Climate change machinery cranks up following recent hurricanes

It’s as predictable as the sun rising in the east: when any notable weather event or series of them occurs, the human-made climate change enthusiasts engage their propaganda machine and bombard us with more dire warnings of impending doom. This seems more important to them than the suffering caused and damage done.

When Hurricanes Harvey and Irma struck the southern and eastern US in close succession recently, they were the first two Category 4 hurricanes to do so in the same year in 166 years of record keeping. Immediately, self-identified weather specialists Leonardo DiCaprio and Pope Francis burst forth with dire warnings of human-caused climate change.

Al Gore, who makes his money these days writing books about imagined weather calamities without the benefit of knowledge of the subject, told the World Economic Forum, “This is an unusual time. Within the last two weeks, we have had two more record-breaking, climate-connected storms.”

“We are departing the familiar bounds of history as we have known it since our civilization began,” he said. “And why? Because today like all days we will put another 110 million tons of man-made heat-trapping pollution into the atmosphere, using the sky as an open sewer.”

Creating heat-trapping pollution is one thing Gore does know well. An article in The Daily Signal said this: “According to the report, compiled from public records requests and information from the Nashville Electric Service, Gore’s 20-room, 10,070-square-foot, Colonial-style mansion consumed an average of 19,241 kilowatt-hours per month — more than 21.3 times that of the U.S. household average of 901 kilowatt-hours monthly.”

If global warming/climate change resulting from human activities is really as threatening as Gore preaches, one might expect him to lead the way toward lowering pollution levels, rather than doing the opposite. Gore’s actions and his words send substantially different messages.

Those advocating the idea that the activities of humans harm the environment seem to ignore the bad news for their cause, which is good news for the rest of us: data demonstrates that there has been no real warming for nearly 20 years. That, among other inconvenient truths, is routinely ignored.

Dr. Roy Spencer is a real climate scientist, unlike Gore, DiCaprio and the Pope. His education is in atmospheric sciences, his doctorate is in meteorology, and he works at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Fed up with the pseudo-science flying around these days, he wrote a book challenging the commonly paraded idea that this season’s hurricanes are what climate change looks like. He argues that these storms are neither an aberration nor a result of rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

A former senior scientist for NASA, Spencer explains that “There have been many years with multiple Cat 4 hurricanes in the Atlantic, but there is nothing about global warming theory that says more of those will make landfall,” adding that “While the official estimate is that this was the first time two Cat 4 storms hit the U.S., since Florida was virtually unpopulated before 1900, we probably don’t really know.”

Spencer cited data of all major hurricanes to strike Florida since 1900 that show no increase in frequency or intensity as measured by wind speed. Florida’s worst hurricane on record struck on Labor Day, 1935, and is one of only three Category 5 storms on record to make landfall in the U.S.

Datasets from the journal “Geophysical Research Letters” in 2011 show that the global number and intensity of tropical storms and hurricanes have not increased over the past four decades, and tropical storms and hurricanes from 1999 to 2011 are significantly below the peak strengths. As with the data showing no atmospheric warming since 1998, this data strengthens the idea that the global warming theory is just a lot of hot air.

But why would actual scientists participate in promoting a ruse without a true scientific basis? Because there is a lot of research money for the taking if you support this hoax.

One scientist finally had enough of the dramatic changes in his field.

In October of 2010, Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara,
sent a message to Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, who was at the time president of the American Physical Society.

“When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago,” Lewis wrote, “it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).”

“How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs,” he said. “For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.”

This is a troubled time for America. It is a time when some scientists and journalists think their personal concerns are more important than the ethics and standards of their professions, or the needs of the country.

Wind and solar energy have failed to perform as advertised

The bad news for what we have been told are superior energy sources keeps piling up. Even European countries, with their strong preference for things that don’t work, like socialist government, have begun pulling back from wind energy as a major energy source, and solar energy isn’t doing so well, either.

German-owned solar panel producer SolarWorld has filed for what it termed “insolvency” in a European court, saying it was “over-indebted” and did not have a “positive going concern prognosis.” Translated into the plain language of American business, SolarWorld is filing for bankruptcy.

In America bankruptcy does not necessarily mean the end for a company, so perhaps “insolvency” is only a temporary side trip, but it certainly falls well below the description of a successful company.

Here at home, that raises concerns over the company’s U.S. division, SolarWorld America, Inc., which operates a $600 million panel plant in Hillsboro, Oregon. Democrat Gov. Ted Kulongoski praised the plant as an economic development beacon “in the Silicon forest” during a ribbon-cutting ceremony, also attended by Democrats Sen. Ron Wyden and then-Rep. David Wu.

The facility was purchased in 2007 from Japan's Komatsu Group, and by 2012 had collected $57 million in Business Energy Tax Credits from the state. Reports say it now has received $100 million in tax breaks just from state and local government. It also benefitted from a $4 million grant from Barack Obama’s Department of Energy.

SolarWorld notes, however, that despite its problems in Germany, the Hillsboro plant that employs 800 people continues to operate. The question now is how long before the Oregon plant, which its previous owner wanted rid of, joins the infamous Solyndra and Solar Trust green energy fiascos, that cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars?

Across the country in Rhode Island a new offshore wind farm just went online last week. The five-turbine farm cost $300 million and currently powers just 2,000 homes, which works out to a bargain-basement price of only $150,000 per household. Ultimately, it is expected to power 17,000 homes, which will lower the cost per home, but progressives and environmentalists believe the price per home isn’t important. They believe that “it’s the precedent that counts,” according to Salon.com.

The Daily Caller News Foundation calculated the difference in wind and nuclear power by comparing this wind farm with a new nuclear plant, Watts Bar Unit 2, which cost $4.7 billion to build. The important difference is not the price, but the result: the nuclear facility will power 4.5 million homes at a comparatively cheap $1,044 per house.

Even with 17,000 customers, the wind farm is still 17 times more expensive than nuclear. Despite this ridiculous situation, the feds want to use offshore wind to power 23 million homes by 2050. However, Germany has finally been shocked into reality as to the inefficiency of wind power, and now plans to stop building wind facilities.

Further illustrating the calamity of the world’s environmental mania is the condition of the environment. The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), which because of its European connection ought to have more credibility with the environmental faction than do Americans who don’t buy into the green energy hype, made data public recently that even the most strident greenie ought to consider.

As published by the UK Telegraph, “ever since December temperatures in the Arctic have consistently been lower than minus 20 [degrees] C. In April the extent of Arctic sea ice was back to where it was in April 13 years ago. Furthermore, whereas in 2008 most of the ice was extremely thin, this year most has been at least two metres thick. The Greenland ice cap last winter increased in volume faster than at any time for years.”

The Telegraph goes on to say that “as for those record temperatures brought in 2016 by an exceptionally strong El Niño, the satellites now show that in recent months global temperatures have plummeted by more than 0.6 degrees, just as happened 17 years ago after a similarly strong El Niño had also made 1998 the ‘hottest year on record.’”

The DMI reported actual measurements of climate information, rather than the results of climate models, which are projections that are often wrong. The DMI data shows there has been no additional warming for the last 19 years, which is “an inconvenient truth,” to environmental zealots.

The shortcomings of wind and solar power and the mounting evidence that fossil fuels have not caused the environment to warm significantly cast doubt on the idea that we need expensive “green” energy. In addition to their high costs, wind and solar energy are inefficient, and not as “green” as they are advertised. Both cause environmental harm in their construction and operation.

Non-fossil fuel energy sources are not yet ready to replace coal, oil and natural gas, but they may be in the future.

As with most things the secret to better, cleaner energy is through natural processes, not government force. As technology develops, improvements in how we use fossil fuels make even the dirtiest sources of much cleaner and less objectionable. This process may also make wind and solar energy more efficient, and therefore desirable.

Some good news for local economies battered by the War on Coal

It is a common idea among many Americans that coal as a major industrial fuel is dead, or at least dying, and cleaner fuels, like wind and solar energy, and natural gas, are taking over. There is some truth there; but there are other influences on coal’s recent decline.

Less costly natural gas has become the fuel of choice in power plants and for other industrial uses, not because of the natural relative price of the fuels, but because of the cost of regulatory demands on mining and burning coal that require enormous investments that have priced coal higher than natural gas. Remember former President Barack Obama’s prediction: “So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them.”

These regulations produced the closing of more than 400 coal-burning power plants, which dropped the demand for coal, and altogether put 63,000 people in the coal industry, electric production industry and related support industries out of work in just the last few years.

At just the right time hydraulic fracturing (fracking) became popular, after lying mostly dormant since its first commercial application in 1957, and that produced a boom in natural gas production at attractive prices to compete with coal.

Many think burning less coal is a great thing, because burning coal fouls the air and is dangerous to our health, a “truth” which loses importance when you know the actual infinitesimal improvement in air quality derived from burning less coal.

However, considering all those factors, and paraphrasing a famous quote attributed to Mark Twain, the rumors of coal’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Of course, coal will never regain its former dominance among industrial fuels; time and technological/industrial evolution would just as certainly, although much more gradually, have eaten into coal’s popularity without the help of the Obama War on Coal.

But the regulatory adjustments of the Trump administration, the growing acceptance of the idea that the climate change/global warming mania is dramatically overstated, the reality that coal is still the best fuel for many things, the fact that many countries that do not have domestic coal supplies depend upon it for fuel, and the improvement in coal-burning technology all point to a continued market for American coal.

And let’s not forget that fossil fuels made up 81 percent of the fuels used to produce electricity in 2016, and coal is still the primary fossil fuel in electricity production.

Industry insiders, like Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray, see a partial resurgence in coal. “Coal will grow back,” he told Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney. “But we’re in a decline right now.”

He went on to say that Trump “can bring back at least half of those [63,000 lost] jobs as the economy grows and as he ends the regulations on coal.” He noted that we have not had a level playing field in coal; “the government has been picking winners and losers.”

And he told Maria Bartiromo, also on Fox Business Network, former President Obama closed 411 coal-fired plants, and that the Clean Power Plan which Trump ended recently, would have closed 56 more plants. That, he said, would have caused a steep spike in electric rates.

“As [Trump] grows the economy [and] brings jobs back to America, coal will participate in that growth because we are one-sixth the cost of a windmill and one-fourth the cost of natural gas,” Murray said.

Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, said, “The coal industry knows and understands how to mine coal … and protect our environment. We don’t do it the way it was done 50, 60 years ago.”

Here are a few pieces of evidence:

* Reports from the Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia coalfield regions say that mines are cranking back up and miners are being rehired. Train yards are seeing cars filled with coal moving through them in greater numbers.

* Bluefield State College recently held a Job Fair to immediately fill 85 open coal positions at Wyoming and McDowell county mines that mine coal used in making steel.

* Fox News reports that in Wise County, Virginia, a “long-awaited revival is under way in this beleaguered Central Appalachia community where residents see coal as the once and future king. Trucks are running again. Miners working seven days a week cannot keep up with current demand.”

* Coal exports through Hampton Roads last month rose more than 50 percent from last year's level, led by a nearly five-fold increase at Newport News' Pier IX, according to the most recent Virginia Maritime Association statistics. "A lot of mines are open again," said Harry Childress, president of the Virginia Coal and Energy Alliance."

Few if any argue that the coal industry will return to its former greatness, but it will certainly endure for many years at a lower level if natural forces are allowed to work, free of politically correct environmental engineering.

When you replace regulations resulting from selfish ideological goals with a business regulatory level based upon common sense, good things can happen.

And for areas of the country like ours, that have suffered so greatly from Obama’s over-zealous EPA, this is good news.

Obama’s new attempt to kill fossil fuels hits legal resistance

 

After the U.S. Supreme Court stayed implementation of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) on February 9, pending judicial review, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia has begun hearings to resolve the issue. The CPP is the next step by the Obama administration to impose dire restrictions on burning fossil fuels to save the world from supposed climate change from carbon emissions.

The EPA explains the regulation: “On August 3, 2015, President Obama and EPA announced the Clean Power Plan – a historic and important step in reducing carbon pollution from power plants that takes real action on climate change. Shaped by years of unprecedented outreach and public engagement, the final Clean Power Plan is fair, flexible and designed to strengthen the fast-growing trend toward cleaner and lower-polluting American energy. With strong but achievable standards for power plants, and customized goals for states to cut the carbon pollution that is driving climate change, the Clean Power Plan provides national consistency, accountability and a level playing field while reflecting each state’s energy mix. It also shows the world that the United States is committed to leading global efforts to address climate change.”

Twenty-seven states and a group of private companies and trade associations have challenged the CPP, however. The regulation seeks to cut carbon dioxide emissions in the energy industry by over 30 percent and nationalize the country’s electric power grid, according to The Daily Signal. The regulation, which runs to 1,500 pages, gives the federal government authority over how states use their natural resources.

There are significant problems with the CPP. It is another example of what is effectively the executive branch making law, a function plainly reserved for the legislative branch by the U.S. Constitution. However, Congress has frequently abdicated this responsibility, and effectively and unconstitutionally transferred it to the executive branch. The CPP also breaches the 10^th Amendment protections of the states against improper encroachment by the federal government, and it was this aspect of the CPP that prompted the Supreme Court to call a timeout, according to The Daily Signal.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who is challenging the rule on 10^th Amendment grounds in State of West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, said after the court session that the way EPA set its goals is key to the case. The Daily Signal notes that “the Clean Power Plan seeks to reverse what may be natural climate fluctuation at the cost of creating power blackouts, higher energy costs, job losses in the energy sector, and price spikes throughout the nation’s economy, including for necessities such as food and water.”

The Heritage Foundation predicts the following effects of the CPP:

·      An average annual employment shortfall of nearly 300,000 jobs;

·      A peak employment shortfall of more than 1 million jobs;

·      A loss of more than $2.5 trillion (inflation-adjusted) in aggregate GDP; and

·      A total income loss of more than $7,000 (inflation-adjusted) per person.

And for what great and noble end would the EPA impose this misery on the nation?

Heritage cites climatologists Paul Knappenberger and Patrick Michaels, who used the “Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change” developed with support from the EPA, and estimate that the climate regulations will reduce warming by a meager –0.018 degree Celsius (C) by 2100.

Oral arguments began last Wednesday, and Scientific American magazine reports that both sides in the case thought the EPA arguments had the edge in the nearly seven-hour court session that involved 10 of the Circuit’s 11 judges, rather than just the normal three-judge panel. Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland recused himself from the proceedings.

“The most contentious questions focused on a big issue: how the regulation set state-specific carbon levels for power plants,” the magazine noted. “Rather than looking at what individual coal plants could do to limit greenhouse gas emissions, EPA assumed the industry as a whole could accelerate a trend away from coal and toward cleaner natural gas and renewable power.”

The EPA’s arguments predictably did not sit well with the CPP’s challengers. Lawyers representing the 27 states and the private companies allied with them “argued that EPA overstepped its authority under the Clean Air Act, moving into Congress’ turf and violating a separation of powers.”

George W. Bush appointee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, said that while curbing greenhouse gas emissions is a “laudable” goal, “global warming isn’t a blank check” for the administration. “I understand the frustration with Congress,” he said, but the rule is “fundamentally transforming an industry.” The executive branch does not have that authority.

The outcome is definitely uncertain, with judges expressing both support and opposition to the CPP. A decision from the D.C. Circuit might not come until early next year, and the Supreme Court’s final action might be delayed until 2018.

The administration’s manic, emotional and weak theory about carbon emissions threatening life as we know it brought forth this question from authors Stephen Moore and Kathleen Hartnett White in their excellent new book, Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy: “How can carbon be a weapon of mass destruction and the basis of all known life” at the same time, they asked?