Tag: climate change

California dreamin’ of EVs

Often, when reading news from California, one wonders whether the state is at the forefront of innovation or delusion. California’s fixation with climate change and electric vehicles serves as example.

Often, when reading news from California, one wonders whether the state is at the forefront of innovation or delusion. California’s fixation with climate change and electric vehicles serves as example.

Here is a quote from one of the more progressive members of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, Rafael Mandelman.

“We have to take action to expand our public EV-charging infrastructure and make EV ownership more accessible and practical for all San Franciscans.” … “Our curbside EV charging program is not just about installing charging stations. It’s about creating a more equitable and sustainable transportation ecosystem.” The City wants to add thousands of EV chargers by 2030, San Francisco Examiner, March 19, 2024.

San Francisco, as California, does have ambitious climate mandates, including plans for EVs for everyone and a ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars after 2035.

Given the real world, such climate ambitions border on delusional.

Supervisor Mandelman must be aware that San Francisco is projecting a deficit of $245 million in 2025 and a deficit of $554 million in 2026. He must also be aware that about 10% of the City’s residents live below San Francisco’s poverty rate, necessitating substantial subsidies if this population segment is to switch from gas-powered cars to EVs.

It is unknown whether Supervisor Mandelman wants to include the City’s 7,700 plus homeless population in his “equitable and sustainable transportation ecosystem.”

The high cost directly associated with EVs is not the only issue. Well-known shortcomings of current EVs include unreliable performance in extreme weather, need for more frequent charging than gasoline fill-ups, and electric grids that limit EV charging to specific times.

Beyond immediate inconveniences, EVs pose environmental challenges of their own.

Industry boasts that 95% of battery components can be recycled; extraordinarily expensively, but it can be done. However, industry seldom mentions that EV battery recycling is in its infancy, placing in question whether EV mandates are getting ahead of recycling capacity. As we all know, EV batteries are the last thing one would want in a landfill.

Although extraction of minerals necessary to produce EV batteries – mainly lithium and cobalt –is increasing, only a few countries extract these minerals in significant quantities. Australia, Chile and China extract the most lithium, while the Democratic Republic of the Congo extracts 70% of the world supply of cobalt. If EV mandates continue at the present rate, how long until environmentalists jump on the environmental challenges posed by widespread mining?

Despite mandates and incentives, drivers in the U.S. are not entirely sold on electric vehicles, according to an April 2023 Gallup poll. Current ownership is of EVs in the U.S. is only 4%. Gallup summarizes as follows.

“While ownership of electric vehicles is on the rise in the U.S., the percentage of Americans who say they own one remains limited at 4%. Though they are often promoted as a key way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and address the effects of climate change, the public remains largely unconvinced that the use of EVs accomplishes this aim.”

As with all consumer goods, electric vehicles respond to price competitiveness and consumer needs. Without those two essentials, adoption of EVs at present can significantly increase only through government intervention. And here is where leaders like the aforementioned member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, Rafael Mandelman, comes in.

Money to subsidize projects is never really a problem for governments, since taxpayers willing to fork over their hard-earned cash are always available. Consumer concerns with EVs are easily overcome by removing the alternative of purchasing gas-powered vehicles. Uneasiness with widespread mining is minimized by exporting environmental degradation.

Leaders have created a delusional world where petroleum disappears without credible supplies of products to replace petroleum and its thousands of derivatives. They have created an unnatural market where people buy what they don’t really want.

In the real world and the real market place innovators step in with new products that reliably and competitively replace products that no longer satisfy consumers. When whale bone became too costly due to overkilling of whales, plastics were invented. The decline of silkworms brought on the invention of nylon.

But, what can today reliably fly the thousands of airplanes in our skies except petroleum? What can credibly replace the hundreds of plastic products in our homes, especially our less affluent homes? Nothing. Because oil is efficient, and kept cheap relative to alternatives in large part as a result of government subsidies.

“The oil and gas industry is expected to reap $1.7 billion in 2025 from the intangible drilling tax break, and $9.7 billion over the next 10 years, according to the White House. It is expected to realize $880 million in benefits from the depletion allowance tax break in 2025, and $15.6 billion by 2034.” The Zombies of the U.S. Tax Code: Why Fossil Fuels Subsidies Seem Impossible to Kill, The New York Times, March 20, 2024.

As long as oil is efficient and relatively cheap, it will take either gargantuan innovation to make EVs competitive or massive taxpayer-funded subsidies to make EVs affordable.

The real, non-delusional world, seldom allows us to have our cake and eat it too.

Pictured: Henry Ford’s electric vehicle prototype. The dream of electric vehicles is not new. Henry Ford worked with Thomas Edison for several years on an EV project before abandoning it. Some say the project did not work because of battery shortcomings, and some say the oil companies conspired to deep-six the project. Good article on the subject on Wired Magazine, Ford, Edison and the Cheap EV That Almost Was, June 18, 2010.

Who stole Arbor Day?

In 1885, Nebraska declared Arbor Day a state holiday, to be celebrated on April 22. Within the next 20 years, Arbor Day was celebrated in most states. Tree-planting on this holiday remained popular, until the 1970’s. Then events overshadowed it.

A question meriting even more attention than who stole Arbor Day is “Why?” Who would want to hijack a holiday? Half a century after the takeover, events have developed sufficiently for a reasonable guess.

The story started way back in 1854.

In 1854, a journalist named Julius Sterling Morton and his wife Caroline moved to the wind-swept territory of Nebraska. There were few trees to serve as windbreaks, and few trees to protect soil from erosion or crops from burning in the sun.

For several years, Morton editorialized on the benefits of trees and encouraged his fellow Nebraskans to plant trees. As part of his campaign, Morton proposed an Arbor Day.

In 1885, Nebraska declared Arbor Day a state holiday, and April 22 the date of annual observance. April offered ideal weather for planting trees, and the 22nd of April was J. Sterling Morton’s birthday. By that time, Morton had led the planning of more than 1 million trees.

Within the next 20 years, Arbor Day was celebrated in all states of the U.S., except Delaware. The Arbor Day concept also spread outside the U.S., to Japan, Europe, Canada, and Australia.

Enter Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin.

In 1969, Senator Gaylord Nelson saw the opportunity to capitalize on a populace spooked by environmental ruin. Rachel Carson’s widely read Silent Spring, published in 1962, lifted the veil that theretofore had hidden massive pollution caused by pesticides. In January of 1969, an oil well off the pristine coast of Santa Barbara, California, blew up, and hundreds of images of aquatic animals covered oil flooded the airwaves.

In the same year as the Santa Barbara oil spill, Senator Nelson started organizing nation-wide rallies to bring attention to what was happening to Mother Earth. The day he picked for the coordinated rallies was April 22, for the purported reason that young college students, who were expected to play a big role, would be on spring break. April 22 was also the original day for Arbor Day celebrations already established throughout the nation. (Critics of Earth Day point out that April 22 is also Vladimir Lenin’s birthday, but any connection between the environmental movement and abolition of private property shall be left for another day.)

Earth Day 1970, with its catchy slogan “Give Earth a Chance” and heavy promotion, was a success. An estimated 20 million people attended various rallies and festivities.

Meanwhile, Richard Nixon promoted environmental legislation.

President Richard M. Nixon embarked on a series of environmental legislation. He signed the National Environmental Policy Act (January 1970), creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (December 1970), Clean Air Act (December 1970), Marine Mammal Protection Act (October 1972), Endangered Species Act (December 1973).

As part of his environmental plan, Nixon signed two proclamations:

Proclamation 4042, dated April 2, 1971, designated the period of April 18 through April 24, 1971, as Earth Week.

Proclamation 4126, dated April 24, 1972, designated the last Friday of April 1972, April 28, as National Arbor Day.

These celebrations today continue, but at different levels.

Today, Arbor Day is still observed by avid supporters on the last Friday in April, as well as on several other dates in different states. The Arbor Day Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization, claims more than 1 million members.

However, Earth Day, remains much more visible, and some have given it the mantle of fighting climate change.

The Earth Day Network (Earthday.org), a 501(c) corporation, whose mission is to “Broaden and diversify the environmental movement worldwide”, picked “Invest in our Planet” as the theme of Earth Day 2023. Its press release states,

Investing in a green economy is the only path to a healthy, prosperous, and equitable future. Human influence is unequivocally to blame for the warming of the planet and the sad truth is some forms of climate disruption will be felt for centuries to come. However, we must collectively push away from the dirty fossil fuel economy and old technologies of centuries past – and redirect attention to creating a 21st century economy that restores the health of our planet, protects our species, and provides opportunities for all.

On April 21, 2023, President Joe Biden issued A Proclamation on Earth Day, 2023.

On Earth Day, we celebrate the modern environmental movement that kicked off 53 years ago, when millions of Americans of every age and background first rallied together to change our laws and become better stewards of our planet …

This work has never been more urgent. Climate change is a clear and present danger — in the words of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, it is a “code red for humanity.

The last Presidential Proclamation helping to celebrate Arbor Day appears to be that of President George H.W. Bush in 1990.

It would have been nice if both celebrations remained popular.

Arbor Day and Earth Day occupy different spheres of influence. Arbor Day incentivizes individuals to develop personal awareness of the benefit of trees in absorbing carbon dioxide, combating soil erosion, protecting people and crops from sun overexposure, and adding beauty. Earth Day has the much broader objective of fixing the environment by any means necessary.

Senator Gaylord Nelson could have meant well when he chose to celebrate Earth Day on the same day as Arbor Day had been celebrated for more than 80 years – perhaps as a nod to J. Sterling Morton’s birthday.

But surely Senator Nelson must have considered the possibility that the massive publicity received by Earth Day would overshadow Arbor Day. Environmental action by any means necessary?

Pictured: Arbor Day celebration in New York City, 1908.

Democracy is at risk from climate experts

The recent UN conference on climate change was a reminder: We the people do not chose the delegates we send to UN conferences, we do not choose the issues the conferences discuss, we do not have any say on what our delegates commit us to do. Therein lies the threat to Democracy.

Three weeks ago, President Joe Biden declared that “in our bones we know democracy is at risk.” He attributed the threat to Trump acolytes “running for every level of office in America.” Well, no mayhem ensued after November 8.

However, a bigger threat that probably few heard of did arise soon after. On November 6, 2022, the world’s elite once again gathered at the 27th annual United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP27). This time, the conference’s focus was on methods by which the 197 participating countries, including the U.S., should implement the ambitious UN-prescribed climate action plan.

And therein lies the threat to U.S. democracy.

Delegates to the COP27 gathering implicitly agreed to accept the prescribed science behind the climate action plan, identify and remove barriers to implementation of the plan, require changes in corporate behavior to advance the plan, and compel changes in investment to finance the plan. Specific examples were given during the conference:

* Climate science is what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) prescribes based on its research.

* Barriers to implementation of the climate action plan include oil and gas industry lobbying, dominant modes of transportation, and counties without sufficient capital.

* Corporate behavior in need of change include compensation based on production rather than climate action, lack of specific means of accountability for lack of climate action, resistance to a universal repository for listing specific corporate advances in climate action, and the mere existence of fossil fuel industries.

* Investment needs to move away from fossil fuels and into renewable energy. Developed nations need to pay into a fund designed to assist climate action by less developed nations. Financial institutions need to reduce barriers to financing climate action, such as interest rates or development plan characteristics.

Most of the action points above cannot be binding but are implicitly accepted by delegates. The more explicit point is the establishment of a fund to help poorer nations deal with the costs of climate-induced disasters. At COP27, there was agreement to establish the UN Loss and Damage Fund, details of which will be worked out next year.

Why is this seemingly intelligent climate action plan a threat to U.S. democracy?

The COP27, regardless of any sincere and worthy intentions of participants, is nevertheless a body not chosen by or even widely known to U.S. voters. The bedrock of democracy is the vote of the people. Through their vote on candidates and issues, voters express what they want their country to be.

Since the birth of the United Nations, concerned individuals have expressed uneasiness. We the people do not chose the delegates we send to UN conferences, we do not choose the issues the conferences discuss, we do not have any say on what our delegates commit us to do. We can vote on proposals on our ballots but may or may not readily associate them with UN pledges.

Concern in some circles extend even deeper.

A threat to our political structure – call it democracy or representative republic – for the sake of saving us from climate disaster is bad enough. However, a threat disguised as climate action for the sake of ideology is worse.

Here are a couple of interesting excerpts from recent publications:

* The Lew Rockwell blog on November 2, 2022, published a piece by Thomas DiLorenzo that well encapsulates some people’s concern about the relentless talk of climate action. DiLorenzo says,

Years ago my friend the late Murray Weidenbaum, the chairman of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors, told a story of how he had a conversation with Barry Commoner, one of the founding fathers of the modern enviro-commie movement. (I believe they both taught at Washington University in St. Louis). Weidenbaum said to him (paraphrasing from memory): You guys are against oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear power. Without energy, you cannot have a capitalist market economy.

Commoner’s response was to sit back and smile. Weidenbaum told me that he interpreted Commoner’s expression as saying “exactly right.“

* Greta Thunberg, the high-profile teen climate activist, attended a Southbank Center event to promote her new collection of essays, The Climate Book. During her speech and subsequent interview with journalist Samira Ahmed, Ms. Thunberg stated that it is too late for individual action, and saving the planet now requires system-wide transformation.

We need to change everything because right now our current system is on a collision course with the future of humanity and the future of our civilization.

[the current system is] “defined by colonialism, imperialism, oppression and genocide by the so-called global North to accumulate wealth that still shapes our current world order.

As an aside it is useful to note that Greta Thunberg is aware that changes are unlikely without people’s (supposedly including voters’) demand for such changes. She made that point several times during her interview with Samira Ahmed. Whether COP27 participants were equally cognizant, is not clear.

Additional concerns regarding ideology include a perception of bias.

Bias is an unavoidable feature of the human mind. Sometimes it is unintentional and unperceived, and at times it is intentionally baked into ideologies.

Right-leaning ideologues tend to dismiss the negative impacts of carbon dioxide and/or ignore the association between the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the rise of industrialization. Left-leaning ideologues tend to blame climate change for events that could be ascribed to other causes (residential encroachment into fire zones during the last decade as contributors to forest fires, for example), and tend to limit themselves to prescribed remedies.

At present, left-leaning ideologies have the upper hand on matters of climate change.

Left-leaning bias focuses on elimination of fossil fuels. But the plan lacks sufficient focus on the thousands of products derived from fossil fuels. Lots of talk there is about wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles; but not much talk about effectively replacing polyester clothing, PVC pipes, nylon ropes, plastic toys, or small appliance casings.

Also, left-leaning bias ignores the harm derived from disposal of the large energy-storage batteries required in renewable energies and electric vehicles. It is hard to tell percentage of components that are recycled, although some say 5%. The rest is buried and left to sip into soil and waterways.

Left-leaning bias against capitalism and its profit motive fails to acknowledge that government cannot produce capital. People (including those that work or invest in corporations) produce capital from the profits they make. Focusing on climate action instead of profits will reduce capital. That is fine, as long as we all agree that climate action is more important than the standard of living to which some of us have grown accustomed.

Faced with the conundrums listed above, do we simply do nothing?

Doing nothing about the documented acceleration in the level of global warming since the start of the industrial revolution is not a wise choice. However, neither is risking democracy – which we keep claiming is so important to us – for a promise of safety from anticipated climate disasters.

That is not to say that people who are willing to exchange democracy for a promise of safety should be prevented from seeking that option. They must be free to do so if democracy is to be upheld!

Those who prefer democracy need to be free to choose that preference as well, which is not something by which climate activists like Greta Thunberg abide, or which our “official” climate experts want to allow. And, by the way, who are these official experts?

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created in 1988 to provide policymakers with regular scientific risk assessment on climate change, formulate options for adaptation and mitigation, and determine the state of knowledge on climate change. In other words, the IPCC is the poo-bah of climate science. Suggest other scientific avenues, and risk accusation of spreading misinformation.

But there should be competition with the IPCC

Elon Musk, who seems to be rapidly catching up with former president Donald Trump as the Left’s most prominent thorn, on February of 2021 funded through his foundation a four-year global competition to award innovators that demonstrate ways to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or oceans and sequester it durably and sustainably. The idea is not only to fund work on carbon sequestration, but also to incite other investors.

It took NASA only 10 years to figure how to put a man on the Moon and safely bring him back to Earth. It has been 57 years since the first climate conference in 1979 (Geneva, February 12-23, 1979), and according to COP27 participants, global warming is still taking place, disasters are increasing, and not much has been put in place to reverse the trend.

COP27 participants and experts are correct in their assertion it is time for structural changes. However, given the UN’s 57-year failure to bend the curve of global warming, perhaps such changes could include giving up on the UN and focusing more on hyping the work NASA has done on carbon conversion and sequestration, and the awards EPA has established for credible sustainable methods of reducing and sequestering carbon.

If U.S. voters wish to help poor regions with mitigation of disasters due to climate change, voters can choose candidates that promise to do so. Primary focus, however, should be on developing cost-effective technology that nations poorer or richer can use if they choose to do so to curb emissions and sequester carbon dioxide already present in the atmosphere.

Pictured: YouTube excerpt of COP27 Recommendations of Expert Group on Net-Zero Commitments of Non-state Entities. Non-state entities include private businesses, agencies and financial institutions. The panel of experts recommended guidelines for explicit, required, equitable and just actions. It also recommended transparency via a central repository where progress could be viewed and evaluated.

SF Bay Area: Pitch Dark at Noon!

San Francisco Bay Area skies were pitch dark at 9am. Still dark at noon. Climate change or poor forest management, depending on who you ask. Great pictures in S.F. Chronicle.

Here in California things are getting “curiouser and curiouser.” Like Alice falling through the rabbit hole and facing the challenges of Wonderland. On Wednesday, September 9, 2020, things in the San Francisco Bay Area got really curiouser.

“Oh my”, we all said when we woke up. “Where is the sun?” Still by noontime, the skies were darker than eventide – except for a fearsome reddish-orange glow. “The fires,” we all said.

“The fires,” we say in somber tones. Climate change, and it’s all our fault.

Maybe those dark skies might also be related to poor forest management, but who knows. All we know is maybe next come the locusts.

The San Francisco Chronicle carried great pictures of the event. Worth seeing. One of the pictures is featured here.

Jerry Brown Blames the Feds for Wildfires Too

Jerry Brown says the blood of California wildfire victims is on climate deniers’ souls. There is room for disagreement.

 

Four days ago, former California governor Jerry Brown testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Committee panel on the environment. Here is what he said,

California’s burning while the deniers make a joke out of the standards that protect us all. The blood is on your soul here and I hope you wake up.

His point was that climate change is the primary cause of California’s devastating wildfires, and the Trump administration is not interested in either the state’s plight or in California’s leadership in fighting climate change.

The governor’s specific reason for visiting Washington DC was to testify against the Administration’s plan to suspend the federal waiver that allows California to impose vehicle emission standards more stringent than those mandated by the federal government. The state views strict emission standards as essential in lowering CO2, the focus of California’s climate fight.

Let’s Review California’s Wildfire Scenario

Indeed, climate changes, and with change comes the need for adaptation. But the governor’s words when stacked up against some obvious facts sound more like prescribed rhetoric than a call for solutions. Here are some variables that are absent from the governor’s rhetoric.

* California wildfires have always been a fact of nature. Forest fires naturally take care of overgrowth and help seeds explode and propagate. However, while in the old days early inhabitants suffered smoky air and heat from the conflagrations today’s inhabitants are faced with tragic destruction of life and property.

* Recent poorly-managed population growth force people seeking room to build to locate in fire zones next to tinder-dry forests.

* An exploding number of homeless individuals and their campfires have spread out into fire-prone zones, just like their housed neighbors.

* Overzealous environmentalists have succeeded in stopping the culling of trees and trimming of underbrush.

* Nature-loving homeowners understandably enjoy forests, rendered deadly by droughts, right by their backyards.

* California’s perennial distaste for investor-owned utility companies such a PG&E and Southern California Edison preclude peaceful and efficient transition to renewable sources of energy.

Blood in Whose Soul?

Jerry Brown made headlines with his “blood is on your soul” accusation. But his climate change blame game sounds unconvincing when other factors affecting the destruction caused by California’s wildfires are ignored.

The former governor’s words brings to mind an image of another unraveling society of long time past, where someone fiddled as the city burned. Whose soul was tainted with blood then? And now?

More on the Subject

*  For a more scathing opinion of California fires, the Just Vote No Blog recommends

California is Becoming Unlivable, Atlantic, October 2019 issue

*  Picture: Note the dry dead branches in the center of this tree grove in a northern California residential community.

Trees 2

UN Climate Action: Anybody Left Out?

The United Nations mostly called for action from governments and corporations. They should have asked who they were leaving out!

The last few days have been significant for those who have been watching the development of the climate change movement.

The Children’s Marches

The September 20th children’s Climate Action marches throughout the world were a model of effective organizing. The chosen face of the children’s demand for action, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, performed admirably in event after event.

UN Climate Action Summit

In New York City, the United Nations Climate Action Summit 2019 on September 23rd was a wonder to behold.  World leaders meticulously selected for their commitment to fighting climate change reported on their country’s progress in implementing the mandates of the Paris Agreement.

Greta Thunberg’s presentation before the heads of state made headlines. The teen environmental activist strongly rebuked the grownups for thrashing the Planet and leaving a mess that will shorten or effectively end lives in her generation and that of her progeny.  Ms. Thunberg spoke of the abject fear the “existential crisis” of climate change has wrought upon today’s youth.

Mr. Antonio Guterres, current UN Secretary General and former Socialist Party Prime Minister of Portugal, echoed the children’s concern. His young granddaughters, he said, would not inherit a hospitable Planet unless we fixed our destruction through the collective action and distribution of resources prescribed in the Paris Agreement.

Some Reminders

Yes, our Planet has been warming. And yes, just as ice floating in the surface of your sangria melts faster in hot weather, so does Polar ice floating in the oceans. The meltdown might even eventually return the Poles to their ice-free condition during the time of the dinosaurs.  Ocean-front cities will be the first to go.

Chart showing Earth's cold and hot cycle
NOAA Climate Information – Extreme Events, Trends

However, if industrialization contributed to a current natural warming, perhaps we can delay the inevitable through some lifestyle changes.

We could use some lifestyle changes anyway to clean up our air and quit dumping non-biodegradable garbage everywhere.

The 74th Session of the U.N. General Assembly

Leaders of the United Nations member states met in New York City on September 24th for the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly and Debate.  All presentations are available for watching on YouTube or the UN WebTV.

In his opening presentation, UN Secretary General Guterres once again insisted on the end of talk and the start of evidence of prescribed action under the Paris Agreement. He views the Agreement as a social and moral contract that signatories need to honor if we are to avoid climate catastrophe. The Agreement principally calls for a drastic world-wide reduction in CO2 through phasing out of fossil fuels.

By contrast, recently elected Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro , clearly and forcefully indicated to the assembled dignitaries that Brazil is a sovereign nation that has demonstrated in words and actions that it is committed to environmental protection that is specifically adapted to the country’s own characteristics. President Bolsonaro took the opportunity to indicate his distaste for widespread media fallacies, political correctness that replaces reality, and socialist ideology that routinely leaves a “trail of misery.” Socialism is working in Venezuela, he said – everybody is now poor.

Compliant leaders like Emmanuel Macron of France, Angela Merkel of Germany, and Sebastian Pinera of Chile did report their progress in implementing climate fighting mandates contained in the Paris Agreement.

In a show of inclusiveness, organizers of the 2019 UN Session invited the input of entrepreneurs who could contribute to the climate fight through technology and customer reach. Entrepreneurs spoke of devises farmers in poor countries can use to predict the approach of threatening weather conditions. Representatives of Google, Microsoft, Ubisoft and other gaming companies reported on their success in reducing the energy consumption of their games and data storage, and including ideas on Planet protection in the theme of their games.

Who Did the UN Leave Out?

The United Nations mostly called for action from governments and corporations. They should have asked who they were leaving out! The Summit left out people – buyers, consumers, trend setters, and boycotters.

Consumer distaste wiped the Ford Company’s Edsel and the New Coke off the market within a short time of the products’ introduction. Conversely, The Blair Witch Project was a 1999 movie produced for $60,000 that grossed $140.5 million, because people thought the low-budged viral marketing and the shaky camera effect were really cool.

Maybe if all those children that demanded climate action from government refused to ride on gas guzzlers, gave up watching anything on energy-sucking plasma entertainment screens, and reduced their meat consumption they might set a trend. Their Climate Action Fridays could be spent reaching out to consumers and featuring companies that work on making their premises as carbon neutral as possible.

Fear As a Tool For Control

Fear is a good tool with which to implement control. California did a great job successfully passing hundreds of mandates removing voter control of housing by utilizing concerns about climate change.

Fear is a good tool with which to implement control. California did a great job successfully passing hundreds of mandates removing voter control of housing by utilizing concerns about climate change. The point here is not to engage in unwinnable arguments whether climate change is man-made or not, but to observe a transformation, some say not for the good, driven by constant talk of climate change.

California Political News and Views is an on-line publication popular among conservatives.  “Conservative” includes ideas such as protection of private property and displeasure with government supported or controlled housing.

An article in the Political News and Views issue of September 16, observes the connection between California’s continuous talk of climate change and draconian housing legislation. Of special note is the morphing of climate change into climate justice, which led to massive taxation of the state’s residents to support subsidized housing.

Here is a link to the article: The Ascent of Big Government in the Guise of Climate Change

California-Capitol-Money

 

Oil foes do not like kids’ plastic toys

So your favorite candidate for office is promising to ban oil production leases and fracking? Sounds like your kids’ toys will be getting more expensive.

WatermelonGreen deals are popping up like dandelions.  Left-leaning folks are ready to downright ban oil.  No more fossil fuels!  No more fracking!  To be responsibly green, we will need to do a lot more than what is common sense like investing in clean, effective and useful transit systems.

Aside from the question whether we need to anticipate flying in solar-powered airplanes, we also need to reflect on how many things around the house we will need to replace when oil becomes prohibitively expensive or just plain unavailable.

Of course, our toddler’s toys, eating utensils, backyard kiddie pool, and playground slides will need to go away.  Disposable diapers will be a problem — outer shell is plastic.  Crayons — oil based.

Also to depart will be the cheap bag of fertilizer we use for our potted plants.  Inexpensive T-shirts will need to be replaced by cotton or maybe even Irish linen.  Regarding shoes, we will have to face a huge dilemma, since the alternative to synthetic might be leather from little innocent cows.

Vaseline, lipstick, nail polish — all petroleum based.

So, when a candidate for office says at a neighborhood town hall that she would suspend all fossil fuel drilling leases for offshore and public lands, start worrying about all those T-shits and sneakers.

Oh, but wait, the U.S. imports like 70% of all that stuff anyway, so we would not need domestic oil, right?  Other countries can increase their oil production to make up for the U.S. decrease, no?  Oh, that will fight global warming how, again?

 

Climate Change: View from the other side

This post is in fairness to those who truly believe that climate change is an existential threat requiring collective, globally-mandated action.

The Just Vote No Blog View

“Climate change” and “Climate denial” are charged phrases that often elicit strong responses. The Just Vote No Blog has often noted that the subject of climate has grown beyond common sense efforts like installing scrubbers on smokestacks, investing in useful transit systems, or driving reasonably-sized gas-saving private automobiles. Today the subject serves to implement the cause of “social justice and equity.” The Just Vote No Blog has encouraged honest appraisal of the costs and benefits of such a cause.

The View From the Other Side

In all fairness to social justice warriors who truly believe that climate change constitutes an existential threat that requires globally-implemented mandates, the JVN Blog asked the permission of a fellow activist to post some heartfelt beautifully expressed responses he wrote during an email discussion on climate change.

Primarily, he visualizes need for transformation in our social institutions that will bring about renewal of collective action based on trust. He sees a culture of individualism that since the 1960s rose in tandem with mistrust of social institutions, thus spawning impediments to the kind of collective action that fighting climate change requires.

Here are Steve J.’s thoughts, posted without editing and with the respect that is due to honestly differing views.

In response to a question why research is limited to rise in CO2:

“The reason why ‘changes caused by other than CO2’ have not been studied is an excellent question. One explanation for alternative climate change theories not being funded is that they are opposed by a vast conspiracy that includes the government, the scientific community, and their funding sources. The other reason may be that in the last 30 years alternative theories to the greenhouse effect have been examined by scientists in multiple disciplines and dismissed as less plausible. What are we to believe?”

“There is considerable evidence that counter arguments to James Hansen’s 1988 theory and subsequent scientific research are funded by the fossil fuel industry. While I don’t dismiss the possibility that the scientific consensus is wrong and is the result of an extremely broad conspiracy, there is substantial evidence that there has been a profit-driven PR campaign to oppose the scientific consensus, leaving us with unanswered questions like yours. Here’s one example, Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America, by business reporter Christopher Leonard: ‘A new book reveals that Charles Koch, along with his brother David, played an earlier and more central role in climate-change denial than was previously understood.’ Reported in The New Yorker by Jane Mayer (the author of Dark Money), August 13, 2019.”

Continue reading “Climate Change: View from the other side”

Green Deals and Watermelons

The watermelon people might not be entirely red yet. However, with all their talk of democratic socialism, social justice, income inequality, and 70% taxation, they are certainly getting there.

WatermelonThere is a saying among “climate deniers” that “climate alarmists” are like watermelons – green on the outside and red in the inside. The watermelon people might not be entirely red, at least not yet. However, with all their talk of democratic socialism, social justice, income inequality, and 70% taxation, they are certainly getting there.

Whether the Earth is getting warmer or not is irrelevant for the purposes of discussing the watermelon people. They have been implementing their plans across the globe since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, and have not decreased greenhouse gasses in any meaningful way. But their strategy is to keep ratcheting up what has not worked so far.

What has not worked so far is the reduction of greenhouse gasses in a meaningful way – the green part. What has worked quite beautifully is what critics call the real motives behind the actions of the watermelon people – the red part: raising revenue for social programs, redistributing wealth, and herding people into controllable zones.

The plans of the watermelon people are all handled pretty much in the same way; they are enabled by legislatures and implemented by regional planning agencies. For an example of a powerful regional planning agency, read about Priority Development Areas implemented by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in the San Francisco Bay Area.  MTC administers transportation and housing through “Plan Bay Area.”

Whether you are convinced that climate action and wealth redistribution in the name of social justice are essential for our survival, or you are still a bit dubious, you might enjoy the transcript of a 2010 interview with Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the United Nations working group Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015. This passage is especially interesting:

Edenhofer: First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.  The Daily Signal, Nov. 19, 2010