Cutting food waste would lower emissions, but so far only one state has done it - "When Massachusetts was weighing whether to block restaurants from dumping food waste into landfills, her restaurant started composting without waiting on a law. Right away, there were challenges: $3,000 a year for bins and pickup. Busy dishwashers could contaminate an entire bag of compostable materials by missing a single butter packet. And customers in the habit of just chucking their leftovers needed signage to get uneaten food into the right place. Masterson's operation figured out those problems, but she knows not everyone will... The difficulty of cutting food waste has spoiled several states’ attempts to ban it, and only one — Massachusetts — has actually succeeded, according to a study this month in the journal Science. Massachusetts did it by building one of the most extensive composting networks in the country, inspecting more often, keeping the rules simple and levying heavy fines on businesses that don’t comply, the study found."
When prices go up, "greedy companies" will be to blame
govt.exe is corrupt on X - "#WATCH: China has over 3k coal-fired power plants and emit more CO2 than the USA, India, Russia, Germany, France and Canada combined. It's pretty dumb to think charging Canadians a carbon tax will do anything other than make them poorer... Unless that's their goal!"
Ginny Roth: Enough with the impractical policies. Canada must embrace climate policy realism - "When it comes to climate change policy in Canada these days, regular Canadians aren’t the only ones, to paraphrase Irving Kristol, getting mugged by reality. Andrew Furey, Bonnie Crombie, Jagmeet Singh, and David Eby—all Liberal and NDP leaders—are running away from the consumer carbon tax as fast as their legs can carry them. These are some of the same leaders who only a few years ago would have sold their souls for a selfie with Greta Thunberg. Trudeau’s Liberals, governing by a thread, are the only ones who continue to cling to the false premise that when Canadians say they want action on climate change, what they mean is they want to go broke. So, what changed? Two things. One, the facts on the ground caught up to the ideas in theory. Not only did the carbon tax keep ratcheting up (by design) just as inflation raged, but global energy markets were disrupted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, making it even more baffling that Canada couldn’t get our natural gas to tidewater. Not only was the economy sluggish and cost-of-living concerns moving into crisis, but the government was also shoveling taxpayer money out the door to for-profit companies, making inflation worse, all in the name of net zero. And two, Canada’s Conservatives elected a leader who had never really given up on arguing that the problem with the carbon tax was a feature, not a bug, and who takes an almost sick pleasure in tearing apart ill-thought-out theories with inconvenient facts. As soon as someone was willing to challenge the impractical, expensive theories that carbon emissions respect sovereign borders, that Canadians have an option not to heat their homes in the winter, that nuclear is less important than other green energy just because it’s not trendy, or that arguing against any of the above makes you a climate change denying troglodyte, Canadians gave themselves permission to agree. Now with the current federal government set for likely defeat and some provinces changing their tune, we have an opportunity to chart a new course. If the last decade’s climate policy was defined by naïveté, the next one should be defined by realism. Not denialism, not head-in-the-sand-ism, just sound, realistic policies founded in evergreen principles. Speaking of principles, let’s start with federalism and subsidiarity. We know now that the consumer carbon tax is toast. But what of the patchwork of provincial policies that price carbon on the back end to incentivize industry to reduce emissions over time? Some will say the next federal government must meddle in provincial jurisdiction, forcing a legislated backstop as the Trudeau government has done. But this would fly in the face of our constitutional reality and our federalism framework at its most functional. Just as with school food programs, dental care, and childcare, the Liberal government’s sweeping ambition and grand vision have run up against the cold hard reality on the ground... a realist climate policy would spend way more time on the most reliable clean energy we have: hydroelectricity and nuclear power. Conservatives do talk about nuclear a lot, but that’s because the environmental Left is bafflingly opposed to it. Not only did the current environment minister once notoriously campaign to shut it down, but until recently, the federal government excluded nuclear from green energy financing. A new government should run at hydroelectric dam and nuclear opportunities, tackling rising energy demand and climate policy in one fell swoop. Preparing for the future also means getting serious about adaptation. Governments taken in by climate policy naiveté can be reluctant to focus too much on adapting infrastructure to a new climate reality. Perhaps it feels defeatist. But a realist climate policy would focus less on regulating resource development into submission and more on building resilient infrastructure for the future. Economic growth and prosperity always come with trade-offs. We ought to face them head-on. Ultimately, a wise climate policy will reject that which seems only to cater to appearances. It won’t work back from artificial targets for the purpose of fitting in at global climate conferences but rather will work forward from core principles—fair trade, jurisdictional respect, strong economic growth, reasonable cost of living, and lower carbon emissions over time—and apply them to a hard-nosed analysis of the facts."
The complex climate truth about home-grown tomatoes - "Owen and many like her see their allotments or urban gardens as low-impact, low-carbon contributions to their local community. A place where you can grow your own food, with no need for plastic packaging or planes that bring in produce from abroad. And so she was surprised to see reports of a study published in January 2024 that suggested urban agriculture in the US and Europe is on average six times as polluting, in terms of carbon emissions, as conventional, commercial agriculture... Owen says she found the study "thought-provoking" but it left a sour taste. "It's a bit like David and Goliath," she says. "Why are they picking on the small guys?" She wasn't alone in having that reaction. As news of the study spread, social media was awash with prickly comments from gardeners disgusted at the idea that their much-loved veg patch could be harming the planet... The urban agriculture category did not include vertical farms, which tend to be very energy intensive... The results for conventional agriculture, relying on a huge range of data sources, were conspicuously narrow – everything settled on or around 0.07kg of CO2e per serving. Hawes says that this is actually unsurprising, given the economic pressures on the industry, which force it to be highly efficient... One point made by Owen is that there are many broader benefits of allotment-style gardening. It provides a community hub: "People will get together, they'll have tea and cake." One of the Isle of Dogs plots is maintained by a local school, she says. Another is used by patients in the area with various health issues – they spend time on the allotment as a nature-based intervention designed to improve their wellbeing. A 2024 study analysed the biodiversity impacts of 39 community gardens in Munich and Berlin, in Germany, and found that these gardens were havens for threatened plant species as well as pollinators, especially wild bees."
A lot of people were very upset about this (and of course there was the usual anti-Semitism), because clearly growing tomatoes for 2-3 months in a greenhouse next door uses less energy than growing them under the son far away
The environmentalist (and more broadly left wing) checklist can never be fully ticked off, because life involves tradeoffs
When you see the world in terms of power relations, truth suffers
Meme - "Carbon footprint of homegrown food five times greater than those grown conventionally. The study found individual garden infrastructure responsible for increased levels of CO2"
Chris Rittendale: "Yes, it takes 5 times as much energy for me to transport my food 50 feet from my garden to my fridge than to have it trucked 100's of miles, sitting in industrial walk-in fridges waiting for me buy it in a large commercial store and transported home in my car. Yep, makes sense to me."
The Silent Majority on Climate Change - "If you had a campaign budget to drive government action on climate change in the United States, what would be the most effective way to spend it? In a meeting I was in to discuss that question, someone came up with a striking answer: We should spend it all on the issue of abortion. They argued that the best way to drive government action on climate change is for the Democrats to hold power, and the best issue to campaign on to achieve that outcome is not climate, but abortion. This type of thinking, even if rarely so crisply formulated, is entrenched in the climate movement. Even the corporate and financial worlds, which have been puffing their own ability to lead the climate effort, increasingly see that we depend on bold government action to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. And they figure that it is much easier to get that action from a government that is conducive to it, which a future Kamala Harris administration would likely be. But grounding climate action in progressive politics is self-limiting and ultimately self-defeating. Most people in the climate movement would agree that to tackle climate change we need support and action across the economy and society, continually reinforced over time, and therefore over multiple election cycles. It may be true that if we could first elect progressive pro-environment governments all across the democratic world, it would become relatively easy to do what needs to be done. But nobody can seriously expect that to happen. The progressive-only approach is not only unfeasible; it is also unnecessary... large numbers of people on both left and right support tackling climate change. But while their motivations are similar—both left and right want to leave behind a better world for the next generation—the measures they will support in order to achieve this are often different... The left-leaning group are a familiar type. These are people who trust their national government and believe in an egalitarian role for the state to meet basic needs for food, housing, healthcare and education, with society run for the sake of the public rather than special interests. As a broad generalization, the prevailing global narratives on climate change, from organizations like the United Nations and from the climate movement more broadly, seem designed to appeal to this group. The right-leaning group are less familiar. These people are skeptical about the government’s role in their everyday lives, and generally believe we would be better off with less state involvement. They, too, have strong egalitarian morals, but they look for equality more in shared opportunity than in government intervention. They are optimistic, confident about the future, and believe that the world will be a better place for their children than it was for them. Particularly prevalent in the Global South, they tend to be younger, more urban, actively religious, and socially integrated into their families and communities. These supporters on the right are looking for growth and prosperity, and see sustainability as the way to achieve that, not as a substitute for it. For example, they are twice as likely to agree that we should solve climate change in order to “protect ourselves and put our national interests first.” Unsurprisingly, the prevailing global narratives on climate change do not fit so well with this second group. The tension is most overt in language about climate policies, often heavy on restraint and social justice and light on opportunity and growth... Simple arithmetic, however, shows the importance of appealing to both the left and the right. The left group of climate supporters alone is not the majority in any of the countries we researched... Here are three other vital benefits from winning the right’s support. The first is continuity. The deep, structural transformations needed in our energy systems, agriculture, transport and industry require investors’ confidence that government commitment will be sustained over multiple election cycles. Cross-party support is critical to achieve this. The second is global reach. The left group is particularly prevalent in Latin America and some countries in the Global North, but is under-represented in big Asian countries which have high and rising emissions. By contrast, the right group accounts for the majority of people in some of these Asian countries, such as China and India. As the world’s carbon emissions rebalance, with emissions generally decreasing in North America and Europe and rising rapidly in Asia, it will become increasingly important to connect with people in these countries. The third is technology. The left group, which provides much of the voice of the climate movement today, is strong when talking about the scale of the problem, but is often resistant to the technologies we need to solve it. Many oppose, for example, nuclear energy and genetically-modified foods, both of which are critical for providing fossil-free energy and agriculture at the scale needed across the world. The right tends to be much more accepting of these technologies. Bringing them onside will unlock a broader range of climate solutions."
For the left, the most important thing is to push the left wing agenda
JD Vance Made A Good Point On Joe Rogan's Podcast - "the Republican vice presidential nominee repeatedly criticized environmental groups for what he saw as the hypocrisy of opposing the most efficient and abundant form of carbon-free electricity while also describing planet-heating emissions as an existential threat. “If you think that carbon is the most significant thing — [that] the sole focus of American civilization should be to reduce the carbon footprint of the world — then you would be investing in nuclear in a big way,” Vance said. “When you say that, the environmentalists say, ‘Well, you’ve got all these poison rocks to deal with afterwards,’” he added, referring to radioactive waste left behind when a reactor refuels with freshly enriched uranium. “Well, the poison rocks problem is a less significant problem than the carbon problem, if you think we’re all going to go extinct in 100 years. So let’s deal with the most pressing problem.” Nuclear power stations produce relatively miniscule amounts of physical waste per unit of electricity generated, compared to the mountains of toxic ash spewed by coal plants or the unrecyclable wind turbine blades and solar panels now piling up in landfills... Vance also called Russia the “biggest funder of the green energy movement in Europe.” While that claim is almost certainly exaggerated, a 2022 report by the Foundation for Political Innovation, a liberal think tank headquartered in Paris, found Russia’s state-owned Gazprom gas company funded particular environmental nonprofits that promoted the permanent phase-out of nuclear power in countries such as Belgium. Before taking office as the Belgian energy minister in 2020 and setting in motion plans to shut down the country’s nuclear plants, Tinne Van der Straeten, a member of the Green Party, owned 50% of a law firm where Gazprom was a top client. “Why are the Russians funding? It’s not because they care about climate change. It’s because they want the Germans and everybody else to buy Russian natural gas,” Vance said. “They realize that if the Germans and French close down all their coal and nuclear factories, Russia is going to have them by the balls.”... Deriding climate advocates as “carbon obsessives,” he said the lingering hesitance among some activists to support nuclear power showed “they obviously don’t believe their own bullshit, which is why I’m skeptical of what they say.”"
Climate change hysteria is not really about preventing climate change
Greta Thunberg on X - "#UsaElection #USA2024 #StopArmingIsrael #FreePalestine #ClimateJusticeNow"
Frank J. Fleming on X - "I remember being baffled by her when she first appeared on the scene. “Maybe you won’t listen to scientists, but I bet you’ll listen to an off-putting, angry, autistic girl!” “Why… why would you think that?” All of you have ever boosted are so, so dumb."
John Ivison: Even climate groups think Guilbeault’s emissions cap is dumb - "Steven Guilbeault has made clear that he plans to go out with bang, championing a record unsullied by compromise, pragmatism or achievement. The activist environment minister released the draft regulations for a cap on oil and gas emissions on Monday, under the cover of blanket U.S. election reporting. The minister’s rationale is that regulation is needed because profits in the sector have soared. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Guilbeault has a “deranged vendetta against Alberta” and promised to fight the cap in court. Guilbeault knows the courts have already ruled that resources are a provincial jurisdiction and, deftly noted that his projections suggest that production will keep rising... it is an instructive microcosm of how the Liberals have doomed themselves: driving on with divisive ideological commitments that defy common sense and leave voters behind. Oil and gas is a sector that generated $209 billion in GDP last year, accounted for one quarter of all Canadian exports and directly employs 182,000 people. That apparently makes it a target in Guilbeault’s book. The government release took aim at business for “targeting new production, rather than decarbonization” and demeaned the industry for having seen a tenfold increase in operating profits since the pandemic. The cap is bitterly opposed by the Alberta government and industry and comes right at the moment when Canada is on the cusp of striking its most significant decarbonization agreement — the Pathways Alliance carbon capture and sequestration project — which requires Ottawa, the province and the major oil producers to co-operate and compromise. Pathways is a consortium of major oil producers who account for 95 per cent of oilsands production. At best, this cap is a distraction; at worst, it is a deliberate attempt by the climate radicals in the Liberal government to scupper what many consider a subsidy to increase production (which the Pathways project would, even as it lowers emissions). By comparison, production is likely to be 10-per-cent lower than it would be without the cap by 2030, while gas production would be around 12-per-cent lower. Less activity will inevitably mean fewer jobs, profits, exports and tax revenues. Instead, the goal should be to maximize all those things, while reducing emissions. The Pathways Alliance could cut Canada’s emissions by around 15 megatonnes a year in its first phase, which is around seven times the annual emission reduction that the government’s own regulations say will be saved by the cap. Proponents see Pathways as transformative, creating a ripple effect in Canada’s decarbonization efforts, ensuring banks are more comfortable with this kind of financing and convincing industry that it can increase production while cutting emissions."
Supermarket boss issues dire warning about soaring grocery prices - "The director of an Aussie supermarket chain has warned food prices will increase if farmers are forced to shoulder the $2.3billion cost of carbon reporting. Drakes Supermarkets boss John-Paul Drake labelled the burden of mandatory carbon reporting on farmers, set to start in 2025, as 'beyond unconscionable'. He highlighted Australia's comparatively low carbon footprint on the global scale in discussing why carbon reporting would be unfair to farmers, who are 'the absolute backbone of our great country'. Instead, Mr Drake proposed that the federal government focus on cutting electricity and water costs rather than creating more costly red tape procedures. Mandatory carbon emissions reporting is set to cost farmers an incredible $2.3billion in its first year, which will likely trickle down to customers in the form of higher grocery prices... Nationals federal leader David Littleproud and the National Farmers' Federation also slammed the reporting, which is set to affect at least 1,800 firms from next year. Livestock South Australia president Joe Keynes has urged the federal government to clarify the carbon emissions reporting regime. He called for authorities to 'map out the whole situation'. 'You can't just go to one point of the supply chain and say: 'They'll fix it all', because it's going to be all of us,' Mr Keynes said. Mr Keynes added the lack of clarification also made it unclear how much, if any, of the cost would be passed down to customers through price increases... Mr Drake's latest comments come after he recently slammed hurried push to be green by the Labor government. 'All of a sudden everyone wants to be so green in such a hurry that they've forgotten about the people actually paying these bills,' he told Sky News last month. 'That's who its affecting most.'"
Time to blame greedy supermarkets for rising food prices
Massachusetts ratepayers to pay extra $512M for transmission line for Canadian hydropower - "Central Maine Power’s parent company, Avangrid, and Canada’s Hydro Quebec teamed up on the project that called for a 145-mile (233-kilometer) power transmission line, mostly following existing corridors. But a new 53-mile (85-kilometer) section had to be carved through the woods to reach the Canadian border, something environmental and conservation groups decried. The project had to overcome multiple hurdles. It won all regulatory approvals, but work was halted after Maine voters rebuked the project in a November 2021 referendum."
Why renewable energy will never work
Stephen McIntyre on X - "I recently observed that Asheville NC floods occurred in a watershed where local opposition had prevented the construction of flood control dams proposed by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) under their flood control mandate. It appears that recent floods in Valencia, Spain were related to even more perverse policy: the removal of flood control dams in a river system in which floods had been a historic phenomenon. I don't know the local details, but the chances of "green" policy (rather than "climate change", being the primary contributor to the severity of recent Valencia flooding seem very high to me."
The left can point to disasters caused/worsened by their sabotage as "evidence" of climate change, and push through even more of their agenda
Shell wins appeal against landmark climate ruling to cut emissions - "ADutch court has overturned a landmark ruling ordering fossil fuel giant Shell to significantly cut its carbon emissions, in a blow to climate campaigners. In the original 2021 ruling, hailed as “a monumental victory” for activists, Shell was ordered to cut its carbon emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 – compared to 2019 levels – in line with the Paris climate accords. The legal action – brought in 2019 by seven activist groups, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth Netherlands – marked the first time that campaigners had sought to use the courts to force companies to curtail activities contributing to the climate crisis. But as world leaders gather for the UN’s Cop29 climate summit, the Dutch court of appeal annulled the previous verdict, ruling that – despite Shell having a responsibility to cut emissions – it was unable to determine a fitting reduction target for oil and gas companies, based on the available science and data."
Not just do Western countries need to destroy their economies, Western businesses need to destroy themselves
Matthew Lau: How Toronto grooms kids to be climate activists - "This year’s deadline to apply for Toronto’s Youth Climate Action Grants has just passed so the city’s climate bureaucrats are now presumably reading grant applications from school children who want to engage in climate change activism. The program, a partnership between the City of Toronto , the Toronto District School Board and the Toronto Catholic District School Board, invites kids from junior kindergarten to grade 12 to apply for up to $1,000 per project or activity to educate and engage Torontonians on climate actions. The application process begins by encouraging kids to read something called the TDSB Youth Climate Action Guide, which declares as a “climate change fact” that global warming poses “a threat to our economies, our environment and our lives.” It makes recommendations to students on how they can take an “intersectional approach to climate justice” and gives them “ behavioural strategies ” on “how to deal with climate anxiety and grief.” How good a use of public resources is this? Are taxpayers really well served by having municipal and educational bureaucrats use their money to have the public schools churn out more Greta Thunbergs? In true bureaucratic form, the City of Toronto publishes detailed guidelines as to what kinds of climate activism are eligible for funding. Social media campaigns are but paid advertising campaigns in newspapers are not. Food gardens can be funded through this grant, but not pollinator gardens, and if a contractor is hired to build a garden box, no more than 25 per cent of the grant money can be used for this purpose. Field trips are eligible but not the rental of conventionally-powered vehicles or other gas-powered equipment. Project supplies and items like pencils, paper, flyers, and posters are allowed, but not “disposable items” like bottled water. Just what is supposed to happen to project supplies if they are not disposed of after the project is completed the climate activism funding guidelines do not say... Here we imagine the thoughts of the City of Toronto central planners trying to arrange everyone’s commutes. “Thompson, Brown, Wilson, and Lee all live less than 5 (kilometres) from their workplace, but which of them should be the one in four who drives? At 4.8 (kilometres), Lee has the longest commute of the four, so he would cause the most global warming if he drives. But Lee has an electric car , so it might actually be best for the environment if he drives and the other three walk, bicycle, or take transit,” the bureaucrat might think to himself."
Trudeau’s new climate disclosures another investment killer - "According to the Trudeau government’s emissions reduction plan, “putting a price on pollution is widely recognized as the most efficient means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” Fair enough, but a reasonable person might wonder why the same politicians who insist a price mechanism (i.e., carbon tax) is the most efficient policy recently announced relatively inefficient measures such as “sustainable investment guidelines” and “mandatory climate disclosures” for large private companies. The government claims that imposing mandatory climate disclosures will “attract more private capital into Canada’s largest corporations and ensure Canadian businesses can continue to effectively compete as the world races towards net-zero.” That is nonsense. How would politicians in Ottawa know better than business-owners how their businesses should attract capital? If making climate disclosures were a good way to help businesses attract capital, businesses that want to attract capital would make such disclosures voluntarily. There would be no need for a government mandate... The government has not yet launched the regulatory process for the climate disclosures, so we don’t know exactly how onerous it will be, but one thing is for sure: the disclosures will be expensive and unnecessary, imposing useless costs without any measurable benefit, further discouraging investment in Canada... This latest announcement should come as no surprise. The Trudeau government has demonstrated consistently that its policies — including higher capital gains taxes and a hostile regulatory environment — are completely at odds with what investors want to see. Corporate head offices are fleeing Canada and business investment has declined significantly since the Trudeau Liberals came to power. Capital per worker in Canada is declining due to weak business investment since 2015, and new capital per worker in 2024 is barely half what it is in the United States. It’s also fair to ask, in the face of these onerous polices, where are the environmental benefits? The government says its climate disclosures are needed for Canada to progress to net-zero emissions and “uphold the Paris climate target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels,” but its net-zero targets are neither feasible nor realistic and the economics literature does not support the 1.5 degrees target. Finally, when announcing the new climate disclosures, Trudeau Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said they are an important stepping stone to a cleaner economy, which is a “major economic opportunity.” Yet even the Canada Energy Regulator (a federal agency) projects net-zero policies would reduce real GDP per capita, increase inflation of consumer prices and reduce residential space — in other words, reduce living standards."
Once again, left wingers think that greedy companies are more evil than they are greedy
A recent surge in global warming is not detectable yet - "The global mean surface temperature is widely studied to monitor climate change. A current debate centers around whether there has been a recent (post-1970s) surge/acceleration in the warming rate. Here we investigate whether an acceleration in the warming rate is detectable from a statistical perspective. We use changepoint models, which are statistical techniques specifically designed for identifying structural changes in time series. Four global mean surface temperature records over 1850–2023 are scrutinized within. Our results show limited evidence for a warming surge; in most surface temperature time series, no change in the warming rate beyond the 1970s is detected despite the breaking record temperatures observed in 2023. As such, we estimate the minimum changes in the warming trend required for a surge to be detectable. Across all datasets, an increase of at least 55% is needed for a warming surge to be detectable at the present time."
Time to force Communications Earth & Environment to retract this irresponsible article promoting misinformation
