Author: Ron Clutz

UAH November 2023: Ocean Stays Warm, Land Cools

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The post below updates the UAH record of air temperatures over land and ocean. Each month and year exposes again the growing disconnect between the real world and the Zero Carbon zealots.  It is as though the anti-hydrocarbon band wagon hopes to drown out the data contradicting their justification for the Great Energy Transition.  Yes, there has been warming from an El Nino buildup coincidental with North Atlantic warming, but no basis to blame it on CO2.  

As an overview consider how recent rapid cooling  completely overcame the warming from the last 3 El Ninos (1998, 2010 and 2016).  The UAH record shows that the effects of the last one were gone as of April 2021, again in November 2021, and in February and June 2022  At year end 2022 and continuing into 2023 global temp anomaly matched or went lower than average since 1995, an ENSO neutral year. (UAH baseline is now 1991-2020).

For reference I added an overlay of CO2 annual concentrations as measured at Mauna Loa.  While temperatures fluctuated up and down ending flat, CO2 went up steadily by ~60 ppm, a 15% increase.

Furthermore, going back to previous warmings prior to the satellite record shows that the entire rise of 0.8C since 1947 is due to oceanic, not human activity.

gmt-warming-events

The animation is an update of a previous analysis from Dr. Murry Salby.  These graphs use Hadcrut4 and include the 2016 El Nino warming event.  The exhibit shows since 1947 GMT warmed by 0.8 C, from 13.9 to 14.7, as estimated by Hadcrut4.  This resulted from three natural warming events involving ocean cycles. The most recent rise 2013-16 lifted temperatures by 0.2C.  Previously the 1997-98 El Nino produced a plateau increase of 0.4C.  Before that, a rise from 1977-81 added 0.2C to start the warming since 1947.

Importantly, the theory of human-caused global warming asserts that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere changes the baseline and causes systemic warming in our climate.  On the contrary, all of the warming since 1947 was episodic, coming from three brief events associated with oceanic cycles. And now in 2023 we are seeing an amazing episode with a temperature spike driven by ocean air warming in all regions. 

Update August 3, 2021

Chris Schoeneveld has produced a similar graph to the animation above, with a temperature series combining HadCRUT4 and UAH6. H/T WUWT

image-8

 

mc_wh_gas_web20210423124932

See Also Worst Threat: Greenhouse Gas or Quiet Sun?

November 2023 Ocean Stays Warm, Land Cools

banner-blog

With apologies to Paul Revere, this post is on the lookout for cooler weather with an eye on both the Land and the Sea.  While you will hear a lot about 2020-21 temperatures matching 2016 as the highest ever, that spin ignores how fast the cooling set in.  The UAH data analyzed below shows that warming from the last El Nino had fully dissipated with chilly temperatures in all regions. After a warming blip in 2022, land and ocean temps dropped again with 2023 starting below the mean since 1995.  Spring and Summer 2023 saw a series of warmings.  Now in November the high persisted due to another rise in ocean air temps in all regions, while land air temps cooled everywhere, most strongly in SH.

UAH has updated their tlt (temperatures in lower troposphere) dataset for November 2023. Posts on their reading of ocean air temps this month preceded updated records from HadSST4.  I last posted on SSTs using HadSST4 October 2023 Ocean Cooling Off.  This month also has a separate graph of land air temps because the comparisons and contrasts are interesting as we contemplate possible cooling in coming months and years.

Sometimes air temps over land diverge from ocean air changes.  November 2023 is notable for a dichotomy between Ocean and Land air temperatures in UAH dataset. Remarkably a new high for Ocean air temps appeared with warming in all regions, while Land air temps dropped with cooling in all regions.  As a result the Global Ocean and Land anomaly result remained little changed.

Note:  UAH has shifted their baseline from 1981-2010 to 1991-2020 beginning with January 2021.  In the charts below, the trends and fluctuations remain the same but the anomaly values change with the baseline reference shift.

Presently sea surface temperatures (SST) are the best available indicator of heat content gained or lost from earth’s climate system.  Enthalpy is the thermodynamic term for total heat content in a system, and humidity differences in air parcels affect enthalpy.  Measuring water temperature directly avoids distorted impressions from air measurements.  In addition, ocean covers 71% of the planet surface and thus dominates surface temperature estimates.  Eventually we will likely have reliable means of recording water temperatures at depth.

Recently, Dr. Ole Humlum reported from his research that air temperatures lag 2-3 months behind changes in SST.  Thus cooling oceans portend cooling land air temperatures to follow.  He also observed that changes in CO2 atmospheric concentrations lag behind SST by 11-12 months.  This latter point is addressed in a previous post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?

After a change in priorities, updates are now exclusive to HadSST4.  For comparison we can also look at lower troposphere temperatures (TLT) from UAHv6 which are now posted for November.  The temperature record is derived from microwave sounding units (MSU) on board satellites like the one pictured above. Recently there was a change in UAH processing of satellite drift corrections, including dropping one platform which can no longer be corrected. The graphs below are taken from the revised and current dataset.

The UAH dataset includes temperature results for air above the oceans, and thus should be most comparable to the SSTs. There is the additional feature that ocean air temps avoid Urban Heat Islands (UHI).  The graph below shows monthly anomalies for ocean air temps since January 2015.

Note 2020 was warmed mainly by a spike in February in all regions, and secondarily by an October spike in NH alone. In 2021, SH and the Tropics both pulled the Global anomaly down to a new low in April. Then SH and Tropics upward spikes, along with NH warming brought Global temps to a peak in October.  That warmth was gone as November 2021 ocean temps plummeted everywhere. After an upward bump 01/2022 temps reversed and plunged downward in June.  After an upward spike in July, ocean air everywhere cooled in August and also in September.   

After sharp cooling everywhere in January 2023, all regions were into negative territory. Note the Tropics matched the lowest value, but since have spiked sharply upward +1.4C, with the largest increases in April to July, and continuing in Autumn 2023.  NH also warmed to 0.83C in the last 9 months, while SH ocean air rose about the same. Global Ocean air November 2023 now exceeds the 2016 peak by 0.2C, the main difference being the much higher rise in SH anomalies since June.  The strength of the El Nino will determine the pattern in coming months.

Land Air Temperatures Tracking in Seesaw Pattern

We sometimes overlook that in climate temperature records, while the oceans are measured directly with SSTs, land temps are measured only indirectly.  The land temperature records at surface stations sample air temps at 2 meters above ground.  UAH gives tlt anomalies for air over land separately from ocean air temps.  The graph updated for November is below.

Here we have fresh evidence of the greater volatility of the Land temperatures, along with extraordinary departures by SH land.  Land temps are dominated by NH with a 2021 spike in January,  then dropping before rising in the summer to peak in October 2021. As with the ocean air temps, all that was erased in November with a sharp cooling everywhere.  After a summer 2022 NH spike, land temps dropped everywhere, and in January, further cooling in SH and Tropics offset by an uptick in NH. 

Remarkably, in 2023, SH land air anomaly shot up 1.6C, from  -0.56C in January to +1.03 in October, then dropped to 0.7 in November.  Tropical land temps are up 1.6 since January and NH Land air temps rose 0.9, mostly since May.  Now in November NH land air temps are little changed and Tropical land temps down nearly 0.2C.

The Bigger Picture UAH Global Since 1980

The chart shows monthly Global anomalies starting 01/1980 to present.  The average monthly anomaly is -0.05, for this period of more than four decades.  The graph shows the 1998 El Nino after which the mean resumed, and again after the smaller 2010 event. The 2016 El Nino matched 1998 peak and in addition NH after effects lasted longer, followed by the NH warming 2019-20.   An upward bump in 2021 was reversed with temps having returned close to the mean as of 2/2022.  March and April brought warmer Global temps, later reversed.

With the sharp drops in Nov., Dec. and January 2023 temps, there was no increase over 1980. Now in 2023 the buildup to the October/November peak exceeds the sharp April peak of the El Nino 1998 event. It also surpasses the February peak in 2016.  Where it goes from here, up or down, remains to be seen.

The graph reminds of another chart showing the abrupt ejection of humid air from Hunga Tonga eruption.

TLTs include mixing above the oceans and probably some influence from nearby more volatile land temps.  Clearly NH and Global land temps have been dropping in a seesaw pattern, nearly 1C lower than the 2016 peak.  Since the ocean has 1000 times the heat capacity as the atmosphere, that cooling is a significant driving force.  TLT measures started the recent cooling later than SSTs from HadSST3, but are now showing the same pattern. Despite the three El Ninos, their warming has not persisted prior to 2023, and without them it would probably have cooled since 1995.  Of course, the future has not yet been written.

 

COP28 Triggers Leap in Arctic Ice

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The animation shows remarkable growth of Arctic ice extent just since COP28 began.  As noted in the previous Arctic ice post, Hudson Bay (lower right) was a lagging region, but freezing accelerated there. At the top, Barents and Greenland sea added ice. As well, both Bering and Okhotsk seas (far left) added fast ice on coastlines. In all, half a Wadham, 517k km2 of ice extent was added in just three days.

A Lufthansa aircraft at the snow-covered Munich airport on Saturday. Photograph: Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/AP

Coincidently, COP28 also triggered heavy snow bringing chaos to southern Germany causing Munich to suspend flights to anywhere, including Dubai.

The graph below shows the gains in ice extent erasing a brief deficit to average.

MASIE shows a gain of ~0.5M km2 from day 334 to 336, now exceeding average after being lower briefly.  SII (Sea Ice Index) also rose but is still estimating ice extent ~500k km2 lower.

The table below shows the distribution of ice in the Arctic Ocean basins.

Region 2023336 Day 336 2023-Ave. 2007336 2023-2007
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere 11113626 11059843  53782  10853632 259993 
 (1) Beaufort_Sea 1070966 1069301  1665  1054586 16380 
 (2) Chukchi_Sea 765844 797154  -31311  607874 157970 
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea 1087137 1080765  6372  1023256 63882 
 (4) Laptev_Sea 897845 897835  9  897845 0 
 (5) Kara_Sea 812779 796332  16446  829462 -16683 
 (6) Barents_Sea 350616 259899  90717  222769 127847 
 (7) Greenland_Sea 711570 538651  172919  541176 170393 
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence 571757 697517  -125760  755390 -183633 
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago 854860 853409  1451  852556 2304 
 (10) Hudson_Bay 553841 636088  -82247  812965 -259124 
 (11) Central_Arctic 3220281 3198662  21619  3177278 43003 
 (12) Bering_Sea 82391 154107  -71716  27916 54475 
 (13) Baltic_Sea 23276 4889  18387  2898 20378 
 (14) Sea_of_Okhotsk 106202 70731  35471  46377 59826 

Note that Arctic ice now exceeds 11M km2, or 74% of last March maximum.  As shown in the table above, the main deficits to average are in Hudson and Baffin Bays, along with less ice in Bering Sea. Offsetting are surpluses elsewhere, especially in Barents and Greenland seas.

 

 

Beware Next Genetic Experiment Sold as “Vaccine”

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The warning comes from Klaus Steger, Ph.D., is a molecular biologist with a research focus in the genetic and epigenetic regulation of gene expression during normal and aberrant sperm development. Over the past 30 years, his research projects were continuously funded by the German Research Foundation, while he headed several gene technology laboratories regularly applying RNA-based technologies. He served as a professor of anatomy and cell biology at the University of Giessen, Germany, for 23 years before retiring this year. He holds a doctorate in natural sciences from the University of Regensburg. His article is:

Self-Amplifying RNA Shots Are Coming: The Untold Danger  The truth behind RNA-based vaccine technology (Part 3).  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images

The next generation of RNA-based injections will contain self-amplifying RNA (saRNA). If the term “self-amplifying RNA” sounds frightening, it should. It likely brings to mind images of scientific experiments run amok.

As discussed in a previous article, “mRNA vaccines” are not made with messenger RNA but with modified RNA (modRNA). These so-called vaccines are actually gene therapy products (GTPs), as modRNA hijacks our cells’ software. We have no possibility at all to gain influence on modRNA (or saRNA) after it has been injected.

What Distinguishes saRNA From modRNA?

The term “self-amplifying” is self-explanatory: saRNA replicates itself repeatedly, which is not natural, as natural mRNA is always (without exception) transcribed from DNA (this is called the “central dogma of molecular biology”).

Compared to modRNA, a small amount of saRNA results in an increased amount of produced antigen; one shot of saRNA-based injection may be enough to generate sufficient antibodies against a virus. Both saRNA and modRNA represent the blueprint for a viral protein, which, after entering our cells, will be produced by our cell machinery (i.e., ribosomes).

Scientists created the genetically modified modRNA sequence by replacing natural uridines with synthetic methyl-pseudouridines to generate a maximum amount of viral antigen. This modification is the basis of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 shots.

Unlike modRNA, saRNA does not contain methyl-pseudouridines, but uridines. Why? Since saRNA self-replicates and synthetic methyl-pseudouridines are not available in our cells, saRNA must rely on natural uridines that exist in our cells. Our cells will produce foreign proteins using their own cell machinery and their own natural resources—the main reason these cells finally become exhausted.

However, this causes a significant problem: mRNA is highly unstable and, therefore, has only a short lifespan—too short for our immune system to produce sufficient antibodies. The solution to this problem is the second difference between modRNA and saRNA.

Unlike modRNA, saRNA contains an additional sequence for the replicase, as destroyed (by RNases) saRNA must be replaced by new saRNA. As natural mRNA will never self-replicate, saRNA definitely represents a genetically modified RNA (modRNA).  Put simply, saRNA is just another type of modRNA.

Why the Change to saRNA?

saRNA is the political solution: the same amount (or even more) of antigen in only one shot! The public will likely be told that due to the regular mutations of the virus, yearly adapted boosters will continue to be necessary.

Numerous preclinical and clinical studies applying saRNA technology have already been undertaken. A 2023 review in the journal Pathogens touts saRNA vaccines as “improved mRNA vaccines.” The journal Vaccines published a summary of five years of saRNA study findings. Once the requisite clinical studies are finished, these new vaccines can be approved for use. It can be expected that this process will be as quick as it was for the COVID-19 vaccines. The approval process will become simpler, as it could be argued that the technique (modRNA in lipid nanoparticles) is already approved and that only the modRNA sequence is different. Hence, these new saRNA vaccines could be injected into an unsuspecting public at any time.

While BioNTech performed experiments with saRNA (BNT162c2) but finally focused on modRNA (BNT162b2), Arcturus Therapeutics was the first to announce (in 2022) that its COVID-19 saRNA vaccine candidate ARCT-154—now the most advanced saRNA vaccine in trials—meets the primary efficacy endpoint in a phase-3 study.  In the Arcturus Therapeutics study, participants received two doses, each containing 5 micrograms of saRNA. This is far less than the modRNA concentrations used by Pfizer-BioNTech (30 micrograms/shot) and Moderna (100 micrograms/shot).

saRNA Injections Will Not Solve the Problems With modRNA Injections

As we discovered with modRNA, the spike protein is poisonous to our bodies. We know that modRNA results in the production of more spike protein than would be available during a natural infection, and we know that repeated boosters cause immune tolerance.

Compared to modRNA, a small amount of saRNA results
in an increased amount of produced antigen.

The “dose” of viral antigen that current and future RNA-based vaccines bring about will show large fluctuations from one individual to the next, depending on the cell type producing the desired antigen, genetic predisposition, medical history, and other factors. This fact alone should prohibit the use of RNA-based injections as vaccines for healthy people.

Long-Term Presentation of an Antigen Is Known to Cause Immune Tolerance

After getting vaccinated, our bodies generate antibodies, mostly immunoglobulin G (IgG), including IgG1 and IgG4.

Vaccinated individuals show an antibody class switch starting with the third COVID-19 injection (the first booster). This is from inflammatory IgG1 antibodies (that fight the spike protein) to non-inflammatory IgG4 antibodies (that tolerate the spike protein). Elevated levels of IgG4 antibodies, in the long run, will exhaust the immune system, causing immune tolerance. This may explain COVID-19 “breakthrough” infections, reduced immune response to other viral and bacterial infections, and reactivation of latent viral infections. It may also cause autoimmune diseases and uncontrolled growth of cancer.

Notably, long-term IgG4 responses have been significantly associated with RNA-based injections, while individuals with a COVID-19 infection prior to vaccination exhibited no increased IgG4 levels, even when they received a shot after the infection.

This observation clearly discredits the World Health Organization’s policy that—assuming people have no immunity against novel viruses (completely ignoring the reality of cross-immunity)—people should be vaccinated before they come into contact with the virus.

RNA-Based Injections Are Recognized as Gene Therapy Products

Incomprehensibly, RNA-based injections for protecting against infectious diseases were named “vaccines,” which allowed exclusion from the strict regulations for gene therapy products (GTPs). Again, this happened without providing the public with any scientific justification.  Details on the regulatory issues of RNA-based vaccines are reported in excellent and comprehensive reviews by Guerriaud & Kohli and Helene Banoun.

In 2014, Uğur Şahin, already CEO of BioNTech, co-wrote an article published in Nature about developing a new class of drugs, “mRNA-based therapeutics.” The authors wrote, “One would expect the classification of an mRNA drug to be a biologic, gene therapy or somatic cell therapy.”

In 2021, the author of correspondence printed in Genes & Immunity described RNA-based vaccines created by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech as “a breakthrough in the field of gene therapy” and “a great opportunity for the FDA and EMA to revise the drug development pipeline to make it more flexible and less time-consuming.”

Two disturbing pieces of information have now come to light:

The contaminating DNA results from Pfizer-BioNTech’s change in the manufacturing process after finishing the BNT162b2 (Comirnaty) Clinical Trial C4591001. Initially (Process 1), Pfizer-BioNTech modRNA was produced by in-vitro transcription from synthetic DNA and amplified by PCR (polymerase chain reaction). However, to scale up manufacturing (see rapid responses to this BMJ study), modRNA encoding DNA was cloned into bacterial plasmids (Process 2). Put simply, the clinical trial was run on process-1 lots, but the world’s populations received process-2 lots.

This means that individuals who gave consent to be vaccinated
were injected with a substance different from the one approved
by regulatory agencies and to which they had consented.

It is now irrefutable that the RNA-based COVID-19 injections contain DNA.

RNA-based technology—especially when applied as vaccines to healthy individuals—is unjustifiable and unethical. Independent from the tragic number of adverse events or excess mortality rates, it is the technique that is the issue, and the same problems will occur in all future RNA-based “vaccines.”
RNA-based “vaccine” technology goes against the central idea of evolution over the past millions of years. While injected modRNA and saRNA produce antigens without stopping, in fact, the short lifespan of natural messenger RNA (mRNA) is a prerequisite for healthy and specific cell functions. (The short lifespan of mRNA allows our cells to adapt as quickly as possible to changing circumstances and avoid the production of unnecessary proteins.)

A premise of RNA-based “vaccine” technology—that all of our body cells have to
produce a foreign viral protein—goes against fundamental biological principles,
like distinguishing between our own cells and foreign invaders,
and will result in our immune system attacking our own cells.

RNA can be reverse-transcribed into DNA even without the presence of (the enzyme) reverse transcriptase (i.e., by LINE1 elements present in our genome/DNA). Contaminating DNA (in RNA-based vaccines) is the rule rather than the exception. As both RNA and DNA can be integrated into the human genome, the so-called “vaccines” based on RNA technology are actually gene therapy products.

It is in no way justifiable to subject RNA-based GTPs for medical use to strict controls but to exclude RNA-based GTPs, called vaccines, from these regulations even though they are intended for most of the human population. Even in an emergency, no one should be forced to be injected with any substance—least of all by politicians.

What is Genetic Engineering?

What Did COVID-19 Teach Us About Science, Politics, and Society?

For many years, scientists dreamed of manipulating human “software”—that is, DNA or RNA. Ethically, manipulating DNA has always been taboo. In retrospect, COVID-19 may represent the dawn of RNA-based “vaccines” and the end of the taboo against manipulating human DNA.

In a 2023 commentary in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, the authors wrote that from the earliest days of the pandemic, it was obvious that some influential scientists and their political allies demonized dissenting scientific views and evidence offering a second opinion. Despite contradictory evidence, national politicians “assured the public that they were adopting COVID-19 policies by ‘following the science.’” However, scientific consent was achieved only by suppressing scientific debate.

Remember: When questions are allowed, it is science;
when they are not, it is propaganda.

So-called “experts” selected by politicians told us that we must be vaccinated to be able to fight a new respiratory virus. This contradicts the science of the human immune system. Our immune systems are dynamic and can clear a virus they have never encountered; they can also develop cross-immunity to identify variants even if the virus mutates. However, since RNA-based vaccines will produce a single antigen, our immune system is deprived of the possibility of developing cross-immunity against virus variants. This applies, in particular, to respiratory viruses exhibiting a high mutation rate. In the long run, this will lead to an increase in both the frequency and the severity of infectious diseases. Thus, politicians interested in protecting the population against future infections would be well-advised to offer health programs that strengthen the immune system before seasonal infections.

Scientists haven’t the faintest idea of how to direct modRNA or saRNA to a specific cell type or how to stop the translation of administered RNA. However, they continue to study how the stability of injected RNA and the amount of generated antigen can be further increased. The current development of RNA-based vaccine technology reminds one of the poem “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” which German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote over 200 years ago:

“The spirits, whom I’ve careless raised, are spellbound to my power not.”

Source: Disney’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Climate “Loss and Damage”: Political, Not Scientific Notion

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The media is replete with announcements of a “breakthrough” agreement at COP28 to make “operational” a fund through which “developed” countries compensate “developing” countries for “loss and damage” from “climate change.”  The six terms in quotations highlight the ambiguity depending on how those words are defined.  Let’s start with “breakthrough “, “operational” and “developed” vs. “developing” countries.

From Nature: First cash pledged for countries devastated by climate change: COP28 starts with historic decision. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Draft resolution on a ‘loss and damage fund’ has attracted more than
$400 million, but climate-vulnerable countries say more cash is needed.

Researchers and campaigners welcomed the move, while recognizing that much more is needed and that pledges are not the same as money in the bank.  “It remains to be seen how much money rich countries, developed countries and the polluting countries will be willing to put into that fund,” says Romain Weikmans, a climate-finance researcher at Université Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels.

Countries calling for the fund, especially those highly vulnerable to climate change, are expecting it to eventually reach at least $100 billion per year. Tom Mitchell, executive director of the International Institute for Environment and Development, an environmental-research think tank in London, says the total amounts so far “are really, really very modest”. Some of the least developed countries see the US commitment as “a slap in the face”, he adds.

Further details, such as how much of the money will be given out as grants versus loans and who will be eligible to receive funding have not been announced. [China, India?]

RTE adds: Questions Remain

There’s still a lot that needs clarifying about this fund. Some of the big outstanding questions include the fund’s size, its relationship to other funds, how it will be administered over the long term, and what its funding priorities will be.

In response to the announcement, leading African think-tank representative Mohamad Adhow noted there were “no hard deadlines, no targets, and countries are not obligated to pay into it, despite the whole point being for rich, high-polluting nations to support vulnerable communities who have suffered from climate impacts”.

Many Issues with Climate “Loss and Damage”

Roger Pielke Jr. explains the other problems with this initiative in a recent talk at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute Climate Change, Disasters, and the Rightful Place of Science  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

“One thing I’d like to make clear is that climate change is real. It’s serious, and it deserves urgent attention to both mitigation and adaptation,” Pielke said. “But I’ve come to see, across my career, that the importance of climate change is held up by many people as a reason for why we can abandon scientific integrity. This talk is about climate and scientific integrity, how we maintain it, and how we use it in decision-making. Reasonable people can disagree about policies and different directions that we want to go, but none of us are going to benefit if we can’t take expertise and bring it to decision-making to ground policymaking in the best available knowledge. Overall, climate science and policy have a narrative problem.”

Hurricanes

In addressing the narrative problem, concerning the first area of public discourse- hurricanes, Pielke displayed a graph of official data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It displayed landfalling hurricanes in the U.S. and showed a long-term trend of no increase in hurricanes overall – despite environmental websites claiming the opposite. Pielke noted the reason for misreporting is the fact that there were no major hurricanes to hit the United States between 2005 to 2017, a pause reflected in the data chart which had a gap there from 2005 to 2017. So if you recently became climate aware in the last 20 years, which many in the media have, you would think that hurricanes were increasing.

“That’s why we do science – because our lived experience is not a good substitute for looking at data and evidence,” Pielke said. “So if you’re paying attention to the news, just this week, it was all over the news that the proportion of hurricanes that have become major hurricanes has increased. Well, not according to the science. So, one of the challenges that I try to emphasize is that there is good information out there.

If the media ignores it and in the political debates it’s ignored,
then it’s all of our responsibility to ferret out what’s real.”

Disasters

In addressing his second subject, disasters, Pielke differentiated disasters from extreme weather defining a disaster as an extreme weather event that intersects with an exposed and vulnerable society.

He quoted from an October 21, 2023 Financial Times article that at a private event last month, one executive at Lloyd’s of London that oversees the market told underwriters that they had not yet seen clear evidence that a warming climate is a major driver in loss claims. Pielke attended the event in person and perceived a concern in the room that anyone making that statement publicly would be called a climate denier, leading to a suppression or minimization of the statement.

Pielke also addressed UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ claim that the number of weather, climate and water-related disasters has increased by a factor of five over the past 50 years. He noted that Guterres used data from the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) to make this claim. Pielke referred to notes in CRED reports that have advised for decades “Don’t look at our data and use it to say anything about the weather” and advises their data shows the evolution of registration of natural disaster events over time, which has increased with better means of communication.

As well, since there is more international aid for disaster affected
communities, more communities are reporting.

The number of global weather and climate disasters has declined this century.

On the subject of U.S. disasters, in his sixteen years of affiliation with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Pielke observed a reporting phenomenon – an addiction to reporting billion-dollar weather disasters. The reports are used by advocacy groups, and then the media, who publicize that climate change is causing more billion-dollar weather disasters, something Pielke says isn’t supported by science. He points out that as the United States has gotten wealthier, the actual proportion of that wealth that is damaged in disasters has gone down dramatically.

Misinterpreting Climate Scenarios

Pielke then addressed his third subject, climate scenarios and the effect of misinterpretation.

He referred to the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) – a report by the IPCC that was published in 2000. The 1,184 greenhouse gas emissions scenarios described in the Report have been used to make projections of possible future climate change. Pielke noted that the area of discussion of climate scenarios “is so full of jargon and technical details, that it is almost impenetrable”. Since 1,184 scenarios weren’t easy to study, the community decided to simply to study the four you see represented by the four bold blue lines on the first graph below- namely RCP8.5, RCP 6.0, RCP4.5 and RCP2.6.

(RCP 4.5 is described by the IPCC as a moderate scenario in which emissions peak around 2040 and then decline. RCP 8.5 is the highest baseline emissions scenario in which emissions continue to rise throughout the twenty-first century. Climate change projected under RCP 8.5 will typically be more severe. RCP 2.6 at the bottom is what today we would call the Paris Accord target)

Pielke pointed out that the assumption underlying all the SRES scenarios is that the world is going to turn to coal as the dominant energy source in the 21st century. For this to happen, Pielke calculates that over 3000 new coal plants would have to be built by the year 2100, which he says won’t happen and the IEA expectation is in agreement. However, the Canadian government, the U.S. government, and the Indian government, all rely on the RCP 8.5 scenario and it is pervasive in global climate policy as the IPCC remains focused on it. Pielke points out that all the SRES scenarios have assumptions about GDP, the carbon intensity of energy, and more that are already out of date. Pielke also pointed out that the scientific community has increasingly relied on RCP 8.5 – the most extreme scenario and in 2023, the RCP 8.5 remains the most used scenario in research with many studies published each day using it.

“So why is that?” Pielke said. “The reason is, if you do a study with RCP 8.5 with massive amounts of emissions to 2100, you’re going to get big effects. You can publish that in a prominent journal. Your university will put out a press release on it. You might even get into the New York Times because these very extreme scenarios are notable. Scientists agree there are legitimate reasons for using extreme scenarios in research. Usually, it’s what we call exploratory research, not projective research. Scientists tell me ‘Well if we want to separate the signal of forced climate change from the noise of internal climate variability, we need these strong scenarios’.”

Pielke referred to this attitude as “noble cause corruption”- the idea that
less rigorous science and even bad science is excusable if it advances a cause.

A revision of the scenario projections was initiated in June 2023 and the process of generating the next generation of scenarios has begun and Pielke reports they have removed the top RCP8.5 and RCP 6.0 scenarios. However, he says because we are currently using scenarios developed in the early 2000s, leading media and advocacy narratives which use them extensively are problematic “because a lot of bad science has gotten mixed in with the good science and it’s really hard to tell the difference.”

Background Loss and Damage Post

Climate Loss and Damage Fails Again

 

November 2023 Arctic Ice Doing Well

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The animation shows the continuing growth of Arctic ice extent during November 2023, from day 305 to yesterday, day 334.  For all of the fuss over the September minimum, little is said about Arctic ice growing back rapidly; that’s 4 Wadhams in October, plus another 2,2M in Nov to total 10.6M km2, or 10.6 Wadhams.  The Russian side on the left froze over in October, and now at the center bottom you can see Beaufort sea and Canadian Archipelago icing over completely. At top center Kara and Barents are adding normal ice extents. On the right side are the two lagging basins: Baffin and Hudson Bays, though freezing has started in Hudson bay in the last ten days.  That basin is shallow and likely to freeze over in the next two weeks.

The graph below shows the 30 days of November 2023 compared to the 17 year average (2006 to 2022 inclusive), to SII (Sea Ice Index) and some notable years.

 

Taking the average extent for the final 5 days of October 2023 compared to same for end of November, the added ice extent is 2.2M km2.  The growth slowed at the end resulting in a 290k km2 deficit to average.  Sea Ice Index (SII) is ~200k km2 lower than MASIE. 

The table below shows the distribution of ice in the Arctic Ocean basins.

Region 2023334 Day 334 2023-Ave. 2007334 2023-2007
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere 10626375 10921303  -294928  11009948 -383574 
 (1) Beaufort_Sea 1070966 1069463  1503  1058872 12094 
 (2) Chukchi_Sea 722477 788533  -66056  687829 34649 
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea 1087137 1083567  3570  1082015 5122 
 (4) Laptev_Sea 897845 897822  23  897613 232 
 (5) Kara_Sea 799640 792930  6710  826319 -26679 
 (6) Barents_Sea 262074 248861  13213  216525 45549 
 (7) Greenland_Sea 607148 533255  73893  618844 -11696 
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence 591970 671268  -79298  708497 -116527 
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago 854826 853266  1560  850249 4577 
 (10) Hudson_Bay 379047 574308  -195261  751382 -372335 
 (11) Central_Arctic 3220511 3192296  28215  3183073 37438 
 (12) Bering_Sea 47829 145731  -97902  72645 -24816 
 (13) Baltic_Sea 16936 3593  13343  0 16936 
 (14) Sea_of_Okhotsk 63947 62153  1794  53052 10895 

As shown in the table above, the deficit is due to lagging growth in Hudson and Baffin Bays, along with less ice in Chukchi and Bering Seas. Typically these basins are among the last to freeze.

 

 

Biden’s Desperate Wartime Climate Policy

Posted on by Ron Clutz

 

Mark Krebs writes at Master Resource “Wartime” Climate Policy vs. Natural Gas: Biden Gets Desperate.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

“While gas appliances may presently be losing some market share to electricity due to Green New Deal discrimination, there are also increasing indications that the public is both weary and wary of such ‘watermelon’ policies. It’s not about saving the planet from the ravages of fossil fuels; it’s about enslaving the planet by banning fossil fuels.”

Yes, the President of the United States has pulled out a Korean War authority (Defense Production Act) to fight against American energy that Americans prefer. It is an overreach that is being noted widely, as outlined below as well as here and here.

The American Gas Association (AGA) started this latest flurry with a press release November 17, 2023. The same day, Reuters and Fox News published their articles. Epoch Times published its article (and video) on November 20, 2023. The Reuters article most noteworthy contribution is that it names recipients of the Biden Administration’s [mis]appropriations of DPA funding. Both the Reuters article and Fox News article cite the AGA’s press release.

The AHRI data clearly shows that gas appliances are losing at least some ground to electric equivalents as evidenced by the above graphs. Moreover, this trend appears to have accelerated under the Biden Administration. AHRI’s discussion of the IRA and DPA is non-committal advocacy (an oxymoron?).

Conclusions

“While gas appliances may presently be losing some market share to electricity due to Green New Deal discrimination, there are also increasing indications that the public is both weary and wary of such ‘watermelon’ policies. It’s not about saving the planet from the ravages of fossil fuels; it’s about enslaving the planet by banning fossil fuels.”

The eighteenth-century naval hero John Paul Jones was doing battle with a British ship when his own ship was badly damaged, and the British commander called over to ask whether Jones had surrendered. He answered, “I have not yet begun to fight.” He and his crew then captured the British ship. While regulatory capture of the “administrative state” appears to be the rule and not the exception at present, this bit of history should be remembered so we do repeat it and recapture a government “for the people” as our Founding Fathers intended.

Washington Examiner reports Biden’s war on energy: President invokes wartime powers to speed up end to gas-powered home appliance.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

President Joe Biden allotted $169 million for electric heat pump projects with his emergency authority on the basis of climate change.

This is the first time a president classified climate change as an emergency by utilizing the Defense Production Act, which was established during the Cold War. Now, the money stemming from the Inflation Reduction Act will be divided among 15 sites dedicated to manufacturing the necessary parts and entire units of a variety of heat pumps.

“The President is using his wartime emergency powers under the Defense Production Act to turbocharge U.S. manufacturing of clean technologies and strengthen our energy security,” Biden’s National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi said in a statement.

John Podesta, senior adviser to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation, similarly celebrated the move, applauding the president for “treating climate change as the crisis it is.”

However, American Gas Association President and CEO Karen Harbert disagreed with the recent move from the White House, writing in a statement, “We are deeply disappointed to see the Defense Production Act, which is intended as a vital tool for advancing national security against serious outside threats, being used as an instrument to advance a policy agenda contradictory to our nation’s strong energy position.”

“Increased use of natural gas has been responsible for 60% of the electrical grid’s CO2 emissions reductions. This vital tool for emissions reductions and energy system resilience should not be unfairly undermined through misuse of the Defense Production Act.”

Among the facilities, two new factories will be constructed: a Treau, Inc. DBA Gradient plant in Michigan and a Mitsubishi Electric plant in Kentucky. Neither company has announced exact locations yet. Treau will receive over $17 million, and Mitsubishi will receive $50 million toward construction.

The Energy Department predicts roughly 1,700 jobs will be created in the various projects to promote more heat pump products. All the sites are centered in “disadvantaged communities” for their benefit.

Last year, the Energy Information Administration reported that natural gas was the water and space heating source of about 42% of U.S. residential spaces. The residential sector makes up 15% of overall natural gas consumption. However, heating and cooling across residential and commercial buildings drive more than 35% of the country’s energy consumption.

Footnote on Declaring Climate Emergency for Spending Purposes

This report on the German High Court ruling on this matter Europe Plunges Into Chaos After Germany Freezes Public Spending Following Shock Top Court Decision.  Excerpts in italiics with my bolds.

Germany’s economy, Europe’s largest, is contracting as surging energy prices and trade tensions cast doubt on its export-oriented business model. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government had been counting on that old virtue signaling switcheroo – a flood of spending on “green-energy projects and technology”, from chips to batteries, to revive the old model. That way, if anyone asks why Germany is deficit-spending its way to mercantilist utopia, Berlin could always lie and say it was doing the right thing for the world and wasn’t interested in a debt-funded stimulus. Alas, now the “Cardinals of Karlsruhe” have made this impossible.

Berlin’s decision to freeze all federal spending for the rest of the year came after the court defunded the government’s €60 billion —the equivalent of more than $65 billion—green-transition project. The court said Berlin couldn’t repurpose unspent credits originally earmarked to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic to fund environmental and energy projects. It said Berlin was bound by the country’s constitutionally enshrined fiscal rules that limit budget deficits to 0.35% of gross domestic product in normal times.

Senior government officials said one option under consideration would be to retroactively declare a state of budgetary emergency for 2023, invoking a clause in the fiscal rules that allows for a suspension of the spending limits in exceptional circumstances. Previous governments invoked the exception during the pandemic.

Unfortunately, for Germany’s stimmy-starved politicians, the plan is fraught with legal difficulties, in part because the constitutional court prepared for just this eventuality when it raised the bar for declaring such emergencies, according to Lars Feld, an economist who advises the government.

Strengthening resilience and transforming the economy amid geopolitical crises and climate change was seen as a necessity that required taking on debt, but the court ruling has challenged those assumptions, Feld wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.

Hilariously, the court said that unlike war and natural disasters, climate change was a foreseeable crisis that had been long in the making and could no longer justify emergency spending. Which, however, means that all Germany will have to do is politely request that the CIA start a new war… or that Fauci mail orders a new virus from Wuhan.

COP28 Mind-Boggling Numbers

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The Green Mirage recedes as you approach it.

Robert Lyman exposes the freakish math swirling around Dubai COP this fortnight in his Financial Post article COP28 by the (very big) numbers.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

This weekend’s climate meeting will discuss trillions of dollars.
No one will mention its chance of success is zero.

Neuroscience tells us the human brain is very bad at interpreting large numbers. Most people know that million, billion and trillion are all big numbers but can’t really understand what the difference between them is. Answer: it’s big. A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years, which is a lot more than 12 days.

Our cognitive difficulties with large numbers will be a problem when reading the news from the COP28 climate conference that convenes in Dubai on Thursday.

The conference has a wide-ranging agenda. It also will be attended by a large number of people — over 70,000 at last count. There’s the first large-number problem for COP28. How does a group of 70,000 people possibly discuss anything in a coherent way?

The organizers have identified five themes on which they would like to see agreement among the almost 190 governments that will be represented. When you’re talking governments, 190 is yet another brain-challenging number.

To oversimplify, there are four main themes:

♦  how to accelerate all countries’ efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so as to meet a proposed 2050 “net-zero” target (zero not being a large number);
♦  how to induce wealthier countries to give much more money to poorer countries to help them both mitigate and adapt to climate change;
♦  how to persuade all countries to phase out production of fossil fuels by 2050; and, finally,
♦  how to increase the UN’s role as central coordinator and global regulator of climate efforts.

Most discussions behind closed doors will be about money. Rich countries are now paying about US$70 billion in climate aid, mostly to help finance GHG emissions reduction. The developing countries want this raised to at least US$1.4 trillion per year by 2026, 20 times higher. Twenty is not actually that large a number, except when talking about multiplying already very big dollar amounts by it. Developing countries have also demanded that funding for adaptation rise to at least US$600 billion per year. At last year’s COP27 in Egypt, they got agreement in principle for a new fund to pay for the “loss and damages” they will incur from adverse weather events they attribute to the historic GHG emissions of the industrialized countries, though no dollar amounts were agreed to. Finally, developing countries are pushing for a new Global Biodiversity Fund, to which developed countries would donate a mere US$20 billion per year.

Round numbers: rich countries would be on the hook for US$2 trillion per year. If allocations were based on GDP, Canada would owe three per cent of the total — or US$60 billion per year. In Canadian dollars, that’s roughly 78 billion CAN$. There are about 16 million households in Canada so (do the math) each household would owe $4,875. Per year. That’s a number the average person can easily understand. He or she can also understand there is absolutely no way the Canadian public or voters in any other OECD country would ever agree to such a thing. Not even if they didn’t know (but they do) that China, producer of 30 per cent of the world’s GHG emissions, not only would not be contributing but might well qualify as a recipient.

The previous 27 COPs (for Conference of the Parties) have all promoted ever-more ambitious emissions reductions. But since the first COP global emissions have risen 60 per cent, driven by developing countries’ relentless efforts to achieve more economic development for their burgeoning populations. There is no evidence that trend will change. China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and others all see fossil fuel production as key to their economic development and energy security. They are unlikely to commit to production declines even if a few OECD countries do.

The United Nations secretariat will lobby hard at COP28 to expand the role of existing institutions, including even more climate summits to place even more political pressure on leaders, and they may succeed in this (though many of us feel just one a year is already more than enough). How difficult can it be to convince tens of thousands of climate stakeholders to travel to exotic conference locales each year? Especially if the general public cannot grasp the numbers they’re playing with.

Yes, those are trillions of dollars in the projection.

This weekend the media in general will report in glowing terms on the energy and enthusiasm of conference participants, especially those representing environmental NGOs. The communiqué will note every new commitment made yet entirely ignore that the probability the entire process will meet its objectives is a very, very small number not significantly different from zero.

 

 

 

Trudeau Climate Crusade Hits Alberta Wall

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Tyler Durden has the story at zerohedge Alberta Premier Defies Trudeau Carbon Agenda – Invokes Sovereignty Act.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

It is an action which multiple red states in the US undertaken: Blocking carbon controls ingrained in “green power” initiatives conjured by the federal government.

Now it appears the momentum has spread to Canada through Alberta’s conservative leadership as Premier Danielle Smith defies the Trudeau regime by invoking the province’s recently drafted Sovereignty Act.

The Sovereignty Act is designed to give Alberta’s legislative assembly the power to identify any federal programs or actions that violate Alberta’s constitution, the government would then refuse to implement those programs.  The implementation of the act means that finally, an open dialogue on the existential threat of the UN’s “sustainable development goals” and Agenda 2030 has begun in Canada.  

The reasons for opposition to “Net Zero” objectives have been repeated over and over again by political critics, economic critics and scientific critics alike. 

1.  Net zero as the UN defines it is impossible using existing green technologies with inefficient and costly power generation.

2.  Net zero proponents refuse in most cases to acknowledge the usefulness of nuclear power as a means to reduce reliance on oil and gas.

3.  Net zero would require perpetual authoritarian oversight of individual carbon emissions and probably population reduction in the near term.

4.  None of the above even matters because there’s no concrete evidence whatsoever man-made carbon causes global warming.

In other words, the supposed crisis is a fraud and there’s no reason
for any nation, province or state to sacrifice their power grids.

Beyond the big con, stagflation has made carbon controls economically impossible. Aggressive price spikes since 2020 make gas, oil and coal more important than ever in maintaining basic services for the populace along with the needs of industry. Reducing available supply in the face of desperate demand would only fuel the fires of inflation further. Even Europe has been reverting back to “villainous” energy sources like coal to keep things running.

When people face the possibility of freezing or starving there is little chance they are going to listen to unfounded claims of climate doomsday from a bunch of ultra-rich yacht sailing private jet-setting carbon-spewing hypocrite elites.

See Also Hydrocarbons Are the Greenest Fuels

 

Yellow Brick Road to Green Dystopia

Posted on by Ron Clutz

J. Peder Zane warns us that green dreamers will destroy social wellbeing in his Real Clear Investigations article Let’s Count the Ways RCI Has Exposed the Green Pipe Dream.  Excerpts in italics wtih my bolds and added images.

While brandishing the moral cudgel with full force – President Biden describes climate change as “an existential crisis,” i.e., every person and puppy will die if we don’t submit to his agenda – the left also suggests the transition will be easy-peasy: Just build some windmills, install some solar panels, and swap out your car, stove, and lightbulbs for cleaner and cheaper alternatives.

The up front gold is clear and costly, the end of the road in shadows.

Though much of the cheerleading media downplays this fact, it is already clear that Biden’s enormously expensive, massively disruptive goal is a pipe dream. In a recent series of articles, my colleagues at RealClearInvestigations have reported on several of the seemingly intractable problems that the administration and its eco-allies are trying to wish away.

The dishonesty begins with the engine of the green economy – the vast array of wind and solar farms that must be constructed to replace the coal and gas facilities that power our economy. James Varney reported for RCI that the Department of Energy’s official line is that the installations required to meet Biden’s goal of “100% clean electricity” by 2035 will require “less than one-half of one percent of the contiguous U.S. land area” – or roughly 15,000 of the lower 48’s roughly 3 million square miles. However, Varney noted, “the government report that furnished those estimates also notes that the wind farm footprint alone could require an expanse nine times as large: 134,000 square miles. That is equivalent to the land mass of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky combined – plus all of New England.

Convert Albany county New York into a wind farm required just to replace the now shuttered Indian Point nuclear power plant.

Echoing the 19th century adage that figures don’t lie, but liars figure, the discrepancy mostly involves estimates of what can be built around the windmills. Each turbine’s footprint is relatively small, but they have to be spaced far apart. The DOE’s smaller number is based on the fanciful assumption that all the surrounding land can be used for agriculture and other purposes, while the larger figure assumes none of it will. The truth probably is somewhere in between. That the government is trumpeting the impossibly small number – while ignoring the additional land needed to build transmission lines which will carry the current to end users – is telling and troubling.

Given Biden’s aggressive timeframes for the build-out – 2035 is a mere dozen years from now – one might expect that the administration has a master plan detailing where and when these green farms will be constructed. It does not. And, as Steve Miller reported for RCI, this challenge already seems insurmountable given the “grassroots resistance … coalescing in varied new state laws and local ordinances that threaten to bog down solar and wind development in a multi-front legal and regulatory war on a scale not seen before.”

In a stinging irony, opponents are routinely invoking arguments regarding
endangered species and wetlands that environmentalists have long deployed
to kneecap pipelines, gas fields, and other fossil fuel projects.

Another largely ignored problem area is charging stations for electric vehicles. John Murawski reported for RCI that California’s first-in-the-nation move to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars after 2035 is highlighting an array of challenges and dislocations. To keep electric cars rolling, the state “may need to install at least 20 electric chargers for every gas pump now in service to create a reliable, seamless network” – or more than 2 million new stations during the next decade, which is about 10 times as many EV ports as gas station nozzles.

It might be hard to convince private businesses to house the chargers, because, as a 2022 report from the California Energy Commission noted, “Revenue from electricity sales alone is often not enough today for chargers to be profitable, especially for stations with lower utilization.” That’s why California is investing at least $14 billion to subsidize this fantasy.

Even if the EV infrastructure gets built, it will require a massive change in behavior. The days of fill ’er up once or twice a week will likely become a distant memory. Most public stations will only be able to provide between five and 60 miles of range for an hour hook-up. Private citizens will need to pony up for their own charging infrastructure at home, while renters and low-income drivers will have to rely on employer and municipal largesse to supply chargers.

The green dream also involves knotty geo-politico issues. Ben Weingarten reported for RCI that America’s transition to renewables is empowering its most formidable economic adversary. “China currently holds a commanding position in the clean energy industry, controlling the natural resources and manufacturing the components essential to the Biden administration’s desired alternative energy transition,” Weingarten wrote. “Energy experts believe that its dominance will become more entrenched in the years ahead because of domestic environmentalist opposition to perceived ‘dirty’ mining and refining operations, and the Biden administration’s ‘clean energy’ spending blitz – which could provide Chinese companies and subsidiaries billions in subsidies.”

What’s more, if the U.S. slows its production of oil and gas in the coming years, hostile or problematic nations that continue to drill – including Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Venezuela – will reap the benefits should renewables fail to become a reliable source of power.

Finally, the systematic erasure of these and other consequential questions
is part of a broad effort to quell dissenting views.

While climate action advocates in the government, media, and academia argue that the science is settled, Murawski reported for RCI that a growing number of experts are courageously challenging this orthodoxy. In August, for example, “more than 1,600 scientists, including two Nobel physics laureates, signed a declaration stating that there is no climate emergency, and that climate advocacy has devolved into mass hysteria,” Murawski wrote. “The skeptics say the radical transformation of entire societies is marching forth without a full debate, based on dubious scientific claims amplified by knee-jerk journalism.”

In detailing the central arguments of these skeptics, Murawski reported that few fall into the camp of “climate deniers” – itself a shameful label used to equate climate change with the Holocaust. They acknowledge the Earth is warming. Some, however, question whether human activity is to blame and, if it is, whether the massive human interventions being demanded can make much difference. Others say that the money spent retooling the economy would be better spent spurring economic growth that will allow people to adapt to a changing world.

Murawski reported that many dissenters believe that “[S]logans such as ‘follow the science’ and scientific consensus’ are misleading and disingenuous. There is no consensus on many key questions, such as the urgency to cease and desist burning fossil fuels, or the accuracy of computer modeling predictions of future global temperatures. The apparent consensus of imminent disaster is manufactured through peer pressure, intimidation, and research funding priorities, based on the conviction that ‘noble lies,’ ‘consensus entrepreneurship,’ and ‘stealth advocacy’ are necessary to save humanity from itself.”

A lie is rarely noble. It is almost always evidence of a weak argument and contempt for those it seeks to influence. Those who see climate change as an urgent danger and believe they know how to counter the threat should make their case forthrightly instead of recycling tired myths. Our democracy faces an existential threat when the will of the people gives way to the coercion of the masses.

Biden’s EV Boondoggle Enriches Himself

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The Greenest thing about the New Green Deal is the Money.

The spending on “Green Energy Projects” is enormous and uncontrolled.  Larry Behrens explains at Real Clear Energy Too Favored to Fail:” Taxpayers Bailout Biden’s Green Friends.  Excerpts in italics wtih my bolds.

While America struggles to buy groceries, President Joe Biden has a
green slush fund worth billions of dollars, and he’s not afraid to use it.

Billions Disappear with Rivian Bankruptcy

Recent revelations uncovered that the CEO and lobbyists of Rivian, an electric vehicle manufacturer, held a quiet meeting at the White House with Biden’s Climate Czar, John Podesta. That’s right, the same John Podesta who served as chairman of Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated 2016 presidential campaign before being pulled from the ranks of profitable green consulting to oversee distribution of $369 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Biden selected a political operative with green company ties to dole out the goodies from one of the largest slush funds in history. Now green CEOs who are hemorrhaging cash are beating a path to his White House office, presumedly with hat in hand.

According to media reports, Rivian is deep in the red. Last year, they lost $6.8 billion. In 2021, it was $4.7 billion, which is in addition to the $1 billion lost in 2020. These massive losses happened as EV manufacturers enjoyed large subsidies both to build and sell their vehicles. In fact, President Biden went out of his way to praise Rivian in early 2022, even though their stock had already lost half its value on its way to losing 87% of its value since 2021. Losing over $12 billion in less than three years would normally be a problem in the business world, but in the upside-down reality of Biden’s green agenda, that gets you a meeting at the White House.

Tax dollars are flowing from the IRA so quickly that the Department
of Energy’s Inspector General (IG) may be running out of adjectives.

Earlier this month in testimony before the Senate, the IG said, “the current situation brings tremendous risk to the taxpayers.” Red flags about American dollars flowing to foreign companies or just being wasted here at home are going up, yet according to budget watchdogs, their concerns are met with deaf ears by senior Biden Administration officials. The IG notes there were “billions and billions of dollars lost or stolen” from federal Covid funds, and Biden’s slush fund is even bigger. To put it bluntly, the green vault is wide open and the grifters are lining up.

“Green Banks” Dole Out Taxpayer Cash

Here’s a particular galling example. One little known aspect of the IRA are so-called “green banks.” For greenies, the scheme is simple: regular banks will not fund their boondoggles, so they need a taxpayer backed entity to dole out cash. Unlike regular banks, these green banks do not need to make a profit to stay afloat because the government is their funder.

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham was caught trying to set up a green bank without the trouble of going through the elected legislature. The board of the bank will be green non-profits who will be in charge because as the New Mexico climate czar put it, “We’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars…This greenhouse gas reduction fund is a remarkable little beast.” Recently, Grisham announced the green bank anyway. The slush fund is open for business, and everyone has their hand out.

Congress is watching the “green bank” scheme because they know it is ripe for abuse. The problem is clear: The White House put a political operative in charge of what is nothing more than a political fund. For Barack Obama, they were too big to fail, but Joe Biden is taking it further. When it comes to his failed agenda, his green boondoggles are “too favored to fail.”

Biden’s Wasted EV Subsidies Eclipse Solyndra

Helen Raleigh reports at The Federalist The Biden Administration’s Electric Vehicle Subsidies Are Becoming Another Solyndra.  Excerpts in italics wtih my bolds.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm made $1.6 million from
an electric car company the Biden administration boosted
that just went bankrupt.

Proterra, an electric bus and battery company that President Joe Biden touted as a success of his green energy initiative, filed for bankruptcy in August. Last week, it finally sold its embattled battery business at a rock-bottom price as part of the bankruptcy proceeding. The rise and fall of Proterra demonstrates once again that politicians should refrain from betting taxpayers’ money on business ventures to advance their political agenda.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Proterra has sold only 550 electric transit buses since its founding in 2004. Most of the sales were underwritten by government agencies with federal grants. Proterra’s electric buses were plagued with mechanical defects and other performance issues, such as limited range and long charging times. Besides government subsidies, the company only survived as long as it had due to powerful political connections. Former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, Biden’s energy secretary, served on its board.

Despite all the quality issues of its EV buses, Proterra went public in January 2021 and raised $650 million, more than three times its annual revenue. A month after the company’s IPO, Biden tapped Granholm as his energy secretary. Proterra’s political connection to the Biden administration paid off in many ways.

Surviving on Grants and Tax Credits

In April 2021, Biden took a virtual tour of a Proterra facility to promote his infrastructure plan. The proposal included $6.5 billion in grants to help replace diesel-powered school and transit buses with electric ones. During the tour, Biden lauded Proterra for “getting us in the game.” He predicted that Proterra and other electric vehicle companies would “end up owning the future.”

Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act further enriched Proterra’s coffer. The law had little to do with reducing inflation, but it gave massive government handouts to the green energy sector. For instance, IRA includes a $40,000 per vehicle tax credit for purchasing electric commercial vehicles and an additional tax credit for EV batteries.

Proterra admitted in its quarterly report that “the availability of this new unprecedented level of government funding for our customers, suppliers, and competitors to help fund purchases of commercial electric vehicles and battery systems will remain an important factor in our company’s growth prospects.” Proterra’s political profile rose even more after Biden appointed Gareth Joyce, CEO of Proterra, to serve on the President’s Export Council in February this year.

Backed by Biden, Buried by Biden

Excessive government spending under Biden has sparked high inflation rates that were last seen in the 1970s. To bring inflation rates down, the Federal Reserve has aggressively raised interest rates. Higher rates increased production and operations costs for many companies. As legendary investor Warren Buffett famously said, “Only when the tide goes out do you learn who has been swimming naked.” Proterra was one of those companies that had been caught “swimming naked” in this new environment.

The company struggled because it had difficulty passing rising costs on to its existing customers, since most were government agencies with little budget flexibility. Nor could Proterra outsource its production overseas or import components at lower costs. Receiving government grants comes with strings attached. One requirement is that companies like Proterra must produce at least 70 percent of their EV components in America. Proterra couldn’t afford to cut the prices of its EVs to drum up sales.

Finally, Proterra filed for bankruptcy in August. Government subsidies could not offset the financial pressure of rising inflation, higher interest rates, and falling sales. Last week, a Swedish automobile manufacturer, Volvo, bought Proterra’s battery business for $210 million, a great deal considering Proterra was valued at $1.6 billion a year ago.

Another party who got an excellent deal was Granholm. She sold her Proterra shares for $1.6 million last year. They would have been worth nothing if she had held on to her Proterra shares until this

August. The biggest loser of the whole Proterra saga is American taxpayers.

No Good News for Electric Vehicles

Proterra was not the only EV company that went under. Michigan-based Electric Last Mile declared bankruptcy in June 2022. Ohio-based Lordstown Motors went bankrupt a year later. Ironically, these companies benefited from the Biden administration’s climate handouts, but the economic consequences of the same policies eventually doomed them. Even large automobile companies’ EV units are struggling. Ford estimates it will lose $3 billion this year on its EV business. The company relies on sales of gas-powered vehicles and government subsidies to keep the EV business afloat. 

What’s In This for the Bidens?

Fred Lucas explain in his Daily Signal article Hunter Biden’s Cobalt Deal With China Increases Cost of His Father’s Push for Electric Cars.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Presidential son Hunter Biden’s most recent controversy—assisting a Chinese company’s purchase of a large cobalt mine—is linked directly to a top Biden administration policy of promoting electric vehicles.

Cobalt, a relatively rare and expensive mineral, is an essential part of batteries used to power electric automobiles. The COVID-19 pandemic also made U.S. officials and the public much more aware of Communist China’s control of the supply chain for drugs and other products.

The younger Biden, 51, is a one-time partner in China-based Bohai Harvest RST, known as BHR, and reportedly remains a stakeholder. 

The New York Times first reported over the weekend that BHR facilitated mining company China Molybdenum’s $2.65 billion purchase of a cobalt and copper mine from an American company, Freeport-McMoRan. 

Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo. told The Daily Signal,

The latest news [that] he assisted a Chinese company purchase one of the largest cobalt mines is another example of Hunter Biden using his influence to line his pockets and help a foreign adversary. Conducting oversight of Hunter Biden’s questionable ethics and dealings that undermine our national security will continue to be a top priority for Oversight [Committee] Republicans.

The committee’s ranking Republican, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., tweeted: “By helping Chinese companies mine rare minerals in Congo, Hunter Biden is helping Communist China corner the Electric Vehicle market that @POTUS is subsidizing here at home.” 

Summary:

The campaign is to force electric vehicles upon Americans who otherwise do not want them.  And why?  It’s not about climate change, not about the environment.  It’s about greed not green.