do not particularly believe the claims they propagate.
Government can lie programmatically because it does not depend on voluntary participation for its support. It subsists on coercion, including restrictions on competitors and opponents, and takings from taxpayers. Organizations in heavily governmentalized settings can also lie programmatically. Crony private-organizations sustain large programmatic lying only when they enjoy privileges, immunities, and protections from the government.
Base humans tend to weaponize things
But aren’t governments accountable to checks and balance, divisions of power, and the rule of law? Haven’t we learned to tame Godzilla, to chain down Leviathan?
It is true that the government of a rule-of-law republic, checked by an honest media, might be quite limited in its programmatic lying. But that’s not how it is today, where dissent is being tarred as “mis-” and “disinformation,” and where the legacy media is morally base in the extreme. Today, regimes are increasingly despotic, and despotic regimes are much less checked and limited.
The rule of law means, first and foremost, the government
living up to the rules posted on its own website.
Governments today don’t do that.
Law is applied politically, that is, with extreme partiality, upon a double-standard. Laws are selectively enforced and punishments are selectively meted out. Despots avail themselves of show trials, kangaroo bodies, and galleries filled with stooges. The “anti-misinformation” agenda is misrule.
Despotism despoils checks and balances. Despotism centralizes power formerly divided. It destroys the independency and autonomy that, theoretically, branches and units, divided and balanced, had once enjoyed. Despotism usurps powers once distributed and balanced. Despotism is unbalanced power.
Under a despotic regime, the coercive institutions unique to government become weaponized by the despots and their allies. They turn them against their opponents. But weaponization is itself always somewhat constrained by cultural norms. The existence of government implies the existence of a governed society, and the existence of society implies the existence of some basic norms, for example against theft, murder, and lying. David Hume famously pointed out that the governed always vastly outnumber the governors, and hence government depends on “opinion”—if only the opinion to acquiesce to those governors.
The contested claims go far beyond information
The despots tend to invoke certain organizations as the definitive, authoritative sources of “information.” They say, in effect: “The CDC, the WHO, the FDA says the mRNA injections are safe and effective, so anything that suggests otherwise is misinformation.” The farce here is pretending that everyone’s working interpretation consists of the dicta of some such particular organization. Never has an organization or agency had such a Mount-Olympus status for determining, throughout society, working interpretations of complex matters, and particularly not an organization with the foul characters and track-records of the CDC, WHO, FDA, and similar highly governmentalized organizations. The similitude to the Soviet Union under Stalin is obvious.
Despotic contempt for our circle of “we”
Again, what is labeled and attacked as “misinformation” or “disinformation” is not a matter of true or false information, but of true or false knowledge. Recognizing that knowledge, not merely information, is at issue is a matter of common decency.
The dignity of sincere discourse involves an openness, in principle a universal openness, to other human “we’s” and their pursuits upward in wisdom and virtue. As we can see, the chief facets of knowledge—information, interpretation, and judgment—operate both behind and ahead of our current position in the spiral. Trying to shut us up is to show a despotic contempt for our way of weaving through the phases of knowledge. It is contemptuous towards the development of the many loops within which our sense-making has made a home and now operates.
By weighing interpretations and making judgments, we establish certain beliefs as fact, to predicate our further conversation. Those beliefs reflect a “we” with those beliefs. Meanwhile, in the wider world, different “we’s” are forming and are addressing the public at large, representing different sets of belief, different ways of making sense of the world. We might call a “we” a distinct sense-making community.
The sincere human of any one of these communities is eager to learn from other communities. The sincere human has certain commitments which make it belong to the sense-making community it belongs to, but it is not wedded to that community. In fact, the entire population of that community—that is, the set of people who currently share that way of sense-making—may remake their community’s way of sense-making. Those who learn from other communities may become leaders of intellectual change within their own community.
Thus, sincere humans favor the freedom of speech and the norms of frank and open discourse for all communities. Besides favoring that freedom, they welcome engagement across communities, for all the reasons given earlier.
The “anti-misinformation” despots show contempt for communities at odds with their dicta and diktats. Not only are the members of the “anti-misinformation” community unwilling to engage in civil debate, but they promulgate “anti-misinformation” propaganda so as to intimidate their adversaries, to crush dissent.
I have explained that the “misinformation” characterization of the disagreement is false. The anti-liberals are presupposing that it is a matter within the information dimension of knowledge, when clearly the disagreement involves contentions in the interpretation and judgment dimensions. Under pretense of combatting misinformation, they are really just stomping on adversaries. As I said at the outset, it is akin to Naziism, Stalinism, and Maoism, regimes that likewise showed despotic contempt for sense-making communities at odds with their own. “Anti-misinformation” projects are a sham, just as “anti-racism” projects are a sham.
Concluding remarks
The “anti-misinformation” projects are obvious miscarriages of civility, decency, and the rule of law. We must rediscover the norms of openness, tolerance, and free speech that dignify humankind. Science depends on confidence, and confidence depends on those liberal norms. Those norms are the parents of good science, healthy sense-making, and civil tranquility. There are two roads here, namely:
-
- Freedom —> openness —> confidence —> truth-tracking —> dignity;
- Despotism —> concealment —> diffidence —> bad science —> serfdom and servility
- Freedom —> openness —> confidence —> truth-tracking —> dignity;
Let’s get back to the right road.
Energy Realism Marching Ahead
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. reports at WSJ on observing the Irresistible March of Energy Realism. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.
The publishing gods have smiled on French energy historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz. His book, whose U.S. edition is coming out in August, is already getting wide notice. Its French title essentially means “there is no transition.” Mr. Fressoz tells a podcaster he’s even happier with the English title, “More and More and More.”
Energy sources are additive and symbiotic, he writes. Coal, oil, gas,
wood, nuclear and renewables all grew together, they didn’t replace each other.
An increase in coal provided steel piping to enable oil and gas production. More wood than ever was consumed to support British coal mines. The world’s biggest maker of wooden barrels at one time was John D. Rockefeller. A car in the 1930s consumed more coal via its required steel than it would consume in fossil fuels in its lifetime.
In the U.K. today, a single wood-burning electric plant consumes more wood than Britain’s entire 18th-century economy and yet accounts for a small fraction of Britain’s current energy output. The only transition has been to more energy consumption.
As this column has pointed out, subsidies for green energy, adopted globally by the Obama imitators in lieu of carbon taxes, only end up subsidizing more energy use, including copious fossil energy to make batteries, wind turbines and solar panels.
In a blue moon, honest greens will admit as much and argue that when green energy has been sufficiently built up with government aid, the U.S. will lead the nations to introduce carbon taxes.
The faulty assumption here is that phasing out fossil energy will be any easier in 50 years when the world is consuming twice as much energy and half is still fossil energy, producing the same emissions as today. A likelier outcome: When the green subsidies stop, as inevitably they must, the result will be a burst of emissions as the formerly subsidized users shift to fossil energy to stay solvent.
The Trump election poses a special puzzle for domestic U.S. automakers: How much of their $110 billion investment in electric vehicles to write off? In the absence of subsidies and mandates, what’s the natural market for EVs and, importantly, what kind?
The Rube Goldberg effect of U.S. policy has led to heavily subsidized status pieces for high-end consumers, whose large batteries are mainly used to haul around their large batteries.
These are net losers for the stated goal of reducing CO2 emissions. Unknowables loom. An Oxfam report finds up to $41 billion in World Bank climate spending, backed by U.S. taxpayers, unaccounted for. This is only the beginning. What happens when voters realize not billions but trillions doled out to the green-energy lobby have had no effect on atmospheric CO2 levels or climate?
Meanwhile, hard to find are detailed climate or emissions projections that don’t effectively assume successful efforts to stabilize warming at the putative 1.5 or 2 degree Celsius levels.
These efforts at stabilization aren’t happening. In the peer-reviewed journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a study finds that of 1,500 “climate” policies announced around the world, a mere 63, or 4%, produce any reduction in emissions.
Mr. Fressoz, in the “Decouple” podcast, delves into the fascinating 1970s. Governments everywhere, along with the oil industry, well recognized the CO2 problem. The British government of Margaret Thatcher realized its emissions were becoming too small a share of the total for reductions to make a difference. A U.S. panel calculated that even a heroic U.S. effort would delay warming only by a few years.
A Chinese representative warned a 1979 conference that by 2000, his country intended to burn more coal than the world’s then-annual total.
Our path—unavoidable adaptation—was laid down long before today’s believer-denier debate, a language effectively developed and deployed to promote climate pork, not meaningful climate action. Last year, by one accounting, global emissions topped 40 billion tons for the first time. I suspect carbon taxes may yet be adopted, albeit for fiscal reasons. Solar geoengineering, using particulates to adjust the amount of sunlight landing on Earth, is probably in the cards at some point.
In Chris Wright, the Liberty Energy CEO, Donald Trump has nominated to head the U.S. Energy Department a determined evangelist for energy realism. This is why I introduced him to readers earlier this year.
Mr. Wright, founder of a fracking services company, believer in climate change, enthusiast for nuclear energy, is the antidote to what Mr. Fressoz calls the “troubling” politics of climate change, which has consisted entirely of false promises.
Mr. Trump isn’t the climate outlier you think. Any U.S. presidential race in the past 40 years was a contest of two versions of doing nothing about climate change. The only difference: Certain versions of doing nothing were a lot more expensive for taxpayers than others.
Energy Realism from Next US Dept. Head
Last year Chris Wright dished out climate and energy realism in an interview on CNBC Squawk Box hosted by Andrew Ross Sorkin. Now he is to be appointed Secretary of Energy in the coming Trump administration. Here are his candid and unvarnished views from inside the energy industry.
For those who prefer reading below is a transcript lightly edited from the closed captions in italics with my bolds and added images. AS refers to Sorkin’s questions and CW to responses from Wright.
AS: President Biden conceded last week that the U.S is going to be needing oil and gas for as he says at least the next decade as the country transitions to Renewables. But our next guest says that we are not in the midst of an energy transition and claims the so-called climate crisis is overblown. Last month he railed against what he called an alarmist move away from fossil fuels in a video on LinkedIn. The Microsoft owned company removed the post citing misinformation, only put it back up days later.
So let’s talk right now to Chris Wright–Chairman and CEO of Liberty Energy, North America’s second largest fracking company Chris good morning to you.
Reaction to the State of the Union
AS: Let’s start with your reaction after watching the State of the Union. President Biden makes the statement twice actually. The first time he says we’re going to need fossil fuels for a while. Later he follows up with: We’re going to need it for something like a decade or so. There was laughter in the chamber, certainly from the GOP, but it very well might have been both sides of the aisle at that point.
CW: Yeah, likely it was. Of course it’s great to see an acknowledgment the world run on oil and gas and we need that. But to throw out a decade, it’s just an absurd time frame. We’re not going to meaningfully change the demand for oil and gas one way or the other in the next decade. And I think politicizing energy and opposing infrastructure is standing in the way of Today’s Energy System before we’ve built a new Energy System. There’s just no upside in that.
Realistic timeline for energy
AS: When you think about the timeline, what do you think is a realistic timeline to the degree you think there is one.
CW: It’s multiple, as we’ll talk about that. The Energy Information Administration is our government agency that projects forward demands for varied energy sources, They have in 2050 roughly flat demand for oil and gas as what we have today; maybe it rises a little bit the next decade or two, maybe it comes down a little bit in the next decade or two after that. Maybe that’s true, but I think you’ll see no meaningful change of our hydrocarbon system in the next three decades. I’m all for investing in new energy sources: nuclear has a great future if we could regulatorily issue a permit. We haven’t issued a new permit for a nuclear plant in 50 years.
There’s great new things we can bring; but standing in the way
of what runs the world today just isn’t productive.
Nuclear energy
AS: I’m a big fan but it’s quite unpopular talking about nuclear energy. Usually when I say something on the air it causes some kind of strange firestorm. Do you think there’s any realistic chance we have nuclear energy in the United States in the next decade?
CW: I think probably not in the next decade. Nuclear will have a Renaissance right now, but it more likely starts overseas where there’s a less onerous and less fear-driven regulatory system. I think we’ll see small modular reactors come. What’s great about nuclear is they bring not just electricity which is the only place wind and solar can play. Electricity is less than a quarter of global energy. Process heat that you need for manufacturing is just critical, and nuclear could bring process heat as well as electricity. Today it’s just fossil fuels that bring processed Heat.
SEC disclosure
Rough Seas for Captains of Industry
AS: Chris, I wanted to ask you two big big other questions. One regards the SEC pushing for more disclosure for companies around ESG and and in particular their plans around climate and energy. It
may get softened a bit, in part because of the comments that have come back to them. What is your sense of what the SEC was proposing and where you think they’re going to land?
CW: Well what they proposed is totally nuts. And I wrote a long comment letter on it. A lot of public company CEOs won’t do that, But it’s just making an enormously complicated expensive reporting thing so people can sue us because they think we didn’t quite properly estimate our scope three emissions. Those are emissions from the products we produce when someone else burns them on the other side of the world or on the other side of the country. No one can really account for that.
Why are they doing that? They’re doing it so this Administration can signal they’re against fuels. Again that’s just unproductive.
LinkedIn censorship
AS: Your LinkedIn post went down tell me what happened. People talk about censorship all the time, who should be the Arbiter of Truth and all of that.
CW: Yeah it was crazy. I made a sort of an amateur video just talking about energy climate transition with just some basic data so you can get background on it. And it was taken down as misinformation. I hit the appeal the decision button, and they came back and said it violated their spams and scams policy. I posted it again it’s taken down again from misinformation. Then upon appeal they said sorry, on further review it didn’t violate their policy. That’s probably not LinkedIn but people complaining because I’m not talking the climate alarmist narrative. For LinkedIn to go along and take that down is just a symbol of where we are today, unfortunately.
Oil and Gas Industry Productivity
AS: When we finally hit Peak production again, we haven’t yet since 2019. So there’s a lot of finger pointing on why that is. I mean fracking had its own problems when there was a slow period. When we try to reopen from a pandemic we can’t get the workers that we need for the you know for the whole oil and gas industry. But add in ESG and add in President Biden’s pitch: Read my lips, I will end the fossil fuel industry.” How much do you think ESG and that type of of rhetoric scared away producers? Is ESG a positive or negative for society?
AS: I think from an investor movement it’s a negative. Of course we should care about the environment and the societies we operate in. And of course company and government should be aligned with the owners of businesses, that’s a very real point. The other point is of course that’s what businesses do in a free Society. If you’re not a great member of society, if people don’t believe they’re part of something bigger than just getting a paycheck, you’re going to have trouble getting workers.
So the idea is right but it’s really become sort of a top-down thing: if you’re admitting greenhouse gas emissions you’re bad, if you’re reducing them or shrinking your business there you’re good. And then of course a top-down check box list to decide if we’re socially virtuous or not. These are bad ideas. Investors should care about ESG but it shouldn’t be like a third party imposing a scorecard to tell me who’s virtuous and who’s not.
On the on the margin it has indeed reduced Capital to our industry which absolutely raises the cost of capital on the margin. We produce less oil and gas because of it and the main impact of that is higher oil and gas prices.
Washington State Votes Against “Electrify Everything”
Gas stoves are the thin edge of the wedge.
Update November 18, 2024
From the Olympian: WA natural gas measure I-2066 set to pass.
The sponsors of Initiative-2066, the Washington ballot measure that aims to expand access to natural gas in the state, have declared victory as votes have continued to trickle in from last week’s election. Early results showed the ballot measure holding a slim lead, which has slowly grown in the days since the election. As of Monday, Nov. 11, there are 51.64% of votes counted in favor of the measure, compared to 48.36% against it, according to the Secretary of State’s office. With approximately 274,171 votes left to be counted, I-2066 leads by a 112,203 vote margin. In order for the measure to fail, over 70% of the remaining votes would need to go against the initiative, leaving it all-but-guaranteed of a victory.
No on I-2066 has conceded the race, although it’s exploring possible legal challenges to the measure. The campaign claims that I-2066 is misleading, since it implies that Washington has a natural gas ban in place when it doesn’t. Additionally, the campaign said it’s looking into the possibility that the measure violates a section of the state constitution that asserts that “no bill shall embrace more than one subject.”
Results won’t be official until they’re certified by Washington’s 39 counties on Nov. 26 in and are sent to the Secretary of State, who has to certify them by Dec. 5.
Background Post
Megan K. Jacobson explains the fight and what’s at stake at msn A Washington State Revolt Against the Gas-Stove Grabbers. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.
Environmentalists have waged a campaign against natural gas, but users of this efficient, low-emission fuel are fighting back. A wide range of industry groups are backing Washington state’s Initiative 2066 to protect the right to choose natural gas.
By 2030, Washington is supposed to reduce carbon emissions to 45% below 1990 levels—one of its many overlapping climate goals. The state’s most recent energy plan declares that the cheapest route to meeting Olympia’s climate targets is to switch many uses of oil and gas to electric sources. Last year the Building Code Council amended the state energy code to make it prohibitively costly to install gas appliances in new buildings. In March the Legislature passed a law allowing the state’s largest natural-gas and electricity utility, Puget Sound Energy, to pass the costs of going green onto consumers and mandating the utility files a plan “to achieve all cost-effective electrification of end uses currently served by natural gas.”
To the Washington Hospitality Association and the Building
Industry Association of Washington, Initiative 2066’s cosponsors,
this sounded like an economic wrecking ball.
Anthony Anton, CEO of the hospitality association, says 84% of the restaurateurs he represents rely on natural gas. Remodeling to go electric is a “massive cost at a time where operators just can’t afford it,” he says. Some say the quality of their product would suffer, as some cooking methods, such as stir-frying, are difficult to perform on lower-heat electrical stoves. Most of the association’s members are very small businesses with substantial debt from Covid lockdowns.
The building association worries the new energy code will raise the state’s already high housing costs, locking out potential buyers. The code requires that new buildings meet a certain environmental “score.” Without the points from an electric heat pump, a builder will have to make up the difference with other green measures that run between $15,000 and $20,000 in a single-family home. “Every time they raise the price $1,000, it prices out another 500 Washington families,” says Greg Lane, the association’s executive vice president.
Dozens of varied industry groups support Initiative 2066. Each has its own reasons. The Washington Denturist Association worries about the expense of switching from propane- or gas-based equipment and a lack of reliable power. Most members are small businesses and it’s a good path for immigrant dentists whose credentials don’t carry over to the U.S.
The Washington State Tree Fruit Association (of which my paternal grandfather’s company, Apple King, is a member) is concerned about rising costs of refrigeration to keep produce fresh. A sudden power outage could be catastrophic for the state’s apple industry. Trade regulations for its top two export markets require that fruit be constantly refrigerated at a specific temperature for as long as 90 days.
The state’s cheapest energy plan would almost double electricity demand in Washington by 2050, putting an unprecedented strain on the grid. The only real option is to increase wind and solar generation, since the state’s plentiful hydroelectric capacity can’t do more without potentially threatening salmon. Wind and solar tend to falter in Washington in the winter, when energy demand peaks.
Consumers would also suffer in Washington’s green utopia. Everything from a haircut to a ballgame would become more expensive as the price of electricity rises. Climate advocates argue that Washingtonians will recoup their costs over time thanks to efficiency gains. But a 2021 report from Home Innovation Labs estimates that recovering the cost of a heat-pump installation could take 47 to 49 years. It’s worse for existing gas customers. The Building Industry Association of Washington estimates that switching from natural gas to electricity in a single-family home would cost as much as $70,000. Heat pumps also tend to fail in the sort of frigid weather that hits rural Washington in winter.
Proponents of electrification insist that technology will improve over time. But if they’re really confident that green energy will be the best option for consumers and businesses, then Initiative 2066 is no threat. Washington voters should ask why climate advocates still see it as one.
Trump WH Focuses Energy Governance
Yesterday I posted on Repurposing US Energy Agencies. Today comes the news of Trump announcements consolidating energy governance in a WH National Energy Council chaired by the newly appointed Secretary of the Interior, ND Governor Doug Burgum. While there is not yet much detail on how this will function, some reports suggest the organizing logic of this approach. This article is from the North Dakota Monitor Trump names North Dakota Gov. Burgum to combined Interior, energy role. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum will serve as Interior secretary and chairman of the newly formed National Energy Council, President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday.
The new council will consist of all departments and agencies involved in the permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation of “ALL forms of American Energy,” Trump said in the announcement.
“This Council will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation,” Trump wrote.
Burgum, who is completing his second term as governor, has railed against what he sees as government overreach and bureaucracy under the Biden administration, especially on energy policy. He frequently calls for industry innovation rather than more regulation. Burgum said at an energy industry conference in Bismarck in May:
“We have to turn this around, not just for this industry, not just for North Dakota, but for national security, for peace in the world,”
Trump also said in his statement that his administration will “undo the damage done by the Democrats to our Nation’s Electrical Grid, by dramatically increasing baseload power.” In addition, Trump said Burgum will have a seat on the National Security Council.
The $18 billion Department of the Interior manages federal natural and cultural resources, with about 70,000 employees.
The department includes 11 agencies: the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation & Enforcement, and the bureaus of Indian Affairs, Indian Education, Land Management, Ocean Energy Management, Reclamation, Safety & Environmental Enforcement, and Trust Funds Administration.
“Serving as Interior Secretary is an opportunity to redefine and improve upon the federal government’s relationship with tribal nations, landowners, mineral developers, outdoor enthusiasts and others, with a focus on maximizing the responsible use of our natural resources with environmental stewardship for the benefit of the American people,” Burgum said.
North Dakota is the nation’s third largest oil producing state, with some of the production coming from federal lands on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. North Dakota also has large amounts of coal, wind energy and biofuel production.
When asked Tuesday about the potential for an “energy czar” position, Burgum told North Dakota reporters that the nation needs a more coordinated approach to energy policy. He said an “energy czar” would be able to do more than a lone Cabinet secretary because other agencies, such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Environmental Protection Agency and Bureau of Land Management, among others, all affect the nation’s energy policies.
U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., acknowledged that some environmentalists will not be happy with the direction the Trump administration’s policies on federal lands. Cramer said having Burgum in that role should ease some concerns.
“Doug’s a good conservationist,” Cramer said. “It’s not a ‘Drill, baby, drill’ attitude, it’s a, ‘Utilize the resources of the federal government for the benefit of the country and its people,’” Cramer told the North Dakota Monitor. “He delivers the message beautifully and I think he can go a long ways in sort of calming people down.”
An article at Politico explores how this structure might function Interior nominee Burgum to head new National Energy Council. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.
Burgum, a self-made multimillionaire, had been wary of taking on a role of “energy czar,” according to people familiar with his thinking, and instead had sought a position that came with formal power. This role atop the new council will combine the authority of the cabinet position with the broad reach across the top other agencies.
David Goldwyn, chair of the energy advisory group at the Atlantic Council think tank and a former State Department official in the Obama administration, said combining the two roles for Burgum showed how much influence he would have in the administration, but it could also could stretch him across the broad energy portfolio.
The energy council could be a more institutionalized version of initiatives by earlier White Houses to create an all-of-government approach to coordinating policy, but it could also lead to tension between Burgum and other department heads.
“Anytime you establish a policy coordination body at the White House, there will be natural tension with principles in agencies,” Rapidan’s McNally said. “It’s like herding cats a little bit, but it should minimize tensions so you either get to consensus or tee up pros and cons for the president to make a decision.”
The dual role idea won plaudits from North Dakota GOP Sen. Kevin Cramer, a Burgum ally, who said he had been wary of limiting him to a czar position. “But when you have a council made up of confirmed people and one of those confirmed people heads it, … it’s a brilliant idea,” Cramer said. “There is a synergy you gain by organizing it this way that you don’t get if you have a bunch of silos.”
Trump has made clear that a focus of his second administration would be to complete permitting reform that has struggled to gain bipartisan traction in Congress during the Biden administration. Fossil fuel companies and renewable energy companies alike have complained that critical infrastructure they need to get fuel and electricity to market takes too long to win federal approval.
Repurposing US Energy Agencies
Mark Krebs writes at Master Resource DOE Efficiency Standards: Consumer Time? Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.
“The Deep State is cancer-like in nature. Like cancer, it must be rooted out before it metastasizes—as it would have if subject to another four years of a Harris (Obama 4.0?) Administration.”
“It’s time to go big. Scrap DOE and part-out whatever missions are worth saving. And whatever missions are deemed worth saving should be saved only with thorough scrutiny of zero-based budgeting.”
Our March 2017 post, DOE’s EERE: Reform Ideas for Secretary Perry, stated that while “a trace of consumer focus still exists,” the department’s heavy bias was towards society-wide electrification under the guise of “Net Zero”.
Whatever trace of consumer focus may be remaining within DOE is not worth salvaging. In fact, eliminating the pipe dream of an all-electric society would likely save US citizens $18 to 29 trillion in capital costs alone. Other analysts have estimated far higher cost inflation, while others conclude that total electrification cannot be accomplished at any cost.
Real Reform Opportunity
The incoming Administration can and should do far more than just trim back the overgrown greenery; it should serve the legitimate interests of the American citizenry and American prosperity. However. details in our previous recommendations (EERE Reform: Brouillette’s Turn (‘deep decarbonization’ threat still alive)), are worth reviewing by the incoming Trump Administration if for no other reason than to document historical mistakes and avoid them going forward. Regardless, our old recommendations are no longer sufficiently ambitious in terms of best serving the American public and drastically reducing the National Debt’s deadly inflation.
But how should we move forward for “deep reform” versus the meager results from before? After all, the incoming Trump 2.0 Administration much better understands the depth and breadth of the Deep State and its joined-at-the-hip “Uniparty” cohorts. The options range from modest “reform” to scrapping DOE and parting out its truly vital missions to other Federal agencies or private sector competition.
Given we the people hold the House, and lead the Senate, this is a unique opportunity that must be exploited to the full extent feasible. After all, the world has fundamentally changed since DOE was formed to address certain issues: low supplies and scarcity, coupled with cartel behavior by foreign actors. Today we have robust supplies that mainly just need regulatory relief.
Deep State Foe
Clausewitz was all about winning. If Trump is too (he is), rearranging DOE’s “deck chairs” is just a short step across a large chasm. The Deep State cancer would likely just go into a four-year remission only to return with a vengeance with a return of another Democrat Administration down the road someday.
Ultimately, the choice comes down to serving the Deep State/Uniparty or serving the legitimate best interests of “we the people.” There is no “live and let live” middle ground as the present Biden (mis)Administration has abundantly demonstrated in words and deeds. Nor is there sufficient funding for “all electric” or even “all the above” energy policies.
Appliances Just the Thin Edge of the Wedge
We can’t afford the self-indulgence of environmental virtue signaling. We need only to pursue energy policies that objectively and comprehensively focus on economic least-cost planning (and bidding) so we can avoid the looming reality of economic collapse. And yes, there is still room for objective energy efficiency; if it is market-based (as opposed to “big brother” dictates to throw money at an illusionary problem). There is even room for least-cost environmental progress. As RFK Jr. knows, soil regeneration is one of these.
It is imperative that the Trump 2.0 Administration achieve and demonstrate tangible and substantial results for energy consumers as soon as possible. Immediate actions should include clawing back the tragic Inflation Reduction Act, an all-you-can eat funding buffet for a myriad of parasitic “clean energy” zealots. These zealots have already received enough (unwitting taxpayer) IRA funding to plague “we the people” for decades to come.
The most efficient tactic (but not necessarily easiest) would be to simply eliminate DOE departments that oversee such funding. And along with that, repeal equally corrupted legislation that authorized DOE’s regulatory mission creep, such as the obsolete Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (EPCA) and self-serving, loophole riddled revisions thereof.
In short and in closing, DOE is not worth trying to salvage, because its cancer culture is immune to modest political reforms and intervention. Thus, like a junk car, part out what can be safely and economically salvaged and eliminate the rest. Assuming control of the House and Senate, this is, for the first time, entirely doable; given the will to persevere. So let’s declare victory over the gas lines of the 1970s and move on to overcoming House and Senate resistance for dramatically reducing the economic threatening cholesterol of excessive spending.
Addendum 1
In the spirit of the quote above, government needs structuring to safeguard the evidence (data, research) from predetermined policy ends and tunnel vision. One suggestion in this direction was ignored but deserves consideration. Dexter Wright wrote at American Thinker How to Abolish the Department of Energy. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.
It has been said by almost every conservative candidate running for office this year that they would like to abolish the Jimmy Carter government legacy, the Department of Energy (DOE). Back in the 1970s when the Department of Energy was created the Carter Administration claimed that 20% of the nation’s energy needs would be supplied by solar energy by the year 2000. Needless to say that didn’t happen. So today we have a Department of Energy that provides energy to no one.
The question is how can we get rid of the DOE? The answer lies in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is made up of the best parts of three different services that no longer exist; the Revenue Cutter Service, the Light House Service, and the Life Saving Service. These services were combined efficiently to create the modern Coast Guard.
Similarly, there are activities that operate within the DOE that are worthy of preserving such as the national laboratories at Los Alamos, NM; Oak Ridge, TN and Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, NM. These National Laboratories perform scientific tasks that are not only vital to national security but also, in some cases, are mandated by arms reductions treaties.
There are also activities within other departments and agencies that focus on science such as the National Weather Service (NWS); but for some reason, the Weather Service is stuck in the Department of Commerce (DOC). Contrary to popular belief we do need the Weather Service because all of the data that is collected and analyzed by NWS is then distributed to the media for their broadcast and dissemination. But it is clear that the NWS does not need to be in the Department of Commerce.
Believe it or not, even the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does scientific work, it just doesn’t use the data that is collected and analyze for policy development. I’m not really sure what it does with the data other than suppress it.
The way to deal a death blow to all of these departments and agencies is to
cull out of these bureaucracies all of the useful scientific parts and place
them in a new department, the Department of Science and Technology.
This new department would eliminate the need for the EPA, the DOC and the DOE. Even agencies like NASA could be included so that there would be cabinet level representation and so that rocket scientists would not be relegated to teaching math to third world nations. Ideally the new Department of Science and Technology would provide unbiased data for policy makers to ignore rather than the biased flawed data that they ignore now.
Addendum 2
The scope of reform goes far beyond energy agencies, since the Biden/Harris regime dictated a “whole of government” response, embedding fear of CO2 into the full slate of programs. And thereby, the enormous deficit spending covered by freshly printed money threatens the economic viability of the republic. So the consolidating and downsizing of the whole governmental beast is required. Jeffrey Tucker of Brownstone Institute writes A Plan to Tame Inflation. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.
Elon Musk summarizes: “The excess government spending is what causes inflation! ALL government spending is taxation. This is a very important concept to appreciate. It is either direct taxation, like income tax, or indirect via inflation due to increasing the money supply.”
Inflation is a wicked beast that cannot be controlled directly. On the campaign trail, Trump spoke often about how it was the throttling of the energy sector that kicked off inflation. That is only partially true in the sense that the soaring price of oil and gas grew the costs of transportation. It was also a symptom rather than a cause. Plus, the price of oil and gas is actually not high right now in real terms.
Yes, the plan of “drill baby drill” is necessary and should happen but it cannot fix the existing problem of inflation much less do much to forestall a second wave. Nor is there a viable fix in the idea of price control, even when it is masked as “anti-gouging” legislation. There is nothing government can do to directly control prices, much less force them from going up given the deep structural problems.
There are ways to mitigate against the problem, or at least minimizing them. You can have a look at how Javier Milei did it in Argentina. He took the problem of massive hyperinflation and converted it to low inflation in a year. His is a case study. The answer is:
♦ End debt creation by dramatic spending cuts;
♦ Curb the actions of the central bank; and
♦ Inspire economic growth through deregulation and agency elimination.
First, the end of debt creation is essential. Every time Congress authorizes more spending than is in the bank, the Treasury has to float debt to make it happen. That is the statutory obligation. What that means is that Congress needs to pass a balanced budget, ideally right away.
That comes down to the commission created by Elon Musk: the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE. It is not an official department. It works as an outside advisory team. That’s excellent. They will likely push for a “Twitter-style” solution of firing 4 in 5 government workers to reduce costs directly.
That’s a start but it is not enough. There also must be sweeping elimination of agencies, each of which can save tens of billions and possibly a trillion or more in total. That needs to happen immediately. It can happen through executive order or through legislation. One way or another, the spending in excess of revenue has to stop.
Second, if the Treasury stops the T-bill tsunami, the Fed will not be called upon to sponge up the excess with money creation. You can look at the charts over the last year and see how the Biden/Harris administration was spending and working with the Fed to promote more economic illusion going into the election. That was the whole point of the rate cuts. That really must come to an end.
Third, Trump needs to fire up the wealth-creation engine of the American economy through dramatic, sweeping, historic levels of regulation torching plus the shock and awe of full agency elimination, same as in Argentina. The Trump team needs a list of 100 agencies to eliminate immediately but that should just be a start. Another 100 should be on the chopping block. Without all the regulatory clogging that they cause, investment will soar.
Tax cuts–income and capital–will assist here too. The crucial point is the focus on boosting supply and jobs as a way of outrunning inflationary forces. Here again, the financial press will scream about the economy “overheating” but that metaphor is worn out. The effect of economic growth on inflation is exactly the opposite. Economic growth can bury the effects of price increases.
There is not a lot of time, and it is a bargain that the Trump administration will surely lose if it does not act decisively and quickly. The debt creation and money creation must end and the economic growth through agency elimination and deregulation must become the top priority. All of this has the added advantage of making Trump more popular with the people who elected him.
There is no incompatibility between political success and economic rationality. In this case, the incoming Trump administration is very fortunate: they go together.
High Schoolers Understand Climate Science–You Can Too!
If you’ve skipped or forgotten high school science, this will also work for you.
John Shanahan is a founder and editor of All About Energy and wrote a brief article for an audience of high school students and others ill or uninformed about climate science. That website also provides many realistic articles about both energy and climate science. Excepts in italics with my bolds and added images.
High school students understand climate change science.
John Shanahan
November 6, 2024
Occam’s Razor is an idea first postulated in the 14th Century. Many scientists quote it: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”
KEY POINTS
High school students can understand climate change if they first comprehend a few simple ideas.
1) We study everything that causes Earth’s climate to change, not just infrared radiation leaving Earth’s surfaces and interacting with CO2.
2) Energy is the ability to do work: Do you have a lot of energy? Are you on a school sports team or do you work for the school newspaper? Which takes more energy? Except for nuclear fission and fusion where matter is converted to energy, energy is always conserved. Energy can be converted from one form to another: from sunlight to chemical or electrical energy, from electrical energy to potential energy when an elevator goes up, from electrical energy to light when the stadium lights go on, from chemical energy to kinetic energy when you drive a car or ride a bike. Energy is very important in life.
3) Power is how fast energy can be delivered. A jet engine delivers more energy than the air coming out of an open-party balloon and does it faster. You need lots of power to pull a mile-long freight train. You need very little power to operate your smartphone.
4) Work is the total use of energy. On your utility bill, work is shown as kilowatt-hours. You pay so many cents per kilowatt-hour. For most of history, people had to do work themselves. For the last two hundred years coal, oil, and natural gas have done most of the work and provided thousands of by-products so we can have better lives. Nuclear power will have to do a lot of work in the future. What other major source of energy is there?
5) Once work is done, that energy is conserved but can’t do that same amount of work again. Only lower-quality energy is available. There are no perpetual motion machines.
6) Weather events are work. Sunshine is energy. The climate is an average of weather over a long time. To understand Earth’s climate change, you must understand how weather happens all over the globe and how it changes with time: hour by hour, with the seasons, over very long periods of time across ice ages and in between ice ages. You must explain all the systems: motion of the atmosphere and oceans, heat transfer from the equator to the poles and from the surface of the oceans and land to the top of the atmosphere, delivery of ocean water to the land, and other things.
7) To understand all issues of climate change, it is necessary to study both Radiative Transfer and Heat Transport. Climate change alarmists and some non-alarmists only study Radiative Transfer (infrared radiation from the surface of the land and oceans interacting with greenhouse gasses on the way to the Top of the Atmosphere). They don’t go into Heat Transport phenomena of air and ocean currents, water changes from ice to liquid to vapor and cloud formation, water transport to land, etc. They don’t explain Work related to the weather. You need millions of large power plants to do the work the sun does for free. They don’t analyze those details.
8) In order to understand climate and climate change we must explain all three things: energy, work, and power. To study “climate change” using global averages for sunlight and infrared radiation energy and spectrum analyses for interaction with greenhouse gasses and not explain work and power of actual weather events is not a complete study of climate change. By not explaining work and power in weather, they are implying that any combination of work and power is acceptable. IT IS NOT! Which combination of work and power is involved with climate change is not addressed. This is insufficient. You would never buy a car just knowing the size of the gas tank (how much energy you have) and not learn about the power of the engine to get up hills and pass trucks. You would want to know how much work you could do with the car – the number of miles you could drive it. Only study radiation and CO2 for climate change? No! Be smart when buying a car and when deciding what climate change policies to support
Photos of real weather, not just graphics of average global sunlight and infrared radiation:
Weather is a collection of many real events in Earth’s atmosphere. It varies tremendously from place to place, during the day, the season, during years of droughts, years of floods, in ice ages, in between ice ages, and in transitions to ice ages.
Climate is a global average of weather over 30 years or more. A change of an average of anything can never tell how the collection of real things is changing. Thus most studies of climate change can’t tell how the weather will change. Vast sums of “research” money are being squandered to do the impossible in order to force Europe and North America to stop using fossil fuels.
Meanwhile, the weather in most of the world is within the range of past history. Globally, only Mother Nature runs the show. Locally, humans have some influence by how they change land use from wilderness to agriculture and ranching, and how they build buildings, streets, and parking lots in place of wilderness. In cities, it is called the Heat Island Effect.
But on the whole, life on Earth is beautiful and wonderful. Humans have almost no control over the weather. Man-made global warming is a disgraceful hoax.
Fitz Roy Peak in Argentina in autumn
Mt Fuji in Japan in spring
Footnote: See also
Science Matters 