Issues & Insights Editorial Board article is Take A Hike: Driving Will Be Verboten.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Anyone who thought electric-vehicle mandates and policies designed to force Americans out of their cars and into public transit or onto early 18th-century technology (bicycles) are intended to protect the environment is either naive or an accomplice in tyranny. The evidence has been helpfully provided by a Massachusetts senator who wants to limit how far people can travel.

We are well past the point of being fed up hearing that the world has to sharply cut greenhouse gas emissions or we’ll scorch our planet. Carbon dioxide produced by man, the fanatics assure us, is an existential threat.

The transportation sector is the largest source of direct greenhouse gas emissions, so of course it is a ripe target for cuts for eco-tyrants. The starting point has largely been a focus on vehicles that burn fossil fuels. They must be replaced with EVs and other “emissions-free” vehicles (there are effectively no true zero-emissions automobiles), public transit, bicycles, and our own feet.

But those are only interim steps to the ultimate goal.

Massachusetts Senate Majority Leader Cynthia Stone Creem believes she knows how to cut emissions. She’s introduced a bill that would “set a statewide vehicle miles traveled reduction goal for the year 2030 and for every fifth year thereafter.” It includes a “a whole-of-government plan to reduce vehicle miles traveled and increase access to transportation options other than personal vehicles.”

It’s an example of “textbook extreme, out-of-touch policymaking,” says the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, which suggests that mileage vouchers might be ahead for Bay Staters.

“Creem says EVs aren’t enough – Massachusetts must limit how far you can drive, too,” the organization warns. “Her bill creates a panel to track your mileage and fine you if you go too far. She says just walk or bike instead.”

This “new” and “additional” strategy, as Creem calls it, is simply another effort to separate us from our cars in what we could loosely call the autozoic era. Similar actions include:

• California’s EV mandate, which spread like a virus to more than a dozen other states.
• The same state’s “road diet.”
• Traffic filters, a diktat “you might expect in a totalitarian state.”
• Fifteen-minute cities, neckdowns, and permanently closed roads.
• Mileage taxes and bike lanes taking up ever-larger swaths of concrete and asphalt at the expense of motorists.
• The termination of the private ownership of cars, and the elimination of parking spaces.

Do not think we are exaggerating, that there is no war on cars, because there is.

The authoritarian urges behind the assault on unfettered free travel are strong. The social engineering and malign central planning in the service of “sustainability” and “green” initiatives are hostile to freedom.

Naturally, elected officials, their high-ranking staff members, and senior government functionaries won’t have to abide by any limits. They’ll have some privileged equivalent of Zil lanes, the low-traffic VIP avenues that showed Muscovites that while everyone was equal in the Soviet Union, some were more equal than others.

No invention has liberated humanity or boosted economic prosperity more than the automobile. People choose to buy and drive cars out of convenience and need, and for their love of independence. But the political left wants to take away people’s right to make their own decisions because it suits both lower-case and upper-case “d” democrats’ tyrannical impulses. If anyone needs to take a hike, literally and metaphorically, it should be anti-car warriors.

Footnote:  Au Contraire Say the French People

French MPs vote to scrap low-emission zones

BBC

A handful of MPs from Macron’s party joined opposition parties from the right and far right in voting 98-51 to scrap the zones, which have gradually been extended across French cities since 2019.

But it was a personal victory for writer Alexandre Jardin who set up a movement called Les #Gueux (Beggars), arguing that “ecology has turned into a sport for the rich”.

The low-emission zones began with 15 of France’s most polluted cities in 2019 and by the start of 2025 had been extended to every urban area with a population of more than 150,000, with a ban on cars registered before 1997.

Marine Le Pen condemned the ZFEs as “no-rights zones” during her presidential campaign for National Rally in 2022, and her Communist counterpart warned of a “social bomb”.

The head of the right-wing Republicans in the Assembly, Laurent Wauquiez, talked of “freeing the French from stifling, punitive ecology”, and on the far left, Clémence Guetté said green policies should not be imposed “on the backs of the working classes”.

Green Senator Anne Souyris told BFMTV that “killing [the ZFEs] also means killing hundreds of thousands of people” …

The legislation still has to go through the upper house, though it is expected to. And it doesn’t stop tyrant-municipalities from imposing their own small tourist-deterrent zones. But spread the word in case any of our politicians think this idea is not radioactively awful. They need to know it’s been tried and failed so we don’t have to repeat the experiment.

Issues and Insights Editorial Board warns of Carney’s history of climate diktats in their I & I article Eco-Stalinism in Canada.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Leftist Prime Minister Mark Carney might not be as prissy and preposterous as his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, but he is just as tyrannical. He’s told Canadian companies that there will be penalties for those that don’t conduct business in the way he wants them to. We don’t think he’s building gulags in Nunavut for refusenik executives, but we see the hammer and sickle he’s trying to hide behind his back.

Before he was prime minister, Carney claimed that “climate change is an existential threat” and “we all recognize that,” both of which are untrue, but that’s the way authoritarians operate – the only “truth” or “pravda” is whatever they say it is.

He went on to say that “if you’re taking steps, making investments, coming up with new technologies, changing the way you do business, all in service of reducing and eliminating that threat, you’re creating value” and “are part of the solution.” These companies, Carney promises, will be rewarded for their obedience to the central planners.

But woe be unto those “who are lagging behind and are still part of the problem,” because they “will be punished.”

Carney has a history of threatening punishment for companies that don’t conduct business in accordance with his wishes. An October 2019 Manchester Guardian article listed a number of occasions in which he warned that businesses falling behind in the pursuit of net zero emissions “will be punished” and those “that don’t adapt” to the framework laid down by the climate bosses “will go bankrupt without question.”

“Carney has led efforts to address the dangers global heating poses to the financial sector, from increasing extreme weather disasters to a potential fall in asset values such as fossil fuel company valuations as government regulations bite,” said the Guardian.

Mark Carney, former Co-Chair of GFANZ (Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero), accompanied by (from left) Ravi Menon, Loh Boon Chye, and Yuki Yasui, at the Singapore Exchange, for the GFANZ announcement on the formation of its Asia-Pacific (APAC) Network

Carney’s threat of punishment is not the possibility of imprisonment but rather the punishment of investors who will move their capital elsewhere. This happens every day, of course. Investors penalize companies that underperform and mismanage by withholding their capital.

But Carbon Tax Carney‘s menace is backed by the power of the government, and it’s not materially different from the tactics used by Barack Obama, who promised before being elected president that he would use policy to bankrupt coal companies.

Obama’s plan was to charge “a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.” Apparently the punishment worked. The coal sector lost more than 49,000 jobs between 2008 and 2012, in part due to “increased regulatory initiatives by the Obama administration,” the Washington Post reported.

Obama’s policies not only “contributed to massive job losses in coal country,” says the Heartland Institute’s Sterling Burnett, but also to “the premature shuttering of vital coal-fired power plants.” They “were a factor in profitable coal companies being forced to file for bankruptcy.” 

After almost a decade of Trudeau, Canadians put another climate crusader at the head of their government rather than Pipeline Pierre Poilievere. Carney won’t save the world, because there is no global warming threat, but he now has the power to put companies out of business if they don’t follow the party line.

Canada becomes less glorious and free almost daily.

 

Inside Climate News speaking on the side of Climate Virute reported Moore Vetoes Key Maryland Climate Studies, Reversing Course on Environmental Justice Commitments.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

The governor nixed a series of high-profile bills that aimed to study the economic impacts of climate change, energy infrastructure and reparations, leaving advocates questioning his commitment to environmental and racial justice priorities.

Maryland legislators and environmental advocates expressed dismay after Gov. Wes Moore vetoed a series of widely supported climate and environmental study bills last week, actions they believe not only mark a sharp departure from his climate promises, but also reflect a breakdown in communication between the governor and members of his own party in the legislature.

Climate Lemmings

On May 16, Moore vetoed more bills than he had in the past two years combined, including multiple proposals that had passed with strong backing from legislative leadership and key climate coalitions.

The vetoes—affecting studies on climate costs, energy reliability, data center impacts and racial reparations—have left activists and lawmakers questioning whether Moore remains a reliable ally in the fight for climate and racial justice and whether his political calculus may have shifted, placing short-term cost savings above long-term structural reform.

Among the vetoed bills was the Responding to Emergency Needs from Extreme Weather (RENEW) Act of 2025, which would have tasked the comptroller and state agencies with assessing the total cost of greenhouse gas emissions and reporting findings by December 2026. Stripped down from its original version, which proposed financial penalties for fossil fuel companies, the bill was seen as an important step toward documenting climate damages and laying the groundwork for future polluter-pay policies.

The estimated cost of the study was about $500,000, drawn from the state’s Strategic Energy Investment Fund (SEIF)—a dedicated fund supported by penalties utilities paid for failing to meet renewable energy targets. It has ballooned to over $300 million in recent years.

Moore also rejected the Data Center Impact Analysis and Report bill, which called for a collaborative study on the environmental and economic footprint of data center expansion across Maryland. The report, required to be completed by September 2026, was meant to guide future zoning and energy decisions as these power-intensive facilities expand statewide.

In a letter to the Senate and House leadership, Moore stated budget shortage, agency workload and redundancy as key reasons for the vetoes. “Many of these reports are never read and simply collect dust on shelves,” Moore wrote, calling the expected $1.28 million cost “an unsustainable commitment given the state’s current financial constraints.”

Also vetoed was the Energy Resource Adequacy and Planning Act, which would have created a Strategic Energy Planning Office within the Public Service Commission to assess long-term electricity reliability, model resource scenarios and recommend planning strategies. It was designed to help Maryland manage increasing energy demands as the state transitions toward clean power. The office would have released a major report every three years, coordinating with state agencies and collecting public input. The veto stalls forward-thinking energy planning, critics said.

In a separate letter to Senate President Bill Ferguson and House Speaker Adrienne Jones, Moore justified his veto of the Energy Resource Adequacy and Planning Act by citing fiscal constraints and overlaps. He pointed to the estimated annual cost of $4.4 million to $5.3 million, warning it would duplicate efforts and pass costs on to consumers. “This cost would ultimately be passed along to Maryland ratepayers at a time when we are actively working to limit their burden, not add to it,” he wrote.

“This veto is extremely frustrating and simply does not support the state’s climate goals.”

— Kim Coble, Maryland League of Conservation Voters

Chart shows two red heating bands, one in the northern hemisphere and one in the south. A more variable area including high temperatures lies between the two bands.

A paper analyzing changes in Ocean Heat Content (OHC) since 2000 was published at University of Auckland, summarized here:  Unexpected ocean heat patterns show NZ in extreme zone.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The world’s oceans are heating faster in two bands stretching around the globe and New Zealand is in one of them, according to new research led by climate scientist Dr Kevin Trenberth.

In both hemispheres, the areas are near 40 degrees latitude. The first band at 40 to 45 degrees south is heating at the world’s fastest pace, with the effect especially pronounced around New Zealand, Tasmania, and Atlantic waters east of Argentina.  The second band is around 40 degrees north, with the biggest effects in waters east of the United States in the North Atlantic and east of Japan in the North Pacific.

“This is very striking,” says Trenberth, of the University of Auckland and the National Center of Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. “It’s unusual to discover such a distinctive pattern jumping out from climate data,” he says. “What is unusual is the absence of warming in the subtropics, near 20 degrees latitude, in both hemispheres.”

The heat bands have developed since 2005 in tandem with poleward shifts in the jet stream, the powerful winds above the Earth’s surface that blow from west to east, and corresponding shifts in ocean currents, according to Trenberth and his co-authors in the Journal of Climate.

Besides the two key zones, sizeable increases in heat took place in the area from 10 degrees north to 20 degrees south, which includes much of the tropics. However, the effect was less distinct because of variations caused by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation climate pattern, Trenberth says.

The scientists processed an “unprecedented” volume of atmospheric and ocean data to assess 1 degree latitude strips of ocean to a depth of 2000m for the period from 2000 to 2023, Trenberth says. Changes in heat content, measured in zettajoules, were compared with a 2000-04 baseline.

The AMS paper is Distinctive Pattern of Global Warming in Ocean Heat Content by Trenberth et al (2025). Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Fig. 1. (left) Global mean OHC (Cheng et al. 2024a) for 0–2000 m relative to a base period 1981–2010 (ZJ). The 95% confidence intervals are shown (sampling and instrumental uncertainties). (right) Trend from 2000 to 2023 in OHC for 0–2000 m (W m−2). The stippled areas show places where the trend is not significant at the 5% level.

The focus of this paper is from 2000 through 2023, as 2000 is when reliable TOA radiation data became available. Accordingly, the OHC for the 0–2000-m depth is shown not only for the global mean but also as spatial trends over the 2000–23 period (Fig. 1); see methods in section 2. The global values from 1980 show increased confidence after 2005 or so, when Argo data became available globally (Cheng et al. 2017, 2024b). The spatial patterns of trends are of considerable interest because, although the ocean is warming nearly everywhere, by far the greatest increases are in the midlatitudes: in western boundary currents east of Japan in the Kuroshio Extension region of the Pacific and in the Gulf Stream extension in the Atlantic, and nearly everywhere from 35° to 50°S in the Southern Hemisphere (SH). Wu et al. (2012) earlier noted that the warming rate in subtropical western boundary currents in all ocean basins far exceeds the globally averaged surface ocean warming rate. Of particular interest is why the midlatitudes are warming the most.

Conclusions

Heating in the climate system from 2000 to 2023 is most clearly manifested in zonal mean OHC for 0–2000-m depth. It occurs primarily in the top 300 m and is evident in SSTs. The SST changes emphasize surface warming in the NH, but the strongest energy increases are in the SH, where ocean area and volume are greater. In the NH, heating occurs at all latitudes in the Atlantic with some modulation and slightly reduced MHT from the south, but in the North Pacific, strong warming near 40°N is countered by cooling near 20°N. The zonal mean across all oceans is more robust than a focus on any particular ocean basin.

Estimates of TOA radiation, atmospheric energy transports, surface fluxes of energy, and redistribution of energy by surface winds and ocean currents reveal that the patterns of OHC warming are mostly caused by systematic changes in the atmospheric circulation, which alters ocean currents. The coupled atmospheric changes have resulted in a striking pattern of changes in the vertically integrated atmospheric energy divergence which is strongly reflected in surface wind stress and anomalous net surface heat fluxes into and out of the ocean.

In response to the wind changes, the ocean redistributes heat meridionally, especially in western boundary currents in the NH. Hence, the patterns are not directly related to TOA radiation imbalances but arise primarily from coupled atmosphere–ocean changes. In turn, those influence storms and cloudiness, and thus TOA radiation. Changes in atmospheric aerosols and associated clouds may have played a role in the North Pacific and North Atlantic, likely in amplifying SST anomalies, although, because land is warming a lot more than the oceans, advection of warmer air from continents over the northern oceans may also be in play.

In the NH, changes are associated with the western boundary currents, but the associated atmospheric changes require analysis of more than a zonal mean framework, as continents play a major role. Nonetheless, it is clear that the atmosphere and ocean currents are systematically redistributing heat from global warming, profoundly affecting local climates.

My Comment:

The final sentence read literally refers to heat released by oceanic activity under the influence of solar radiation and atmospheric circulations such as jet streams.  However, the term “global warming” can taken by some to mean planetary higher temperatures due to humans burning hydrocarbons.  The leap of faith to attribute human agency to natural processes serves an agenda against society’s traditional energy platform.

Further, the graph showing zettajoules can be misleading.  Ocean heat graphs labelled in Zettajoules make it look scary, but the actual temperature changes involved are microscopic, and impossible to measure to such accuracy in pre-ARGO days.

Since 2004, for instance, ARGO data shows an increase of about two hundredths of a degree.

John Kerry speaking in Dublin June 11, 2019: “World leaders are lying to the public about the climate crisis and dismissing scientific evidence.” The climate activist failed to recognize his own speculative and exaggerated statements.

Thomas Catenacci reports at Washington Free Beacon:  Trump Admin Axes Biden-Era Climate Office John Kerry Used To Assault Fossil Fuels.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

State Department official says climate office was ‘captured by ideology’

The State Department is formally removing the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, the office former president Joe Biden created and appointed John Kerry to lead as part of his aggressive agenda to combat global warming, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Overall, the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate
was given an annual budget of nearly $17 million and
a staff of about 30 officials during the Biden administration.

In a statement to the Free Beacon, a senior State Department official confirmed the office has been shuttered, noting that its mission did not align with the Trump administration’s agenda. Webpages for both Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and the State Department’s initiatives relating to the environment were recently deleted.

“This climate office has long been captured by ideology instead of common sense policy. The new chapter of the State Department will not include this office,” the official told the Free Beacon. “This is part of a broader effort to empower regional bureaus and embassies to effectively carry out diplomacy.”

The action is part of a broader effort the sprawling agency announced Tuesday morning to streamline its operations, save taxpayers money, and ensure it is capable of delivering on President Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda. “In its current form, the department is bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, adding that the agency has become “beholden to radical political ideology.”

And it signals the Trump administration’s continued departure from the Biden-era approach to foreign policy that made climate change a centerpiece of its engagements with foreign nations. In one of his first actions leading the State Department, for example, Rubio initiated the immediate withdrawal of the United States from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, which he said undercut the nation’s intention to become the world’s most dominant energy producer.

“The Trump Administration is focused on reducing the everyday cost of living for the American worker, not apologizing to foreign governments for unleashing America’s energy dominance,” a senior White House official told the Free Beacon.

In naming Kerry the first-ever special presidential envoy for climate, Biden gave him a seat on both the White House cabinet and National Security Council, and empowered him to spearhead international negotiations, engage directly with foreign heads of state, and lead American delegations at numerous global climate conferences.

Kerry—who served in the role for three years between January 2021 and early 2024—used the position to wage an all-out assault on fossil fuels and aggressively push a transition to green alternatives like solar panels. Kerry also targeted the agricultural industry for its carbon footprint, leading to calls from dozens of lawmakers for Biden and then-agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack to disavow the comments.

The Free Beacon previously reported that Kerry’s office regularly consulted with far-left environmental organizations as he pursued his green agenda.

Kerry also faced criticism from Republican lawmakers and energy experts for lambasting fossil fuel reliance in the West, but seemingly looking the other way as China rapidly expanded its reliance on coal power to sustain its growing manufacturing sector. The House Oversight Committee opened a probe into Kerry’s talks with his Chinese counterparts in 2023 and later threatened to subpoena him after his office failed to hand over requested documents.

Despite its high-level role in American foreign policy, the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Office remained tight-lipped about its staff and operations throughout the Biden administration.

The Free Press first reported Rubio’s actions to streamline the State Department’s structure. The outlet cited internal documents showing the agency’s plans to close 132 offices, including those launched to further human rights, counter extremism, and prevent war crimes.

Kerry was also accused of hypocrisy—the climate conferences he attended were often hosted at upscale resorts and he racked up tens of thousands of flight miles on gas-guzzling jets. Kerry’s family also owned its own private jet for much of his tenure as special presidential envoy for climate.

Footnote:  Yes, Prime Minister foresaw this saga.

A humorous look at why the global warming campaign and the triumphal Paris COP make sense. Yes Minister explains it all in an episode from 2013. (The final episode of the TV series was The Climate Czar) Transcription from captions is here: Yes PM Pokes Fun at Climatism

Suddenly, climate media activists are proclaiming that doing away with hydrocarbon fuels will increase energy security for most nations.  Headlines like these abound:

Decarbonization improves energy security for most countries, study finds,  Phys.org

Ditching fossil fuels would improve energy security for most countries, new research finds, Euronews (English)

Decarbonization improves energy security for most countries, Science Daily

Decarbonization improves energy security for most countries, study finds, Stanford Report

The last one comes from Stanford, the source of the study being Stanford professor Steve Davis. The paper is Trade risks to energy security in net-zero emissions energy scenarios.  The overview is:

Researchers analyzed trade-related risks to energy security across 1,092 scenarios for cutting carbon emissions by 2060. They found that shifting from dependence on imported fossil fuels to increased dependence on critical minerals for clean energy can improve security for most nations – including the U.S., if it cultivates new trade partners.

From Stanford Report:

As a first step, lead author Jing Cheng, a postdoctoral scholar in Davis’s Sustainable Solutions Lab at Stanford, built a database of countries with reserves of oil, gas, coal, uranium, biofuels, and any of 16 materials that are critical for clean energy technologies, along with the trade flows of these resources between countries.

The researchers calculated how much of these resources would be required to meet energy demand in each of 236 countries in 1,092 different scenarios for reaching net-zero carbon emissions globally by 2060. Modeled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, the scenarios span a broad range of possible changes to the energy mix across the globe and within individual countries. Some are more dependent on nuclear energy, for example, while others incorporate more solar or wind power.

For the thousands of combinations of trade relationships and resource needs, the team estimated the level of risk in each country’s transportation and electricity sectors, and overall energy system. They quantified these risks using a new “trade risk index” based on the availability of domestic reserves, the share of demand for a given fuel or material met by imports, the economic value of the imports, and a measure of market concentration widely used to quantify energy security.

The researchers found that if all countries maintain their current networks, trade-related risks to energy security would decline on average by 19% in net-zero scenarios. If countries expand their networks and trade with all resource owners, then trade risks on average would fall by half.

Reducing the need for imported virgin materials – whether by making technologies last longer, ramping up recycling, or developing less material-intensive designs – is another way for mineral-poor countries to minimize trade risks while eliminating fossil fuels. According to the study, trade risks fall on average by 17% – and by more than 50% for the U.S. – with a quadrupling of today’s meager recycling rates for critical minerals such as lithium, nickel, and indium.

“Most people are focused on the new stuff that could be a problem, and not really considering the security benefits of moving away from fossil fuels.”  Steve Davis, Professor of Earth System Science

A Look at the Realities that Refute the Imagined Security Benefits

1.  Hydrocarbon fuels are available through a long established world-wide production and supply network.  Renewables are dependent on critical minerals from a few sources, dominated by China.

Metal demand per technology

There are various technologies available for the production of electricity through wind and solar. Each technology requires different amounts of critical metals. This figure shows the metal demand for the five most common technologies.

Metal demand for Dutch renewable electricity production

This chart shows the average annual metal demand (for 22 metals) required for the installation of new solar panels and wind turbines. This assumes a linear installation of capacity.

The annual metal demand is compared to the annual global production of these specific metals, resulting in an indicator for the share of Dutch demands for renewables in global production.

Origin of critical metals

This diagram shows the origin of the metals required for meeting the 2030 goals. The left side of the diagram shows the origin, based on today’s global production of metals. The right side shows the cumulative metal demand for wind and solar technologies until 2030.

And there is another precious resource required for wind and solar power plants:  Land in proximity to human settlements

Land required for wind turbines to power London UK.

2.  Renewable Energy from Wind and Solar is Intermittent and Expensive

The high price of wind and solar deployed at society-scale illustrates an important cost of supply principle. Because everyone needs reliable energy—whether electricity, gasoline, or heating fuel—the higher the overall costs, the more damaging it is proportionally for those who can least afford it. High-cost energy policies are what economists call regressive. Ironically, some of the most “progressive” energy policies—i.e., incentivising and mandating solar, wind, and batteries, and forcing fossil fuels from the market—result in regressive economic impacts. Governments can subsidise such costs for the most disadvantaged, but such subsidies are unsustainable at society scales. A diverse portfolio of energy options, including primary use of conventional generation, is much healthier to meet the range and scales of demands. (Source: The Choices We Face | Energy for the 21st Century: A Declaration of Guiding Principles.)

3.  What about all the other essentials we get from hydrocarbons, not from renewables?

See Also: World of Hurt from Climate Policies (four-part series)

World of Hurt from Climate Policies-Part 1

This is a beginning post toward infographics exposing the damaging effects of Climate Policies upon the lives of ordinary people. And all of the pain is for naught in fighting against global warming/climate change, as shown clearly in the image above. This post presents graphics to illustrate the first of four themes:

• Zero Carbon Means Killing Real Jobs with Promises of Green Jobs
• Reducing Carbon Emissions Means High Cost Energy Imports and Social Degradation
• 100% Renewable Energy Means Sourcing Rare Metals Off-Planet
• Leave it in the Ground Means Perpetual Poverty

Kenneth Green explains in his Toronto Sun article Carney’s climate plan will keep costing Canadians money.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Mark Carney, our next prime minister, has floated a climate policy plan that he says will be better for Canadians than the “divisive (read: widely hated) consumer carbon tax.”

But in reality, Carney’s plan is an exercise in misdirection. Instead of paying the “consumer carbon tax” directly and receiving carbon rebates, Canadians will pay more via higher prices for products that flow from Canada’s “large industrial emitters,” who Carney plans to saddle with higher carbon taxes, indirectly imposing the consumer carbon tax by passing those costs onto Canadians.

Carney also wants to shift government subsidies to consumer products of so-called “clean technologies.”    As Carney told the National Observer, “We’re introducing changes so that if you decide to insulate your home, install a heat pump, or switch to a fuel-efficient car, those companies will pay you — not the taxpayer, not the government, but those companies.”

What Carney does not mention is that much of the costs imposed on “those companies” will also be folded into the costs of the products consumers buy, while the cause of rising prices will be less distinguishable and attributable to government action.

Moreover, Carney says he wants to make Canada a “clean energy superpower” and “expand and modernize our energy infrastructure so that we are less dependent on foreign suppliers, and the United States as a customer.” But this too is absurd. Far from being in any way poised to become a “clean energy superpower,” Canada likely won’t meet its own projected electricity demand by 2050 under existing environmental regulations.

For example, to generate the electricity needed through 2050 solely with solar power, Canada would need to build 840 solar-power generation stations the size of Alberta’s Travers Solar Project, which would take about 1,700 construction years to accomplish.

If we went with wind power to meet future demand, Canada would need to build 574 wind power installations the size of Quebec’s Seigneurie de Beaupre wind-power station, which would take about 1,150 construction years to accomplish. And if we relied solely on hydropower, we’d need to build 134 hydro-power facilities the size of the Site C power station in British Columbia, which would take 938 construction years to accomplish.

Finally, if we relied solely on nuclear power, we’d need to construct 16 new nuclear plants the size of Ontario’s Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, taking “only” 112 construction years to accomplish.

Again, Mark Carney’s climate plan is an exercise in misdirection — a rhetorical sleight of hand to convince Canadians that he’ll lighten the burden on taxpayers and shift away from the Trudeau government’s overzealous climate policies of the past decade. But scratch the surface of the Carney plan and you’ll see climate policies that will hit Canadian consumers harder, with likely higher prices for goods and services.

As a federal election looms, Canadians should demand from all candidates — no matter their political stripe — a detailed plan to rekindle Canada’s energy sector and truly lighten the load for Canadians and their families.

The news is EPA Director Zeldin has submitted recommendations to President Trump but the content has not yet been made public. How significant is this issue for climate activists? Just read the hysterical response by Sierra Club Trump, Zeldin Must Publicly Release EPA’s Endangerment Finding Recommendation on Climate Pollution.  In italics with my bolds.

People deserve to know if their government plans
to terminate their right to breathe clean air

Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous released the following statement:

“The EPA’s mission is to protect human health and the environment, and any revocation or weakening of this life-saving action would endanger both. Denying both science and the Supreme Court to further unravel the Clean Air Act would be a slap in the face to the children and elderly suffering from asthma or COPD, the victims of extreme weather-fueled wildfires and floods, and to every person wanting clean air to breathe. The American people deserve answers from this administration on whether or not they plan to further ignore the law and science to put polluters over people. The Sierra Club is prepared to pursue all legal avenues and use every tool at its disposal to protect the American people and avert the very worst of the climate crisis.”

And then there’s the facts:

The origin of this insane mass delusion, it’s spurious codification into regulations and the necessity of dumping it once and for all is explained by Chris Talgo in his Town Hall article The EPA’s Endangerment Finding Belongs on the Ash Heap of History. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Most Americans have probably never heard of the Endangerment Finding, however, this obscure rule has effectively allowed the federal government to label carbon dioxide a harmful “pollutant” that can be regulated under the Clean Air Act.This is a prime example of government gone wild. The Clean Air Act was never intended to allow the EPA to declare carbon dioxide to be a dangerous pollutant. Rather, it was designed to “address the public health and welfare risks posed by certain widespread air pollutants.”It is important to note that in 1963, when the Clear Air Act was initially passed, carbon dioxide was not listed as an “air pollutant.”

Figure 1. Change in Gross Domestic Product
and Six Common Air Pollutants, 1980–2018

Source: Federal Reserve Economic Data | Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. *The index begins at 1 in 1980, with the exception of PM2.5, which was measured beginning in 2000. The index for each year is the actual value divided by the initial value.

Fast-forward to 1999. As the EPA notes, “On October 20, 1999, the International Center for Technology Assessment and 18 other environmental and renewable energy industry organizations filed a petition seeking the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from on-road vehicles under the Clean Air Act.”

 As happens all too often in our over litigious modern society, this “petition” eventually became a lawsuit. In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that “greenhouse gases are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act and that EPA must determine whether or not emissions of greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”

Although this is the standard interpretation of the Supreme Court’s ruling,
it is not necessarily the correct interpretation.

According to the majority opinion, authored by former Justice John Paul Stevens, “We need not and do not reach the question whether on remand EPA must make an endangerment finding, or whether policy concerns can inform EPA’s actions in the event that it makes such a finding. We hold only that EPA must ground its reasons for action or inaction in the statute.”

In other words, the Supreme Court decision did not determine that carbon dioxide is a harmful air pollutant. Instead, it simply stated that the EPA has the authority to decide whether carbon dioxide is a harmful greenhouse gas if and only if that is supported by unequivocal data.

A more recent Supreme Court decision in 2022, West Virginia v. EPA, provides even more grounds for the Endangerment Finding to be rescinded. In this landmark ruling, the Supreme Court decided that the Obama-era Clean Power Plan was unconstitutional because it violated the letter of the law under the aforementioned Clear Air Act. Specifically, the Court cited the “Major Questions Doctrine,” which clearly states “that if an agency seeks to decide an issue of major national significance, its action must be supported by clear congressional authorization.”

Incredibly, this is the first time the Supreme Court
had cited the Major Questions Doctrine in a ruling.

The fact that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of West Virginia, and essentially reprimanded the EPA to stay strictly within its constitutional guardrails, bodes well for those who believe the Endangerment Finding is unconstitutional and should be eliminated.

But if that is not convincing enough, consider that the Endangerment Finding is predicated on flawed science to begin with. Despite the insistence by the EPA that carbon dioxide is a harmful pollutant that is driving an existential climate crisis, the facts and data say otherwise.

Over the past few decades, climate alarmists and environmental zealots have been somewhat successful in fooling too many Americans into believing that carbon dioxide emissions must be eliminated no matter the cost.

However, the cost of demonizing carbon dioxide as a harmful pollutant is immense. By vilifying CO2 and attempting to regulate it to death, the EPA has absolutely harmed tens of millions of Americans withhigher energy bills. Moreover, the EPA’s absurd notion that carbon dioxide is a harmful air pollutant has put the entire U.S. energy grid at risk.

As we enter the AI age, there will be an enormous demand for dependable and affordable energy. The only energy sources that can deliver reliable and cost-effective energy (aside from nuclear) for the United States to remain the global leader in the AI arms race necessarily produce carbon dioxide emissions. Put simply, if we do not eliminate the Endangerment Finding and free ourselves from its shackles, the United States will not be able to keep pace with the Communist Chinese Party in the worldwide battle for AI supremacy.

As the image suggests, the push for Net Zero burdens western nations, but benefits China and Russia in different ways.  Russia pays lip service to the CO2 phobia, while its scientists and climate modelers know that any global warming will be modest and a boon to their high latitude country.  Thus, any economic and military self-destruction by other powers increases Russia’s position and security.

China’s gains from the Net Zero obsession have been greater and different.  First of all, China is protected from emissions reductions and economic development there can proceed unimpeded.

Secondly, and more significantly China has bet the house to be the dominant global supplier of  “Green” energy hardware like wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles and batteries.  Their great success makes them vulnerable should the rest of the world realize these are impractical solutions for an imaginary problem.  Walter Russell Mead explains in his article Trump Outsmarts China on Green Energy.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

By dismantling the net-zero agenda, he ramps up economic pressure on Beijing

So much is happening so quickly in Washington these days that Donald Trump’s war on the green climate agenda has passed almost unnoticed. Steps like pulling out of the Paris Agreement, dropping electric-vehicle mandates, ending offshore leasing for wind projects, and fast-tracking fossil-fuel infrastructure would have dominated the news in quieter times.

But Mr. Trump’s climate policy matters for reasons that go beyond the climate debate. China has made Western climate policy a major focus of its economic strategy, and by pulling the rug out from under the global green agenda, the Trump administration is adding significantly to the economic pressure on Beijing.

Call it brilliant Chinese planning or gross Western incompetence, but the only real winner from the green agenda that Western governments have done so much to impose on the world is Beijing. Solar power cells, wind turbines, electric vehicles and the batteries that keep them moving: China has swiftly established dominance in one critical industry and supply chain after another.

This diagram shows the origin of the metals required for meeting the 2030 goals. The left side of the diagram shows the origin, based on today’s global production of metals. The right side shows the cumulative metal demand for wind and solar technologies until 2030. From study showing tonnage of Dutch demand only.

This was eminently foreseeable. The Chinese Communist Party’s economic planners in Beijing are the most effective technocrats the world has ever known, eclipsing the fumbling Soviet planners of the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras. Give them a set of targets, a timetable and a list of technologies to promote, and they will coordinate state policy, banking subsidies and market forces to produce world-beating industries in record time.

China’s production capacity for these materials and components dwarfs the rest of the world – exceeding global demand in many cases. Source: James Kennedy https://us.docworkspace.com/d/sIAGK_NAjoOC-lAY

The European and American architects of the green transition were
unintentionally creating a playing field ideally suited to China’s core
strengths, and Beijing took full advantage.

But even the most brilliant planners make mistakes. China today is a combination of extraordinary economic and industrial success and monumental failure. The ruinous demographic consequences of its one-child policy, the explosive mix of financial and social pressures wrapped up in the real-estate bubble, and the excess industrial capacity resulting from decades of aggressive state planning loom ever larger over China’s future. Mr. Trump’s proposed upending of global climate policy would transform China’s drive to dominate the energy transition from a major win to an expensive misfire for Beijing.

The net-zero agenda, a set of targets and strategies by Western governments and climate diplomats to arrest global warming by limiting emissions, is the most audacious international effort in diplomatic history. It seeks to persuade or compel every country on the planet to make a transition to energy production that does not add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The costs of the transition easily run into the trillions of dollars. The social and economic impact will transform everything from agriculture to manufacturing.

An enterprise this ambitious requires enduring political support. As time goes by, the costs of the energy transition inexorably rise, and opposition to the project grows as more interests are affected. Proponents understood this and counted on three factors to ensure that progress toward net zero continued even as opponents dug in their heels.

1. Blame Natural Disasters on CO2 Emissions

First, as the growing costs of climate change ricocheted through the economy (driving up insurance costs in disaster-prone areas, for example, as weather risks grew), more voters would support net-zero policies.

2. Green Industries Lobby to Protect Their Interests

Second, industries that had invested in climate-friendly technologies (like automobile makers investing billions in EV-producing factories) would lobby politicians to protect their investments by maintaining the regulations and subsidies that made them profitable.

3.  Workers Wanting to protect their Green Jobs.

Third, as net-zero-friendly industries employed more workers, these beneficiaries of net-zero policies would support measures that protected their jobs.

Will those be enough to stop the rising wave of energy realism and loss of Net Zero faith?

Wright is now confirmed as US Secretary of Energy

EPA priorities Announced by Director Zeldin