CDC’s Pandemic Failures From the Top

Posted on by Ron Clutz

At Wall Street Journal Opinion Paul Gigot interviews Marty Makary about the state of covid in the US and how CDC keeps making mistakes.  A transcript of the video is provided below in italics with my bolds.  Further on there are excerpts from the Federal court ruling CDC’s transportation mask mandate unconstitutional.

Gigot:  Under fire for its handling of the Covid19 pandemic, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky announced plans this week to revamp the embattled agency saying in an email quote it is time to step back and strategically position CDC to support the future of public health. Since the pandemic began more than two years ago, the agency has come under increasing criticism for its response, from initial delays developing a coronavirus test, to the agency’s often unclear guidanceon masking, isolation and quarantine and now booster shots.

Let’s bring in Dr. Marty Makary. He’s a professor at the John Hopkins Schools of Medicine and a Fox News contributor. Welcome Doctor. Look, what do you make of this plan to revamp the CDC. It’s hard for me to recall an agency that was supposed to meet a crisis, I mean this agency was designed for that. And yet their reputation is in tatters. What do they need to do?

Makary: Well many of the problems are structural, but they have 21,000 employees and an $11 billion budget. It’s not the fault of the 21,000 employees that they ignored natural immunity. It’s not a structural problem that the CDC closed schools. That was a leadership problem. These are bad decisions: not spacing out the two doses and focusing of the first dose; not warning the country of the pandemic, and limiting testing in such a way that we couldn’t really follow this thing early on. These are problems of leadership. Not problems with the structure.

And I think there’s an attempt now to say: Hey, we’re going to something to fix the problem, even though it’s not the direct fix.

Gigot: OK, so you mean they’re going to try to rearrange the bureaucratic furniture. But I thought that the CDC of all agencies was supposed to (pardon the cliche): Follow the Science. Are you saying that they let politics supersede the Science?

Makary:  Well right now that is the growing perception among medical professionals. If you look at the way the CDC rules their own expert advisory committee. You know the CDC was designed to help us eradicate and take care of cholera and malaria and polio and smallpox. What they’re doing now is getting involved in evictions. They’re adjudicating on every aspect of American life including how kids wear a cloth mask in school.

They fund studies which are so highly flawed they would not be peer reviewed in any respected journal. But they published them in their own journal called MMWR. And then cite their own flawed research. So this has become a farce. And in the medical community many of us have been saying: This is not the scientific process and ignoring natural immunity was a big deal. For this head of the CDC to ignore natural immunity is like the head of NASA believe the earth is flat.

Gigot:  OK, so what about this new variant that’s spreading. You have a big breakout in Washington DC. A super spreader event at the Gridiron dinner involved a lot of politicians. Should we be more concerned about this new variant than we’ve been led to believe?

Makary:  We should think of it as a bad flu season. It’s going around. It’s more ubiquitous than influenza. Now the infection fatality rate in an analysis publish about two weeks ago and Financial Times showed that it is now officially lower than that of influenza in a typical flu season. So we shouldn’t be alarmed by should recognize this as an infection that is ubiquitous, inevitable in most people. And those who avoided BA1 are probably getting the more contagious BA2.

It is definitely going up. We’re seeing cases go up in the Northeast primarily, somewhat in Florida. But if you’re following cases using the CDC’s numbers like you were following a stock price on a ticker, you’re not going to see those increases because most people are using home testing. The key is we are not seeing a surge in hospitalization. That should always be the ultimate indicator of how we’re doing.

Gigot:   OK. There’s been controversy as well over the second booster shot and whether to get it. CDC was leaning in the direction for certain that individuals above a certain age and immuno compromised to get it. What do you think of that decision?

Makary:   Well, it was not based on any compelling data. We finally got the data after the FDA authorized th second booster. It was published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Not very convincing. It showed that if you boost an entire population with a second booster, the added benefit is a very slight: 1 in 42,000 people in the population have risk reduction in severe illness not hospitalizations, but those who develop real symptoms. That’s why the editor of the New England Journal has said before the committee, he doesn’t see compelling data. This FDA bypassed their own experts to ream through this authorization.

And it’s very odd. They gave Pfizer more than they applied for. Pfizer asked to authorize for people over 65, and it was granted for everyone over 50. And while they put this through in supersonic speed they are still sitting on covaxin and novavax, (traditional vaccines) and covaxin has better coverage against variants. And we’re going to get the omicron specific vaccine data reading out is a few weeks. Many people have been saying, wait for that, then get the second booster and an omicron specific vaccine.

Gigot:   Suppose I am over 60 years old and I’ve had two shots and then a booster, and then came down with Covid, one of these breakthrough cases. A lot of people I know have had exactly that pattern. Do you need a booster in those circumstances?

Makary:   No, there’s no compelling reason, and boosters do have rare but real side effects. We’ve seen reports of ringing in the ears, and you can’t keep pumping boosters in people every 3 to 6 months in perpetuity because we are seeing that protection only lasts a matter of weeks. That was the study in the New England Journal. It really was sustained for about six weeks and the time followed. So no, natural immunity and hybrid immunity is very powerful and for now there’s no scientific data to support getting a booster after having convalescent infection.

Gigot:   Thanks Dr. Makary, appreciate it.

Federal Court Overturns CDC’s Transportation Mask Mandate

The Mask Mandate Is Illegal: Quotes from the District Court Judgment

Excerpts from Brownstone Institute report in italics below with my bolds

Within the past two years, the CDC has found within § 264(a) the power to shut down the cruise ship industry, stop landlords from evicting tenants who have not paid their rent, and require that persons using public conveyances wear masks. Courts have concluded that the first two of these measures exceeded the CDC’s statutory authority under §264. …

No court has yet ruled on the legality of the third. At first blush, it appears more closely related to the powers granted in§ 264(a) than either the sail order or the eviction moratorium. But after rigorous statutory analysis, the Court concludes that§ 264(a) does not authorize the CDC to issue the Mask Mandate….

As the list of actions suggest, the federal government’s use of the quarantine power has been traditionally limited to localized disease elimination measures applied to individuals and objects suspected of carrying disease…. Though the government once conceded that § 264(a) merely “consolidates and codifies” this history, see id., it now finds a power that extends far beyond it to population-wide preventative measures like near-universal mask requirements that apply even in settings with little nexus to interstate disease spread, like city buses and Ubers. Such a definition reverses the import of history as well as the roles of the States and the federal government….

The opposite of conditional release is “detention” or “quarantine.” Anyone who refuses to comply with the condition of mask wearing is – in a sense – detained or partially quarantined by exclusion from a conveyance or transportation hub under authority of the Mask Mandate. They are forcibly removed from their airplane seats, denied boarding at the bus steps, and turned away at the train station doors-all on the suspicion that they will spread a disease. Indeed, the Mask Mandate enlists local governments, airport employees, flight attendants, and even ride-sharing drivers to enforce these removal measures.

The CDC issued the mandate in February 2021, almost two weeks after the President called for a mandate, eleven months after the President had declared COVID-19 a national emergency, and almost thirteen months since the Secretary of Health and Human Services had declared a public health emergency. This history suggests that the CDC itself did not find the passage of time particularly serious….

Although a closer question than the failure to properly invoke the good cause exception, the Mask Mandate fails this reasoned-explanation standard. Beyond the primary decision to impose a mask requirement, the Mask Mandate provides little or no explanation for the CDC’s choices. Specifically, the CDC omits explanation for rejecting alternatives and for its system of exceptions. And there are many, such that the overall efficiency of masking on airplanes or other conveyances could reasonably be questioned.

In sum, irrespective of whether the CDC made a good or accurate decision, it needed to explain why it acted as it did. Since the CDC did not explain its decision to compromise the effectiveness of its Mandate by including exceptions or its decision to limit those exceptions, the Court cannot conclude that the CDC “articulated a ‘rational connection between the facts found and the choices made.”

[T]he Mandate exceeded the CDC’s statutory authority, improperly invoked the good cause exception to notice and comment rulemaking, and failed to adequately explain its decisions. Because “our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends,” the Court declares unlawful and vacates the Mask Mandate.

 

Hey Groomers, Leave Those Kids Alone!

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Today’s topsy turvy world has turned the classic Pink Floyd admonition inside out, with teachers and others grooming kids for inappropriate sexual behavior without any moral context.  Helen Roy explains at American Mind Groomergate.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Say the word. Scare the establishment.

When I was a child, there was a girl I knew whose father was well-known amongst us girls to show his penis at sleepovers. In retrospect, even aside from our loud murmuring, signs of abuse were everywhere. But the man was fairly prominent in evangelical circles, and a talented musician. Other adults cheered him on in public. Other adults permitted and promoted the idea that his house was a good place for sleepovers. Maybe these other adults were completely ignorant, maybe they were in denial, maybe they didn’t care, maybe they thought it was normal, or maybe they were playing a popularity game in a toxic social system of their own.

Either way, prepubescent girls were being molested for years. And those who weren’t being molested were learning their sexual dignity didn’t matter, which undoubtedly paved the way for poor sexual decisionmaking in the future. Perhaps if these parents would have been called out by other parents for their active participation in the grooming exercise, they would have realized their culpability in the matter.

But back then, much like today, many people didn’t like to call groomers out.

Abuse remained in the shadows, under the cover of adult reputation. The difference now is that the culture of harm and perversity has been institutionalized across America. What was once seen as an indiscretion is now an industry.

And so, last week, as if triggered by some kind of underground bat signal, several familiar faces of Conservative Inc. simultaneously released op-eds and Twitter threads insisting that use of the term “groomer” in the context of fighting LGBT indoctrination in schools was very, very bad indeed.

In their view, the epithet is unfair, even immoral, because some take it as an unsubstantiated accusation of active pedophilia. “You may not be aware,” as David French lectured, “but right-wing media is swarming with allegations that anyone who, for example, opposes Florida’s House Bill 1557 (the bill misleadingly termed the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill by Democrats and many in the media) is either a ‘groomer’ or in league with groomers.”

Why any self-identified conservative would make defending groomers’ honor their first priority in this debate is a mystery for another day. But strictly on the merits, their conclusion is wrong because their premise is wrong. Grooming is a complicated system of behavior. What is it?

Most basically, to groom is to prepare or train someone else for a particular activity.

In the current political context, “grooming” certainly—and accurately—connotes sexually inappropriate ends, especially as its most recent usage was entirely swept up in the #MeToo movement. Even as grooming discourse reached its apparent zenith a few years ago, rape was not always the intended or actual end of the story. Rather, it was understood that to be a groomer was to actively participate in the broader system of manipulation. Ghislaine Maxwell and similar “recruiters” may not have been doing the raping, but they were all certainly engaged in grooming. Active participation does not imply full knowledge of the system itself; whether you’re a groomer or not does not rely on your own self-awareness. Orchestrated by the ill-intentioned, grooming is often facilitated by good country people, unaware that the cliches they’ve adopted as life mantras are actually deeply damaging to themselves and the people around them.

Love is love, Miss Whatever exclaims, as she caringly simulates anal sex on a teddy bear to a classroom full of five-year-olds.

In the David French version of reality, where drag queen story hour is considered a blessing of liberty, a rainbow flag in preschool is merely a neutral object, misplaced by well-intentioned people who definitely don’t have any negative intentions for your children whatsoever. How do we know this? Because they’ve never explained their intentions. We must give everyone, especially our self-proclaimed enemies, the benefit of the doubt. Stated aims are to be believed as true intentions despite any evidence to the contrary. So, conservatives should bite their tongues. It’s just not fair to suggest that their behavior, no matter how thoroughly it greases the wheels for sexual misconduct and confusion, is grooming. Don’t believe your lying eyes, and definitely don’t say groomer.

I’d like to offer some encouragement for anyone who, as a result of has-been NeverTrump countersignalling, now finds themselves reticent about using the term “groomer” in the general political sense that current usage implies: use it.

Use it because it’s true. As I’ve just explained, people can be groomers without themselves wanting to rape children.
Use it because it’s effective. The culture war is a real war, and a very particular type of war at that: an insurgency.

On one side, you have the institutions; on the other, a merry band of loosely organized rebels. Insurgency is characterized by asymmetry. Because they lack the institutional power, insurgents must rely on guerilla tactics in order to make any progress whatsoever. These tactics, in a war of language and law, boil down to political incorrectness. Political incorrectness, especially the word “groomer,” offends the enemy while galvanizing friends. Powerful memes such as this rarely conform to the tastes of bourgeois sensibilities.

Use it because they disapprove.

One of the first requirements of submission to transgender ideology (or any totalitarian regime, really) is mandated speech. Recall the Jordan Peterson phenomenon circa 2015: Canadian professor comes under fire for resisting the enactment of a bill requiring the use of preferred pronouns; failure to comply was punishable by termination of employment. Fundamentally, the modus operandi of this movement is in the manipulation of reality through language. “Here’s a more palatable way to say this,” has become a favored tactic of those who manage the decline into unreality. If only as an act of resistance to this familiar tendency, this slippery slope we’ve been gaslit into denying, say the unspeakable words. The moment we stop is the moment we lose them forever.

And if we don’t use “groomer”, we lose this moment, too—and all that comes after. Midwit middle managers, bureaucrats, and journalists, whose life mission is to keep the establishment and their establishment career afloat, know that forcing their opposition to adopt their own sensibilities is an act of political castration.

If you want to win on parents right, you must refuse
to be groomed for establishment’s eunuch class.

Stella Paul adds at American Thinker Confessions of a Disney writer

For many years, I made my living writing TV shows for Disney. I was proud of my work, considering it a privilege to make kids laugh all over the world. But in light of Disney’s disastrous embrace of pro-pedophilia policies, I’m glad that I grew disillusioned with kids’ TV and walked away from the field.

Every kids’ TV writer knows that when crafting a story, you have to be careful about “modeling behavior.”

Whatever kids see, they imitate, so you should “model” positive traits in your scripts, particularly when writing for pre-schoolers. Imagine inserting a pint-size Larry David character in your story who is obnoxious, argumentative, and sneaky. Inevitably, you’d get back notes from the story editor telling you to revamp the script to avoid modeling negative behavior.

So Disney’s recent commitment to “add queerness” wherever possible can’t be explained as just trying to teach tolerance and inclusivity. The executives know that by showing “queerness,” they are modeling queerness and encouraging kids to imitate that behavior.

Parents are now furious about Disney’s woke agenda to sexualize children, and they’re organizing and protesting. Will their consumer boycotts of Disney’s products and theme parks have a long-term impact on Disney’s bottom line? It’s too soon to tell, but Disney’s hostility to traditional family values is not winning it friends, and its brand magic seems to be evaporating.

Footnote: Math Homework in Missouri

 

China Demos Big Time Covid Tyranny

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Todd Jaquith reports at BizPac Review Fauci touts China’s COVID protocol when confronted on Shanghai lockdown: ‘Better than almost anybody else’.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

The horrific events in Shanghai continue to shock the world with images of a beleaguered population entirely at the mercy of a soulless bureaucratic regime.

But the medical bureaucrats closer to home refuse to draw the unavoidable conclusions from that terrible example, while continuing to suggest that lockdowns remain a vital tool in the federal government’s bag of tricks. As a case in point, Dr. Anthony Fauci recently spoke with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell to discuss the latest developments involving the COVID-19 pandemic.

When asked by Mitchell about the situation in Shanghai, Fauci waffled, refusing to condemn the lockdowns and even seeming to repeat the discredited canard that China’s draconian lockdowns had somehow enabled them to handle the pandemic “better than almost anybody else.”

[Note:  That assertion rests on obviously bogus China statistics.  Example from China Also Abuses Covid Statistics ]

“How concerning is the outbreak in China?” Mitchell asked. “We see the lockdown in Shanghai and the State Department now ordering families out, all non-essential workers out of Shanghai.”

“Well, China has a number of problems,” Fauci replied, “two of which are that their complete lockdown, which was their approach, the strictest lockdown that you’d never be able to implement in the United States, although that prevents the spread of infection, and remember early on they were saying—and, I think, accurately—that they were doing better than almost anybody else. But lockdown has its consequences. You use lockdowns to get people vaccinated, so that when you open up, you won’t have a surge of infections, because you’re dealing with an immunologically naive population to the virus.”

That lockdowns were meant to be used to get people vaccinated must come as a surprise to most of us, given that lockdowns were implemented for nearly a year before a vaccine even existed, and were originally sold as a means to “slow the spread.” Regardless, although observing that lockdowns do indeed have “consequences,” Fauci would not condemn the practice, and even seemed to lament that China’s draconian quarantine practices could not be implemented here at home. He also refused to comment on the moral odiousness and human toll of such measures.

Meanwhile, the situation in Shanghai, a city of 25 million that has been forced into strict lockdown since mid-March, is reaching a boiling point. The terrified, starving population has displayed a rare spirit, taking to the streets by the thousands to protest the government quarantines and the lack of food.

In something that seems lifted straight from a dystopian science fiction film, like 1984 or Blade Runner, videos on social media show how drones patrol the skies, imploring the people to stay inside and “control [their] soul’s desire for freedom,” and people are reportedly even fined directly from their CBDC digital yuan accounts (a kind of state-controlled cryptocurrency) if they venture onto their balconies without a mask. Meanwhile, “dog robots” patrol the streets, barking orders at civilians to stay inside as seen in posted videos.

 

Shanghai has been reporting north of 20,000 new COVID cases a day, and the situation has strained the local authorities’ ability to find space for quarantine centers. Worse, reports indicate that people are required to wait for the delivery of water and food supplies, which is overwhelming the food distribution and delivery networks as supplies run low. Anger is widespread, and people have taken to the streets against the strict orders of the ruling Communist Party to demand redress of their myriad wrongs—prompting Shanghai to promise to ease restrictions.

In what are perhaps the most disturbing images from Shanghai, what seem to be police forces in hazmat suits can be seen assaulting and arresting angry civilians on the streets.

As the apocryphal Chinese curse says: “May you live in interesting times.” The people of Shanghai are learning this the hard way. We can only hope that those American admirers of the CCP’s “Zero COVID” policy are unable to enforce the same tactics here in the United States.

Footnote:

Remember that the Truckers demand was to end the “covid emergency.”  This kind of tyranny is still possible when a new “emergency” can be declared at any time without legal recourse.

Note also: China is moving to lockdown Hong Kong and Guangzhou, places known for political dissidents.

 

Climate-Change ‘Solutions’ Way Worse Than the Problem

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Wonder Land: Democrats have wrecked the cities and the border. Why would climate policy be any different? Images: Zuma Press/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly  Link to video is below

https://video-api.wsj.com/api-video/player/v3/iframe.html?guid=5D0A20A9-75C5-4506-B1B1-9EC96ABBBEE9

Jason De Sena Trennert writes at WSJ Opinion Climate-Change ‘Solutions’ That Are Worse Than the Problem.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images H/T John Ray (here)

The political assault on fossil fuels comes at the expense
of the poor, peace, and the environment.

If you can afford a Tesla, you probably find it hard to imagine that there are some 3.5 billion people on Earth who have no reasonably reliable access to electricity. Even less obvious may be the way rich countries’ pursuit of carbon neutrality at almost any cost limits economic opportunities for the world’s poor and poses serious geopolitical risks to the West.

Anyone on an investment committee has likely spent untold amounts of time discussing ways to mitigate the impact of climate change, but they’ve likely never heard anyone state one simple and incontrovertible fact: The widespread exploration and production of fossil fuels that started in Titusville, Pa., not quite 170 years ago, has done more to benefit the lives of ordinary people than any other technological advance in history.

Before fossil fuels, people relied on burning biomass, such as timber or manure, which was a far dirtier and much less efficient source of energy. Fossil fuels let people heat their homes in the winter, reducing the risk of death from exposure. Fossil-fuel-based fertilizers greatly increased crop yields, reducing starvation and malnutrition. Before the advent of the automobile, the ability for many people to venture far from their hometown was an unfathomable dream. Oil- and coal-burning transportation opened up access to education, commerce, professional opportunities, and vital services such as medicine. There has been, and remains, a strong correlation between the use of fossil fuels and life expectancy.

Limiting the availability of fossil fuels in the name of climate activism would cut off many of the world’s poor from these benefits. Climate activists worry about a potential “existential crisis” decades down the road, but poor people, really poor people, face an existential crisis every day. Even for those who aren’t among humanity’s most unfortunate, rising energy prices force serious economic trade-offs. Purposely eschewing America and Europe’s own natural resources increases costs to consumers, raises the cost of doing business, and limits economic growth. Viewed with this in mind, the debate over emissions seems like an upper-class problem.

If Chinese belligerence and increasing authoritarianism over the past two years have taught us anything, it is that no amount of trade and international cooperation will instill what are generally considered to be Western values in other civilizations who have no real desire to adopt them. Trusting China to do anything other than what is directly in its own best interests, especially when it comes to the trade-offs between economic development and climate issues, would seem to be in direct conflict with history and common sense—and it poses serious geopolitical risks to the international democratic order. The war in Ukraine has emphasized how leaving European and American fossil fuels in the ground can put the West at the will of dictators, increasing the risk of atrocities, war or even the use of weapons of mass destruction.

An easing of regulations on drilling in the U.S. and easier regulations on liquefied natural gas exports to flood the global market with oil and natural gas would do far more than any sanctions to stop Vladimir Putin’s barbarism.

The climate-change solutions the West is pursuing also pose a danger to the environment. The lodestar of the environmental movement today appears to be electric vehicles. One would be hard-pressed to find a product more dependent on resources from extractive materials. An electric car requires almost four times as much copper as an automobile powered by an internal combustion engine. The widely accepted goal of having 30% of the world’s vehicle sales be electric by 2030 would require enormous investments in mining industries that are decidedly not eco-friendly.

And whatever emission cuts America and Europe manage to make by forcing electric vehicles and other inefficient technology on consumers will be negated by emissions from other nations. Regimes like Russia and China won’t put aside their geopolitical ambitions for climate activism; developing countries like India won’t sacrifice economic development and their peoples’ well-being in the hope it’ll slow global warming.

Sadly, environmentalism has grown into a secular religion
in which reasonable debate is regarded as heresy.

But if politicians and voters can approach climate change with an open mind, they’ll see that economic growth is likely to solve the issue without heavy-handed government intervention. History has shown that free markets produce incredible leaps in human ingenuity. The greater access the world has to all sorts of energy sources, the faster humanity will discover new technologies that are more environmentally friendly. Rationing fossil fuels would only retard the process of decreasing carbon emissions and cost lives in the process.

Resources:  Four Part Series of infographics World of Hurt From Climate Policies

 

Musk Has Twitter All Atwitter

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Sergei Klebnikov at Forbes reports Musk Says He Has ‘Sufficient Funding’ To Buy Twitter, Claims He Has ‘Plan B’ If Offer Is Rejected.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Tesla’s billionaire CEO Elon Musk, who submitted a $43 billion bid to buy Twitter on Thursday, said later in the day at a TED conference in Vancouver that he has “sufficient assets” to buy the social media company and already has a “Plan B” ready if the board decides to reject his offer.

KEY FACTS

♦  “I can do it if possible,” Musk said at the conference when asked if he could actually afford to buy Twitter, adding that he has “sufficient assets” to carry out such a deal, amid doubts that he has enough liquidity given almost all his wealth is tied up in SpaceX and Tesla stock.

♦  The Tesla billionaire also said that he “has a Plan B” if Twitter’s board of directors, which will meet to discuss his attempted acquisition, reject his offer.

♦  The comments notably contrast with what Musk said earlier in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, when he described his $43 billion takeover bid for Twitter as his “best and final offer.”

♦  Musk reiterated that he wants to buy the social media platform as it has become the “de facto town square” and it remains imperative for there to be “an inclusive arena for free speech” in society.

♦  “I don’t care about the economics at all,” Musk responded when asked about making money on Twitter, adding that he wants to convert the platform to an open-source algorithm where users could review the code, instead of “having tweets sort of be mysteriously promoted and demoted with no insight.”

Musk’s bid to buy Twitter was met with mixed reactions from Wall Street analysts on Thursday. Some experts are adamant that Twitter will have a hard time rejecting the $43 billion offer or that this is just the beginning of a hostile takeover battle. Others remain highly skeptical, with some analysts calling Musk’s latest moves a “distraction” from challenges at Tesla.

 

Fuel Efficiency Rule De Facto EV Mandate

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Kevin Stone explains at Heartland Daily News. Fuel Producers, States Challenge New EPA Rule Effectively Mandating Electric Vehicles.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.  H/T John Ray

An unlikely coalition is challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) revised fuel economy rules.

At issue is a revised fleetwide. corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard of 55 miles per gallon in model year 2026. The shortened timeline for the much higher fuel economy forces automakers to reduce their fleets’ carbon dioxide emissions by 22.6 percent more than previous rules required.

Sixteen states, plus groups representing the fossil fuel and ethanol industries in 15 states, are challenging the Biden EPA’s emissions rules. They argue the EPA’s new standards effectively mandate a national transition from internal combustion powered vehicles to electric vehicles starting in 2026.

Farmers, Drillers, Attorneys General

A mix of corn and soybean growers associations from the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, and South Dakota joined with Diamond Alternative Energy in one of the lawsuits filed to block the EPA’s new rules.

In addition, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit on behalf of Texas, joined by the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah. Arizona filed a separate lawsuit to block the rules.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), along with additional petitioners such as the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance, a nationwide coalition of 39 associations representing the oil and gas industry, also filed a lawsuit to block the new standards.

Essentially an EV Mandate

The lawsuit filed by representatives of various states’ biofuel associations argues the new standard is an unauthorized de facto mandate forcing people to use electric vehicles.

“Through the final rule, EPA seeks to unilaterally alter the transportation mix in the United States, without congressional authorization and without adequately considering the vast greenhouse gas reduction benefits provided by renewable fuels,” the complaint states.

CEI and its co-petitioners make a similar argument in their filing by lead attorney Devin Watkins, saying the rules exceed the agency’s authority.

“EPA is trying to transform the motor vehicle market from gas-powered to electric vehicles by making gas-powered cars more expensive,” Watkins’ petition states.

Ambitious or Unworkable?

The EPA’s new standard and timeline are unrealistic because the mass adoption of electric vehicles and construction of the infrastructure needed to support and power them won’t magically appear overnight, says Paul Driessen, a senior policy advisor with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, which co-publishes Environment & Climate News.

“It’s vital to remember that President Joe Biden, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and other climate-focused activists aren’t talking about just replacing current fossil fuel vehicle use or electricity generation,” said Driessen. “They also want to convert home and office heating, cooking, and water heating to electricity; convert factories from coal and gas to running on wind- and solar-generated electricity; and have massive battery modules as backup power for windless, sunless days.

“That means nearly doubling existing U.S. electricity generation, and doing all of it with intermittent, unreliable, weather-dependent power generation systems,” said Driessen. “It means millions of onshore and offshore wind turbines, billions of solar panels, billions of 1,000-pound battery modules, and thousands of new transformers, covering tens of millions of acres, all powered by wind and sunshine, and all connected via thousands of miles of new transmission lines to power users all across America.”

‘It Is a Pipedream’

Electrifying the transportation system and in fact the entire U.S. economy is a fool’s errand, doomed to fail while placing an unnecessary burden on the public, says Driessen.

“They expect, hope, and fantasize this will somehow work, that a massively stressed power grid never built or tested before will be able to handle huge, sudden electricity surges and cutoffs due to wind and sunlight cooperating with demand only incidentally, failing minutes, hours, or days at a time and crashing repeatedly and catastrophically,” said Driessen.

“It is a pipedream that has failed everywhere it’s been tried on much tinier scales than what they intend to impose on us,” said Driessen. “Think of Texas two winters ago, and South Australia a few years ago, multiplied a thousand times over. We’re going to be asked to accept having electricity for every aspect of our industry, hospitals, and lives, when it’s available instead of when we need it.”

It’s ‘MAGIC’

There is no way the United States can get the needed raw materials and do the infrastructure transformation required by the EPA’s and other agencies’ new rules implementing Biden’s “whole of government approach” to fighting climate change, says Driessen.

“Just getting the metals, minerals, plastics, concrete, and other raw materials to create this system will take mining at scales unprecedented in human history,” said Driessen. “Team Biden seems to think this will just happen, under a government-mandated program you could call Materials Acquisition for Global Industrial Change, abbreviated MAGIC.

“This new, unworkable system would totally bankrupt America,” said Driessen. “Energy analyst David Wojick, Ph.D. calculates that building a battery system to back up just New York City’s current peak electricity needs, not counting new electric cars or future growth, for one week of no wind or sunshine would cost $3 trillion! For all of New York State, it would cost $8 trillion. And that’s just New York.”

 

 

China Also Abuses Covid Statistics

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Michael Senger writes at Brownstone Institute China’s Covid Numbers are Manifestly Absurd.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

The Wall Street Journal published a piece titled “Shanghai Has Recorded More Than 130,000 Covid Cases—and No Deaths.” Seeing the darkly comic headline, I was excited. Finally, after two years, the WSJ appeared to be calling out the data fraud that was the foundation for this whole sordid experiment in totalitarian virus mitigation, however belatedly.

Alas, my excitement was premature. As it turns out, the authors of the article tie themselves into knots to explain China’s data. They even trot out Ryan Tibshirani, co-leader of Carnegie Mellon’s COVID-19 modeling team, to tell us that China’s death rate “can also be affected by factors like the age distribution and racial makeup of its population, vaccination status, type of vaccine and average distance to a healthcare facility,” the implication being that Prof. Tibshirani sees nothing wrong with China’s data, thank you very much.

Apparently, China’s low vaccination rate among its elderly population means they can have 130,000 cases and zero deaths. Make it make sense. “Science!”

For two years, the elite journalists, scientists, politicians, and health officials who speak for our most prestigious institutions have been conspicuously and vehemently deferential to the integrity of China’s Covid data. Here’s what the New York Times’ David Leonhardt wrote just two months ago:

Well, now, in Shanghai, we have a “big outbreak” which the CCP has not covered up—but the death data coming out is still manifestly fraudulent. Would the New York Times care to revisit their conclusion that “the country’s official Covid counts have been at least close to accurate…because big outbreaks are hard to cover up”?

Here’s Rochelle Walensky, shortly before assuming office as Director of the US CDC:

Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that these elites want, so badly, for China’s Covid data to be real, because for two years they’ve been imploring their citizens to emulate China, scoffing at our childish attachment to human rights and civil liberties.

By demanding western elites conform to a false reality in which they had to pretend China’s data was real, the CCP forced them into a referendum as to whom they were truly loyal—China, or their own people. In the vast majority of cases, they chose China. And two years on, even amid the horrific spectacle of China’s lockdown of Shanghai, they remain too cowardly and morally vacuous to reconsider their choice.

Even among lockdown skeptics, many can’t accept that public health officials could possibly be that incompetent. It all seems too dumb, too banal. But since March 2020, every single pandemic policy—from the strict lockdowns and masks to the tests, death coding, and vaccine passes—has been imported from China based on the idea that these “extreme social-control measures” had effectively allowed China to “control the virus.”

In an Orwellian “war on COVID misinformation,” those who pointed out that China’s data was obviously fake were vilified by their own governments as alt-right racists, neo-Nazis, and anti-vaxxers—even if fully-vaccinated. They were censored, professionally ostracized, and, as I experienced firsthand, had their social media accounts purged. Hundreds of millions were thrown into poverty, millions of small businesses were bankrupted, an entire generation of children was forced to isolate and cover their faces, and billions of life years were lost, all in service to the collective fantasy encapsulated by this graph.

 

 

Would You Prefer With or Without Ice?

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Raymond at RiC-Communications has produced the above poster on the theme expounded in a previous post In Celebration of Our Warm Climate, reprinted below. The above image is available in high resolution pdf format at his website The last ice age and its impact.

His other science infographic projects are:

The World of CO2

The World of Climate Change

The World of Energy

Legacy and social media keep up a constant drumbeat of warnings about a degree or two of planetary warming without any historical context for considering the significance of the alternative.  A poem of Robert Frost comes to mind as some applicable wisdom:

The diagram at the top shows how grateful we should be for living in today’s climate instead of a glacial icehouse. (H/T Raymond Inauen)  For most of its history Earth has been frozen rather than the mostly green place it is today.  And the reference is to the extent of the North American ice sheet during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).

For further context consider that geologists refer to our time as a “Severe Icehouse World”, among the various conditions in earth’s history, as diagramed by paleo climatologist Christopher Scotese. Referring to the Global Mean Temperatures, it appears after many decades, we are slowly rising to “Icehouse World”, which would seem to be a good thing.

Instead of fear mongering over a bit of warming, we should celebrate our good fortune, and do our best for humanity and the biosphere.  Matthew Ridley takes it from there in a previous post.

Background from previous post The Goodness of Global Warming

LAI refers to Leaf Area Index.

As noted in other posts here, warming comes and goes and a cooling period may now be ensuing. See No Global Warming, Chilly January Land and Sea.  Matt Ridley provides a concise and clear argument to celebrate any warming that comes to our world in his Spiked article Why global warming is good for us.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Climate change is creating a greener, safer planet.

Global warming is real. It is also – so far – mostly beneficial. This startling fact is kept from the public by a determined effort on the part of alarmists and their media allies who are determined to use the language of crisis and emergency. The goal of Net Zero emissions in the UK by 2050 is controversial enough as a policy because of the pain it is causing. But what if that pain is all to prevent something that is not doing net harm?

The biggest benefit of emissions is global greening, the increase year after year of green vegetation on the land surface of the planet. Forests grow more thickly, grasslands more richly and scrub more rapidly. This has been measured using satellites and on-the-ground recording of plant-growth rates. It is happening in all habitats, from tundra to rainforest. In the four decades since 1982, as Bjorn Lomborg points out, NASA data show that global greening has added 618,000 square kilometres of extra green leaves each year, equivalent to three Great Britains. You read that right: every year there’s more greenery on the planet to the extent of three Britains. I bet Greta Thunberg did not tell you that.

The cause of this greening? Although tree planting, natural reforestation, slightly longer growing seasons and a bit more rain all contribute, the big cause is something else. All studies agree that by far the largest contributor to global greening – responsible for roughly half the effect – is the extra carbon dioxide in the air. In 40 years, the proportion of the atmosphere that is CO2 has gone from 0.034 per cent to 0.041 per cent. That may seem a small change but, with more ‘food’ in the air, plants don’t need to lose as much water through their pores (‘stomata’) to acquire a given amount of carbon. So dry areas, like the Sahel region of Africa, are seeing some of the biggest improvements in greenery. Since this is one of the poorest places on the planet, it is good news that there is more food for people, goats and wildlife.

But because good news is no news, green pressure groups and environmental correspondents in the media prefer to ignore global greening. Astonishingly, it merited no mentions on the BBC’s recent Green Planet series, despite the name. Or, if it is mentioned, the media point to studies suggesting greening may soon cease. These studies are based on questionable models, not data (because data show the effect continuing at the same pace). On the very few occasions when the BBC has mentioned global greening it is always accompanied by a health warning in case any viewer might glimpse a silver lining to climate change – for example, ‘extra foliage helps slow climate change, but researchers warn this will be offset by rising temperatures’.

Another bit of good news is on deaths. We’re against them, right? A recent study shows that rising temperatures have resulted in half a million fewer deaths in Britain over the past two decades. That is because cold weather kills about ’20 times as many people as hot weather’, according to the study, which analyses ‘over 74million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries’. This is especially true in a temperate place like Britain, where summer days are rarely hot enough to kill. So global warming and the unrelated phenomenon of urban warming relative to rural areas, caused by the retention of heat by buildings plus energy use, are both preventing premature deaths on a huge scale.

Summer temperatures in the US are changing at half the rate of winter temperatures and daytimes are warming 20 per cent slower than nighttimes. A similar pattern is seen in most countries. Tropical nations are mostly experiencing very slow, almost undetectable daytime warming (outside cities), while Arctic nations are seeing quite rapid change, especially in winter and at night. Alarmists love to talk about polar amplification of average climate change, but they usually omit its inevitable flip side: that tropical temperatures (where most poor people live) are changing more slowly than the average.

My Mind is Made Up, Don’t Confuse Me with the Facts. H/T Bjorn Lomborg, WUWT

But are we not told to expect more volatile weather as a result of climate change? It is certainly assumed that we should. Yet there’s no evidence to suggest weather volatility is increasing and no good theory to suggest it will. The decreasing temperature differential between the tropics and the Arctic may actually diminish the volatility of weather a little.

Indeed, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) repeatedly confirms, there is no clear pattern of storms growing in either frequency or ferocity, droughts are decreasing slightly and floods are getting worse only where land-use changes (like deforestation or building houses on flood plains) create a problem. Globally, deaths from droughts, floods and storms are down by about 98 per cent over the past 100 years – not because weather is less dangerous but because shelter, transport and communication (which are mostly the products of the fossil-fuel economy) have dramatically improved people’s ability to survive such natural disasters.

The effect of today’s warming (and greening) on farming is, on average, positive: crops can be grown farther north and for longer seasons and rainfall is slightly heavier in dry regions. We are feeding over seven billion people today much more easily than we fed three billion in the 1960s, and from a similar acreage of farmland. Global cereal production is on course to break its record this year, for the sixth time in 10 years.

Nature, too, will do generally better in a warming world. There are more species in warmer climates, so more new birds and insects are arriving to breed in southern England than are disappearing from northern Scotland. Warmer means wetter, too: 9,000 years ago, when the climate was warmer than today, the Sahara was green. Alarmists like to imply that concern about climate change goes hand in hand with concern about nature generally. But this is belied by the evidence. Climate policies often harm wildlife: biofuels compete for land with agriculture, eroding the benefits of improved agricultural productivity and increasing pressure on wild land; wind farms kill birds and bats; and the reckless planting of alien sitka spruce trees turns diverse moorland into dark monoculture.

Meanwhile, real environmental issues are ignored or neglected because of the obsession with climate. With the help of local volunteers I have been fighting to protect the red squirrel in Northumberland for years. The government does literally nothing to help us, while it pours money into grants for studying the most far-fetched and minuscule possible climate-change impacts. Invasive alien species are the main cause of species extinction worldwide (like grey squirrels driving the red to the margins), whereas climate change has yet to be shown to have caused a single species to die out altogether anywhere.

Of course, climate change does and will bring problems as well as benefits. Rapid sea-level rise could be catastrophic. But whereas the sea level shot up between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago, rising by about 60 metres in two millennia, or roughly three metres per century, today the change is nine times slower: three millimetres a year, or a foot per century, and with not much sign of acceleration. Countries like the Netherlands and Vietnam show that it is possible to gain land from the sea even in a world where sea levels are rising. The land area of the planet is actually increasing, not shrinking, thanks to siltation and reclamation.

Environmentalists don’t get donations or invitations to appear on the telly if they say moderate things. To stand up and pronounce that ‘climate change is real and needs to be tackled, but it’s not happening very fast and other environmental issues are more urgent’ would be about as popular as an MP in Oliver Cromwell’s parliament declaring, ‘The evidence for God is looking a bit weak, and I’m not so very sure that fornication really is a sin’. And I speak as someone who has made several speeches on climate in parliament.

No wonder we don’t hear about the good news on climate change.

 

 

Pipe Dreams: How America Is Energized

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Kite and Key Media provides a primer on America’s Energy supply in the above video and transcript below in italics with my bolds.

Pipe Dreams: How America Gets Energy.
The Backbone of America’s Energy Infrastructure

In the winter of 2022, the world watched in horror as Russian forces invaded Ukraine.  The question on everyone’s mind: “How did they think they could get away with this?”

One very good answer to that question: Because over 40% of the natural gas Europe relies on to keep itself warm during the winter … comes from Russia.  And standing up to the people who are keeping you from freezing … is a tall order.

Now, if you’re an American, this scenario might seem unthinkable. After all, the U.S. produces more natural gas than any other nation in the world.   We’d never have to rely on a hostile nation to keep ourselves warm.

Or at least that’s what you’d think…
…unless you were there the day that Russian gas pulled into Boston harbor.

Here’s a simple test to determine whether you live in a prosperous society: Do you ever worry about where you’re going to get the necessities of life?

Do you ever pull up to the gas station and worry that the pumps might be empty? Do you ever go to switch on the lights and worry that nothing will happen?

Most of the time, the answer is ‘no’ … which is why it’s so terrifying when the answer is ‘yes.’

Blackouts in Texas in early 2021. Over 10,000 gas stations running dry after a cyberattack only a few months later.   What do those incidents have in common?

They demonstrate what happens when pipelines aren’t working.

If America’s energy supplies are the lifeblood of our economy, then we can think of pipelines as something like the nation’s circulatory system.

In the U.S., pipelines are used to bring us about 90% of our petroleum and virtually all of our natural gas — which is pretty significant, given that those two power sources alone make up about 70% of the country’s entire energy use.

That’s why America has over 2.6 million miles worth of pipelines. Because without them … the whole country gets very Amish very fast.

But, as you may have noticed … not everyone is thrilled about this. In recent years, legal challenges have led to the cancellation of several major pipelines and delays for many others. From 2009 to 2018, the time it takes to get pipelines approved increased by more than 50%. 

So, what’s happening here? The objections to pipelines rest primarily on two critiques. The first is that they’ll contribute to carbon emissions. The second is that pipeline accidents could lead to oil spills.

And both of those claims … really require context to understand.

When it comes to carbon emissions, it’s important to know that the pipelines themselves aren’t really the issue. They’re just a mode of transportation.

The carbon emissions come from the petroleum and natural gas that flow through the pipelines. But here’s the catch: Getting rid of the pipelines … doesn’t mean getting rid of the emissions.

Cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline, for instance, may have felt like a win for the environment — but it’s not like that oil is gonna stay in the ground as a result. In fact, much of it is likely to be shipped to China — which isn’t exactly a low-emissions trip.

And we can probably expect to see more of that. Current government projections are that, even with a steep increase in the use of renewable fuels, we’ll still be getting about 2/3 of our energy from natural gas and petroleum … 30 years from now.

Refusing to build pipelines won’t change that reality …
but it will make the system we actually have much harder to operate.

Which gets to those concerns about safety. Do accidents occur with pipelines? Yes. It happens. However, accidents occur with all forms of energy transportation. So, the real question is what’s safest among the available options.

And on that front … pipelines do pretty well. Because if you’re not going to move fuel through the ground, you only have three other options: put it on trains, put it on trucks, or put it on boats.

Now, none of those methods is especially dangerous, but pipelines spill a lower percentage of the oil they transport than any method except boats.  And boats have … limited utility on this front. Because they still need fuel in Nebraska … and America’s 26 other land-locked states. 

So, what does a world without pipelines look like?
We already sorta know the answer.

The reason that Boston was getting gas from Russia, for instance, was because the state of Massachusetts refused to allow a pipeline to bring it from Pennsylvania. That’s the same reason, by the way, that, in January of 2022, the citizens of Boston … were paying 400% more for natural gas than those Pennsylvanians only 200 miles away — in the middle of a New England winter.

Here’s the reality: None of us are willing to live in a world where the lights don’t reliably come on or gas doesn’t reliably come out of the pump. We can aspire to a future powered by cleaner energy sources, but until that day comes … we’re going to be relying on fuel sources like petroleum and natural gas.

Which means we either rely on pipelines…

…or rely on places like Moscow…

…or get very comfortable with horses.

 

Still No Global Warming, Milder March Land and Sea

Posted on by Ron Clutz

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The post below updates the UAH record of air temperatures over land and ocean.  But as an overview consider how recent rapid cooling has now completely overcome the warming from the last 3 El Ninos (1998, 2010 and 2016).  The UAH record shows that the effects of the last one were gone as of April 2021, again in November 2021 and February 2022. (UAH baseline is now 1991-2020).

For reference I added an overlay of CO2 annual concentrations as measured at Mauna Loa.  While temperatures fluctuated up and down ending flat, CO2 went up steadily by ~55 ppm, a 15% increase.

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

gmt-warming-events

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

Importantly, the theory of human-caused global warming asserts that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere changes the baseline and causes systemic warming in our climate.  On the contrary, all of the warming since 1947 was episodic, coming from three brief events associated with oceanic cycles. 

Update August 3, 2021

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

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See Also Worst Threat: Greenhouse Gas or Quiet Sun?

March Update Milder Ocean and Land Air Temps 

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With apologies to Paul Revere, this post is on the lookout for cooler weather with an eye on both the Land and the Sea.  While you will hear a lot about 2020-21 temperatures matching 2016 as the highest ever, that spin ignores how fast the cooling set in.  The UAH data analyzed below shows that warming from the last El Nino was fully dissipated with chilly temperatures in all regions.  Last month both land and ocean showed slightly milder temps

UAH has updated their tlt (temperatures in lower troposphere) dataset for March 2022.  Previously I have done posts on their reading of ocean air temps as a prelude to updated records from HadSST3 (which is now discontinued). So I have separately posted on SSTs using HadSST4 2021 Ends with Cooler Ocean Temps  This month also has a separate graph of land air temps because the comparisons and contrasts are interesting as we contemplate possible cooling in coming months and years. Sometimes air temps over land diverge from ocean air changes, while last month showed that both air over land and ocean rose slightly.

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

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

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

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

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

Note 2020 was warmed mainly by a spike in February in all regions, and secondarily by an October spike in NH alone. In 2021, SH and the Tropics both pulled the Global anomaly down to a new low in April. Then SH and Tropics upward spikes, along with NH warming brought Global temps to a peak in October.  That warmth was gone as November 2021 ocean temps plummeted everywhere. A upward bump 01/2022 was reversed in 02/2022 and now temps rise again in 03/2022.  Last month warming in the Tropics and NH was moderated by SH ocean air remaining cool.

Land Air Temperatures Tracking Downward in Seesaw Pattern

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

Here we have fresh evidence of the greater volatility of the Land temperatures, along with extraordinary departures by SH land.  Land temps are dominated by NH with a 2021 spike in January,  then dropping before rising in the summer to peak in October 2021. As with the ocean air temps, all that was erased in November with a sharp cooling everywhere. Land temps dropped sharply for four months, even more than did the Oceans.  Now in March all land regions warmed pulling up the global anomaly.

The Bigger Picture UAH Global Since 1980

The chart shows monthly anomalies starting 01/1980 to present.  The average monthly anomaly is -0.07, for this period of more than four decades.  The graph shows the 1998 El Nino after which the mean resumed, and again after the smaller 2010 event. The 2016 El Nino matched 1998 peak and in addition NH after effects lasted longer, followed by the NH warming 2019-20.   A small upward bump in 2021 has been reversed with temps having returned again to the mean. Today we are at nearly the same temperature as 1980, with virtually no accumulation of global warming.

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