Tag: climate change

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free trade & free markets regulation too much government

A Great Un-Finding

EPA, finding, auto emissions, climate

In 2009, President Obama and the EPA decided that the will-o’-the-wisp of fine-tuning the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere fell under the agency’s purview. They introduced a not-so-thin wedge to pry open a vast new province of regulatory oppression.

Obama had sought congressional legislation, but Congress had balked. 

So he proceeded without any new laws; or rather, as so often happens, told an agency to issue new laws. (According to one explanation of the difference between laws and regulations, regulations are rules to implement laws. This doesn’t cover the case of regulations or “findings” that are tantamount to new laws although no elected representatives passed them.)

“Health” was at stake, the tyrants declared. 

The flourishing of industrial civilization, and thus of human beings, are also matters of health. But no matter.

One consequence of the EPA’s newfound authority was the issuance of other dire “rules,” like the Biden-era mandate that most American-made vehicles be electric by 2032.

Now things may change. 

Bigly. 

President Trump has ordered the EPA to un-find its 2009 “finding” that it has blanket authority to regulate human emission of greenhouse gases.

The change will be challenged in court. 

The Trump administration doubtless expects — perhaps even wants — the litigation. A favorable Supreme Court ruling would block the EPA from re-finding its finding during future administrations. Then legislation — actual, congressional — would be the only way to reimpose the craziness. 

A circumstance in which the people might have a say.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly international affairs regulation

Denmark’s Cows Must Die

Denmark, climate change,global warming, methane, cows, bureaucrats

Sorry, cows. The planet comes first.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression. No order has been issued requiring Danish farmers to kill their cows. The state is merely requiring that they feed the cows poison.

The purpose of the wonder-additive, Bovaer, produced by a company called Elanco Animal Health, is to limit the methane that cows produce as they digest their food. Then, says Elanco, the amount of methane that the cows emit — by a method too indelicate to mention — will be reduced 30 percent. Elanco must have done some kind of testing to figure this out, I suppose.

What is the point, though? Why does anybody want to accomplish this?

Well, the central planners who mandate such things believe or say they believe that even a smidgen less methane in the air will enable them to fine-tune the global climate thus wise and so and thereby, something something something, a perfect optimization. Well, not perfectly perfect, not until all the bovines everywhere are gobbling Bovaer. Denmark is not the only country pushing the drug though.

Alas, some Danish farmers are being obstreperous, complaining that their cows are getting sick: lethargy, diarrhea, miscarriages, drops in milk production. Etc. Some are even dying as result of the additive.

It is sad. But I’d rather have a few dead cows than a dead planet with nonstop hurricanes and tornadoes. And that’s what’s gonna happen if we don’t find a way to inhibit the cows’ . . . methane emissions.

This is Common Sense!! I’m Paul Jacob.

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Twilight of Electrical Civilization

Germany, nuclear power, climate change, energy, nuclear energy

Paige Lambermont reminds us that Germany’s phase-out of nuclear power has its reasons.

Construction, transport, and other processes involved in making and maintaining a nuclear power plant emit carbon dioxide. But nuclear power itself does not emit carbon dioxide, which is supposed to be terrible for climate and planet. So, “What would prompt a country seeking to sharply reduce CO2 emissions to get rid of its largest source of carbon-free energy?”

Lambermont, a policy associate at the Institute for Energy Research, reviews the history of anti-nuclear sentiments, going back to the 1970s, and various news-driven decisions by the German government. A tsunami in Japan didn’t help, though safety measures were strengthened at the affected nuclear power plant.

Now we seem to be nearing the end of the line. German pubs host “demolition viewing parties” as the country self-destructively continues to destroy another nuclear power plant, specifically the part consisting of two giant cooling towers.

A controlled demolition caused 56,000 tons of concrete to collapse in seconds. The speed is misleading, for the job is far from finished. Further work dismantling the Bavaria-based plant is expected to continue until 2040. Of course, the useful life of the plant is already over.

It’s all part of the plan, the German government’s energy-transition plan called Energiewende. The energy has to become “renewable,” a word meaning — in effect — unreliable (wind, solar). Also, Germans must drastically reduce their consumption of energy.

Maybe they should call the plan Götterdämmerung — twilight of the gods or, in this case, of industrial civilization.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Iranian Revolutionary Climate

Iran, protests, climate change

I was once bitterly opposed to the climate change. One minute raining, then snowing, then desert sun. Enough already.

But now I see that we need the climate change to fight tyranny.

Not everyone agrees. Nina Bookout simply refuses to accept the latest super-sophisticated scientific reasoning about how widespread protests happening in Iran — ostensibly because of a theocracy that is stomping everybody — are secretly being motivated by the climate change!!!!!

You know it’s scientific if it’s in “Scientific” American, a lot smarter now that it has dumbed down its content in recent decades. 

But Bookout just won’t follow the “science.”

Scientific American says climate change is “among the environmental challenges facing Iran that helped spark protests in dozens of cities. . . . A severe drought, mismanaged water resources and dust storms diminished Iran’s economy in recent years.” 

Protests are happening most in places with “climate refugees.”

Bookout differs: “The Iranian people KNOW that billions of dollars was freighted to Iran on Obama’s say-so. Thus, for several years, the Iranian government has had financial resources available to help those impacted by the drought and the earthquakes. . . . Instead the Iranian government [have been using] their cash . . . to prop up Hamas, Hezbollah, terrorism in Syria, and build up their military. . . . The security forces aren’t attacking protestors because of climate change.”

I’m with Scientific American. Let us have climate change wherever autocrats oppress the people, so that people will resist this oppression.

Thank you for your help, climate change.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies

Newsom Defends Gas-Car Ban

California, electric cars, climate change, global warming, regulations, ban

Last week, the U.S. Senate voted 51 to 44 to repeal a Biden-era waiver that let California set its own standards for regulating air pollution, stricter than national standards. 

Congress’s action means that California may no longer ban sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035.

With presidential prospects in mind, Governor Gavin Newsom has recently been trying to position himself as one of the less-unhinged Democrats; he has a podcast and talks (!) to conservatives. To keep up this act, he would have had to accept defeat of his autocratic attempt to circumvent markets and outlaw consumer choice in the auto industry.

Instead, Newsom is suing to overturn Congress’s good deed, which he says is all about “making America smoggy again.”

“This is not about electric vehicles,” he says. “This is about polluters being able to pollute more.” More than what? Gas cars aren’t a new thing. And electric cars, for all their novelty and appeal, come with a host of trade-offs from high price to extra weight to battery-charging problems — and EV pollution. 

Slogans don’t change that.

The tradeoffs hardly make electric cars automatically preferable to consumers free to make up their own minds what kind of car to buy.

When electric cars sell and develop in competition with gas vehicles, fine; no problem. But when government makes gas vehicles disappear by fiat? The salutary incentives provided by direct competition will also disappear. And our roads become filled with ill-fit technology.

The most fundamental issue here is not electric vehicles. And it’s not pollution. 

It’s freedom. 

To which Governor Newsom, sad to say, remains staunchly opposed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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An Ember of Hope?

EU, European Union, Italy, cars, green new deal, global warming, climate change, bureaucrats

Will the world escape the punishing “green energy” mandates?

The government of Italy is making known its unhappiness with a looming ban on sales of gas-powered vehicles, supposed to happen by 2035. The mandate has been imposed by the European Union, of which Italy is a member.

The transition is to be attended by formal review of how things are progressing toward the goal of eliminating gas cars. One is scheduled for 2026. Italy wants it to happen sooner.

Italy’s industry minister, Adolfo Urso, has indicated that his government will soon formally request this early review. Everyone understands that this is not because the current government of Italy is in a hurry to stamp its imprimatur on the EU’s plans.

Urso says: “We believe it’s absolutely necessary to modify the direction of EU industrial policy. The automotive sector is the one where a change from the Green Deal is most required.”

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called the decision to outlaw gas-powered vehicles “self-destructive.”

Meanwhile, demand for electric cars has slumped in Europe and the U.S. as the inconveniences and risks become better known. These include the cars’ still very high cost, their tendency to freeze up in very cold weather, the greater frequency with which their tires must be changed, the difficulties of recharging, the difficulties of putting out the fires when the cars catch fire.

May Italy show the way out of the debacle and let’s hope the rest of the EU follows.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Hurricane Algebra

hurricane, climate change, global warming, weather, panic, big government, regulations

Helene is x times worse than Katrina, but receives y less coverage from The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc.

When we finally plug in the numbers, we will likely discover that the coverage difference is best explained by two factors: there are fewer reporters yet more “journalists” than ever before, and (you guessed it) politics.

You see, Katrina coverage helped besmirch George W. Bush and the Republicans.

Covering Helene in the same way, or to similar extent, could hurt the incumbents (FEMA has been especially lame), and the presidential race is too close for the Democrats’ lackeys in the media to do that.

So let’s blame Helene on Trump.

Or, the low coverage on Trump. Trump’s the why of the y!

It’s just as sensible as blaming Helene on man-made climate change. Nearly every newsperson intones the plausible-sounding theory that the warmer the climate the more damaging the storms. It’s a great hypothesis. But pre-Helene studies have shown scant evidence for it.

Further, the oft-repeated line that “never before” has a hurricane reached so far inland is also untrue. Asheville, North Carolina, was destroyed by a similarly horrific hurricane in July 1916.

These are rare events. Or, perhaps, cyclical, on repeat by century. 

The pity with all this theory and conjecture and political nonsense is: less coverage means less knowledge outside the hurricane zone of how horrible Helene is, and thus less sympathy elicited from the general population of generous Americans. Thus, less aid.

Making major media complicit — with the U.S. Government (FEMA, etc.) — in not helping relieve the suffering. 

So maybe we should thank the climate change agenda. Without that devil to fight, we might get no coverage of Helene at all. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly ideological culture

Spray-Painting Stonehenge

Last month, members of Just Stop Oil, devoted to “climate activism” — a way of coping with weather that goes way beyond using shelter, culverts, coats and umbrellas — were arrested for an unsolicited paint job. 

They spray-painted Stonehenge.

The group says that mankind is doomed unless we stop using fossil fuels. Not instantly! That would be crazy. By 2030.

According to a Just Stop Oil spokesman, “Continuing to burn coal, oil and gas will result in the death of millions.” But if we stop, the climate will spare us.

Their website says that fossil fuels are right now “killing millions around the world.” (No mention of any lives saved by, for example, fossil-fuel-provided heat in wintertime.)

Worse is to come. The contours of apocalypse are elaborated on a helpful /genocide/ page of the site. “Scientists warn of untold suffering and death, of the collapse of whole nations, and the eradication by manmade global heating of entire peoples and cultures.”

I hope I need not stress that not all “scientists” have received this fact-free revelation.

What will cause the mass slaughter? More weather, sometimes extreme weather? The kind of thing that we use fossil fuels to cope with and protect ourselves from? And for which, barring much wider development and acceptance of nuclear power than we are likely to see any decade soon, there is no reliable substitute?

You can wash the paint off Stonehenge. Bringing irrational fantasists to reason is a much tougher job.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Cold Truth

One of the climatic shifts supposed to be happening to our traumatized planet is the melting of polar ice into huge puddles of slush, with maybe a few polar bears helplessly drifting on the dwindling ice floes of a rising sea.

The alleged calamities of various alleged major climatic changes are allegedly due solely to human civilization. We can render the latter doctrine more plausible if we ignore all the major variations of climate that transpired for millions of years before mankind and industrial civilization showed up.

Anyway, if polar ice were indeed melting away over the long term, we could argue about the causes and effects.

But it doesn’t seem to be happening.

According to research at the University of Copenhagen using photographs and satellite data, the glaciers of Antarctica have been pretty stable over the last 85 years or so. (The SciTechDaily article about the findings calls this stability an “Antarctic Anomaly.”)

With the help of modern computer technology and aerial photographs going back to 1937, the researchers managed to track how the glaciers of East Antarctica have changed over the decades.

They found that “the ice has not only remained stable but also grown slightly over the last 85 years, partly due to increased snowfall. . . . While some glaciers have thinned over shorter intermediate periods of 10-20 years, they have remained stable or grown slightly in the long term, indicating a system in balance.”

Uh oh.

Chicken Little never had it so tough.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets ideological culture political economy too much government

Sweden’s Electric Sense

Sweden, climate change, nuclear power, energy,regulations, wind power, solar power

Common sense in Sweden! Energy in Sweden!

Under the policy of Sweden’s current government, the Swedish people are to be allowed to illuminate and heat their homes and do all the other things they use electricity for. The Swedish parliament has formally relinquished the government’s former target of somehow reaching “net-zero” renewable energy by 2045.

Such unreliable means of generating power as erratic wind and erratic sunshine just don’t cut it, says Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson.

“We need more electricity production, we need clean electricity, and we need a stable energy system. In substantial industrialized economies . . . only a gas-to-nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialized and competitive.”

The new energy policy is an about-face for Sweden, which decided in the ’80s to nuke nuclear power and pursue 100 percent “renewable” energy.

Sweden is now following the lead of Finland. After Finland’s latest nuclear power plant went on line in April, reports Peta Credlin, “wholesale power prices dropped 75%, almost overnight. The Olkiluoto 3 plant is . . . delivering 15 percent of the country’s power needs. Nuclear now provides around half of the country’s total electricity generation.”

Nuclear power has gotten a bad rap in many countries, including the United States. But if societies and governments are rightly or wrongly determined to retreat from reliance on fossil fuels while also not pulling the plug on industrial civilization, a steady supply of electricity has to be obtained somehow or other.

Nuclear power is one major way to do the job.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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