Society in General

It’s Better to be Outside Paris Accord

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Chris Johnson writes at Real Clear Energy to explain Trump’s Withdrawal From the Paris Agreement Won’t Hurt the Climate.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

President Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement. Cue the leftwing meltdown. Though everyone knew the withdrawal was coming, the left and the “international community” are still decrying America’s alleged abdication of leadership on climate.
But toothless agreements window dressed with international
summits and photo ops are not the same as leadership.
The truth is America has led the world in reducing emissions for years not because of the Paris Agreement, but because innovation and the free market facilitate the deployment of cheaper and cleaner energy.  Let’s review the record.
In recent decades, America has achieved unprecedented — and unexpected — energy production thanks to fracking and horizontal drilling. Since the early 2000s when these twin technologies began to be deployed much more expansively, U.S. natural gas production has more than doubled. By 2016, hydraulically fractured gas wells accessed through horizontal drilling accounted for nearly 70% of all oil and natural gas wells.
While the left may clutch its pearls at the increased production of a fossil fuel like natural gas, this clean energy source has been a main driver of U.S. emissions reductions. Over the past 15 years when America has massively increased natural gas output, the U.S. reduced carbon emissions more than any other country. We can see this year by year.
For example, from 2022 to 2023, America offset dirtier coal energy generation with natural gas. As coal declined by 121.9 terawatt hours of electric generation over that time, natural gas increased by 118.9 terawatt hours. At the same time, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions declined 1.9%. Notably, 80% of the U.S. carbon emissions reductions were driven by the electric power sector — precisely where natural gas has an outsized impact.
Notice what didn’t cause those emissions reductions? The Paris Agreement.
The American energy sector — powered by innovation and good-old-fashioned free market economics — has been driving down carbon emissions cheaply and effectively before the Paris Agreement was a twinkle in climate activists’ eyes. And it will continue to reduce carbon emissions long after President Trump’s decision to withdraw.
The Paris Agreement is far from the panacea some activists claim it is.
It isn’t even a particularly effective tool to
rally nations toward greater climate success.
In the middle of the allegedly climate-conscious Biden administration, none of the world’s biggest emitters — America included — had reduced their emissions in accordance with the Paris goals. Apparently, the $1 trillion regulatory and subsidy regime erected by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act had little bang for the buck.
What Agreement supporters forget is that no number of high-profile international accords can make command-control tactics work — or instill other nations with the ambition to fulfill their empty promises.

Yes, those are trillions of dollars they are projecting to spend.

The Paris Agreement is the definition of bureaucratic failure, conflating meetings, busyness, and lofty goals as success. Its only achievement is to make climate ideologues and green jetsetters feel good about themselves as they fly to international conferences.
It’s no wonder President Trump withdrew. Talk is cheap. What matters is success. On that metric, the Trump administration is set to actually achieve what Paris Agreement signatories only write on paper.
Trump entered office promising to deregulate the fossil fuel industry, increase permitting for natural gas extraction, approve the construction of energy facilities like natural gas export terminals, and re-establish American energy dominance.
By leaning into America’s carbon advantage and exporting clean American energy abroad, he will boost the U.S. economy, supplant dirty energy from nations like Russia and Venezuela with a clean American alternative, and lower emissions both at home and abroad, all without the jaw-dropping price tag of the failed Biden-era green agenda. We should combine these steps with efforts to actually hold the biggest polluters accountable (which are being discussed by President Trump’s cabinet). This approach would be the antithesis of the Paris Accords’ America-last strategy.
Of course, some are urging President Trump to go further and not just withdraw from the Paris Agreement, but also back out of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This may seem like an easy choice, seeing as the UNFCCC, like so many UN bodies, acts contrary to American interests. But that’s exactly why America must remain in the UNFCCC.
Climate treaties will be formed whether or not the U.S. is involved, and the UNFCCC will continue to operate as a forum for those negotiations. Staying in the UNFCCC costs America nothing while allowing Trump and his appointees to keep a seat at the table, hold the UN accountable, and counter any deal that would put America at a disadvantage. While the UNFCCC can be harmful, it’s only the Paris Agreement that’s impotent.
The breathless alarm over the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is overwrought. When President Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord during his first administration, America went on to cut carbon emissions to the lowest level in 25 years. Re-embracing the power of natural gas in his second term, he’ll do it again.
So instead of the UN and international climate activists judging the U.S., we should remind everyone that if you want to put climate first, you should actually put America first.
Chris Johnson is a GOP strategist who organizes the next generation of conservative leaders. He also serves as a senior advisor to the National Federation of College Republicans, focusing on energy issues.

 

Poilievre: On Canada and US Partnership

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Last week Jordan Peterson conducted the above interview What Pierre Poilievre Thinks About Donald Trump. Poilievre is the Conservative leader expected to form the next federal government in Canada.  My lightly edited transcript is below in italics with my bolds and added images. JP refers to Peterson and PP to Poilievre.

JP: Trump famously met with Trudeau and seemed to troll him quite hard. First thing, I don’t know to what degree the Canadian press picked up on this, but Trudeau wasn’t invited to stay at Mar-a-Lago and there’s 126 rooms there. So when Trump invites someone he also invites them to stay there. So you know that was a message, and then he trolled him hard. He called him the governor of America’s 51st State and let it be known that he had very little respect for him. And then he announced a 25% tariff on Canadian goods.

So I had two reactions to that. You know, because I’m no fan of Trudeau, one was amused pleasure at Trump’s vicious humor let’s say. And the other one, you know he is the leader of our primary ally and a G7 nation, and so maybe that verged on contempt. I’m not exactly sure what to make of that and I’m curious about your response, and also how you feel about negotiating a new relationship with the Americans and with the Trump Administration in particular.

PP: Well I won’t spend a lot of time on how I feel about it other than to say Trudeau is a weak leader who leads a weakened economy with a weakened dollar and a weakened border. And president Trump has a strong mandate and he he spent his life as a highly successful businessman in the most cutthroat economic environment in the world, New York City. So in construction yeah and in Chicago. This is a former businessman who can spot weakness a mile away and act on it. So it’s just humiliating for all Canadians to witness something like that, because this is our country.

But what am I going to do about it? Look, first and foremost we need to show up with strength. We have an American president who has always put America First, he’s very blunt about it. I’ll put Canada First. The good news is that there’s immense overlap in the two countries respective interests and values. We’re both liberal democracies, we both value Freedom, we both share a geography. We have our enemies and our risks and our threats are the same, so there’s no reason why we can’t both win. If you look at the history of President Trump, he negotiates very aggressively and he likes to win, but in the end he doesn’t appear to have a problem if his counterparty also wins. So I think that we can get a great deal that will make both countries safer, richer and stronger. That’s the goal that I’ll be coming with into these negotiations.

JP: Okay, so what would a great deal look like as far as you’re concerned with the Americans on the energy side. One of the things that Trump pointed to was Canada’s Trade Surplus with the US at 1 billion was his estimate.

PP: It depends how you measure it, other estimates have it at around 40 billion, but he’s right, there is a Canadian Trade Surplus with the states. And from a mercantilist point of view you can say that America has been ripped off by China and Mexico. You can see examples of a factory closing in Ohio or Pennsylvania to open in Mexico or in China. But that’s not the nature of the Canadian Trade Surplus. It’s not a matter of the Canadian economy taking American jobs, far from it.

The nature of our Trade Surplus with America is that while it is a ripoff,
it’s Canada ripping itself off and let me explain.

Our entire Trade Surplus and more is due to oil and gas because we export about $120 billion of oil and gas to the United States at enormous discounts to market price because we have been so stupid and our bureaucrats have been so obstructive and woke activists have been so fanatical that we have not been able to develop the infrastructure to refine and transport our own energy to World Markets. So we are stuck with the US; depending on the time we sell a barrel oil to the Americans for 10% up to 30 or 40% cheaper than the world price. There’s a price called western Canada select and it’s significantly lower than WTI.

Until recently at least 99% of our oil exports to America where they then get to upgrade it and resell it at enormous profits with their welders, pipe fitters and engineers making the six figure salaries that go along with that. We give all of our natural gas exports to the United States because we don’t have an an operating liquefaction terminal to send it away ourselves so they get our natural gas at massive discounts. And then they can decide if they want to liquefy and ship it off to world markets at literally five times higher.

Trudeau’s “Just Transition” to Net Zero

So that is that is the trade surplus he’s talking about. Now if he were to stop that today it would mean that American workers at refineries and in other value added places would lose their jobs and Americans would pay higher energy prices. So that would not be good for America in the long run.

Being very blunt, I intend to approve refineries and LNG plants and
hopefully pipelines so that I could bring that production
back to Canada and make us more energy independent.

But in the short run if president Trump wants to make America richer the last thing he should want to do is block the underpriced Canadian energy from going into his Marketplace. In fact I would encourage him to approve the Keystone Pipeline so that we can create jobs for American workers who will build and install it, but also create much more wealth for Alberta and Saskatchewan and have their product reach tide water in the US Gulf Coast and get World prices.

So that’s an economic win. Also it’s not just oil and gas though. We have in Canada the Strategic minerals that are necessary for Warfare and for the modern digital economy that we could be exporting to the United States breaking both of our dependencies on China. We have the energy, a major Surplus of electricity, a surplus that we could even grow further that could be used for data centers that America cannot build fast enough.

So there’s enormous opportunities for both of us to get vastly richer if
we actually deepen our trade relationship rather than blocking it.

JP: Right, well it seems highly probable to me that that would be the direction that the Trump Administration would turn in if they were negotiating with people who were playing a straight game and were actually aiming for something like economic Prosperity instead of whatever the hell it is that Trudeau’s aiming for. Now you made brief reference to something quite shocking in its full import which didn’t really strike me until your comments. For example, Trudeau turned away the chancellor of Germany and the leader of Japan when they came cap in hand to Canada asking for increased Natural Gas exports over the long run. Given that we refused them, we ended up maintaining our low cost contracts with the United States and selling them all our resources at a discount.

PP: Yes, it’s enormously stupid. That’s the business case Trudeau couldn’t make. And I hate to say this, but because we have blocked LG plants and pipelines and other energy infrastructure, and because we’re giving therefore our gas to America at like a 70 or 80% discount to European and Asian prices and our oil at a discount of 20 or 30%, we’re effectively throwing money out a window. What do you do when someone throws money out a window? Stand next to the window yeah right.

So that is the true story, the pathetic story of our Trade Surplus is
that we’re actually handing over our resources stupidly.

It’s not The Americans’ fault, it’s our fault. We’re stupid and we’re going to stop being stupid when I’m prime minister. We’re going to build this infrastructure ourselves but in the meantime it would be it would be bad for American workers and consumers for the president to tariff our oil and gas.

And look, we have an integrated economy; I think an automobile crosses the Border something like eight or nine times between Ontario and the manufacturing states of the US before it becomes a finished product. Why interrupt those Supply chains? Also why not allow Americans just to have access to buying our minerals? Or better yet why don’t we process improve them here in Canada before we sell them to the United States to break dependence on hostile foreign powers?

By the way I would say to president Trump that the gains that Canada gets from increased access to the United States, I would spend largely on our Continental defense, on a more powerful Canadian military that truly secures the Arctic that protects us against terrorists and against intercontinental ballistic missiles, against threats, God forbid, from other parts of the world. We could have a bigger and more powerful military with a bigger and more powerful economy and so our interests overlap overwhelmingly.

That’s the case I would make to the incoming president
who has proven that he likes to make deals and is good at it.

 

Left Coast Climate Delusion Ends in Flames

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Satellite images of wildfires burning in Southern California By NBC Staff • Published January 11, 2025

Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. writes in Wall Street Journal End of a Climate Delusion.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Amid California’s fires, voters wake up from the dream that green pork is a solution.

CO2 emitted into the atmosphere is rapidly and, for all practical purposes, uniformly distributed around the planet.

I may be stating the obvious but it needs to be pointed out. Voters and even political leaders are surprisingly poorly informed on this point. Emissions cuts in California don’t have any significant effect on California’s climate. They also have no global effect. California’s cuts are too small relative to the global whole; they also are largely illusory.

Emitting industries leave the state. They don’t stop emitting. If California imports Canadian hydro to charge its electric vehicles, consumers elsewhere have to burn more coal and gas. If Californians drive EVs, more gasoline is free to be burned by others, releasing more CO2 that influences climate change in California and everywhere else.

Green-energy subsidies do not reduce emissions. This will be news to millions of California voters. It contradicts a central tenet of state policy. It isn’t news to the actual enactors of these subsidies. A National Research Council study sponsored by congressional Democrats in 2008 concluded that such handouts were a “poor tool for reducing greenhouse gases” and called for carbon taxes instead.

Unfortunately, the incoming Obama administration quickly discovered it favored climate taxes only when Republicans were in charge. Backers would later engage in flagrant lying to promote Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, knowingly citing bogus predictions that its trillion-dollar spending profusion would reduce emissions.

A 2019 University of Oregon study had already revealed the empirical truth: Green energy doesn’t replace fossil fuels, it enables more energy consumption overall. That same year the EPA calculated that the potential emissions savings from subsidizing electric vehicles had been offset five times over by the pickup truck and SUV boom Team Obama facilitated to assure the success of its auto bailout.

American Association for the Advancement of Science study finds that of 1,500 “climate” policies announced around the world, a mere 63, or 4%, produce any reduction in emissions.

Last year, the premier journal Science put a nail in the question: 96% of policies supported worldwide as “reducing” emissions failed to do so, consisting mostly of handouts to green-energy interests.

And yet certain Journal readers still assail me with the epithet “denier.” They confuse my criticism of Democratic hypocrisy with my imagined views on climate science. As I’ve written back to many, “Don’t think politicians haven’t figured this out about you. That’s why they can give us unsustainable corporate welfare boondoggles and call it climate policy.”

A CNN moderator Saturday urged viewers to vote in an online poll on whether the California disaster should be blamed on climate change or poor leadership. Notice the non sequitur: as if climate change is an excuse for not acting against fire risk.

By all means, let politicians proclaim a “climate crisis” or any other rhetorical flourish if it helps mobilize support for public actions that actually serve a useful purpose. But a prerevolutionary situation has been building in California for two decades, starting with the Third World blackouts in late 2000 not because of any shortage of power but because of large helpings of political cowardice.

A decision in 2019 authorized yet more Third World blackouts instead of reasonably shielding utilities from lawsuit risk over fires their power lines might be accused of contributing to. One result, predictably, has been a proliferation of backyard generators, which increase fire risk.

Californians are stuck adapting in the ways left open to them. Since 2017, half a million have fled Los Angeles County.

Two social technologies might help but the state has been intent on denying itself their advantages. One is a functioning insurance market. If you can’t afford the insurance, you can’t afford the house. Get ready, instead, for a torrent of federal and state money to help residents, some of them wealthy, rebuild in high-risk fire zones.

The other is a functioning market in water. Five gallons to produce a walnut probably isn’t tenable under any realistic system of water pricing. If water were properly valued, municipalities would also rapidly discover the logic of building aquifers to capture seasonal runoff. A thousand things would change if water were priced to flow to its most highly valued uses.

Here’s another concept: Climate change can exist and yet be an insignificant variable.

In Southern California’s Mediterranean climate, anytime 100-mile-an-hour winds start blowing embers toward densely packed housing developments, a conflagration is certain. The only answer then is to have the manpower and resources ready to put fires out as quickly as they start.

I’ve written repeatedly about climate and energy policies in the Western world being a colossal example of “sophisticated state failure,” in which attempts to address complex problems yield only a succession of boondoggles and economic crises. If California voters don’t wise up now, they never will.

 

 

Canada’s Choice: Elite Globalist or Common Sense Canadian

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Trump will soon fill a 4-year WH vacancy known as the “Biden/Harris Administration.” Meanwhile federal governance in Ottawa is shut down by Trudeau resigning without leaving but also suspending parliament.  There being no one at the helm is eerily similar to the US adrift, and a fitting close to the Trudeau decade. Jamie Sarkonak goes to the core of the upcoming election in his National Post article It doesn’t matter to Mark Carney if Canada survives.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images

As a member of the global elite, he will always be free
from the consequences of his political actions.

The problem Mark Carney, likely Liberal leader-to-be, will always run into is this: his fate doesn’t depend on a successful Canada.

Carney announced his leadership run Thursday. Odds are good he’s going to win. He’s not as recognizable as his only real competition, potential candidate and former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, but he doesn’t share her bruised record of inflating the deficit to multi-billion dollar highs, and last week’s polling shows that more people are open to voting for him than for her.

I hope he wins the party’s support. The Liberals aren’t likely to resonate with the population by running an out-of-touch cabinet minister in the next federal election — and they’re certainly less likely to do so by running an out-of-touch global elite who left small-time federal politics behind for a career at the pinnacle of international poshdom.

Yes, Carney is Canadian. But he’s also a citizen of Ireland,
and through it the European Union,
as well as a national of the United Kingdom.

He can leave this country any time he wants, and he already has: after serving as governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013, he moved on to head the Bank of England. Now, he’s embedded in the international ecosystem as a climate finance adviser at the United Nations (among other things, he’s a strong advocate for mandatory climate disclosures by banks).

Oh, and according to his World Economic Forum bio — another mark of borderless eliteness — he is also the following: “an external member of the Board of Stripe, a member of the Global Advisory Board of PIMCO, Harvard University, Rideau Hall Foundation, Bilderberg, the boards of Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Hoffman Institute for Global Business and Society at INSEAD, Cultivo, as well as Senior Counsellor of the MacroAdvisory Partners, Advisor of the Watershed, and Chair of Chatham House, the Group of Thirty and also Advisory Board Chair for Canada 2020.”  Us rubes have no idea what most of that even means.

Carney might call himself an “outsider,” and it’ll be true — in the sense that he is not currently in the Trudeau government’s cabinet. But he’s still very much an elite, one who has advised the Liberal party, and one whose well-being doesn’t depend on local happiness and prosperity.

And everyone filling out a ballot next election will know it.

Different people have different terms for this. Freeland wrote a book on the new richesse mondiale, calling them plutocrats. Circa 2013, she was warning the rest of us that the global plutocracy might one day end up turning into a system of crony capitalist “insiders”; perhaps an aristocracy. Carney’s not Bill-Gates rich, but he’s still part of the global upper class.

Chrystia Freeland is also a Trustee on the WEF Board.

Former prime minister Stephen Harper put it in more digestible terms in his 2018 book, “Right Here, Right Now”: there are people who live “anywhere,” and there are people who live “somewhere.” “Anywheres” are cosmopolitan types who usually have professional, internationally oriented careers. “Somewheres” live and work closer to where they grew up, and share more of their values with people of a similar, localized background. The former tends to look down on nationalism; the latter depends on it.

Carney counts among the “anywheres” of Canadian society; yes, he’s got the passport, but he’s got more in common with a foreign banking executive who makes an annual Davos pilgrimage than he does with regular Superstore-shopping Canadians.

We “somewheres,” on the other hand, can’t just up and leave
in the face of turmoil because our entire life is here.

Our friends and families are here. Our savings and investments (if we have them) are in CAD; our partly-paid mortgages are tied to Canadian land; our children’s education depends on the quality of Canadian schools; our safety depends on Canadian laws; our job prospects suffer when low-wage foreign labour is allowed to flood our local markets. We’re not being forced to leave, but the price of relocating is prohibitively high.

Carney’s Monday appearance on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show was revealing in that way: he targeted his pre-audition pitch to the world through an American late-night show that treated him with the same humorous fascination as it would a fuzzy exotic animal. It was a soft and unserious interview because the people our former central banker is campaigning toward aren’t Canadian and aren’t witnessing the country’s dire situation firsthand.

Poilievre’s appearances on Dr. Jordan Peterson’s American-produced podcast were of a whole different category; both men are Canadian and can talk about Canadian issues with the weight and care they deserve.

None of this is to say that the upper crust of society should stay out of politics — many great leaders come from the elite class, including on the conservative side of politics. But after years of regular Canadians being the low-priority afterthought of a trust-fund supported, second-generation prime minister who seemed happiest at G7 photoshoots and Gavin-Newsom meetups, the animal spirits are hungering for a leader who truly has skin in the game.

And yes, I’d count Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre among the “somewheres.” He’s had an entirely Canadian career, he isn’t gunning for CV-padding UN advisory roles, his ongoing career doesn’t depend on pleasing the moral sensibilities of the world’s politically active, post-national liberals, and he doesn’t seem to think that pre-election media courting should be performed for an international audience.

If the ship that is Canada starts sinking — and it’s been sitting alarmingly low in recent years — most of us are going down with it. Not Carney, who has and always will have a premium life raft, ready to isolate him from the consequences of his political actions. Which is exactly why I can’t wait to see him run.

World Institutions Pushing Pseudoscience

Posted on by Ron Clutz

 

Since 1660, Nullius in verba was the Royal Society’s motto.  “Don’t take anyone’s word for it.”

Yesterday’s post showed how American science societies have taken to parroting climatist suppositions rather than applying critical intelligence to claims of a “climate crisis.” That unquestioning attitude betrays the science method expressed in the Royal Society’s motto.  Today presents Tilak Doshi describing how the same pattern appears in international institutions supposed to be objective reporters of natural conditions. His Daily Signal article is The Climate Agenda’s March Through the Institutions: Can It Be Stopped? Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

A spate of stories in the media recently provides a remarkable illustration of how the globalist policy agenda of the climate-industrial complex has captured key international institutions and perverted their original organizational aims. From initially serving broad, laudable objectives for the welfare of their constituents, these institutions have been subverted over the years to serve the insistent pseudoscientific claims of climate alarmists.

The corruption of global institutions has, in turn, led to significant opposition that is becoming apparent. There is the prospect of an incoming Trump administration that is avowedly skeptical of the claims of an alleged climate crisis and is intent on exiting the U.N.’s Paris Agreement and its “net zero by 2050” policy target for a second time. This presents a welcome challenge to these corrupt institutions.

Will President Donald Trump and some of the populist parties in Europe
be capable of countering the entrenched globalist climate agenda?

The World Bank

On Oct. 17, Oxfam published a report that shockingly found that up to $41 billion in World Bank climate finance—nearly 40% of all climate funds disbursed by the World Bank over the past seven years—is “unaccounted for between the time projects were approved and when they closed.” In other words, no one knows how the money was used. There is no paper trail revealing where the money went or what the accomplished results were.

Green cronyism, ranging from the Solyndra debacle—the waste of almost half a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money on a failed solar farm project under President Barack Obama’s watch—to President Joe Biden’s duplicitously-named Inflation Reduction Act, which will unleash an estimated $1 trillion deluge of subsidies on favored “green” industries, is nothing new. But it is instructive to trace the World Bank’s decline from its honorable founding objectives to its current status as yet another institution advocating green causes.

Dr. Jim Yong Kim, reflecting the progressive virtues of Obama, who appointed him as president of the World Bank in 2012, imposed a ban on the financing of coal-fired power stations in 2013. This was followed by a ban on investments in all new upstream oil and gas resource development projects.

The distinguished economist Deepak Lal, a former research administrator of the World Bank, remarked that Kim incredulously “over-ruled the cost-benefit estimates of coal-based power over solar and wind-based power generation produced by his own economic staff, justifying this by reference to a wish to cut global emissions of greenhouse gases.”

The World Bank’s objections to the use of fossil fuels despite their importance to economic growth and poverty alleviation—which constitute its foundational institutional objectives—can be traced to the intellectual evolution of its management under James Wolfensohn during his decade as president (1995-2005).

Wolfensohn traced the arc from the old regime to the new. The old was represented by the “Washington consensus” of free markets, liberal trading regimes, sound money, and entrepreneurship associated with the classical liberalism of Adam Smith.

The new intellectual environment of the World Bank’s management—personified by Joseph Stiglitz, chief economist of the World Bank (1997-2000)—was defined by the theoretical failures of the free market, especially in accounting for the alleged negative climate impacts of fossil fuel use.

Stiglitz, a climate alarmist, wrote in a 2015 court brief for a failed climate lawsuit brought on behalf of a group of children against the U.S. federal government that “fossil fuel-based economies imposed ‘incalculable’ costs on society and shifting to clean energy will pay off.” [See Climatists Make Their Case by Omitting Facts]

Rupert Darwall, a former adviser to the United Kingdom’s chancellor of the exchequer and author of “Green Tyranny,” encapsulates the betrayal of the World Bank to its founding objectives as follows:

The World Bank’s mission has been subverted by green ideologues who assert that a low-carbon world benefits the world’s poor but fail to acknowledge that making energy much more costly increases poverty. The World Bank tags itself as ‘working for a world free of poverty’ … In making its choice between development and sustainability, the World Bank has decided it is going to try and ‘save the planet’ on the backs of the poor.

Yes, those are trillions of US$ they want to spend on an imaginary crisis.

By abdicating its founding principles for alleviating global poverty, the World Bank has taken a lead role among multilateral financial institutions in denying vast financial resources to poorer countries. It has hypocritically vetoed the right of developing countries to adopt the path of economic growth and environmental improvement that the now-rich countries had taken up successfully since the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago. The World Bank’s obsessive support for intermittent, low-yield renewable energy such as solar and wind power comes at the cost of its central charter to help the poor, an outcome that can only be described as egregiously unjust.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The U.N. IPCC issued a news release on Dec. 6 prior to the start of a “scoping” meeting in Kuala Lumpur of over 230 experts from 70 countries to draft outlines of working group contributions to the U.N. IPCC’s seventh Assessment Report (to be completed in 2029).

In the press release, the IPCC claimed that human combustion of fossil fuels “has resulted in more frequent and more intense extreme weather events that have caused increasingly dangerous impacts on nature and people in every region of the world.” This is contrary to the IPCC’s position hitherto, which is that almost all types of extreme weather events cannot be attributed with confidence to human activity.

The position of the IPCC regarding the lack of any link between climate change and extreme weather events is contrary to the almost daily headlines in the mainstream media attributing specific adverse weather events to “climate change.”

The work of eminent climate policy analysts Steve Koonin and Roger Pielke Jr. has done much to expose the pseudoscientific nature of what has been called “attribution studies.” These typically involve researchers who apply their climate models and historical observations to conclude that any particular weather event (say a hurricane or a drought) was made “more likely” or “more severe” by some magnitude in percentage units due to “human influence” (referring to the combustion of fossil fuels).

Based on the dubious claims of “attribution science,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a climate law last week that will require companies operating in New York state responsible for large amounts of planet-warming pollution to contribute to climate damage repair efforts. Under the new state law, companies responsible for the bulk of emissions from 2000 to 2018 will be on the hook for some $3 billion a year over the next 25 years.

Koonin cites the World Meteorological Organization that states that “any single event, such as tropical cyclone cannot be attributed to human-induced climate change, given the state of scientific understanding.” The IPCC’s “Special Report on Extreme Events” states that “Many weather and climate extremes are the result of natural climate variability … Even if there were no anthropogenic changes in climate, a wide variety of natural weather and climate extremes would still occur.”

Nonetheless, international organizations such as the World Bank and the IPCC have been increasingly politicized to serve climate hysteria. In this context, Chris Morrison of The Daily Sceptic finds that “[f]ears are growing that the IPCC could water down or even ditch its current finding that almost all types of extreme weather events have little or no sign of past human involvement, or any going forward to 2100.”

International Energy Agency

On Dec. 23, U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, released a report documenting how the International Energy Agency “has moved away from its energy security mission to become an “energy transition” cheerleader.”

The report finds that “French President [Emmanuel] Macron’s observation that IEA has become the ‘armed wing for implementing the Paris Agreement’ is regrettably true. With the many serious energy security challenges facing the world, however, IEA should not be a partisan cheerleader. What the world needs from IEA—and what it is not receiving now—is sober and unbiased analyses and projections that educate and inform policymakers and investors. IEA needs to remember why it was established and return to its energy security mission.”

The divergence of the IEA away from its original mission to advise policymakers in its member countries with sound analysis of trends in global energy supply and demand to becoming a “cheerleader” for radical net-zero emission policy targets has not gone unnoticed over recent years. I have written on the ideological approach adopted by the IEA in its advocacy for green causes here, here, and here.

When ideological advocacy becomes the measure of achievement for the IEA, the loss of credibility and soundness of its policy advice is only to be expected. The IEA’s messianic fervour for green technologies such as solar and wind power, “green” hydrogen, batteries, and electric vehicles prevents it from asking basic questions.

If it is true that drastically cutting back on fossil fuels is consistent with higher economic growth and increased productive employment, why does the IEA recommend policymakers force countries along “net-zero” pathways? Surely, if replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar energy and electric vehicles promotes growth and employment, then wouldn’t countries such as China and India naturally race toward this best of all possible worlds without expensive green subsidies and punitive anti-fossil fuel policies?

The Trumpian Revolution Looms

Nonprofit organizations reflect the needs of their funding members, and organizations such as the World Bank, IPCC, and IEA are no different. As their funding is primarily from the U.S. and the EU, it is not surprising that they manifest the “climate emergency” predilections of the Biden administration and the largely left-socialist West European governments that see climate change as an existential threat and a national security priority. In taking up the mantle of green advocacy on behalf of their paymasters, these organizations have lost all credibility as independent and objective advisors for their member countries.

The climate-industrial complex fears the prospect of the Trump administration’s pullout of the Paris Agreement for the second time. Politico, a reliable mouthpiece for the climate establishment, expressed these fears soon after Trump’s election victory: “The world is bracing for President-elect Donald Trump to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement for the second time—only this time, he could move faster and with less restraint.” In Europe, the emergence of populist parties has been partly propelled by the widespread rejection by EU citizens of the onerous fiscal burdens imposed by green policies.

The seismic change in policy direction that a second term “drill, baby, drill” Trump administration promises for the global climate juggernaut—represented by the three leading international agencies covered here—can only be seen as hopeful as we look forward to positive developments in energy policy in 2025.

 

 

 

Scientific Societies Misstate “Climate Change”

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Wallace Manheimer provides examples of the errors needing corrections in his American Thinker article Scientific Societies Err on ‘Climate Change’.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Major scientific organizations’ statements on “climate change” and the conclusions therein form the basis of much of the scientific foundation for governmental, scientific, media, and public concerns on the use of fossil fuels. Trillions of public and private dollars are currently being spent on alternative fuels to “save the planet” from the alleged harm of increasing CO2, a gas which is vital for life on earth. If the evaluations of these societies are erroneous, these measures could impoverish much of the world, to say nothing of wasting trillions. Economic damage and social unrest are already evident in some countries, including the United States.

It is therefore imperative for all that their views be based on sound science,
and if not, these societies should change their statements.

A recent publication and podcast have examined the scientific organization’s climate statements, and have found numerous errors, errors which are easy to find by simply comparing the societies’ statements with data from such reliable sources as NOAA, NASA, and others. These societies are:

♦  American Physical Society (APS),
♦  American Meteorological Society (AMS),
♦  National Academy of Science (NAS),
♦  American Chemical Society (ACS), and
♦  American Geophysical Union (AGU).    

[Manheimer refers to paper Science Societies Climate Statements: Some Concerns]

Here is one example. The AGU states “Greater CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are also affecting the growth and nutritional value of land plants…” Numerous studies, including measurements of terrestrial plant life from space, and measurements of crop production, have shown that if anything, increasing CO2 has increased both plant life and crop production. After all, CO2 is a vital nutrient for plants, and the slight warming we have experienced, possibly in part due to the increased CO2, has increased the growing seasons in the temperate latitudes.

As another example, the ACS statement asserts: “Extreme weather and related events, such as floods, droughts… are increasing in frequency and intensity, threatening Americans’ physical, social, and economic well-being.”. The frequency and intensity of floods and droughts is measured by what is called NOAA’s Palmer drought index and this index is displayed as a graph vs of index versus year. It shows clearly, that in the United States the worst sustained droughts in the U.S. were in the 1930s and 1950s, and the worst sustained floods were in the 1970s through the 1990s.

Tens of thousands of scientists, including over 10,000 with Ph.Ds., have critically examined the evidence, and have concluded that a CO2-induced climate crisis is extremely unlikely. They have willingly and publicly asserted this, by adding their names to document such as, the Oregon petition, Clintel Climate Petition , and the CO2 Coalition. Among other things, the societies should not ignore these, professional conclusions of many of their members.

Accordingly, and with humility, I suggest that these societies do the following:

  1.  Replace their climate statements with ones that say there is most likely an effect humans have on the changing climate, but its importance for humanity is uncertain and it is still being debated.
  2.   Eliminate statements that are demonstrably incorrect, as shown by comparison with easily available and reliable data.
  3. Acknowledge in their statements that fossil fuels cannot be replaced in the next several decades without greatly endangering our civilization.
  4. Acknowledge in their statements that CO2 has obvious obvious benefit for human existence, as well as potential risks.

By changing their statements to ones that are more moderate and scientifically correct, these societies will not only be helping the professions they serve, but more important, will ultimately be aiding humanity. On the other hand, if they keep their statements as they are, they will remain on the wrong side of history, and posterity will not look kindly on them. And posterity may be arriving sooner than they think. With a Republican Congress and President Trump referring to the “green new scam,” these society presidents may find themselves hauled before Congress to receive the university president treatment.

After all, the APS statement says, “Multiple lines of evidence strongly support the finding that anthropogenic greenhouse gases have become the dominant driver of global climate warming observed since the mid-twentieth century.”

    • What will its president say when the congressman puts up a graph showing that for 30 years in the early decades of the 20th century, the warming rate was the same or greater?
    • Or when he puts up a map proving that the northern forests, 4000 years ago extended about 200 miles further north worldwide than they do today.
    • Or shows that 2000 years ago, the Romans had vineyards in England extending all the way to Hadrian’s wall, millennia before cold weather grapes had been developed.
    • Or when he shows evidence that 1000 years ago the Vikings grew barley in Greenland, something not possible today. Surely this proves that the world had many warmer periods without the help of extra CO2 in the atmosphere.

There are many such statements that Congress can quote, to very publicly humiliate these society presidents. As a committed life fellow of the APS, I hope these societies will change their statements now, before the roof collapses on them.

Background from Richard Lindzen

The above described changes in scientific culture were both the cause and effect of the growth of ‘big science,’ and the concomitant rise in importance of large organizations. However, all such organizations, whether professional societies, research laboratories, advisory bodies (such as the national academies), government departments and agencies (including NASA, NOAA, EPA, NSF, etc.), and even universities are hierarchical structures where positions and policies are determined by small executive councils or even single individuals. This greatly facilitates any conscious effort to politicize science via influence in such bodies where a handful of individuals (often not even scientists) speak on behalf of organizations that include thousands of scientists, and even enforce specific scientific positions and agendas. The temptation to politicize science is overwhelming and longstanding. Public trust in science has always been high, and political organizations have long sought to improve their own credibility by associating their goals with ‘science’ – even if this involves misrepresenting the science.

Professional societies represent a somewhat special case. Originally created to provide a means for communication within professions – organizing meetings and publishing journals – they also provided, in some instances, professional certification, and public outreach. The central offices of such societies were scattered throughout the US, and rarely located in Washington. Increasingly, however, such societies require impressive presences in Washington where they engage in interactions with the federal government. Of course, the nominal interaction involves lobbying for special advantage, but increasingly, the interaction consists in issuing policy and scientific statements on behalf of the society. Such statements, however, hardly represent independent representation of membership positions. For example, the primary spokesman for the American Meteorological Society in Washington is Anthony Socci who is neither an elected official of the AMS nor a contributor to climate science. Rather, he is a former staffer for Al Gore.

Returning to the matter of scientific organizations, we find a variety of patterns of influence. The most obvious to recognize (though frequently kept from public view), consists in prominent individuals within the environmental movement simultaneously holding and using influential positions within the scientific organization. Thus, John Firor long served as administrative director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. This position was purely administrative, and Firor did not claim any scientific credentials in the atmospheric sciences at the time I was on the staff of NCAR. However, I noticed that beginning in the 1980’s, Firor was frequently speaking on the dangers of global warming as an expert from NCAR. When Firor died last November, his obituary noted that he had also been Board Chairman at Environmental Defense– a major environmental advocacy group – from 1975-1980 [5].

One could go on at some length with such examples, but a more common form of infiltration consists in simply getting a couple of seats on the council of an organization (or on the advisory panels of government agencies). This is sufficient to veto any statements or decisions that they are opposed to. Eventually, this enables the production of statements supporting their position – if only as a quid pro quo for permitting other business to get done. Sometimes, as in the production of the 1993 report of the NAS, Policy Implications of Global Warming, the environmental activists, having largely gotten their way in the preparation of the report where they were strongly represented as ‘stake holders,’ decided, nonetheless, to issue a minority statement suggesting that the NAS report had not gone ‘far enough.’ The influence of the environmental movement has effectively made support for global warming, not only a core element of political correctness, but also a requirement for the numerous prizes and awards given to scientists. That said, when it comes to professional societies, there is often no need at all for overt infiltration since issues like global warming have become a part of both political correctness and (in the US) partisan politics, and there will usually be council members who are committed in this manner.

Source:  Climate Science: Is it Currently Designed to Answer Questions?

Comment: These bodies all claim to serve society, which as American institutions should primarily be concerned about American society.  Funded by American taxpayers and donors, they should consider first and foremost their own country’s needs.  That means stopping the fuzzy logic and blurring the truth about weather and climate.  Otherwise they must fade into irrelevance.

And they must stop promoting the interests of a few colleagues at the expense of the many ordinary citizens.

 

L.A.’s Self-induced Fires Seen From the Ground

Posted on by Ron Clutz

E.M. Smith provides a resident-level view of the California Calamity at his Chiefio blog Los Angeles Burning & Did It To Themselves.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Check The News – L.A. Is On Fire

Yes, it is a disaster. Yes, $Billions of real estate going up in flames. Yes, “Stars” Losing everything; and normies too. No, it is not due to Global Warming. This is January and seasonal cool swamps any 1.5 C change.

It looks like not just Malibu, but several places all around Los Angeles, the hills, Hollywood, and more are having major fire problems.

Houses built too close together, using flammable materials. Trees and
shrubs that are flammable too. Then the Santa Ana Winds kick in.

Fire is an absolutely normal aspect of the Southern California landscape. When the Santa Ana winds blow (down slope wind that heats up from compression and gets funneled into a narrower space, so very fast) any fire becomes a blow torch. By then, there is not much you can do. Prevention is what matters, so now we wait for the winds to die down.

One TV Video showed a multi-lane major road, about 6 lanes across by the look of it. All abandoned cars. Folks trying to flee the fire, in a traffic jam, got out of their cars and ran. Firefighters had to take a bulldozer and push the cars off the road to make a lane for firetrucks.

This is the edge of insane.

So instead of mitigating fuel loads, assuring there are enough fire trucks, fire fighters, and water storage, Gavin Newsom & the L.A. area Mayors, were busy working on how to run for POTUS, and Get Trump, and assure the Unions donated a lot of money to Democrats. Hollywood “Names” were busy complaining about Republicans and having Panic Attacks about Global Warming instead of asking if their trees were Towering Infernos waiting to happen and replacing that Shake Roof with a metal one.

Distraction leads to destruction. They all knew they lived in a fire zone. PSAs have been running about it my whole life in California (at least 65 years). They chose parties with All The Right People over Prudent Planning and preparation. They chose “self actualization” over Situational Awareness and adaptation (and hard work).   Now comes the consequences.

In Conclusion

BUT, fire awareness and risk has been true the entire life of California. Either you learn to mitigate fuel, provide for rapid and effective fire suppression, and harden you house against fire; or you burn. Has always been that way. Will be too.

Folks have known for generations how to harden, mitigate, and adapt. Have houses separated from each other by enough space that one can not start the next one on fire. Build with non-flammable materials (cinder block, concrete, stucco over wire with metal 2×4 studs, tile or metal roofs, and metal shutters to prevent IR ignition of drapes inside windows (or even fiberglass drapes). Install water sprinkler fire suppression systems. DO NOT PLANT FLAMMABLE TREES, BUSHES & GRASS around houses. Have wide firebreaks between buildings. And more.

Remaining trees and vegetation on the forest floor are more vigorous after removal of small trees for fuels reduction.

All of this has been known for 100 years.

But you get more houses built, so more money made, if you pack them 12 to an acre. Folks like the “look” of wood shake roofs, asphalt shingles are cheaper, nobody wants “stucco” anymore, but I LIKE eucalyptus! and on it goes.

Nobody wants to “damage the ecology” by taking out scrub and clearing forest liter. Paying for and planning large water sources, big pipes & pumps, and having all necessary equipment on standby for a decade (or two) “for that day” just seems wasteful; until you need it.

So call me hard-hearted. I grew up in Fire Country. I’ve fought grass fires and as a temporary Forest Fire Fighter climbed up and down hills with a Pulaski (axe hoe combo) on my shoulder, sleeping in a shredded newspaper stuffed sleeping bag for a weekend, working a fire. The home I grew up in had a metal roof. My present home has cinder block walls with stucco and faux brick over it. When this roof wears out in a few years, the replacement will be metal. I have hoses and nozzles ready to put out any sparks that blow in (old habits die hard…) Folks either prepare for fire, or they accept the consequences.

A feller buncher removing small trees that act as fuel ladders and transmit fire into the forest canopy.

So when the inevitable bleating and braying about Global Warming Oh Noes! and “More Fires!” starts: Just ask if they know how many of the homes had metal roofs & shutters and stucco over cinder block walls? How many homes had a 20 foot fire break of non-flammable area around them?

And answers came there none.

Democrats: You own this one 100% since you own ALL of California Government. You made all the building codes, water systems, fire departments, roads & infrastructure. Planned all of it. Permitted the “rack ’em, pack ’em & stack ’em” building permits. Made money off cheaper wood & asphalt shingle construction. Now you will reap the results.

Wyoming: Make Carbon Dioxide Great Again–No Net Zero

Posted on by Ron Clutz

A bill is progressing through the Wyoming State Legislature, as described by the author in her op-ed Rethinking Carbon Dioxide – Wyoming’s Bold Move.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Torrington, WY (State Senator Cheri Steinmetz) January 7th, 2025 — The people of Wyoming have always believed in the value of questioning conventional wisdom, looking at the bigger picture and finding solutions that are possible and actually work. That’s the purpose of the bill titled “Make Carbon Dioxide Great Again”. This legislation is not about denying science, it is about applying science, thoroughly reevaluating the ‘climate change’ scientific assumptions and advocating for policies grounded in practicality, reality, and achievability – common sense.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is vital to life on Earth.

Without it, plants could not grow, and without plants, no life would survive. Scientists and farmers alike recognize that higher CO2 levels improve agricultural productivity. Plants thrive with more CO2 – they grow faster, use water more efficiently, and are more resilient to drought. NASA’s own research shows that rising CO2 has contributed to a global “greening” effect, expanding vegetation and helping ecosystems flourish. CO2 is plant food!

Yet, despite its essential role in sustaining life,
CO2 has been demonized as a pollutant.

But what impact are human driven CO2 emissions actually capable of? We are contributing a very small part of the natural carbon cycle. Current CO2 levels are among the lowest Earth has seen over its long history. There were times in the past when ecosystems flourished under much higher CO2 concentrations. Instead of vilifying this essential gas, we should be acknowledging its role in our ecosystems and industries and protect the benefits it has in our lives.

Wyoming is uniquely positioned to lead this conversation.

Our state is vital to energy production, agriculture and food industries, transportation and energy reliability and stability. We understand the real-world importance of CO2. And we understand the benefits of CO2 used directly. Our industries already use it to enhance oil recovery, making energy production more efficient. This technology exemplifies what we are capable of when we treat CO2 as a resource rather than a liability.

The bill Make Carbon Dioxide Great Again shifts how we think about CO2.

It proposes that we stop treating the essential gas as a pollutant or contaminant. It requires a clear-eyed look at how policies aimed at eliminating CO2 emissions, such as decarbonizing the West, making Wyoming carbon negative or popular “net-zero” mandates. They may sound good on paper but often come with high economic costs and questionable environmental benefits, and clearly negative effects on our people and our industries.

Wyoming must refuse to jeopardize our economy and energy security
for initiatives that will yield – at best – questionable results.

Critics of “net-zero” strategies have highlighted the risks of pursuing policy goals without fully considering their consequences. These frequently require massive investments, disruption of reliable energy systems, and the forced undue burdens on families and businesses. Instead, Wyoming advocates for a balanced approach – one that evaluates the risks and possible rewards of any CO2 management plans that will safeguard our economic stability and way of life.

This approach challenges the status quo, and that is precisely the point. Now is the time to rethink how we talk about CO2 and climate change. This bill is not about ignoring environmental concerns; it is about addressing them with clear-eyed pragmatism and truth.

Wyoming is taking a bold step forward to lead a balanced, science-based dialogue. We all stand to benefit from this. Our energy sector, agriculture, transportation and all other industries, and even the broader environment, will gain when we use CO2 wisely.

This conversation is just beginning and must spark
a national debate about the fundamental role of CO2.

It is a debate we need to have – not just in Wyoming, with our own Governor and citizens – but across the nation and with all the organizations leading the charge to “net zero.” Let us challenge the assumptions, ask the hard questions, and make sure our policies truly serve the people, industry and the environment. After all, that is the Wyoming way.

Text of Wyoming Bill     SF0092  Make carbon dioxide great again-no net zero.

AN   ACT   relating to   environmental quality;   providing legislative findings;
specifying that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant and is a beneficial substance;
providing policy statements of the state associated with carbon dioxide;
repealing low-carbon energy standard requirements; repealing conflicting provisions;
making conforming amendments;  specifying applicability;
requiring reimbursement to utility customers as specified;
requiring rulemaking; and providing for an effective date.

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

Section 1.    W.S. 35-11-215 is created to read:

1             SF0092

35-11-215.     Carbon dioxide;   beneficial treatment; state policy.

(a)   The legislature finds that:

  (i)    Carbon dioxide is  a foundational nutrient necessary for all life on earth. Plants need carbon dioxide along with sunlight, water and nutrients to prosper. The more carbon dioxide available for this, the better life can  flourish;

  (ii)    The carbon cycle, where carbon dioxide is reused and transferred between the atmosphere and organisms on earth, is a biological necessity for life on earth;

  (iii)    Agricultural production worldwide is outpacing population growth and breaking production records primarily due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide;

  (iv)    More carbon dioxide allows plants to better resist drought by using water more efficiently;

  (v)     The national aeronautics and space administration has confirmed that global vegetation is increasing from the near-polar regions to the equator. The largest contributor to this greening of  the earth is increasing carbon dioxide;

  (vi)     Carbon dioxide levels are currently at approximately four hundred twenty (420) parts per million, which is  at near-historically low concentrations.   The current carbon dioxide levels are one-sixth (1/6) of the average of  two thousand six hundred  (2,600)  parts per million over geologic time;

  (vii)     It is estimated that carbon dioxide levels  need to exceed one hundred fifty (150) parts per million to ensure the survival of plant life on earth;

  (viii)     The earth needs carbon dioxide to support  life and to  increase plant yields,  both of     which will contribute to  the health and prosperity of  all Wyoming citizens.

   (b)     It is the policy of the state of Wyoming that:

(i)       Carbon dioxide is a foundational nutrient necessary for life on earth;

(ii)       Carbon dioxide shall not be designated or treated as a pollutant or contaminant;

(iii)       The state of Wyoming shall not pursue any targets or measures that support the reduction or elimination of  carbon dioxide,  including any  “net-zero”  targets.

          Section 2.        W.S. 37-1-101(a)(intro) and 37-2-134(a)(i)  and (iv) are amended to read:

37-1-101.       Definitions.

(a)   As used in chapters 1, 2, 3, 12, and 17 and 18 of  this title:

37-2-134.       Electric generation facility closures; presumption; commission review

(a)    As used in this section:

(i)     “Dispatchable” means as defined in W.S. 37-18-101(a)(ii) a source of electricity that is available for use on demand and that can be dispatched upon request of a power grid operator or that can have its power output adjusted, according to  market needs and includes dispatchability;

(iv)    “Reliable” means as  defined in W.S. 37-18-101(a)(iv) generated electricity that is not subject to intermittent availability.

        Section    3.    W.S.    37-1-101(a)(vi)(N), 37-18-101 and  37-18-102 are repealed.

Section    4.   Not later than sixty (60) days after the effective date of this act each public utility that recovered rates from customers under W.S. 37-18-102(c)(i) or (iii),  as repealed by section 3 of this act, shall refund those rates to customers who paid them, provided that the utility shall not be  required to refund rates recovered under W.S. 37-18-102(c)(i) and (iii) that the utility had expended for carbon capture, utilization and storage technology before the effective date of this act. Refunds required under this section shall be in a form and manner specified by the public service commission

Section    5.  The public service commission shall promulgate all rules necessary to implement this act.

Section    6.  This act is effective immediately upon completion of all acts necessary for a bill to become law as provided by Article 4, Section 8 of the Wyoming Constitution.

 (END)

US Supremes Hear Climate Lawfare Case to Stop Oil Railway

Posted on by Ron Clutz

IER reports the news from December in article The Supreme Court Takes on a Case Involving the National Environmental Policy Act.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Key Takeaways

1  The Supreme Court has heard a major NEPA case that could affect investment in energy and other infrastructure projects in America.

2  Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado will decide whether permit applicants must anticipate far-flung speculative impacts over which federal agencies have no control.

3  The case involves an 88-mile railway accessing oil production in the Uinta Basin in Utah, allowing expansion of domestic oil production as well as access to essential minerals in the region.

4  Green advocates sued the Surface Transportation Board because it approved without considering alleged but inestimable impacts far from the project.

5  Lower courts have sided with the Greens, who oppose mineral and energy development.

6  SCOTUS is expected to clarify the burdens projects must face to comply with NEPA, which has become a tool of delay and denial by those opposing projects of all kinds in the United States.

7 Congress is also looking at NEPA streamlining as the act has become an impediment to rational development in the United States.
The Supreme Court recently heard a major case, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, that will affect the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The case concerns the permitting of a proposed Utah railway that would ship oil from the Uinta Basin, potentially quadrupling its oil production. The 88-mile Uinta Basin Railway would connect the oil fields of northeastern Utah to the national rail network running alongside 100 or so miles of the Colorado River to reach oil refineries on the Gulf Coast.  According to The Hill,  at issue is whether and when upstream and downstream environmental impacts should be considered as part of federal environmental reviews. The company behind the railway and a group of Utah counties appealed a lower court decision to the Supreme Court, arguing that those indirect impacts are beyond the scope of the federal reviews.

Background

The case concerns a rail line to support oil development and mineral mining. In 2021, the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB) issued a 3,600-page environmental impact statement to comply with NEPA and approved the rail line. The NEPA mandates that federal agencies assess the environmental effects of projects within their authority. Any major initiative that is managed, regulated, or authorized by the federal government must undergo a NEPA evaluation, a process that can span years and frequently exposes projects to legal challenges.

The STB analyzed the railway’s potential effects on local water resources, air quality, protected species, recreation, local economies, the Ute Indian tribe, and other factors. Environmental groups, however, sued the agency, saying that it failed to examine sufficiently how the railway might affect the risk of accidents on connecting lines hundreds of miles away and to assess emissions in “environmental justice communities” on the Gulf Coast from increased oil shipments, among other supposed shortcomings.

According to the Wall Street Journal editorial board, “a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel sided with the plaintiffs and told the STB it must consider the line’s upstream and downstream effects even if they were hard to predict and beyond the control of the agency and developers. This includes the effects of oil shipments on Gulf Coast refiners and their contributions to climate change.” The appeals court ruling found that the federal STB violated the Endangered Species Act and the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act when it permitted the project.

Furthermore, the editorial board also explained that lower court judges—those on the D.C. and Ninth Circuits—ignored the Supreme Court’s past rulings and imposed arbitrary permitting requirements with no limiting principle. The STB lacks authority over Gulf Coast refiners and cannot prevent climate change.

Court Rulings Regarding NEPA

The Supreme Court has heard other related cases and held that agencies need not consider indirect and unpredictable impact, most recently in a 2004 case, Department of Transportation v. Public Citizen. In that case, the Supreme Court held that agencies need only analyze environmental impact with “a reasonably close causal relationship” over which they have “statutory authority” and which they can prevent.

In 2020, the Supreme Court green-lit approval for permits for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline after nearly seven years of litigation, but the pipeline was scrapped due to legal delays that raised project costs significantly. It takes an average of 4.2 years to litigate a NEPA challenge, which adds to the four or more years to obtain a federal permit. These delays are what frustrate investment in new projects, slowing job creation and economic expansion in the United States.

A judge struck down a Montana coal mine permit because a federal agency did not consider the climate effects of coal combustion in Asia. Additionally, a 225-mile electric transmission line in Nebraska has been stuck in permitting for 10 years because a lower court invalidated a U.S. Fish and Wildlife permit.

Conclusion

The Supreme Court is tackling a case involving the scope of a federal environmental law, NEPA, that involves a rail line to move oil. In this case, lower courts agreed with environmental groups, who are challenging the government’s permit approval of the rail line. The case is instrumental to the issue of what should be considered when determining potential environmental damages. Congress recognizes that NEPA needs reform as delays over lawsuits have killed projects and dramatically increased their costs and it continues to debate ways to make federal permitting easier and quicker. Until that reform happens, however, Supreme Court Justices need to reign in the environmental limits of NEPA so that needed projects can progress in America.

What Keeps “Energy Transition” Going? $ $ $

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Robert Gauthier answered posting on a Quora topic How could we reverse the damage done by the “green energy” global scam that brought less efficient and highly polluting energy producing projects and high energy prices? Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Wind and solar power has provided politicians with an excuse to dispense favours—including taxpayer-funded subsidies and tax preferences to a supposedly “green” industry—while appearing to do something for the environment. And yet, despite more than two decades of massive subsidies, tax preferences and purchasing mandates from governments, wind and solar power still represent barely more than a rounding error of global energy production. In jurisdictions where renewables enjoyed strong but ill-considered political support, consumers and taxpayers now face much higher electricity bills and less-reliable power. And despite promises to the contrary, countries such as Germany, which have significantly increased wind and solar electricity production, have seen no meaningful reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Far from being a miracle cure-all for the shortcomings of conventional power generation, wind and solar power exaggerate the symptoms they pretend to address. Added up over the past two decades, the cumulative subsidies across the world for biofuels, wind, and solar approach about $5 trillion, all of that to supply roughly 5% of global energy.

The whole justification for the falling costs of wind generation rested on the assumption that much bigger turbines would produce more output at lower capex cost per megawatt, without the large costs of generational change. Now we have confirmation that such optimism is entirely unjustified – the whole development process has been a case of too far, too fast. Again, this was both predictable and predicted. The idea that wind turbines are immune to the factors that affect other types of power engineering was always absurd. The consequence is that both capital and operating costs for wind farms will not fall as rapidly as claimed and may not fall significantly at all. It follows that current energy policies in the West are based on foundations of sand – naïve optimism reinforced by enthusiastic lobbying divorced from engineering reality.

In the end, however, politicians cannot defy the laws of physics and economics. The promise of wind and solar power will always clash with the need for electricity that is low cost and reliable. That’s why voters routinely punish politicians who pursue flawed renewable energy policies. Rising electricity costs due to increased wind and solar power damage the economy by making businesses that consume significant volumes of electricity less competitive and by leaving less money in the pockets of consumers.

In Ontario, Canada during the run of the Green Energy Act there which attempted to replace coal and nuclear with wind and solar the upshot was a 138% increase in the price of electricity at the meter for the consumers. This led to the government that brought in this legislation to lose the next election so badly that they were no longer recognized as a party in the legislature. Naturally the government that replaced them killed the program and started refurbishing the nuclear reactor fleet there.

Unfortunately, solar and wind technologies require huge amounts of land to deliver relatively small amounts of energy, disrupting natural habitats. The real estate that wind and solar energy demand led the Nature Conservancy to issue a report last year critical of “energy sprawl,” including tens of thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines needed to carry electricity from wind and solar installations to distant cities.

Land required for wind farms to power London UK

Building a single 100-MW wind farm—never mind thousands of them—requires some 30,000 tons of iron ore and 50,000 tons of concrete, as well as 900 tons of nonrecyclable plastics for the huge blades. With solar hardware, the tonnage in cement, steel, and glass is 150% greater than for wind, for the same energy output

Take batteries. It is estimated that current battery manufacturing capabilities will need to be in the order of 500-700 times bigger than now to support an all-electric global transport system. The materials needed just to allow the UK to transition to all electric transport involve amounts of materials equal to 200% the annual global production of cobalt, 75% of lithium carbonate, 100% of neodymium and 50% of copper. Scaling by a factor of 50 for world transport, and you see what is now a showstopper. The materials demands just for batteries are beyond known reserves.

And that’s just one of the issues. Others include vast costs constituting a multiple of current energy costs; the environmental impact of mining and transporting huge amounts of materials; need for vast amounts of rare elements, far beyond known world reserves; incredibly huge amounts of material to recycle when facilities wear out; and on and on.

Spend enough time researching this stuff and you gradually realize that almost everything you read about green energy shows that at best it’s really a dark shade of brown.