Category: Econuts

This Eminent Scientist Says Climate Activists Need to Get Real

The “really” in the title of Vaclav Smil’s newest book, “How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We’re Going,” is doing some heavy lifting. Implicit in the renowned energy scientist’s usage is the idea that most of us are uninformed or just plain wrong about the fundamentals of the global economy. He aims to correct that — to recenter materials rather than electronic flows of data as the bedrock of modern life — largely through examining what he calls the four pillars of modern civilization: cement, steel, plastics and ammonia. (The production and use of all four currently requires burning huge amounts of fossil carbon.)

Which brings us back to that “really.” In the context of Smil’s book, which will be published May 10, the word is also a rebuke to those calling for rapid decarbonization in order to combat global warming. “I am not talking about what could be done,” says Smil, who is 78 and who counts Bill Gates among his many devotees. “I’m looking at the world as it is.”

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Biden’s Earth Day Remarks Show Just How Much He Is Deteriorating.

I wrote about how Joe Biden’s confusion and delusion went into overdrive when he was in Portland on Thursday.

But if it’s possible, I think it might even have been worse Friday in Seattle, during his Earth Day remarks.

First, we’ll note that it took Biden’s visit to do something about the homeless problem near the Westin Hotel where Biden was staying. Local media reported they removed two homeless camps nearby. According to the mayor’s office, the camps were cleared “to ensure safety” for Joe Biden.

Oh. How nice. It would be nice if they would care about the safety of the residents of Seattle, as the problem has burgeoned out of control. This is just a face-saving temporary measure, unfortunately, as the camps will likely be back. But that was the good part. Then came Biden’s remarks.

He went into word salad on our “natural wonders.” But his word salad is different from that of Kamala Harris, because his brain seems to break mid-sentence, while she just goes on and on, saying essentially the same thing.

He went into that creepy, weird whispering thing, when talking about offshore windmills.

“I don’t want to hear about it anymore, you don’t like looking at them…They’re pretty,” he intoned.

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Almost 50 Years Ago, Soylent Green Portrayed a Grim Future for 2022

In anticipation of Earth Day 2022, it is a good time to reflect on the upcoming 50th anniversary of the release of the eco-apocalypse movie Soylent Green:

It’s the year 2022. Cumulative effects of overpopulation, pollution, and “climate catastrophe” have caused severe worldwide shortages of food, water, and housing. Scientists confirm oceanographic reports saying the oceans are dying. The food chain is disrupted. Food is becoming scarce, and the temperature is so hot that heat waves have become year-round thanks to climate change aka “global warming.”

Homeless people are everywhere; only half the workforce is employed while the other half is barely making it. Many people are illiterate and few factories are producing new goods.

The homes of the elite are barricaded, with private security. Only the elite can afford air conditioning. Strawberries are now a delicacy at $75 a quart. The situation with food has gotten so bad that people are being harvested off the streets and “recycled protein” is being distributed to the population.

The movie Soylent Green was produced and filmed in 1972 and released in 1973. It is a futuristic tale of doom, describing life in the year 2022.

We are living in that year, and things aren’t anywhere near as bad as the movie portrayed. While some of the items it touched on (self-inflicted thanks to COVID-19, green energy policy, inflation) might be considered climate-caused by “climate activists,” the climate itself is not a catastrophe when you look at real-world data.

For example, March 2022 global temperatures measured by satellite are 0.27°F (0.15°C) and U.S. temperature measured by the U.S. Climate Reference Network, is just 0.38°F (0.21°C) above normal; nearly undetectable fractions of a degree, with little change measured in the United States over the past 17 years.

And when we look at other real-word data, such as crop production and the overall health of the planet, we find things are even less like the predictions of the movie for 2022.

Global Crop production is actually up significantly according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture division. The Earth has actually become greener according to NASA, thanks to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And, air pollution is down 50 percent or more since 1990, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The EPA added this note to their report: “During this same period, the U.S. economy continued to grow, Americans drove more miles, and population and energy use increased.”

However, the most significant climate related data in 2022 is the fact that “climate related deaths” have plummeted since the movie came out and is now approaching zero. Using data from the International Disaster Database, climate scientist Bjørn Lomborg found striking drops in the data. As Lomborg writes, “If we look at the death risk for an individual, the risk reduction is even bigger — dropped almost 99% since the 1920s.”

Two years ago, on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, there was much to celebrate about our present day due to improvements in our environment since 1970.

In contrast, Soylent Green portrayed a “climate catastrophe” and a grim future for 2022 due to climate change that hasn’t manifested itself in a profoundly negative way. In fact, most of what we experience today that could be considered a catastrophe is self-inflicted.

Runaway inflation and energy restrictive policies enforced by the Biden administration are the real catastrophes affecting Americans today.

In other words, all this globull warming!/climate change!/aaugh! is BS and hysterical ranting from econuts and and shills of corrupt goobermint

Climate Past Far From Settled: 7 Major Temperature Reconstructions Find No Agreement

A new paper published in open access publishing MDPI looks at seven prominent hemispheric and global temperature reconstructions for the past 2000 years (T2k).

The analysis conducted by the authors found that some reconstructions “differed from each other in some segments by more than 0.5 °C” whilst some show negligible pre-industrial climate variability (“hockey sticks”).

Those showing variability would suggest natural factors playing a greater role than those that claim climate had been rather constant over the past 2000 years.

Abstract: Global mean annual temperature has increased by more than 1 °C during the past 150 years, as documented by thermometer measurements. Such observational data are, unfortunately, not available for the pre-industrial period of the Common Era (CE), for which the climate development is reconstructed using various types of palaeoclimatological proxies. In this analysis, we compared seven prominent hemispheric and global temperature reconstructions for the past 2000 years (T2k) which differed from each other in some segments by more than 0.5 °C. Whilst some T2k show negligible pre-industrial climate variability (“hockey sticks”), others suggest significant temperature fluctuations. We discuss possible sources of error and highlight three criteria that need to be considered to increase the quality and stability of future T2k reconstructions. Temperature proxy series are to be thoroughly validated with regards to (1) reproducibility, (2) seasonal stability, and (3) areal representativeness. The T2k represents key calibration data for climate models. The models need to first reproduce the reconstructed pre-industrial climate history before being validated and cleared for climate projections of the future. Precise attribution of modern warming to anthropogenic and natural causes will not be possible until T2k composites stabilize and are truly representative for a well-defined region and season. The discrepancies between the different T2k reconstructions directly translate into a major challenge with regards to the political interpretation of the climate change risk profile. As a rule of thumb, the larger/smaller the pre-industrial temperature changes, the higher/lower the natural contribution to the current warm period (CWP) will likely be, thus, reducing/increasing the CO2 climate sensitivity and the expected warming until 2100.

 

Too Much Lake Water is Climate Change, Not Enough Lake Water is Climate Change.

The Great Lakes in the north-central U.S. is a perfect example of how leftist green loons think climate change can be blamed for literally everything.

Back in 2013, I was writing for Breitbart News, and at the time, the Great Lakes, especially Lake Michigan, were at near historic lows. And because there wasn’t enough water in the lakes, greenies were running around with their hair on fire because “climate change” had destroyed the Great Lakes permanently.

The water was never going to rise again, they said.

Take this report from Chicago’s public TV station, WTTW, for instance. In a Jan. 24, 2013, article, WTTW bemoaned that the lakes were at “the lowest water levels in history.”

The station warned of climate change:

Last winter was the fourth warmest winter on record. And those warmer temperatures lead to less ice formation and still more evaporation.

“When the lakes are changing that dramatically, that is a change in the climate,” Gronewold said. “Now what is causing the lakes to warm so much? That’s something that’s going to require some additional research.”

Oh, the humanities. It looks bad for the Great Lakes, folks.

Ah, but wait. There’s morel. Things began to change.

An article in 2015 reported that three of the five Great Lakes were recovering their water levels at a near near-record pace. “Faster than ever before.” One headline from the Weather Channel described the changes in Great Lakes’ water levels.

By 2022 the Great Lakes had filled back up, and then the greenies were worried that there was TOO much water. And guess what caused it? Yup. Climate change.

Yes, the culprit was once again “climate change” as an article in getpocket.com insisted, “Experts suspect that climate change is partially driving these shifts, but because of the complex nature of the water, it’s hard to isolate human factors from the rest of the turbulence.”

So, let’s recap. In 2013, climate change was drying up the Great Lakes, and they would never be the same again… then, less than a decade later, the lakes were too high and overfilled with water because of that darned old climate change.

Boy. Is there anything climate change can’t do? Next, will they blame it on Putin, wealthy Americans, oil companies, or the big meat companies as Biden has blamed for everything in recent weeks?

This is a common practice of the climate change hypothesis supporters. For example, they’ve claimed that climate change causes longer days, except when it causes shorter days, high tornado activity was caused by global warming and global cooling. My all-time favorite is when Al Gore blamed a horrible cold snap on climate change. Didn’t they use to call it global warming?

It shows that these green lunatics will trot out mythical climate change for every situation they can’t readily explain. Doesn’t it seem as if these “experts” are no different than Neolithic men shaking rattles and praying to the antler gods to help them explain the weather?

But the econuts demand that we stop using the petrochemical produced fertilizers and all the fuel needed to produce the needed extra to make up for this.

Agco CEO says Russia-Ukraine war’s potential consequences on global food supply is ‘a really big deal’

Diminished food supply resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has potential consequences beyond empty stomachs, Agco chief executive Eric Hansotia told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday.

According to Hansotia, about “13% of the global calories came out of production” when Russian and Ukrainian borders shut down.

“This is a really big deal, because when that volume of calories comes out of the food chain, it triggers other things. Not only hunger, but unrest. The last time we had this kind of disruption, it was one of the major triggers for the Arab Spring,” he said in an interview on “Mad Money,” referring to the pro-democracy protests that took place in the Middle East and North Africa in the early 2010s.

The Russia-Ukraine war has put pressure on farmers globally to produce more crop to make up for a gap in supply left by the two countries. As prices of wheat rise, so do prices of fuel and fertilizer that drive up costs for farmers.

Cramer warned earlier this week that wheat and corn futures would continue to rise and urged investors to invest in a basket of agriculture stocks, with Agco earning a spot on the list.

Hansotia said that Agco is prioritizing helping farmers increase their crop without exhausting their limited supply or making purchases that could eat into their profits. He added that the company’s investment into technology firms like Apex.AI and Greeneye Technology, as well as its acquisition of Appareo Systems has helped in this mission.

As for the agriculture company’s business operations in Russia and Ukraine, the chief executive said that the company has prioritized the safety of its employees and dealers.

“We moved a lot of them out to the safer part of the country or across the border. Hundreds, in fact, have been part of that process,” he said, adding that the company tracks the employees and provides funds for them.

Another priority is “helping the farmers in that area stay productive,” Hansotia said. Agco has also helped provide housing for displaced Ukrainians and made donations to assist refugees, he added.

The End of the Climate Change Legend

For many years now, there has been a spirited debate about whether climate change is science, religion or even perhaps a secret route to socialism. That question remains unanswered, but we’ve now discovered with certainty that climate change is a political albatross around the neck of the Democratic Party.

The Left’s spiritual devotion to climate change has been speeding the Democrats over a political cliff this fall with likely unprecedented losses this November. The zero fossil fuels suicide pact was always an economic and political loser. More than 70% of all the energy we produce and consume in America derives from oil, gas and coal. President Joe Biden’s war on these fuel sources was sure to cause severe shortages and $5 a gallon gasoline at the pump. Didn’t Democrats learn their lesson in 1980 when Ronald Reagan won a landslide election against Jimmy Carter that surging inflation and gas prices is a surefire way to infuriate voters?

While Biden keeps saying he is doing “everything I can to lower gas prices,” he’s speaking out of both sides of his mouth — because if your goal is to get people to stop using something, raising its price is a pretty good way to accomplish that. If prices go to $10 or $15 a gallon, you can clear the highways of trucks and cars altogether, and what a wonderful world it will be.

Democrats were so enamored with their Green New Deal delusion that they failed to understand that most people aren’t as hyper-obsessed with climate change as they are. A new poll sponsored by my group, Committee to Unleash Prosperity, found that people are much more concerned about inflation and high gas prices than climate change. Moreover, the poll found that respondents’ average amount they would be willing to pay for the climate change agenda was $55 a year. Sorry, that’s the extra cost we are already spending with two fill-ups at the gas station.

Then there is the increasingly unavoidable reality that the green energy sources they fantasize about are decades away from being technologically feasible to replace old-fashioned oil, gas and coal. Even the Energy Department predicts that even with the trend toward renewable energy, by 2035, we will still be heavily reliant on oil, gas and coal for electricity production, home heating and transportation fuels.

Elon Musk, the leading champion of electric cars, reminded Biden in a recent tweet that in the real world rather than in la-la land, we are going to need oil and gas for many years to come. Today 3% of cars on the road are electric, and 95% use gas or diesel.

This brings us to yet another fatal flaw of the climate change movement. The Biden administration and its radical green allies can’t explain why getting our energy from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia makes more sense than Texas, Oklahoma and Alaska.

This strategy is especially pinheaded because the war on oil, gas and coal production is a big loser for the environment and increases global greenhouse gas emissions. That is because America has the strictest environmental standards. Shifting oil and gas production to Russia or Iran and shifting coal production to China and India is causing far more air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Chinese President Xi Jinping is busy trying to take over the world economy, and the last thing he or the ruling class in Beijing cares about is climate change.

Finally, Democrats should have learned from the green energy catastrophe of Western Europe. A decade ago, the French, Germans, Italians and others in the European Union moved to a renewable energy future. They slashed much of their oil, gas and coal production, shut down nuclear plants (why?) and subsidized the building of wind turbines and solar panels. It nearly bankrupted Germany as energy prices soared and factories left Europe for America and Asia. A decade later, France is back to building nuclear plants, and Germany is burning more coal than ever before and importing natural gas from Russia. Europe recently redefined natural gas and nuclear power as “clean energy.”

Going green wrecked their economies and submerged these countries deeper into the red. Unfortunately, Americans weren’t paying any attention to that failed experiment. So now Biden is repeating it. The result is likely to be the same. The Democrats’ radical climate change agenda isn’t greening the planet, and it is bankrupting our country. Voters know exactly whom to blame.

Biden Administration Shouldn’t Negotiate Away Public Lands Access for Hunters and Anglers

Is the Biden administration about to betray America’s sportsmen and women?Despite lauding $1.5 billion generated in new conservation funding by America’s anglers and hunters, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) could soon settle with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), a preservationist environmental group, to negotiate away public lands access.

I warned in a recent Townhall column about the adverse effects of closing off 2.3 million public land acres to new fishing and hunting opportunities.

CBD is also urging USFWS to ban lead bullets and fishing tackle on National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) lands. A senior attorney for the agency recently hinted this option isn’t off the table. Should CBD vs USFWS proceed, it’ll be a wholesale attack on public lands.

Much to CBD’s dismay, hunting is permitted—and welcomed— on NWR lands.

“Hunting is a healthy, traditional recreational use of renewable natural resources deeply rooted in America’s heritage, and it can be an important wildlife management tool,” notes the USFWS website. “The National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act of 1966, the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997, other laws, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s policy permit hunting on a national wildlife refuge when it is compatible with the purposes for which the refuge was established and acquired.”

The website adds, “National wildlife refuges exist primarily to safeguard wildlife populations through habitat preservation. The word “refuge” includes the idea of providing a haven of safety for wildlife, and, as such, hunting might seem an inconsistent use of the National Wildlife Refuge System. However, habitat that normally supports healthy wildlife populations produces harvestable surpluses that are a renewable resource.”

In response, a coalition of 40 conservation groups drafted a letter to USFWS Director Martha Williams urging her to not settle.

“The undersigned organizations strongly object to any settlement that would close hunting or fishing or ban the use of traditional ammunition or fishing tackle,” the letter states. “It is especially concerning that the Service might consider closing refuges without any input from the hunting conservation community or state wildlife agencies.”

It continued, “It is our understanding that the National Wildlife Refuge System is underfunded and understaffed. Any settlement that would add to the Service’s financial burden should be summarily rejected. The Service cannot afford to adopt the view of a single interest group that erroneously objects to particular priority  recreational uses successfully allowed on refuges throughout the country.”

“The announcement of a possible settlement between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Center for Biological Diversity is alarming but not surprising,” wrote Benjamin Cassidy, Safari Club International executive vice president for International Government and Public Affairs, in an email to Townhall.com. “Access is a priority for hunters and anti-hunting groups such as CBD prioritize closing down access. SCI members have been fighting to make sure that CBD does not have a willing partner in the Service as part of SCI’s No-Net-Loss campaign.  Since the start of the Biden Administration, SCI members have been asking political appointees at the Department of the Interior to commit to not closing down access.  A commitment has yet to be made. Wouldn’t a simple commitment from the Service make this possible settlement less concerning rather than alarming?”

Brian Lynn, vice president of marketing and communications at Sportsmen’s Alliance, similarly echoed Cassidy’s concerns.

“This doesn’t make any sense at all and leaves sportsmen wondering where the Biden administration stands,” Lynn said in an email to Townhall.com. “Just a couple months ago they were touting the largest expansion of hunting on these lands, and now they’re negotiating limits on those same lands. The fact that they are doing so behind closed doors and without input from hunters and hunting organizations is completely unacceptable.”

CBD vs. USFWS is a prime example of the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) being weaponized to what amounts to “sue and settle.” Forbes Magazine describes the practice like this:

“Sue and Settle “ practices, sometimes referred to as “friendly lawsuits”, are cozy deals through which far-left radical environmental groups file lawsuits against federal agencies wherein court-ordered “consent decrees” are issued based upon a prearranged settlement agreement they collaboratively craft together in advance behind closed doors. Then, rather than allowing the entire process to play out, the agency being sued settles the lawsuit by agreeing to move forward with the requested action they and the litigants both want.

EAJA was intended to “level the playing field in legal disputes between private citizens and the Federal government.” However, it creates incentives for serial litigation aimed at preventing the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act, for example, from working as intended.

“EAJA was passed primarily in response to demands from the small business community, which was laboring under the increased environmental, consumer and health and safety regulations of the 1960s and 1970s,” attorney and author Lowell E. Baier told Bugle Magazine. “The concern was that when an agency such as OSHA or the EPA improperly fined a small business, the small business might win in court but be bankrupted by having to pay its lawyers.”

Fortunately, there is proposed legislation to address the law’s shortcomings.

The Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act of 2021 would “impose certain limitations on consent decrees and settlement agreements by agencies that require the agencies to take regulatory action.”

In sum, the Biden administration should heed the concerns of the largest funders of conservation—hunters and anglers—and not be swayed or influenced by performative scam artists like the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Democrats Are Trying to Hide a Very Dirty Secret About Electric Cars

The Left views electric cars like the Rings of Power. It’s predictable but also pathetic. Driving electric cars saves the environment, says the left-wing drone. It emits next to nothing regarding carbon emissions, except that it does. Do liberals think we don’t know that this whole fad is a con game? Where do you think the energy that powers the batteries comes from? Fairies? Electric cars aren’t as efficient as gas-powered vehicles, but you pay more because…of feelings. Screw that. Green energy is a backdoor to communism from greenies who talk more about controlling the means of production than saving Mother Earth. Clean energy is a grift and political crony project aimed at giving fat cat donors tax breaks. Solyndra forever ruined this industry. I don’t care what anyone says, it’s all a long miserable exercise in subsidizing sub-par products.

Coal is what powers your electric car. Do liberals even know that? The very people who mock states like West Virginia don’t seem to know that these areas allow them to drive their precious, overpriced electric cars (via The Federalist):

To advance their climate agenda and deflect backlash about rising gas prices, Democrats are telling Americans that driving electric cars is for the greater good of the environment, fully knowing the charging stations for these cars are not fossil fuel free.

In reality, one of Tesla’s Supercharger stations was reported to get 13 percent of their energy from natural gas and 27 percent from coal. Power plants burn coal to generate electricity to power electric cars and emit a higher fossil fuel footprint than the left would care to admit.

While these vehicles may be falsely advertised, many who invest in these overpriced cars are able to avoid paying the currently outrageous gas prices. Still, Americans’ growing reliance on electric cars and the batteries they require will increase our dependence on countries such as China for materials.

“Chinese companies, particularly CATL, have secured vast supplies of the raw materials that go inside the batteries,” The New York Times reported in December. “That dominance has stirred fears in Washington that Detroit could someday be rendered obsolete, and that Beijing could control American driving in the 21st century the way that oil-producing nations sometimes could in the 20th.”

By increasing our use of electric cars, the United States will require more lithium batteries and will further rely on China to sustain our supply.

Well, isn’t that peachy. Liberals seem to have the yellow fever when it comes to China, or at least they’re a bit kinky when it comes to their wanting to be dominated by this country. Gas prices began to soar when Joe Biden took a hatchet to the Keystone Pipeline and our own oil and gas industry. That’s just a fact.

With the Ukraine war raging now, and sanctions being slapped on Russia for their invasion, the line the Biden White House is selling right now is ‘if you worried about $8/gallon for gas, you should buy a…$50k+ electric car.’ It’s almost too good to be true. You cannot make it up. The Democrats’ plan to ease gas price pain for a large swath of Americans is to force them to buy vehicles they can’t afford. A part of that is due to liberals being idiots. The other part is that it shows how the Democratic Party doesn’t know working people anymore. It’s all urban-based, rich, over-educated, and very white people making these snide remarks. The professional Left is the Democratic Party—and these people view those who drive pick-up trucks as neo-Nazis.

The dirty little secret is that a lot of fossil fuels are used to power the liberal delusions behind their electric car fetish. The Federalist did a great job sifting through the nonsense.

Observation O’ The Day
“Most of the West is run by woke morons. The West’s wealth has largely insulated it from the costs associated with having morons in charge, but we’ve pretty much run through the safety margins.”

Scottish Government Ignores Frantic Food Crisis Warnings, Embraces Green Piety.

The Ukraine was the bread basket of Europe, and Russia was a major source of fertiliser. Yet as the interruption of grain and fertiliser supplies raises the spectre of crop failures and severe food shortages, senior British politicians are ignoring frantic pleas from farmers to release arable land reserved for “re-wilding” projects, and other whacky green schemes.

Green Agenda: Minister Ignores Ukraine Food Crisis Warnings in Favour of Solving ‘Nature Emergency’

PETER CADDLE 14 Mar 2022

A UK minister has ignored the pleas of farmers to take action against the forthcoming Ukraine food crisis in favour of maintaining her leftist government’s green agenda.

As the Ukraine crisis causes Europe’s food security situation to significantly worsen, British farmers have asked authorities to allow land earmarked for “rewilding” to be used for crops in the hopes of curbing ever-rising food prices.

However, Scotland’s leftist Biodiversity minister, Lorna Slater, has outright rejected the farmers’ pleas, instead prioritising pushing her government’s green agenda.…

“We want to do as much as we can for nature and the environment, and we have done that for a long time and yes we will do more,” said the president of the National Union of Farmers Scotland, Martin Kennedy.

“But right now the world has changed and we need to focus on what is really important… food and water is something we take for granted far too much,” he warned.

However, despite the serious supply problems the Ukraine crisis poses for Britain’s supply of food, Minister Slater has outright dismissed the request in favour of her administration’s green agenda.

“We are still in a nature emergency that hasn’t gone away… so it’s a no,” Slater is reported as saying in response to the pleas of farmers.…

Read more: https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/03/14/green-agenda-minister-ignores-ukraine-food-crisis-warnings-in-favour-of-solving-nature-emergency/

If you can’t get your hands on enough fertiliser, the next best option is to expand the acreage of cultivated land, to bring every acre of arable land you can get your hands on into production, like Britain did in WW2.

Fertiliser production is an energy intensive process, which is why it has long been outsourced to countries like China and Russia, the number one and two global producers, countries which have plenty of cheap energy. Just under 2% of the world’s global energy production is expended producing ammonia, a first step in the production of agricultural fertiliser. The USA and Canada produce significant amounts of Ammonia, but US and Canadian production is dwarfed by Russian and Chinese production.

The chemical factories which produce ammonia are very large, and contain enormous, multi-story, high pressure reaction vessels. Not something which could be built in five minutes – especially in nations which have also outsourced most of their heavy industry to Russia and China. I fully support starting construction of new fertiliser plants, but plants which have yet to be built won’t solve this year’s problems.

Fertiliser application makes a big difference to crop productivity – around 35 – 60% of modern crop yields is attributable to application of fertiliser. We might get away with one year of reduced fertiliser application, but If soils are depleted by a series of years in which inadequate fertiliser is applied, crop yields could drop by more than 60%.

It doesn’t take much to trigger a food crisis. In 2007-2008 the world experienced a food crisis. The 2007-2008 crisis was not severe enough to significantly affect rich nations, but it led to mass starvation and riots in poor countries. The root cause in that case was a series of droughts, and excessive biofuel subsidies. Just a small blip in production and use of food was enough to push millions of people into hunger.

There is no way of knowing how the current food crisis risk will play out, and who will be affected.

Time is running out to make a decision – northern nations like Britain have very well defined planting and growing seasons. Some high nutrition plants like potatoes grow well throughout Britain, including Scotland, but planting must start in the next month, for most crops, or it will be too late to harvest by the end of Summer.

I strongly suggest people in Britain let green obsessives like Minister Lorna Slater know their “nature emergencies” and re-wilding projects can wait, before British food prices spiral out of the reach of poor people.

House Dems want Biden to declare national ‘climate emergency’ and ban oil drilling on federal lands.

Progressive Democrats in the House of Representatives are reportedly planning to publicly urge President Biden to ban oil drilling on federal lands amid record gas prices and a war in Ukraine that has disrupted oil markets.

According to a report from Politico,  the Congressional Progressive Caucus is planning to demand that Biden use his executive power to declare climate change an emergency and ban drilling on federal lands.

“Progressive Caucus member @JaredHuffman told me calling on Biden to declare a climate emergency is one of the ‘centerpiece’ actions to headline their EO plan,” Politico reporter Joshua Siegel tweeted Tuesday. “A draft of the plan I saw also calls for Biden to ban oil/gas drilling on public lands and end fossil fuel subsidies.”

Siegel added that House Democrats will also call on Biden to manufacture more heat pumps to “ease the strain in oil and gas markets that has been caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine.” Some of those heat pumps would be donated to Europe, according to the House Progressives’ plan.

The reported move drew immediate criticism on social media with many pointing out that gas prices have surged to record levels prompting Republicans to call for increased drilling to ease pain at the pump, not less.

“Dems want $10 gas,” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted.

 

“The Democrats need to wake up,” Republican Sen. Steve Daines tweeted. “We must unleash American energy.”

“And Democrats wonder why people blame them for high gas prices,” a Twitter account associated with the National Republican Congressional Committee tweeted.

“We need to focus on building critical infrastructure and increasing domestic production, not jeopardizing North American energy security,” President and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers Jay Timmons tweeted. “Manufacturers oppose this attempt to potentially further disrupt domestic energy production and drive up prices.”

 

The use of a “climate emergency” also raises constitutional concerns, as the nation eases out of emergency COVID restrictions imposed two years ago by governors and local authorities, which shut down businesses and destroyed millions of jobs nationwide.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News.

The Biden administration has faced intense criticism in recent weeks for refusing to commit to increasing oil production in the United States as gas prices have surged roughly $1.50 per gallon since he took off in a crisis that has been exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“It’s going to go up,” Biden told a reporter when asked about gas prices last week. “Can’t do much right now. Russia is responsible.”

Biden Economic Advisor Brian Deese:
“The only viable path to energy independence for the American economy is to reduce the energy intensity of our economy overall and ultimately to reduce it to zero and get us in a position to where we are no longer reliant on fossil fuels,”
(if you want to bypass the Russian embargo hoopla, skip to about 1:45 to get into the context of this idiotic econut statement)
These proggie econuts simply hate oil, coal and gas. It’s been ground into their mush filled heads since they began school indoctrination in the early 80s. and is a tenet of their econut religion. They’re too stupid – because they were ‘educated’ to be stupid –  to understand the U.S. economy must have ‘intense’ energy readily available, and all the other sources, except nuclear, pale in comparison, and the proggies hate nuclear too, so………

 

These People Are Desperate

The Guardian published an opinion piece on Sunday in which they stated
“…there is a danger that the battle for Ukraine may divert attention from the approaching climate change crisis.” Seriously?? There’s a war on, there are approaching a million refugees entering neighboring countries, and you’re worried that the war is a distraction? That is sheer desperation on the part of those who planned to pivot us all away from Wuflu and on to climate change. Then Putin, that bastid, stuck a monkey wrench in their plans and invaded Ukraine. The nerve!

In the U.S., John Kerry, the man who has a carbon footprint bigger than Godzilla and flies to Davos in a private plane, wants all of us to suck up high gas prices, ride the bus, and worry about how the war, the UNPROVOKED INVASION, of Ukraine by Russia, will set back the momentum on climate change. For real. The man is a walking billboard for “out-of-touch-elitist.”

But to really get a feel for this latest panic pivot on the left, let’s do a bit of a fisking of the Guardian article. Article in bold, my comments in italics.

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I can remember back when I was a teenager that the econuts and the anti-nuclear nuts, like GreenPeace, were always considered Russian stooges.
Watermelons: “green” on the outside, “red” on the inside.

Don’t just take Crenshaw’s word for it:

This is another reason the ‘justice’ system needs some kind of revamp.
Over a year just to get a ruling from a district court?!

Louisiana federal judge blocks key Biden climate change initiative
Biden signed the initiative on his first day in office

A Louisiana federal district court has halted a key climate initiative from Joe Biden that he implemented shortly after becoming president last year.

In a Friday ruling, U.S. District Judge James Cain blocked Biden’s January 2021 executive order that factored in the “social cost” of carbon emissions when creating rules regulating pollution.

Cain sided with Republican attorneys general from energy-producing states who said the administration’s action to raise the cost estimate of carbon emissions threatened to drive up energy costs while decreasing state revenues from energy production.

The judge issued an injunction that bars the Biden administration from using the higher cost estimate, which puts a dollar value on damages caused by every additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.

President Joe Biden on his first day in office  restored the climate cost estimate to about $51 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions after the Trump administration had reduced the figure to about $7 or less per ton. Former President Donald Trump’s estimate included only damages felt in the U.S. versus the global damages captured in higher estimates that were previously used under the Obama administration.

“Plaintiff States have sufficiently identified the kinds of harms to support injunctive relief,” Cain’s ruling stated. “Moreover, the Court finds that the Plaintiff States have made a clear showing of an injury-in-fact, and that such injury ‘cannot be undone through monetary remedies.'”

“The Court agrees that the public interest and balance of equities weigh heavily in favor of granting a preliminary injunction,” the ruling added.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox Business.

Being a Climate Alarmist Means Never Having to Admit You’re Wrong

A mountain of evidence shows climate alarmists never learn from their mistakes, be they clear misstatements of facts or repeatedly failed prognostications.

Why should they? The press lets climate alarmists get away with making more false claims than any other group on any other topic, including the efficacy of the COVID vaccines in keeping people from catching the disease or requiring hospitalization. Climate alarmists have nothing to fear from so-called fact checkers in corporate or social media, because the “fact checkers” are either true believers themselves or fellow beneficiaries of the climate alarm gravy train.

Accordingly, I have decided to of expose a litany of climate false alarm claims made in recent months periodically in my lead essay of Climate Change Weekly. These essays won’t be about politics or opinions but instead straight exposés of patently false climate science assertions publicized in the preceding months, for which the authors of those stories were never called to the carpet or forced to issue a correction.

In Climate Change Weekly last July, I poked fun at one of the most mystifyingly wrong but persistent claims made by climate alarmists: that a warmer world would mean the disappearance of snow. This claim is definitively refuted by data cited in Climate at a Glance: Snowpack showing average North American snowpack extent is virtually unchanged in recent years compared to the late 1960s, when satellite measurements began. Beyond America, average snowpack has increased throughout the Northern Hemisphere in the fall and winter months, but you’d never know this if you read the headlines of major newspapers or watch climate-related news stories on corporate media outlets.

For example, in December even as huge storm fronts were striking the Western mountain ranges from California through Washington State, the Washington Post published an article titled “Snow may vanish for years at a time in Mountain West with climate warming.” Not to be outdone in the snow stupidity competition, just last week The New York Times published an article asserting “Skiing is an endangered sport, caught between a warming planet and a global pandemic.” The article states, “In recent years, with snow cover diminishing and untouched powder increasingly difficult to reach, skiers like Ms. Backstrom have been pushed onto groomed trails more often.”

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NY and Boston face coldest temperatures since 2019 and up to two feet of snow Tuesday: More than 15 MILLION are under wind chill alerts as East Coast temperatures dip 45 below zero.

  • A strong cold front is coming through the eastern US and is expected to bring -45 degree weather this week, the coldest in three years
  • About 15 million people were already under wind chill advisories in the Midwest on Sunday, where wind chills are expected to plummet to -25 to -45 degrees on Monday
  • By Tuesday, the National Weather Service predicts parts of the Northeast and New England could face under zero temperatures
  •  Warnings to residents that wind chills as low as 40 below zero could cause ‘frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes’
  • Parts of New York, including Buffalo, are also expecting snow showers
  • The cold front is expected to move out of the area by Wednesday
  • Meanwhile, a cold front tearing into mild, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico led to several tornadoes in the southern United States over the weekend 
  • Five tornadoes were confirmed to have touched down in southeast Texas on Saturday
  • Another tornado was confirmed to have hit northern Alabama and a possible tornado hit rural Louisiana

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WHAT DID SOCIALISTS USE BEFORE CANDLES? ELECTRICITY!
WHAT DID SOCIALISTS USE BEFORE SAILS? DIESEL ENGINES!

Giant Kites That Drag Cargo Ships Across Oceans Go on Trial

An artist impression of a Seawing sail for merchant ships.

Add ships being dragged along by giant kites to the list of things the industry is exploring in its quest to decarbonize.

At the start of next year, the Ville de Bordeaux, a 154-meter-long ship that moves aircraft components for Airbus SE, will unfurl a 500 square meter kite on journeys across the Atlantic Ocean. It will undergo six months of trials and tests before full deployment.

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The Real Climate And Health Crisis

Anti-fossil-fuel climate policies increase energy prices, blackouts and death tolls

Paul Driessen;

Climate policies promoted and imposed by Team Biden and Democrats are based on junk science, headline-grabbing scare stories, and computer models that create far-fetched “scenarios” asserting that fossil fuel use and emissions will cause Earth to warm by 4 degrees C (7 F)over the next 80 years, and cause Arctic warming that will bring colder winters.

Those dire predictions are used to justify more taxpayer-funded “research,” like a recent Columbia University “mortality cost of carbon” study that claims 83 million people (the population of Germany) “could be killed” this century by those rising planetary temperatures. Therefore we must take “immediate action” to “transform” our energy and economic systems, and replace oil, gas and coal with (millions of) wind turbines and (billions of) solar panels and backup batteries.

These policies are lethal for people and planet They would require mining on scales unprecedented in human history, much of it by slave and child laborers, and nearly all using fossil fuels – bringing massive habitat and wildlife losses, air and water pollution, and horrific human health and safety problems.

But since most of the mining, ore processing and manufacturing will occur in other countries, far from the USA, politicians and climateers can say this “alternative energy” is “clean and green.”

Worse, climate policies cause widespread “energy poverty” – energy prices rising above families’ ability to stay adequately warm (or cool) at reasonable cost, given their incomes. That means people die.

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