Category: Econuts

I can only stand just so much of this joy….

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It has always been a scam about money to say the science is settled. It is as factual as the lie about having to stay six feet apart to protect against COVID

CNN fearmongers about Antarctica greening at an ‘alarming’ rate

A new “climate change” article from CNN, like all the continuous articles on the weather, storms, or warming, is meant to scare people into capitulating into completely changing their way of life. The media just regurgitates what they are told without asking questions or doing research, pushing the green agenda to confiscate more money and power for the government. Our freedom and prosperity are at risk because of this agenda.

Here are some excerpts from the article and comments:

Parts of icy Antarctica are turning green with plant life at an alarming rate as the region is gripped by extreme heat events, according to new research, sparking concerns about the changing landscape on this vast continent.

Scientists used satellite imagery and data to analyze vegetation levels on the Antarctic Peninsula, a long mountain chain that points north to the tip of South America, and which has been warming much faster than the global average.

They found plant life — mostly mosses — had increased in this harsh environment more than 10-fold over the past four decades, according to the study by scientists at the universities of Exeter and Hertfordshire in England, and the British Antarctic Survey, published Friday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Plant life increased 10 fold over forty years. That sounds like a lot doesn’t it? But, in reality, it increased from .4 square miles to 5 square miles.

Vegetation covered less than 0.4 square miles of the Antarctic Peninsula in 1986 but had reached almost 5 square miles by 2021, the study found. The rate at which the region has been greening over nearly four decades has also been speeding up, accelerating by more than 30% between 2016 and 2021.

For reference, Antarctica is 5.5 million square miles and the Antarctic Peninsula is 202,000 square miles; in other words, five square miles is .00002% of the 202,000 total square miles. Be very afraid!

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Our utility company (city owned and operated) has already changed out all meters to ‘smart’ ones that can show usage of whatever commodity down to the hour. I suspect in home devices are next on the agenda, but as our utilities are very locally controlled, I think if such shenanigans are attempted, the populace will have a definite say about it.

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Environmentalists don’t believe there is such a thing as clean or green energy either. Their goal is to reduce energy usage by replacing reliable energy systems with unreliable ones, and inexpensive ones with expensive ones, as a way of ‘Cloward-Pivening’ the energy grid to force energy rationing and the eventual reduction of the human population

The Government is Coming for Your Thermostat

It’s the middle of a summer heat wave and temperatures are rising. Suddenly your air conditioning turns off. It’s not a blackout or a brownout: it’s the new government plan.

Mass government subsidies for inefficient and expensive ‘green energy’ wind turbines and solar panels combined with bans on efficient and cheap oil, coal and gas, have made energy grids unreliable and costly. States that have aimed for widespread use of green energy like California and Texas are suffering blackouts and brownouts at growing rates.

Instead of building reliable energy resources, federal and state governments, along with monopolistic energy companies, are making up for green energy with energy rationing.

Or ‘smart rationing’.

Virtual power plants were a green energy buzzword that promised to harness local battery capacity to distribute energy to the grid, but the diminishing promise of solar panels and the power hunger of electric cars has poured cold water on the idea that the ‘green’ battery devices and useless solar panels will ever reliably give more to the grid than they take from it.

Virtual power plants, like all things virtual, have come to mean power that isn’t really there. Instead virtual power plants have become another euphemism for rationing power.

Unable to get meaningful savings from so-called battery ‘distributed energy resources’, virtual power plants now mean using smart thermostats to seize control over homeowner power usage with bureaucrats or AI software deciding how much power people should be using and turning off their heat or air conditioning. Government agencies and monopolistic utilities insist on calling this ‘efficiency’ rather than what it actually is which is rationing customer power usage.

State utilities have taken to bribing consumers with discounts on skyrocket energy rates and ‘free’ smart thermostats like Google Nest in order to induce them to turn over control of their thermostats. Once they give up control, they may be allowed only limited manual overrides a month to be able to turn on the heat or air in even the most miserable weather.

Families facing summer heat and winter cold find that they’re not just wrestling with each other for control of the thermostat but with their utility company, its software and the government mandates that are out to force them to use less energy even as energy prices climb higher.

A recent Department of Energy report revealed the ambitious scope of the ‘virtual power plant’ strategy while emphasizing the rationing aspect of ‘smart thermostats’ and ‘smart water heaters’ which “can be controlled remotely” in ways that are “typically imperceptible to the owner.”

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Consequences Finally Arrive for ‘Just Stop Oil’ Lunatics, and the Response Is Priceless

After years of disruption and vandalism, consequences have finally arrived for “Just Stop Oil” protesters. I’m not just talking about some motorists throwing them out of the street either, as satisfying as that usually is. This time, actual prison sentences were handed down.

In October 2022, two women entered the National Gallery in London and threw soup onto a famous Van Gogh painting. They then glued themselves to the wall while ranting about climate change. Video of the incident went viral at the time.

Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were arrested for their deeds, though it wasn’t immediately clear any real punishment would be handed down. Now, nearly two years later, the two soup aficionados will be eating a lot of it behind bars. Plummer received two years while Holland got 20 months.

The response from “Just Stop Oil” was priceless. Instead of defiantly proclaiming the sacrifice was worth it to save the world, they cried foul, suggesting the punishment was far too harsh for the crime.

“Just Stop Oil” is a cult. It takes impressionable people and convinces them that if they don’t break the law and make the lives of other people miserable, life on Earth will cease to exist in relatively short order. Being brainwashed doesn’t give a person the right to block streets and damage priceless pieces of art. That’s a lesson these lunatics have been loath to learn over the years. I don’t know if this will change the calculus for them, but it’s necessary nonetheless.

The judge who oversaw the case wasn’t kind in his sentencing remarks.

In his sentencing remarks, Judge Hehir said:  “Your culpability is at level A. You did reconnaissance and planning and talked to a journalist. Your harm is at category 1, which means extreme harm to society.”

He indicated that conscience was not a mitigating factor and that “The action you took was extreme, disproportionate and criminally idiotic given the risks involved”. He continued  “There is nothing peaceful or nonviolent about throwing soup. Throwing soup in someone’s face is violent.” 

Addressing Phoebe he said “You think your beliefs entitle you to do anything. I was treated to a lengthy exposition to your political views. The suggestion that you and others like you in a democracy are political prisoners is ludicrous, offensive and idiotic. You have no remorse and you are proud.”

The key phrase there is, “You think your beliefs entitle you to do anything.” That is the paradigm these “activists” operate under. The fact that others have a right to go to work, get to hospitals, and enjoy their lives doesn’t register with them. Doomsday cults do not care about other people. They only care about their delusions of grandeur.

For context, “Just Stop Oil” is demanding all fossil fuel extraction be ceased by 2030. What would happen if they accomplished that goal? Millions upon millions of people would die, with the highest death tolls being in underdeveloped nations in places like Africa. Fossil fuels power the world. To think that can be stopped in the next five years is absurd and dangerous. If anything, these two women got off easy.

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“Shamala is an extinctionist. The natural extension of her philosophy would be a de facto holocaust for all of humanity!” wrote billionaire and X owner Elon Musk on his platform.

Kamala Harris’ new climate director said she is hesitant to have children because of climate change threats.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign hired a new climate director who has frequently said the effects of climate change are part of what’s stopping her from having children.

Camila Thorndike, who previously worked in the Senate managing the climate portfolio of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was given the title of climate engagement director for the Harris for President campaign in September 2024, according to her LinkedIn page.

Prior to joining the Harris campaign, Thorndike said on several occasions that she considers climate change a factor when deciding whether to have kids.

“I was 15 when I first saw the climate ‘hockey stick’ graph. I realized that this skyrocketing arrow of temperature would take place in my lifetime. All of the big milestones of life that I was looking forward to would be in the context of this big global crisis. It led to the question of whether or not to have kids – which is still a big question for me – where I would put down roots, what my family would do,” Thorndike said in 2018 when she was the D.C. campaign director for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

CONSERVATIVES REACT TO KAMALA HARRIS’ LATEST ‘WORD SALAD’ ON CLIMATE ‘DEADLINES’

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So About Those Oceans That Were Just About to Boil Away…

It seems like only last year [it was only last year, Steve —Editor] that we were all going to die because the oceans were literally figuratively boiling away. I’m not sure whether it was the massive amounts of steam that were supposed to kill us or the resulting Sharknado. I just know that whatever the oceans are doing, it’s a VERY BAD THING, even though the Great Barrier Reef seems to love it. Seriously, the GBR is in better shape than it’s been in for years.

But now, “surface ocean temperatures are plunging rapidly around the world with scientists reported to be puzzled at the speed of the recent decline, according to Chris Morrison at The Daily Sceptic this week. “Less puzzlement was to be found when the oceans were ‘boiling’ during the last two years,” Morrison dryly noted.

When things are getting worse, climate scientists enjoy the certainty of knowing exactly what’s going on and why. When the trend lines improve, it’s a much less newsworthy mystery.

“Until recently, the surface sea temperature (SST) graph below showing measurements up the Arctic and down to Antarctica was rarely out of the public prints… This year the temperature shown by the black line flatlined until April compared with the substantial rise in orange for 2023. It then fell more sharply than last year and is now 0.2°C lower.”

You can play with the interactive chart here if you like.

For whatever reason, ocean temps are up a full degree Celsius or so since the mid-’80s but 2024 is showing cooling like we’ve never seen before. Then again, if our data only goes back to the mid-’80s, how much do we really know about oceans that are billions of years old, and surround continents that slowly drift around?

As I wrote way back in 2014, before we start panicking, a few questions need to be answered in this order:

  • Is whatever is going on detrimental or beneficial to the human habitat?
  • Do we understand the how and the why?
  • Do we have the technical means and know-how to make things better instead of worse?

We’re still iffy on big parts of the first question, but we have a lot of people in Washington and other places telling us that we need to tax and regulate as though we have perfect answers to all three.

Let’s go back to the Great Barrier Reef for a moment. In 2016 the GBR was pronounced dead at the ripe old age of 25 million, but by 2022 parts of it showed the highest coral cover in 36 years. Last year the panic mongers had to admit that “the truth is complex.” This would be a great time for climate scientists to admit that on the Rumsfeld Epistemological Scale when it comes to how our planet works, we still have a great many unknown unknowns. But don’t hold your breath.

The only certain thing for sure, as Lyle Lovett once sang, is that whatever is going on, it’s the worst thing ever and it’s because of something you did, comrade.

You can also be sure that the freezing oceans will be what kills us next.

A CBS News Report From Over 40 Years Ago Proves Global Warming Is the Ultimate Hoax.

As loyal Townhall readers, you already know about the media hysterics over global warming. Still, digging up old clips proving how wrong the experts were about this subject is constantly refreshing. Based on their timelines, we’re supposed to be dead. Based on their advice, the only way for us to survive is to be poorer and let more people from third-world nations die from preventable diseases. That’s the nasty undercurrent within the population control folks. If it’s not that, these so-called activists are obsessed with controlling the means of production in the industrialized world to save Mother Earth. It’s backdoor communism when you boil it all down.

The green folks want us to sacrifice trillions in economic activity to save the planet. That’s the byproduct of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, which aims to ban the internal combustion engine. Anyways, here’s a 1982 CBS News segment on the subject, where the godfather of fake news, Dan Rather, anchors the end times projections from these environmental clowns, who predicted that 25 percent of Florida would be underwater. Also, our agriculture centers would have to relocate to Canada. Look out for an appearance by a young Al Gore:

In 1975, Newsweek published an article about global cooling, in which re-glaciation was projected to hit the North American continent. Massive granaries holding seedlings were advised to be built since food shortages could be rampant. This event never happened. The same folks warned that the Arctic Ice Cap could melt by 2013. It didn’t.

So, when the same people warn about how we’re all going to die in 12 years, just replay this 1982 segment. They said that same nonsense over 40 years ago. None of it came true.

Ahhhhh hahahahah. Ahhhhhh HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Gas fracking for lithium production?
In order for the US to meet its domestic lithium demand to power all of the electric vehicles we are going to be compelled to buy, we have to engage in natural gas fracking?
YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS IRONY UP.

A Vast, Untapped Source of Lithium Has Just Been Found in The US

Almost two centuries after California’s gold rush, the United States is on the brink of a lithium rush. As demand for the material skyrockets, government geologists are rushing to figure out where the precious element is hiding.

In September 2023, scientists funded by a mining company reported finding what could be the largest deposit of lithium in an ancient US supervolcano. Now public researchers on the other side of the country have uncovered another untapped reservoir – one that could cover nearly half the nation’s lithium demands.

It’s hiding in wastewater from Pennsylvania’s gas fracking industry.

Lithium is arguably the most important element in the nation’s renewable energy transition – the material of choice for electric vehicle batteries. And yet, there is but one large-scale lithium mine in the US, meaning for the moment the country has to import what it needs.

Officials at the US Department of Energy are desperate to change that. By 2030, they want all lithium produced domestically.

Expanding America’s lithium industry, however, is highly controversial, as mining can destroy natural environments, leach toxic chemicals, and intrude on sacred Indigenous land.

At the same time, however, lithium-ion batteries are considered a crucial technology in the world’s transition to renewable energy, storing electricity generated by the wind and the Sun. Finding a source of lithium that doesn’t cause more environmental destruction than necessary is key, but a clean solution is complicated.

Pennsylvania sits on a vein of sedimentary rock known as the Marcellus Shale, which is rich in natural gas. The geological foundation was deposited almost 400 million years ago by volcanic activity, and it contains lithium from volcanic ash.

Over vast stretches of time, deep groundwater has dissolved the lithium in these rocks, essentially “mining the subsurface”, according to Justin Mackey, a researcher at the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pennsylvania.

“We just didn’t know how much was in there,” says Mackey.

Because of its location, Pennsylvania is a leading state in controversial fracking activities, which have spurred numerous environmental and health concerns.

Such practices could squander precious lithium. As this new study shows, in properly measuring lithium reserves in fracking wastewater, there could be another way to put the waste to good use.

The regional analysis is based on data from oil and gas companies, which report the elements found in their wastewater to government officials. Mackey and his colleagues considered data collected from 2012 to 2023 from the wastewater of 515 wells in Pennsylvania.

Their results suggest that the Marcellus Shale “has the capacity to provide significant lithium yields for the foreseeable future” – as long as fracking continues, that is.

If scientists can extract even a conservative amount of lithium from fracking wastewater in the state, they calculate it could meet more than 30 percent of the current US demand.

To fulfill our climate goals, global demand for lithium is expected to increase by 400 percent in the coming decades. It remains to be seen how lithium requirements will be met and what new environmental crises those solutions might wreak.

The study was published in Scientific Reports.

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Despite its name, the Humane Society of the United States operates – 0 – pet shelters and is unaffiliated with local humane societies. Nice grift, if you can get on the board.

I suggest he provide the example

Climate Professor Thinks We Should ‘Cull’ the Human Population to Reach Emissions Targets

Professor Bill McGuire is a well-known vulcanologist and climate scientist who doesn’t care much for humanity. He tweeted out a scathingly brilliant idea if you’re in the mortuary business or work as a grave digger.

“If I am brutally honest, the only realistic way I see emissions falling as fast as they need to, to avoid catastrophic #climate breakdown, is the culling of the human population by a pandemic with a very high fatality rate.” https://t.co/hzga69EhV3
— Bill McGuire (@ProfBillMcGuire) May 11, 2024

Ooopsie. McGuire deleted the tweet a few hours later but had no regrets. The trouble is, we just don’t understand how brilliant he is.

Really? Many would beg to differ.

Even his peers were aghast at his suggestion.

“Eco-fascism,” indeed.

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