Resist CBDC on X - "When I was a kid The Science told us we were facing an ice age - that could only be fixed with Communism. *Video of journalist and a media segment telling us "scientists" and "experts" predict an ice age*"
FJC and CJP partnership raises concern over judicial system exploitation - "Courthouse bureaucrats are helping a left-wing dark money group exploit the judicial system to destroy American traditional energy companies. The Federal Judicial Center (FJC), the federal agency in charge of research and education for federal judges and judicial staff, has partnered with a leftist group called the Climate Judiciary Project, according to a new oversight report. I’m concerned that this collaboration means court staff are helping far-left climate activists lobby and direct judges behind closed doors. Green New Deal policies are deeply unpopular with the American public. Instead of advancing policies that will benefit Americans, the left is funding lawsuits and trainings to achieve them. Since 2017, left-wing groups have “donated” millions of dollars to law firms like Sher Edling, which has filed over 20 unprecedented lawsuits alleging that oil and gas companies are liable for weather-related damages because they knowingly caused climate change. Around the same time these lawsuits popped up, the Environmental Law Institute, a nonprofit climate advocacy organization, launched the Climate Judiciary Project to provide judges with “education on climate science, the impact of climate change, and the ways climate is arising in the law.” To date, the Climate Judiciary Project has “briefed” more than 2,000 state and federal judges on how to establish a body of law supporting “action” on climate change. As the report details, the organization’s funding comes from the same sources bankrolling the climate change lawsuits. Activist academics participating in the climate litigation prepared the Climate Judiciary Project’s “educational curriculum,” which is full of rigged, made-for-litigation studies. The taxpayer-funded FJC — whose stated mission is to “support the efficient, effective administration of justice and judicial independence” — is compromising its credibility and mission by helping these climate activists, who by all appearances are facilitating plaintiffs’ suits through ex parte communications with judges. That is the opposite of judicial independence. From my post on the Senate Judiciary Committee, I watched many of my Democratic colleagues grill President Trump’s judicial nominees over participating in events hosted by certain non-profits. Unlike the Climate Judiciary Project, these nominees were transparent in disclosing their participation to the committee. The events they attended were also almost always public, unlike the Climate Judiciary Project’s private judges-only briefings. Moreover, those events were forums to debate and discuss the law — not indoctrination sessions where activists sought to influence outcomes of specific cases. Imagine the hue and cry from these same colleagues if FJC was hosting events with a right-leaning organization."
Money in politics and lobbying in politics are only problems when they hurt the left wing agenda
Wind Power Debacle in New England - "In mid-July, a blade from an offshore wind turbine operating 15 miles southwest of Nantucket fractured. A large amount of fiberglass, foam, and plastic debris fell into the ocean and began washing up on the island’s shores. The incident led to the closure of several beaches and a suspension of operations and construction for the massive Vineyard Wind project, a joint venture of Avangrid and foreign-owned Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners that has installed and operated ten of 62 planned turbines in the country’s largest wind farm. At local meetings, Nantucket residents expressed concerns about officials’ handling of the turbine breakage and the environmental hazards of enormous fiberglass blades tumbling into the sea. In the past, they have also cited the project’s impact on marine wildlife and its visual impact on the town’s scenic beaches... Environmental groups, realizing the potential political implications of the fractured blade, downplayed the episode. The National Wildlife Federation (NWF), which avidly supports offshore wind farms, insisted that the damage was minor. “Compared to other energy disasters in the ocean like oil spills, this incident is fairly contained and easily cleaned up to prioritize the safety of marine life,” said Amber Hewett, senior director of offshore wind energy for the NWF. The Sierra Club emphasized that “the failure of a single turbine blade does not adversely impact the emergence of offshore wind as a critical solution for reducing dependence on fossil fuels and addressing the climate crisis.” Whether the incident is “contained” remains in question. Debris from the broken turbine has been reported beyond Nantucket—in Martha’s Vineyard, Cape Cod, Rhode Island, and off the coast of Montauk, Long Island. The debris is breaking up into smaller pieces resembling shattered glass, with yet-unknown effects on Nantucket’s marine habitat. Vineyard Wind cautioned that “[m]embers of the public should avoid handling debris” and promised to “bag, track, and transport all debris to proper storage as soon as possible.” It remains to be seen whether simple avoidance will suffice, especially given the possibility of debris entering the human food chain through area fish. While this event may be “unusual and rare” in an absolute sense, many wind farms have seen broken turbines, fires, and sea-floor damage. And Nantucket’s situation is particularly dire, given that Vineyard Wind’s turbines are by far the largest ever constructed in the United States: the blade that fragmented on July 13 was over 350 feet long and weighed 57 tons. Even when functioning as intended, wind farms can negatively affect the surrounding environment. Wildlife advocates have claimed that sonic and subsonic vibrations from the construction and operation of turbines disrupt the navigational senses of marine mammals like whales and dolphins and can cause beachings. Turbines are also responsible for the deaths of countless birds. Clammers and fishermen are wary of working in areas close to wind farms, out of concern for equipment snags on buried power lines and risks to their vessels of navigating between the turbines in bad weather. The Nantucket residents questioning the safety of wind turbines generally support alternative energy. Indeed, in an FAQ post on the town government’s webpage, officials made the point that allowing wind projects to avoid scrutiny might allow traditional fossil fuel producers to evade similar oversight... Nonetheless, the Nantucket residents have seen themselves branded as tools of the fossil-fuel industry by well-financed lobbyists and promoters of richly subsidized wind power. They have also been subject to physical attacks. At a city council meeting in Newport, Rhode Island, a field director for Climate Jobs Rhode Island, David Booth, was charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct after accosting a speaker and seizing a bag of turbine fragments that she had brought for her testimony. Booth allegedly appeared prominently in a photo on the campaign website of Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse, which was subsequently removed without comment. The wind-power industry has seen some of its planned projects cancelled in recent years due to swelling production costs and local opposition to the environmental and aesthetic impact of the colossal windmills. A report published by Brown University’s Climate and Development Lab in early 2024 suggested that much of the opposition to offshore wind was rooted in “misinformation,” “[c]onspiracy theories,” and cherry-picked information supplied by “right-wing think tanks.” It might prove beyond the powers of an academic paper to convince the residents of New England and coastal states that the fiberglass and foam washing up on their beaches is nothing more than a conservative talking point."
Developing nations risk being sidelined from renewable energy boom, leaders say
When you're upset that poor countries don't have the money to waste on your scam
Tariffs are a poor defence of Canada’s auto industry - "To ensure a competitive and sustainable auto sector, tariffs are not the way to go. For the medium- to long-term survival of our perpetually fraught auto sector we cannot out-tariff or out-subsidize the Chinese. We can only beat them with superior technology at an affordable price point. In that scenario, tariffs will not be necessary: North American vehicles will be competitive. Ottawa’s panicky 30-day consultation on challenges to Canada’s auto industry from “unfair” Chinese imports was announced on the eve of two serious Ontario-based EV setbacks. First was Ford Motor Company’s abrupt decision in mid-July to cancel its planned $3-billion Oakville EV factory in favour of producing gas and diesel trucks. Second, barely a week later, was the stunning news of Umicore’s delay of its $2.76-billion battery materials plant in Eastern Ontario. Adding to the turmoil, Quebec’s Swedish-backed $7-billion Northvolt EV battery plant is now undergoing a “strategic review” as global demand for EVs slows. And just days ago news broke that Ford is halting a battery plant project with SK Battery America and Korean company EcoPro, also in Quebec. If it seems the sky is falling on batteries and EVs, that’s because it is. The recent series of cancellations and postponements is compounded by an unmistakable slackening in global EV uptake. Given this turbulent landscape, Ontario’s prospects for global leadership in developing an end-to-end EV supply chain are looking increasingly uncertain. The temptation to use tariffs to preserve a captive domestic market is understandable — but still inadvisable. What got us into trouble in the first place was an unrelenting obsession with EVs. Oil-haters regard other hybrid options as unforgivable heresy. And now we’re paying the price for their zealotry. Mercifully, mandates can’t stop people from thinking, inventing and proposing alternate, non-battery-based propulsive systems. Toyota is deeply engaged in hydrogen propulsion. Others are working on alternate hybrid systems based on harnessing pneumatic energy — power related to pressurized air — rather than electrical energy to move a car, especially during city driving. However it’s done, the elimination of batteries from hybrids could significantly reduce their cost and weight and extend their range, key drawbacks of EVs that are behind their current stall. We should be spreading our research and support money more widely and focusing more on what car buyers want — which, essentially, is reliability, value and not much deviation from a familiar user experience. That’s quite different from the radical transition our subsidy-fuelled policy and industrial elites believe drivers are up for. In the throes of a market crisis and growing uncertainty around EV sustainability, the temptation to point fingers is strong. Ottawa’s current EV policy approach has failed to: produce sustainable economic outcomes, set the stage for a stable automotive future or realize its emission targets. It’s these obvious failures that have precipitated the federal government’s desperate tariff gambit. But the blame for the EV experiment doesn’t lie solely with Ottawa. The complicity of private-sector automotive players should not be ignored. Their willing participation in the EV enterprise virtually from day one has been on full display for anybody watching. But the sector never put forward an economically credible business case for its extravagant visions. Even a cursory understanding of Milton Friedman’s work would have ruled out from its first glimmers a project abetted by poor policy assumptions, unsustainable public financing and the misplaced notion that a century-old automotive culture could be displaced in just a decade or two by an electric model that is out of sync with market, energy, infrastructure and geopolitical realities... Canada’s only hope for a sustainable auto industry delivering economically rational decarbonization is to avoid Chinese-style central planning and profligate American-style fiscal assistance and instead encourage and build on technical ingenuity that outsmarts our competitors."
Debunking the Cheap Renewables Myth - "I thought it would be helpful to convert it and extend it a little to make a bonus article on Substack that can act as a succinct response to all those who still insist on claiming renewables are cheap. In the UK, renewables are subsidised by three different schemes. Feed-in-Tariffs (FiTs) fund mostly solar power. The latest report for 2022-23 shows the scheme cost over £1.7bn and average total payment was ~£193/MWh, about 3X the current cost of gas-fired power at around £65/MWh (see Figure A). Contracts for Difference (CfDs) fund a range of technologies, but most of the subsidy goes to offshore wind... By far the biggest subsidy scheme is Renewables Obligations Certificates, costing over £7bn per year... Future renewables are also going to be more expensive than current market rates... It should be noted that FiTs, ROCs and CfDs are all index-linked, so prices will continue to rise with inflation. It is clear our bills are going to continue to rise for the foreseeable future as cheap gas is forced out in favour of expensive renewables. In addition, we pay extra for balancing the grid when the wind is not blowing (or blowing too hard) and the sun is not shining. In the year ending March 2024, these balancing services cost £2.46bn. Most of these costs should be attributed as a cost of intermittent renewables. That's a total of over £12bn being paid to or because of renewables each year. More costs are coming down the line as the National Grid ESO has announced £54bn of spending on the electricity network infrastructure up to 2030 and a further £58bn in the 2030-2035 period, a total of £112bn, or over £10bn per year for more than a decade. I hope it is clear to all now that renewables are not cheap and are never going to be."
Left wingers just blame "greedy companies", because "everyone" "knows" that renewables are the "cheapest" form of electricity because clear cost per unit of installed capacity (levelized cost of electricity) is the real cost, not the system cost
The more renewables you have, the more expensive electricity (power) is
Matt Ridley on X - "We've won the double!! The UK now has the highest electricity prices for BOTH industrial and domestic users. Of all 28 developed countries in the IEA's sample. That's some achievement. A lot of hard work went into making sure producers of energy profit and consumers lose."
Lee Harris on X - "Unfuckingbelievable. Just Stop Oil have thrown soup over 2 of Van Gogh paintings AGAIN, just hours after the previous dipshits have been jailed for the same thing. These arrogant narcissists can join their criminal mates in prison. Absolute wankers."
Meme - I Am Leah @Bossy_Leah: "Things that helped me survive Helene:
A gas car
A gas stove
A gas hot water heater
A gas chainsaw
Cash
Things that useless during Helene:
Electric cars
Electric appliances
Debit cards
The city bus
The government
Diversity
My tax dollars in Ukraine"
The cope is that climate change causes hurricanes, so the rich world destroying their economies with climate change hysteria while the developing world presses on will somehow stop them
Chris Martz on X - "To all the people going apeshit about Hurricane Helene and the flooding associated with its remnants, whatever happened to the rule “weather ≠ climate”? Does that rule only apply to skeptics who [incorrectly] attempt to use cold air outbreaks or snowstorm as evidence against [man-made] climate change during the winter? Are you exempt from the rules you established whenever the weather suits your narrative? How does this work? Please explain."
Thread by @ClimateAudit on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "actually, the lesson from Helene is the opposite from that being promoted. In 1933, the Tennessee Valley Authority was given the mandate for flood control in the valley of the Tennessee River and its tributaries. Over the next 40 years, they built 49 dams, which, for the most part, accomplished their goal. Whereas floods in the Tennessee were once catastrophic, younger people are mostly unaware of them. The French Broad River (Asheville) is an upstream tributary where flood control dams weren't constructed due to local opposition. Rather than the devastation of Hurricane Helene on Asheville illustrating the effect of climate change, the success of the flood control dams in other sectors of the Tennessee Valley illustrates the success of the TVA flood control program where it is implemented. Hurricane Helene did not show the effect of climate change, but what happens to settlements in Tennessee Valley tributaries under "natural" flooding (i.e. where flood control dams have been rejected.) I should add that, in its first 40 years, the TVA built 49 flood control dams, of which 29 were power-generating. In the subsequent 50 years, TVA built 0 flood control dams, However, in the 1980s, they established the Carbon Dioxide Information Centre (CDIAC) under their nuclear division, which sponsored much influential climate research, including the CRU temperature data (Phil Jones) and Michael Mann's fellowship from which Mann et al 1998 derived. In 1990, the parents of Crowdstrike's Dmitri Alperovich moved from Russia to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where his father was a TVA nuclear engineer. Dmitri moved to Tennessee a few years later. One can't help but wonder whether TVA's original mandate for flood control got lost in the executive offices, attracted by more glamorous issues, such as climate change research. If so, one could reasonably say that a factor in the seeming abandonment of TVA efforts to complete its original flood control mandate (e.g. to French Broad River which inundated Asheville) was partly attributable to diversion of TVA interest to climate change research, as opposed to its mandate of flood control. another thought. As soon as the point is made, it is obvious that flood control dams have reduced flooding. Not just in Appalachia. I've looked at long data for water levels in Great Lakes and the amount of fluctuation (flooding) after dams installed is much reduced. And yet my recollection of public reporting of climate is that weather extremes, including flooding, is getting worse. But in areas with flood control dams, it obviously //isn't// getting worse than before. It's better. Note to self: check IPCC reports for their specific findings on flooding."
Net Zero is becoming synonymous with economic suicide - "If any two commodities were central to the industrial revolution, they were coal and steel. Britain pioneered the mass production of both, launching a worldwide transformation that multiplied living standards many times over. And now, ironically, it looks as if, in an almost Maoist pursuit of global leadership in achieving Net Zero, we will be the first major developed country to close them both down. There is just one catch. In reality, that is economic suicide - and time is running out to do anything about it... The UK is now leading the world in shutting the industries that it pioneered, and which powered the modern world. On Monday, we closed the last remaining coal power station, at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, ending 142 years of using the fossil fuel for energy: the world’s first coal-fired power station, in Holborn Viaduct, was built in 1882 by none other than Thomas Edison to bring light to the streets of the capital. On the same day, steel workers wound up the traditional manufacturing of the metal in Port Talbot, in Wales, bringing an end to an industry that, from its origins in the 1850s, once led the world. There are many different milestones that future historians may choose when they look back on the strange story of Britain’s deindustrialisation. But October 2024 will certainly be one of them. The trouble is, that will be hugely destructive. Both industries have been sacrificed on the altar of Net Zero. Coal-fired power plants don’t fit in with targets to have the grid running a hundred per cent on renewable energy by the end of this decade, while the Government has decided that Port Talbot should focus on ‘green steel’ even though it means losing thousands of jobs, and valuable skills. And yet, there are four big problems with that. First, we are moving far faster than other countries. Even Germany, with the Greens part of the coalition government, isn’t completely closing coal power generation (in fact, it has been increasing it), and neither has any other major country. They quite rightly recognise that you can’t switch off one source of power without making sure they had something to replace it with. By contrast, we are recklessly gambling that renewables will come on stream to save us. Next, we are crippling our industries. We already have some of the most expensive power in the world, with industrial electricity prices now 74 per cent higher than in the US, and 34 per cent higher than in France. The gap is widening all the time, but instead of trying to fix it, we are making it worse. Thirdly, we are closing industries that are critical both to self-dependence, and on which every form of construction and manufacturing depends. There is a reason why every developing country’s plan for industrialisation involves a steel plant. It is critical to everything else. Without steel, a modern economy doesn’t function. Finally, all we are really doing is offshoring carbon emissions. We will import energy and steel from countries that are still living in the real world, but sacrificing jobs and tax revenues in the process."
Weird how the UK is so "successful" in moving to renewables, but has such expensive power. Clearly the solution is to double down since everyone "knows" that they're the cheapest form of energy. Obviously it's greedy companies keeping electricity expensive
GREEN: Trudeau’s proposed ‘electricity’ regulations may leave Canadians out in the cold - "the Trudeau government has proposed a new set of “Clean Electricity Regulations” (CERs) to purportedly reduce the use of fossil fuels in generating electricity. Basically, the CERs would establish new standards for the generation of electricity, limiting the amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted in the process, and would apply to any unit that uses fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, oil) to generate electricity... according to Francis Bradley, CEO of Electricity Canada, which advocates for electricity companies, there is “insufficient time to analyze and provide feedback that could meaningfully impact the regulatory design” adding that the “engagement process has failed to achieve its purpose.” And consequently, the current design of the CERs may impose “significant impairments to the reliability of the electricity system and severe affordability impacts in many parts of the country.” This was not the first time folks observed a lack of meaningful consultation over the CERs. Earlier this year, Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz told CBC an update to the CERs made “no meaningful corrections to the most destructive piece of Canadian electricity regulation in decades” and that CERs “would jeopardize reliability and affordability of power in the province.” Simply put, with CERs the Trudeau government is gambling with high stakes — namely, the ability of Canadians to access reliable affordable electricity. Previous efforts at decarbonizing electrical systems in Ontario and around the world suggest such efforts are relatively slow to develop, are expensive, and are often accompanied by periods of electrical system destabilization. In Ontario, for example, while the provincial government removed coal-generation from its electricity generation from 2010 to 2016, Ontario’s residential electricity costs increased by 71%, far outpacing the 34% average growth in electricity prices across Canada at the time. In 2016, Toronto residents paid $60 more per month than the average Canadian for electricity. And between 2010 and 2016, large industrial users in Toronto and Ottawa experienced cost spikes of 53% and 46%, respectively, while the average increase in electric costs for the rest of Canada was only 14%. Not encouraging stats, if you live in province targeted by CERs."
Net Zero: Only fanatics fail to see the hopelessness of the ruinous policy - "It only took a near-wipe out in a general election for the Conservative politicians to wake up to the perils of “Net Zero”, judging by the noises coming out of this year’s Party Conference. Just over five years ago, in June 2019, Theresa May’s government proudly declared that the UK had become “the first major economy in the world to pass laws to end its contribution to global warming by 2050.” Before that, the UK had a target to achieve at least 80 percent reduction in all its greenhouse emissions from 1990 levels, so there were already significant controls in place. But this new ambitious target committed the country to bring emissions to net zero by 2050. An Office for Budget Responsibility report published in July 2021 estimated the net cost of this ambition to be £321 billion or over £10 billion a year. When, by the Climate Change Committee’s figures, the policy was estimated to cost £1,700 a year on average for every household, Boris Johnson remained enamoured with it, promising us a green Nirvana, complete with a customarily outlandish claim that “China and Russia [will follow] our lead with their own net zero targets, as prices tumble and green tech becomes the global norm”. A year after that, when Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak And Penny Mordaunt were setting out their policy positions as they sought to replace Johnson in No 10, all three - albeit with varying degrees of enthusiasm - committed themselves to the policy. Rishi Sunak carried on the tradition of putting taxpayers’ money where the government’s Net Zero mouth is. There was, for example, the £25 million package through the UK Research and Innovation Agency to help local authorities across the UK “tackle the barriers to climate action projects” and “speed up their progress to net zero”. Then there was “up to £142.8 million” to “support up to 955 more zero emission buses (ZEBs) and associated infrastructure across 25 local transport areas”. There has been no shortage of grants and subsidies such as these throughout the tenure of the last administration. Now, with a fanatical Ed Miliband leading the UK’s Net Zero efforts with a zeal of which his predecessors could only dream, the Tory leadership contenders this time around appear to have worked out that there’s no way to reasonably park their tank on Labour’s green lawn and while still winning over the party faithfuls. Kemi Badenoch, the darling of the grassroots who topped the first YouGov poll of Conservative members for the current leadership contest, has been direct in her concerns about blindly chasing the green dream. “There’s no point being the first country to reach Net Zero if we are also the first country to be bankrupt, nobody is going to follow,” she told the Conference on Monday. She also warned against “setting a target without a plan”, making the country “reliant on dangerous regimes” for energy. Worryingly, the current government seems wholly unconcerned about veering the country away from energy security. Back in July, barely a week after being appointed the Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband overruled his own officials and ordered an immediate ban on drilling in new North Sea oilfields. Given that according to industry experts the UK spent almost £27bn on imports of crude oil and over £21bn on gas imports last year, this decision will drive those costs even further, inevitably hitting people in their pockets with higher energy bills. On that same week, Miliband also overturned the planning inspectorate, allowing the energy firm Sunnica to build a 2,792-acre solar farm and energy storage infrastructure around several villages in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. Critics have accused the Energy Secretary of sacrificing vast amounts of farmland on the altar of Net Zero projects, endangering the country’s food security and exposing the nation to the volatility of the international markets as well as to the whims of foreign dictators... “[Miliband] is going to make us economically weaker, energy Security is going to be undermined, agricultural security is going to be undermined, and our national security is going to be undermined.” “Not only is he going to close down important industries in Aberdeen and Teesside [oil, iron and steel] but he’s actually going to destroy the opportunity for growth and employment in this country and send jobs to China,” warned Tugendhat. And that is surely the fundamental problem with the concept of Net Zero: no matter how many British jobs are sacrificed as we destroy our coal, gas, oil industries or shut down our steel plants, the environmental impact globally will remain unaffected as those jobs simply move elsewhere in the world. The closure of the Port Talbot steelworks in September became the latest example to illustrate this. The country’s biggest steel works in Wales ended production after almost a century’s operation, with 2,800 people losing their jobs as a result. UK taxpayers have already had £500 million of their money promised to the Indian owners of the plant, Tata Steel, towards a £1.25bn Net Zero- friendly electric arc furnace at Port Talbot, though it is now reported that only around 100 extra jobs will be saved as a result of this deal. But what truly drives the hopelessness of the Net Zero doctrine home is the fact that less than two weeks ago, Tata announced that it has successfully commissioned India’s largest blast furnace, just as it shut its furnace in Port Talbot. British taxpayers and consumers are endlessly sermonised by politicians of all colours that accepting higher tax bills and energy bills is the price we must pay in order to protect the planet. But it is abundantly clear that setting arbitrary, unrealistic targets really only serves to threaten our national and economic security, no matter how morally superior it makes our policy-makers feel."
