On September 11, 2023, BOTTINI & BOTTINI, INC. and TAMASHIRO SOGI & BONNER filed the first lawsuit seeking to hold the Board of Directors of Hawaiian Electric liable for the tragic loss of life and property due to the Maui Fire on August 8, 2023.
The case — Rice v. Celeste A. Connors et al., Case No. 1CCV-23-0001181, is pending in Honolulu, Hawaii in the First Circuit court.
The new complaint alleges that between 2019 and 2022, Hawaiian Electric invested less than $245,000 on wildfire-specific projects on the island. Instead of spending necessary funds to prevent fires caused by its equipment, Hawaiian Electric instead spent millions of dollars towards efforts to achieve a 100 percent renewable energy goal, which earned the Company bonuses that the Company’s executives used to increase their own compensation. Defendant Seu, CEO of the Company, was paid 32 times the median compensation of all employees in 2022.
The members of Hawaiian Electric’s Board of Directors were also well aware of the need to adopt and implement a power-shutoff system, as San Diego Gas & Electric and PG&E had done years before, but failed to do so. Darren Pai, a spokesperson for Hawaiian Electric, admitted that the Company did not have a formal power shutoff plan at the time of the Maui fire. The complaint also alleges that the Defendants new about the connection between passing hurricanes and wildfires. In 2020, researchers from the University of Hawaii and the East-West Center established a causal relationship between fires on Maui and O‘ahu to winds from Hurricane Lane.
The complaint alleges that the Defendants breached their fiduciary duties by causing Hawaiian Electric to haul away fallen poles, power lines, transformers, conductors and other equipment from near a Lahaina substation starting around Aug. 12, 2023, before investigators from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) arrived on scene. One of the attorneys for the shareholders, Addison Bonner of Tamashiro Sogi & Bonner, said: “The Defendants’ actions may have violated national guidelines on how utilities should handle and preserve evidence after a wildfire and deprived investigators the opportunity to view any poles or downed lines in an undisturbed condition before or after the fire started.”
Frank A. Bottini, of Bottini & Bottini, a co-counsel for the shareholders, said: “Rather than spend its customer’s money to improve infrastructure maintenance and safety, the Board of Directors of Hawaiian Electric funneled ratepayers’ money to boost their own profits and compensation. This pattern and practice of favoring profits over safety left Hawaiian Electric vulnerable to an increased risk of a catastrophic event such as the Maui fire, which was the worst natural disaster in Hawaii’s history and the deadliest U.S. fire in over a century.”
The complete complaint can be downloaded from the link below.
If President Joe Biden wins a second term, his administration aims to undertake even more climate initiatives that would target key industries, according to The New York Times.
Biden, in a potential second term, would target industries he views as heavily polluting, including steel mills, cement plants, factories and oil refineries, according to the NYT. The new green initiatives could threaten his chances in the upcoming 2024 presidential election, though, as steel and cement manufacturers in swing states who are often unionized could turn on him after hearing about his climate plans for their industry.
“If you are seen as imposing debilitating regulations on heavy industry that employs large numbers of people, you’re not only going to get a backlash from manufacturing, but labor as well,” David Axelrod, chief strategist for Obama’s presidential campaigns, told the NYT. “How to do that without looking like you are stabbing these industries in the back, or in the front for that matter, is a real political challenge.”
Biden’s plan to go after industrial emissions involves subsidizing new technologies that he believes would cut down on factories’ carbon footprint, including wind and solar power to create green hydrogen to power steel mills and cement production methods that do not release carbon dioxide when heating limestone, according to the NYT. The second half of his plan involves imposing tariffs on steel, cement and aluminum based on their carbon emissions.
Since Day One, the Biden-Harris Administration has delivered on the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in history.
This week, the Administration advanced that commitment with new actions to protect lands and wildlife in the Alaskan Arctic. pic.twitter.com/mMmarO2p8A
The Biden administration has already pledged $370 billion to climate initiatives through the $750 billion spending bill, the Inflation Reduction Act. The legislation includes a multitude of subsidies for domestic manufacturers of green energy technologies.
The move to place new restrictions on industry follows the president’s goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by the year 2050. Biden has pumped huge subsidies into the electric vehicle industry to meet this goal, aiming for half of all new cars to be electric by 2030.
In addition to electric vehicles, the president has also targeted power plants in an attempt to encourage greener energy sources like solar and wind power, creating new Environmental Protection Agency regulations that have yet to be finalized that would compel the phaseout of coal-fired power plants, according to the NYT. The Biden administration has also put restrictions on oil and gas production through tightening requirements related to methane emissions.
“Apparently skyrocketing gas and energy prices weren’t enough for Biden, he wants to raise the prices on building and infrastructure costs and put hard working Americans further into debt,” Emma Vaughn, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, told the NYT. “Biden will not be elected to a second term — American families can’t afford it.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request to comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2023-09-18 05:37:212023-09-21 05:43:33Biden Plans To Target America’s Industrial Backbone With New Climate Crackdown: REPORT
In case you were still in the dark how evil and full of shit these Democrat environ-mentalists are……
The Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary is a biodiversity hotspot, with a range of habitat types from coastal estuaries to deep sea canyons, and migratory paths frequented by marine mammals such as dolphins and whales.
The Democrats would burn it all down.
Just like mining for EV batteries (lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel, and graphite) destroys the environment. Solar panels and wind turbines never degrade – they are put in landfills where they will sit in eternity.
And inefficient offshore wind turbines are decimating the whale population and use tons of oil to operate and kill whales.
By: Susannah Luthi, Washington Free Beacon, September 12, 2023
President Joe Biden wants to shrink a Pacific Ocean marine sanctuary meant to protect endangered whales in order to accommodate offshore wind energy factories—one of them owned by a major Democratic donor.
The Biden administration late last month proposed cutting about 1,400 square miles of ocean and coastline from an Indian tribe’s proposed national marine sanctuary to make room for wind turbine infrastructure. One of these factories would belong to Invenergy, whose founder and CEO Michael Polsky has given more than $400,000 to Democrats since 2016. His company shelled out $2.4 million to lobby the White House, federal agencies, and Congress this year.
The proposal reflects a conflict between efforts to fight climate change and those to preserve natural habitats. The Biden administration’s proposal would benefit green energy companies and generate renewable energy, but environmental groups have sounded the alarm on such projects noting that they kill birds and whales—the very wildlife that the marine sanctuary seeks to preserve. The proposal also reflects the green energy industry’s status as a major player in the Democratic Party. Biden has invested billions of taxpayer dollars into renewable energy projects backed by liberal billionaires, enriching them in the process.
Polsky’s major contributions from the past several years include a total of $72,000 to the House Democrats’ campaign committee in 2020 and 2022, and $35,500 to the Democratic National Committee in 2016—the same year he poured $75,000 into Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Polsky has also donated to Republicans and Invenergy’s political campaign committee, but of the roughly $500,000 he has contributed to political causes since 2016, more than $400,000 has gone to Democrats according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.
While Polsky did not contribute to Biden’s presidential bid in 2020, Invenergy employees gave more than $120,000 to his campaign, federal contribution records show.
This isn’t the first time Democrats have rewarded Polsky’s energy companies. In 2016, a Pennsylvania Democrat whose campaign Polsky funded helped secure him a $1.2 billion natural gas plant, the Free Beaconreported at the time. During Barack Obama’s presidency, Invenergy received more than $20 million in taxpayer-funded grants.
The Northern Chumash tribal council first petitioned for a 7,600 square mile marine sanctuary in the region in 2015, years before the Biden administration announced it wanted massive offshore wind turbine development in the same vicinity. The wind turbines will be built just outside the sanctuary’s northwestern boundary.
The feds’ latest proposal to cut into the marine sanctuary would slash about 29 miles of coastline and a total of about 1,400 square miles from the preserve as it was originally conceived, the tribal council said. Its final boundaries will be determined after a public comment period that ends Oct. 25. Meanwhile, the Biden administration already awarded ocean leases to Invenergy and two other energy corporations late last year, although they haven’t started construction.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—which is in charge of creating the Chumash marine preserve—noted in proposing its alternative boundary to allow for industrial development that “certain concentrations of this infrastructure may not be compatible with a national marine sanctuary.”
The administration’s proposed revision must undergo public comment before being finalized. Regardless, the wind turbines could sabotage the preserve’s goals by killing off the whales, birds, and other marine life that it is supposed to protect. Environmentalists have warned that offshore wind factories on the East Coast may be killing whales—concerns that the Biden administration has condemned as “misinformation” even though more than 70 whales have died since December.
A spokesperson for the Department of Interior division overseeing the offshore wind development did not respond to questions about the turbines’ potential harm to whales but deferred to NOAA for queries about the sanctuary.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2023-09-17 06:20:592023-09-18 08:01:03Biden Wants to Shrink Marine Sanctuary That Protects Endangered Whales to Accommodate Wind Energy Factory Owned By Dem Donor
A Progressive tips his hand about how they are trying to undermine Science.
One of Lincoln’s most powerful speeches is the Lyceum Address. The key message is that we should not be so worried about overseas enemies, as corruption from within is our most serious threat…
“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?– Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
I thought of this as I read the interview of one Stanford professor of another. The title is “How To Beat Bad Science.” If that wasn’t enticing enough for me, the person being interviewed (Dr. Jonathan Osborne) was identified as a “science education expert.”
I thought wow! Since I’m a K-12 science education expert, this should be right up my alley, in my lane, fit me like a glove, etc. However, it was a major disappointment.
Interesting note: At no time in the interview does Jonathan define “Bad Science!” Reading between the lines here, the implied definition is when scientists advocate anything that goes against government technical policies (like the net negative consequences for school children to wear masks for COVID-19 — e.g., here).
Ignoring the significant deficiency of the missing key definition, Jonathan says that for students to beat “bad science” they need to learn three skills: 1) be aware of conflicts of interest, 2) evaluate the source’s qualifications, and3) more rigorously question thosewho go against consensus!
Point one would evidently be to look for one of the thousands of scientists who are funded by the fossil fuel industry — even though in 40+ years I have yet to find any.
Point two might be to ignore any evidence presented by a scientist, not a specialist — e.g., “only climatologists are qualified to evaluate the claims in climate science.” (This is to deceive the public, as real Scientists know that any Scientist can legitimately comment on the adherence to scientific principles by those in any field of Science.)
To reinforce the surprising third point he goes on to say that: The whole goal of science is consensus! OMG. Here I’ve been laboring for over four decades under the assumption that the goal of Science was: to give us a better understanding of our material existence. Now I find out that The whole goal of science is consensus!
I thought that politics was the field that focused on consensus, not Science. Maybe Jonathan wants us to equate real Science with political science. I’ve written about that problematic deception before (e.g., here), as it is a plague of our times.
It also occurs to me that if the objective of scientists is to agree with other scientists, how can we possibly make any societal progress? If scientists live and work in an echo chamber, nothing substantial will ever change. What sense does that make?
Further, I was always under the impression that the great scientists in history were outstanding because they looked at things differently — which almost always was against the current consensus. Apparently Jonathan does not understand that.
……….
As misguided as the above are due to what is said in that interview, arguably the worst parts are about what is not said. For example, there is not a word of advice for students to learn and apply the Scientific Method. It has been around in some form or other for some 4000 years — and used by people like Newton, Curie, Einstein, etc. Seems that if it was helpful for those giants of Science, it might be useful to K-12 students. But not a word in this interview is advocating the Scientific Method!
Why would Progressives hate the Scientific Method? Because almost every Progressive technical policy (e.g., industrial wind energy) that is subjected to the Scientific Method, fails. That left them two choices: a) advocate technical policies that are actually science-based, orb) get rid of the Scientific Method. They chose b.
Worse is the glaring omission of Critical Thinking. Why wouldn’t the top advice of an “expert science educator” start out with the importance of Critical Thinking? In fact, it could be argued that his first two points would be assumed subsets of a genuine Critical Thinker’s methodology.
But his third point is where the S hits the fan. Having a default position supporting consensus (i.e., conformity) is the exact opposite of Critical Thinking! In the subject area of Science, K-12 students are supposed to be taught to question everything — especially consensus!
Why are Progressives opposed to Critical Thinking? Because their worst fear is to have a citizenry of Critical Thinkers! They want compliant citizens who don’t ask questions, and who go along with whatever policies are proposed, regardless of their scientific sensibility. Think COVID-19 policies.
The more I thought about these two glaring omissions (the Scientific Method and Critical Thinking) the more it struck me that these exactly reflect the anti-Science mentality conveyed in the NGSS and its basis, the Framework, — now used by some 45 states in their K-12 education. (See my Education Report for more details.)
On a whim, I decided to check out a hunch I had, so I just looked up who were the Progressive authors of the Framework (which became the NGSS). Here they are.
Scroll down and — mirabile dictu —there is Jonathan Osborne! Who woulda thunk?
This should convey a VERY clear idea of the mentality of the select Progressive clique that wrote the K-12 Science Standards — again, now used in some 45 states!
Please read about my success in reversing some of that in North Carolina, plus a subsequent post about how committed citizens can do the same in their state…
PS — I emailed both of these co-conspirators and stated my primary objection. If I get anything of value back, I’ll post it here. So far zip, so don’t hold your breath!
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00John Droz, Jr.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJohn Droz, Jr.2023-09-13 12:05:532023-09-13 12:05:53The Greatest Threat to Science is from Within
Granholm approaches a charging station to charge the Cadillac Lyriq she was riding during a four-day road trip through the southeast early this summer. The electric vehicle had charging problems due to an “isolated hardware issue,” Cadillac says. But Granholm’s team encountered plenty of not-so-isolated problems too. … Not every vehicle in Granholm’s caravan was electric. The Secret Service, for instance, rode in large traditional SUVs. …
Her advance team realized there weren’t going to be enough plugs to go around. One of the station’s four chargers was broken, and others were occupied. So an Energy Department staffer tried parking a nonelectric vehicle by one of those working chargers to reserve a spot for the approaching secretary of energy. That did not go down well: a regular gas-powered car blocking the only free spot for a charger?
In fact, a family that was boxed out — on a sweltering day, with a baby in the vehicle — was so upset they decided to get the authorities involved: They called the police.”
So let’s get this straight.
Granholm’s luxury EV didn’t work right. There weren’t enough chargers to go around, so they blocked one with a gas powered vehicle, denying a charge to a family with a baby on board who called the police on the Secretary of Energy!
It turns out that in Georgia it is perfectly legal to park an efficient gas-powered vehicle at an EV charging station, but this wasnt the PR the Biden Administration was looking for.
They sent some of their EV entourage down the road looking for slower chargers, and eventually found a place for the young family who’s battery was running out.
Fortunately none of the vehicles caught fire.
These are just a few of the issues that have left consumers rejecting electric vehicles in favor of less expensive, more efficient, long-range, quick fill-up gasoline vehicles.
Business Insider reports that, “New car inventory on dealer lots is sitting at about a 54 days’ supply, according to Cox Automotive. But for electric vehicles, that number is almost two times as much, with 92.2 days’ supply at dealerships — up 343% from a year ago.”
Leaving consumers free to choose the vehicles of their choice, however, is not a consideration for the EV zealots in the Biden Administration, nor in California.
California even went so far as to issue a rule banning sales of gas-powered vehicles starting in 2035.
Secretary Granholm’s EV clown show gives us all a taste of the frustrations in store if the Left succeeds in forcing us to drive the cars they choose for us.
Assuming, of course, they allow us to have cars in the first place.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Committee For A Constructive Tomorrowhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngCommittee For A Constructive Tomorrow2023-09-11 12:19:552023-09-11 12:20:43Biden Energy Secretary’s EV Clown Show
Please use social media, etc. to pass on this Newsletter to other open-minded citizens…If you’d like to be added to (or unsubscribe from) the distribution of our popular, free, worldwide Media Balance Newsletter, simply send me an email saying that.
Note 1: We recommend reading the Newsletter on your computer, not your phone, as some documents (e.g., PDFs) are much easier to read on a large computer screen… We’ve tried to use common fonts, etc. to minimize display issues.
Note 2: For past Newsletter issues see the archives from: 2020 & 2021 & 2022 & 2023. To accommodate numerous requests received about prior articles over all thirteen plus years of the Newsletter, we’ve put this together — where you can search ALL prior issues, by year. For a background about how the Newsletter is put together, etc., please read this.
Note 3: See this extensive list of reasonable books on climate change. As a parallel effort, we have also put together a list of some good books related to industrial wind energy. Both topics are also extensively covered on my website: WiseEnergy.org.
Note 4: I am not an attorney or a physician, so no material appearing in any of the Newsletters (or any of my websites) should be construed as giving legal or medical advice. My recommendation has always been: consult a competent, licensed attorney when you are involved with legal issues, and consult a competent physician regarding medical matters.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00John Droz, Jr.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJohn Droz, Jr.2023-09-11 04:31:492023-09-11 12:39:54AWED MEDIA BALANCED NEWS: We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.
Grid managers at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) were forced to move to stage 2 emergency measures Wednesday evening when record-high power demand threatened to overload the system as solar power declined with the setting sun and the state’s fleet of wind generation delivered lower-than-expected inputs. A check of ERCOT’s data at 7:29 CT, a few moments following its stage 2 emergency notice showed that thermal generation consisting of natural gas and coal-fired units was accounting for more than 82% of overall system generation.
The Daily Caller reported that Wednesday’s emergency, combined with forecasts of 100+ degree high temperatures across most of the state Thursday and Friday, led Biden Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to issue an emergency order allowing ERCOT to exceed emissions limits to continue to input increased thermal inputs to preserve the integrity of the grid. While Granholm’s declaration is commendable, it is key to point out that the arbitrary emissions limits imposed by DOE on the Texas and other regional grids play a large role in creating the lack of grid stability in the first place.
There is no reason other than such irrational regulations why a state so incredibly rich in energy resources should ever experience capacity shortages on its power grid. The same holds true for every other regional grid across the nation. This is entirely a government-created situation. It’s a truth no one wants to discuss, though, so the conversations invariably go off on tangents that, while relevant, are not the actual cause of the problem.
A report in the Dallas Morning News from Thursday afternoon provides a great example. The headline reads “Texas power emergency hinged on stranded wind farm supplies.” The report details an explanation by former ERCOT interim director Brad Jones that Wednesday’s emergency came about due to a single overloaded transmission line designed to transport electricity generated by South Texas wind farms to the Dallas/Fort Worth area in North Texas.
“The grid was facing the potential of congestion overload on the line coming from South Texas toward Dallas,” Jones said during an interview. “All the wind that was on in the south was struggling to get to Dallas to help meet demand. So right in the middle of this, ERCOT had to reduce generation in the south to prevent that line from being overloaded.”
Well, ok, that makes sense, as far as it goes. But nowhere in its report does the Morning News question why Texas must transmit power generated by wind farms sited hundreds of miles away to the DFW area, enduring a high percentage of line loss, when that market sits smack dab in the middle of the Barnett Shale, one of America’s biggest natural gas reserves. Wouldn’t it make more sense just to use that prodigious natural resource to generate electricity from power plants sited right in the region?
We should also ask why Texas has allowed those wind farms to be constructed right in the middle of the migratory pathways for hundreds of species of birds, creating an annual slaughter of untold thousands of them. Did the state have any real need for the power these wind farms generate outside of arbitrary targets set by state and federal governments? The answer to that question is clearly and unambiguously “no.”
The Texas grid is in no way unique here. The simple fact of the matter is that every problem related to stability and reliability of every power grid in this country has its germinating cause based in government targets, mandates, subsidies, and other policies. All these policies distort markets, create perverse incentives, and ignore what should be the main goal of any power grid, which is to protect and preserve the safety of the people in the service area.
But these are questions few in the media want to ask, because they don’t fit the prevailing narrative. And they are questions no one in government wants to answer, since honest answers to them invariably trace the causation back to their own policies and actions.
The inevitable outcome is a never-ending crisis that no one ever effectively addresses. None of this will get any better until this dynamic changes.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2023-09-10 07:31:402023-09-10 07:37:29DAVID BLACKMON: Every Problem With The Texas Grid Is Caused By Government Policy
Biden canceled all of the Alaska drilling on Federal land. At the same time, he stopped allowing liquid natural gas from being transported by train.
That leaves the only mode of transportation by trucking. About 2 months ago the largest trucking company went out of business:
Yellow, one of the nation’s largest freight and trucking companies, announced it is shutting down, leading to one of the largest mass layoffs in recent history and potential shipping cost increases. The company is in bankruptcy just three years after getting a $700 million loan from taxpayers.
So that is going to create a massive supply chain issue of liquid natural gas which means your utility bills as well as the price of gas is going to skyrocket.
I want to make sure that you understand what is about to happen so you can prepare.
Biden canceled all of the Alaska drilling on Federal land. At the same time he stopped allowing liquid natural gas from being transported by train.
Biden admin abruptly cancels several gas, oil leases in Alaska
Gov. Dunleavy blasts Biden: ‘2024 can’t come soon enough’
The governor of Alaska is accusing the president of violating the law after Biden’s administration pulled the plug on Trump-era oil leases.
“If he’s willing to break this law, surely there’s going to be others. And once again, Alaska right now feels like a victim under this administration. And the country is going to feel like a victim here if they haven’t already,” Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy said on “Kudlow” Thursday.
Alaska’s state agency is expected to challenge the decision in court, after Biden canceled several oil and gas leases issued in early 2021 to an Alaskan state economic development agency on Wednesday.
The Department of the Interior (DOI) rescinded the seven 10-year leases — spanning 365,775 acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) — held by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) and supported by a wide range of stakeholders, including lawmakers and Native Alaskans. The leases were issued by the Trump administration in one of its final actions.
The Department of the Interior (DOI) rescinded the seven 10-year leases — spanning 365,775 acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) — held by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) and supported by a wide range of stakeholders, including lawmakers and Native Alaskans. The leases were issued by the Trump administration in one of its final actions.
“This makes absolutely no sense from any perspective unless your goal is to drive up the cost of oil and gas so much that it makes certain renewables cheaper,” Dunleavy told host Larry Kudlow.
Mike Dunleavy on Alaska oil leases
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy said if Biden’s “willing” to break the state’s oil and gas laws, “surely there’s going to be others” the president violates, on “Kudlow” Thursday. (Fox News)
The DOI also issued a proposal to block off 13 million acres of land across the National Petroleum Reserve (NPR), an area in North Slope Borough, Alaska, set aside by Congress for resource development, and an additional 2.8 million of acres in the Beaufort Sea off the northern coast of Alaska, from oil and gas leasing.
“This is just two of 55 actions that the federal government under this administration is perpetrating against Alaska right now,” Dunleavy said, while adding that Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Iran are “laughing” at Biden’s energy policy.
“They’re laughing together at the United States of America,” the governor said. “I can’t find anywhere in, really the history of nation-states or empires, where they worked at hobbling themselves to such a degree that’s happening currently with this administration. So 2024 can’t come soon enough for most of us.”
Is investor interest in committing billions of dollars to new offshore wind projects starting to wane in the United States? If the results of last week’s heavily-touted Biden administration lease sale in the Western Gulf of Mexico are any indication, that could be the case.
The auction resulted in a single tract of 102,480 acres offshore Louisiana attracting a winning bid $5.6 million from German wind company RWE. Two tracts offshore Texas that were also offered attracted no bids at all. That low bid level is a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars in bids received for leases off the northeast Atlantic coast in February, 2022.
Several factors could be at play in creating the lack of interest in this Gulf of Mexico sale, perhaps most prominent among them the fact that, since wind developers began conducting seismic testing for those Atlantic projects last fall, the dead carcasses of more than 60 baleen whales have washed up onto the beaches of New Jersey and New York. While the Biden regulators claim no cause-and-effect connection exists between the developments and whale deaths exists, a rising chorus of critics begs to disagree.
Former California gubernatorial candidate and climate activist Michael Shellenberger serves as executive producer of a new documentary released in August that claims to have scientifically established a direct connection. “The film documents surprisingly loud, high-decibel sonar emitted by wind industry vessels when measured with state-of-the-art hydrophones,” Shellenberger recently wrote at the New York Post. “And it shows that the wind industry’s increased boat traffic is correlated directly with specific whale deaths.”
The fisheries industry is also concerned about the negative impacts offshore wind development will have on its continued ability to conduct its business. Meghan Lapp, a spokesperson for The Center for Sustainable Fisheries, testified to a congressional hearing in May that the undersea cabling and other infrastructure of the wind developments will make it impossible for offshore wind and the fishing industry to co-exist. She also noted that the federal agency NOAA is failing to enforce its own regulations governing incidental takes of marine mammals as they relate to offshore wind in the same way the agency has consistently enforced them related to offshore oil and gas development.
RWE told reporters that the offshore Louisiana tract was attractive for several reasons. One such reason is the state’s strong existing coastal port and supply chain infrastructure, which together constitute one of the most key foundations of Louisiana’s economy.
Another is, of course, subsidies, invariably a crucial consideration for the rent-seeking wind industry. Unlike Texas, Louisiana has a state goal to install 5 GW of offshore wind infrastructure by 2035. One can only wonder if the state’s Republican-dominated legislature will allow that goal to stand once members are made fully aware of the likely negative impacts on Louisiana’s own robust fishing industry, which provides thousands of jobs to residents in the southern third of the state.
That is not to mention potential negative impacts on the Gulf of Mexico’s own populations of both sea mammals and wide variety of migratory birds. Every spring, from March through May, literally millions of migratory birds traverse the Gulf of Mexico. Indeed, as the chart here compiled by Biden’s own Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) shows, the bird migration path known as the Mississippi Flyway flows directly through the very same area where RWE plans to construct its gigantic wind towers with blades longer than a football field.
In other slides from this same presentation, BOEM says that more than 2.1 billion birds from 395 separate species traverse the Gulf of Mexico each year. Importantly, a footnote for one of the slides reads “*This estimate only applies to nocturnal migrants with a northward trajectory, thus is a conservative estimate.”
You just cannot make this stuff up. You really can’t.
The question becomes whether the same Biden regulators who don’t appear to be properly enforcing regulations governing incidental taking of sea mammals will make any real effort to quantify the carnage when these mammoth wind blades become aviary Cuisinarts once the projects go active.
Could any or all of this help explain the extremely low investor interest in this particular lease sale? It sure seems possible.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2023-09-03 06:07:482023-09-12 14:22:23DAVID BLACKMON: Energy Companies Want Nothing To Do With Biden’s Botched Offshore Wind Projects
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is appointing a group of “leading experts” to advise him on “transportation equity,” including several who argue that cars cause climate change and promote racism and therefore should be phased out. Buttigieg earlier this month appointed 24 new members to his Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity, an Obama-era body that Buttigieg is reviving after the Trump administration scrapped it. Included on the committee is Andrea Marpillero-Colomina, a “spatial policy scholar” who says “ALL CARS ARE BAD” given that they cause “a myriad of environmental issues and conditions.” Another Buttigieg appointee, self-described “transportation nerd” Veronica Davis, argued in an August essay that cars perpetuate “systemic racism” and are therefore “the problem” in America’s transportation system.
Buttigieg’s appointments—and his decision to revive the equity advisory committee—reflect the Biden administration’s whole-of-government emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion. President Joe Biden shortly after taking office in 2021 issued an executive order that called on federal agencies to “pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all.” Under the order, agency heads must conduct an “equity assessment” to identify policies that create “systemic barriers” in minority communities.
The committee will advise Buttigieg on “promising practices to institutionalize equity into agency programs, policies, regulations, and activities” and plans to meet for the first time this fall, according to Buttigieg’s August announcement. Marpillero-Colomina told the Washington Free Beacon that she is not “advocating for a complete erasure” of cars but intends to push Buttigieg to move America away from its reliance on private motor vehicles.
“My interest in being on the [equity committee] is to raise the question and push the Department of Transportation to really think about: What are some equitable, environmentally sustainable, economically beneficial, and feasible alternatives to policy that is car-centric?” she said in an interview. “How can we reimagine streets to prioritize people instead of cars? How can we create streets that are inclusive of modes other than cars?”
Bad old carbon dioxide is not the only gas that contributes to the earth’s net heat balance by trapping heat in the atmosphere. Another commonly used gas — methane, the chief constituent of natural gas — is more than 25 times as effective as CO₂ in trapping heat. Fortunately, methane’s lifetime in the atmosphere is much shorter: about 12 years as opposed to the hundreds of years it takes for CO₂ to go away. So doing something about methane emissions promises to have much more of a near-term effect than anything we do with CO₂.
Enter Percepto, a company founded in Israel that recently moved to Austin, Texas, to market their services of sniffing out emissions of methane and 14 other gases using artificial intelligence (AI)-equipped drones. Their target market is refineries and petrochemical plants, where methane and other hydrocarbon gases can escape in leaks that can take days or weeks to find by technicians walking around with hand-held detectors.
Percepto’s system, as outlined in an article that appeared in the Austin American-Statesman, consists of a drone equipped with a wavelength-selective camera. Most hydrocarbon gases emit and absorb characteristic infrared wavelengths, and a cleverly designed imaging spectrometer can present the user with a photograph showing a cloud of methane made as visible as a cloud of red smoke from a cherry bomb firework.
Finding and fixing such a leak is not only good safety practice. In 2024, the Biden administration will begin to implement the Methane Emissions Reduction Program, a combination of over a billion dollars of funding to pay for programs like Percepto’s, combined with steeply increasing fines for emitting methane and other greenhouse gases. Ariel Avitan, co-founder of Percepto, saw a business opportunity in providing large firms with a means of tracking leaks that is faster and more comprehensive than the older methods. So now, his firm is poised to help track down leaks and other sources of methane that have previously gone undetected.
Negligible effect
Percepto is to be congratulated for seeing a market niche and exploiting it. Methane itself is not a particularly valuable gas. When the cost of transporting it from a wellhead to the market exceeds what it can be sold for, producers typically flare it by burning it at the source. The government is coming down hard on flares, too, which may lead to other expensive issues, as even flares don’t burn 100 percent of the gas they consume.
In an ideal world, we wouldn’t waste or release any methane at all through oil and gas operations. But even if we had a magic wand to do that, it would decrease the world’s budget of methane release by only 14 percent.
According to the International Energy Agency in Paris, France, the most profligate source of methane emissions worldwide is a natural one. Methane is emitted in wetlands by natural decomposition, and unless we are willing to drain all the wetlands, there’s nothing we can do about the 32 percent that nature produces. The next largest source is agriculture, at 23 percent — think flatulent cows (there aren’t any other kind). Oil and gas come next at 14 percent, then coal operations and something labelled as “waste,” which probably means methane produced by landfills.
If anyone thinks that we’re going to stop global warming by fixing all our methane leaks, this means that there is a disappointment in store. But in the current state of climate rhetoric, few people are going to think beyond the one step that can be summarised as “Greenhouse gases bad — must stop at any cost.”
As I have mentioned elsewhere, the climate has slowly been warming and the ocean levels slowly rising (we’re talking millimetres here) since the early 1800s. And now that CO₂ levels have risen as much as they have, whatever effect that’s going to have on the climate will be with us for the next couple of hundred years, even if we stopped 100 percent of all human activity that emits CO₂, including breathing. And stopping the breath of the 8 billion or so humans on the planet is exactly what some “deep ecologists” would like us to do — the folks who regard humanity as some kind of evil infestation of an otherwise pristine Earth.
Stoking fears
The sensible thing to do — the thing that would let most of those 8 billion people enjoy some of the benefits of modern technology that we in the US have enjoyed for many decades — is to figure out how to adapt to the relatively minor and certainly gradual changes that global warming is going to make, while picking low-hanging fruit with regard to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. If there’s a six-foot hole in a dike in one place and a three-inch crack in another, the only reasonable thing to do is go after the six-foot hole first. And if you can more easily deal with the water over the dike than fix the dike, maybe that’s the best thing to do.
Unfortunately, the debate — or more accurately, accepted doctrine — about global warming has left such notions behind. Most world leaders and their cadres of experts have bought into the easily propagated notion that if we don’t do really drastic and painful things about greenhouse gas emissions right now, we’re all going to die horrible deaths as the globe imitates an egg in a frying pan.
The fact that highly reputable people such as Steven Koonin have shown this oversimplification to be mostly false has no effect on something that has become the mass-psychology equivalent of a kind of hypochondria. It’s like a patient that comes to a doctor with a pimple on his nose and says it’s cancer and he’s sure it’s going to kill him.
We would try to talk reason to such a person, but it’s easier than trying to talk sense to an international community that has bought into a severely distorted picture wholesale, and created huge institutional incentives to keep the delusion going.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad Percepto saw their opportunity and took it. People have a right to profit from laws that, however misconceived, do some incremental good. And it’s certainly a good thing to stop methane leaks, even if it costs millions of dollars to do so. But one can still question the reasoning behind the laws, and wonder whether succeeding generations (if there are any) will scratch their heads over the strange panic about climate change that we are currently enduring.
AUTHOR
KARL D. STEPHAN
Karl D. Stephan is a professor of electrical engineering at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. This article has been republished, with permission, from his blog Engineering Ethics, which is a MercatorNet partner site. His eBook Ethical and Otherwise: Engineering In the Headlines is available in Kindle format and also in the iTunes store.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00MercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexitieshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexities2023-09-02 03:48:302023-09-02 03:50:07Greenhouse Gas Abatement that Makes Some Sense: Methane-Sniffing Drones
Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. In particular, scientists should emphasize that their modeling output is not the result of magic: computer models are human-made. What comes out is fully dependent on what theoreticians and programmers have put in: hypotheses, assumptions, relationships, parameterizations, stability constraints, etc. Unfortunately, in mainstream climate science most of this input is undeclared.
To believe the outcome of a climate model is to believe what the model makers have put in. This is precisely the problem of today’s climate discussion to which climate models are central. Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science. We should free ourselves from the naïve belief in immature climate models. In future, climate research must give significantly more emphasis to empirical science.
There is no climate emergency
A global network of over 1609 scientists and professionals has prepared this urgent message. Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.
Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming
The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.
Warming is far slower than predicted
The world has warmed significantly less than predicted by IPCC on the basis of modeled anthropogenic forcing. The gap between the real world and the modeled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.
Climate policy relies on inadequate models
Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as global policy tools. They blow up the effect of greenhouse gases such as CO2. In addition, they ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.
CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth
CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth: additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.
Global warming has not increased natural disasters
There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, there is ample evidence that CO2-mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly.
Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities
There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. If better approaches emerge, and they certainly will, we have ample time to reflect and re-adapt. The aim of global policy should be ‘prosperity for all’ by providing reliable and affordable energy at all times. In a prosperous society men and women are well educated, birthrates are low and people care about their environment.
Epilogue
The World Climate Declaration (WCD) has brought a large variety of competent scientists together from all over the world*. The considerable knowledge and experience of this group is indispensable in reaching a balanced, dispassionate and competent view of climate change.
From now onward the group is going to function as “Global Climate Intelligence Group”. The CLINTEL Group will give solicited and unsolicited advice on climate change and energy transition to governments and companies worldwide.
* It is not the number of experts but the quality of arguments that counts
NOBEL LAUREATE PROFESSOR JOHN F. CLAUSER / USA
NOBEL LAUREATE PROFESSOR IVAR GIAEVER NORWAY/USA
PROFESSOR GUUS BERKHOUT / THE NETHERLANDS
DR. CORNELIS LE PAIR / THE NETHERLANDS
PROFESSOR REYNALD DU BERGER / FRENCH SPEAKING CANADA
BARRY BRILL / NEW ZEALAND
VIV FORBES / AUSTRALIA
DR. PATRICK MOORE / ENGLISH SPEAKING CANADA
JENS MORTON HANSEN / DENMARK
PROFESSOR LÁSZIÓ SZARKA / HUNGARY
PROFESSOR SEOK SOON PARK / SOUTH KOREA
PROFESSOR JAN-ERIK SOLHEIM / NORWAY
STAVROS ALEXANDRIS / GREECE
FERDINAND MEEUS / DUTCH SPEAKING BELGIUM
PROFESSOR RICHARD LINDZEN / USA
HENRI A. MASSON / FRENCH SPEAKING BELGIUM
PROFESSOR INGEMAR NORDIN / SWEDEN
JIM O’BRIEN / REPUBLIC OF IRELAND
PROFESSOR IAN PLIMER / AUSTRALIA
DOUGLAS POLLOCK / CHILE
DR. BLANCA PARGA LANDA / SPAIN
PROFESSOR ALBERTO PRESTININZI / ITALY
PROFESSOR BENOÎT RITTAUD / FRANCE
DR. THIAGO MAIA / BRAZIL
PROFESSOR FRITZ VAHRENHOLT / GERMANY
THE VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY / UNITED KINGDOM
DUŠAN BIŽIĆ / CROATIA, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, SERBIA AND MONTE NEGRO
Climate Intelligence (CLINTEL) is an independent foundation that operates in the fields of climate change and climate policy. CLINTEL was founded in 2019 by emeritus professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and science journalist Marcel Crok. CLINTEL’s main objective is to generate knowledge and understanding of the causes and effects of climate change as well as the effects of climate policy.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Committee For A Constructive Tomorrowhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngCommittee For A Constructive Tomorrow2023-08-30 11:46:312023-09-01 07:57:20Climate scientists and experts declare ‘there is no climate emergency’
Please use social media, etc. to pass on this Newsletter to other open-minded citizens…If you’d like to be added to (or unsubscribe from) the distribution of our popular, free, worldwide Media Balance Newsletter, simply send me an email saying that.
Note 1: We recommend reading the Newsletter on your computer, not your phone, as some documents (e.g., PDFs) are much easier to read on a large computer screen… We’ve tried to use common fonts, etc. to minimize display issues.
Note 2: For past Newsletter issues see the archives from: 2020 & 2021 & 2022 & 2023. To accommodate numerous requests received about prior articles over all thirteen plus years of the Newsletter, we’ve put this together — where you can search ALL prior issues, by year. For a background about how the Newsletter is put together, etc., please read this.
Note 3: See this extensive list of reasonable books on climate change. As a parallel effort, we have also put together a list of some good books related to industrial wind energy. Both topics are also extensively covered on my website: WiseEnergy.org.
Note 4: I am not an attorney or a physician, so no material appearing in any of the Newsletters (or any of my websites) should be construed as giving legal or medical advice. My recommendation has always been: consult a competent, licensed attorney when you are involved with legal issues, and consult a competent physician regarding medical matters.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00John Droz, Jr.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJohn Droz, Jr.2023-08-27 12:03:442023-08-27 12:03:44AWED MEDIA BALANCED NEWS: We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.
The grim reality is that the transition to green energy will be catastrophic for the economy, and if it is fully followed through, will reduce the United States to Third World status.
The Biden regime seems intent on making life as difficult as they possibly can for Americans, and aiding and enabling America’s foes in every way.
That’s what the green agenda will do: China, a much greater polluter than America ever was, will take the place of the U.S. in the global economy as we reduce ourselves to a backwater and former great power.
A recently-published study complicates President Joe Biden’s claims that his massive green agenda will allow for a “just transition” for blue-collar fossil fuel workers to land on their feet in his envisioned green economy.
Biden has routinely asserted that his anti-fossil fuel “Bidenomics” agenda will usher in a new green manufacturing and jobs boom in the U.S. However, the study, authored by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Wake Forest University and labor market analytics firm Lightcast, found that less than 1% of workers leaving fossil fuel-related jobs transition into green energy jobs, and that the supposed benefits of such a transition are unlikely to be evenly distributed across the country, geographically or socioeconomically.
“I came to office determined to move away from the trickle-down economics and to focus on the middle class. Because I said when the middle class does well, everybody does well — everybody does well,” Biden said during a Wednesday speech in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, touting the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), his signature climate and healthcare bill, on its one-year anniversary.
“Folks, as I’ve said for a long time — for a long time: when I think climate, I think jobs,” Biden said in the speech. “Not a joke. When I think climate, I think jobs. That’s the future.”…
While some states exhibit low rates of transition into green jobs, states like California have above average rates of green energy job adoption, the study asserted. To arrive at their findings, the authors analyzed 130 million online employment profiles, which represented about 300 million job-to-job transitions….
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2023-08-25 16:08:582023-08-25 16:10:05New Study Shoots Down Biden’s Claim that Transition to Green Energy will Create Jobs
(These are my views as a woman living in England, on how the culture and spirit of my country has changed over 50 years. Why the country does not feel protected or strong any more, how it has lost, and is losing it values and decency, and how we are daily losing our free speech.)
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form, and void: and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said; Let there be light and there was Light.” — Genesis: 1:3
I went on a short trip recently. A short trip down memory lane, and a journey back to a part of the UK I hadn’t visited for some time.
Cumbria, which is in an area also known as The Lake District in the North of England, is an area of outstanding natural beauty, and is famous for its lakes and mountains, with Scafell Pike being the highest mountain in England, and Lake Windermere the largest lake.
The area is also known for its famous artists and writers who once resided there, such as William Wordsworth, John Ruskin, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Beatrix Potter.
It was a place that was once well known to attract many romantics and philosophers.
Leaving the M6 motorway northbound, which is the longest motorway in the United Kingdom, but solely located in England, visitors to The Lake District enter a mountainous region which mainly attracts those who like outdoor pursuits, such as hiking, boating and camping.
Its small villages, isolated farms and landscape are noticeably free from the many 5g tower masts which stand on almost every corner of the inner cities of the rest of the United Kingdom. It was incredibly refreshing to drive through miles of open landscape witnessing the green patchwork fields which the country is known for. It was nice not to hear the daily dose of ambulance sirens driving past my home, and it was especially nice to walk along a traditional promenade at the particular remote town where I stayed, without the usual commercialism which attacks us on a daily basis. It was like stepping back in time.
One couple on our trip took a train journey to Carnforth Station which is where they filmed the 1945 movie ‘Brief Encounter’ The station which is now a Heritage Centre is advertised as an experience of total nostalgia.
However, the couple kept referring to the film ‘Close Encounters’ by mistake, which is about aliens landing on the earth.
Everything felt quite quintessential and normal for a short while, but life since my last visit has unfortunately changed. Whilst the landscape remains unaltered, and almost cosseted in protecting a traditional image in part, an awareness of some of the people, made up of residents, but mainly tourists, in some of the more popular towns I visited had most certainly altered.
For the short time I spent in Keswick, Kendal, Windermere and Bowness on Windermere, there was an overwhelming feeling of being displaced, not just by the sheer volume of other cultures and visitors, but by what I can only describe as an aggressive uncaring and somewhat downcast spirit, which was far removed from the more genteel polite society which once seemed to reside there.
Were we really having a close encounter of the 3rd kind?
The view from Lake Windermere
Of course, our relationships with others, has changed considerably over the last few years. Is it me, or are we now all naturally more suspicious of each other?
During 2020-2022, people who we once considered quite normal and considerate, turned out to be quite prepared to discriminate and aggressively betray others based solely on their own fears and false information being fed to them.
Some friends became enemies, and those who we thought may be enemies, became friends.
Rebel rousers; those who appeared to be independent and free thinkers, turned out to be quite the opposite and were completely programmed by the media without question, and the un-noticed ordinary person down the street turned out to be the clear rational thinker; the one who questioned or researched facts themselves. They didn’t go along with a crowd mentality.
Aside from the obvious decline in morality and ethics which you could visibly witness on the streets, I wondered if this genuinely was the reason for my uneasiness, and the slight distance which I felt from my fellow man?
Natural Beauty
The UK, of course, has many other areas of outstanding natural beauty. (AONB) which do not come under UNESCO. A relatively new charitable organization called The National Association for AONBs has listed the 46 areas of outstanding natural beauty in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, for which it offers to protect and conserve based on the love of our countryside.
AONB are designated areas which are protected under the 1949 National Parks and Access to Countryside Act which is enhanced by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.
An Act of Parliament passed in 1949 to conserve the most sensitive areas of the UK was passed as a result of two reports. The Hobhouse Report and John Dower Report commissioned to respond to the wish of the public to have access to land for recreation.
The National Association for AONB state:
Their vision is to make sure that these areas are valued and secure.
Their mission is to support and develop a network of ambitious partnerships that have a strong collective voice.
Like UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization) they are very focused on ‘climate change’
I feel it is very important to keep a watch not only on the above Acts of Parliament but also on the most recent Environmental Improvement Plan issued by the UK Government, with again, a particular emphasis on Climate Change, Reaching Net Zero Domestically and Reducing Agricultural Emissions through new farming schemes.
The conservation and protection of our beautiful countryside together with an emphasis on reducing pollution should never be at the expense of restricting access to freedom of movement or targeting the farmers who produce our food in these areas under the guise of ‘Climate Change’ which can also be questionable based on the research and the facts produced by other expert meteorologists and climatologists outside of what and who governments promote on this subject.
In his book Cobalt Red, the author Siddharth Kara also throws light on cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its exploitation, where adults and children suffer and die daily mining cobalt which is a component to every lithium-ion rechargeable battery that powers our smartphones, tablets, laptops and electric vehicles.
The all-electric smart green utopia being pushed by our governments has many dirty secrets.
It is alleged that the climate change industry makes 1.5 trillion a year.
The charitable organization of NAAONB, like many others, has good intentions at its heart, but the government has proven that outside of its own vested interests, it does not. Their mouths say one thing and their actions say another.
Land grabbing and the displacing of people, most especially towards the indigenous inhabitants of any country, appears to be an item on another person’s road trip and on an Agenda which some people may not be aware of.
We must never forget the division, the heartache and the inhumane restrictions which were recently enforced on people lives, whilst the implementors of such rules, knowingly walked free.
If these same people really claim to care for the environment, then why don’t they care so much for people?
“We cannot stay home all our lives; we must present ourselves to the world and we must look upon it as an adventure.” — Beatrix Potter
Living in the Present
Living in the present moment and appreciating it, whilst not forgetting or overlooking what evil can, and is doing, in our world today, is a lesson which I personally strive to maintain and live by.
My short trip to the Lake District presented me with many signs, and opportunities to take note of.
On a very positive note, I especially appreciated the time I spent with my sister and the fun that we had staying in a lovely hotel. We should always maintain where possible these relationships
However, there were two other instances which impacted me.
One was the very serious young waitress who served us each morning and evening in the hotel who we just couldn’t get to smile, even with the most pleasant conversation that we tried to instigate with her.
It was only on the last morning that she cracked a small little grin. But what a delight to see it.
Her attitude towards her job, to ensuring that people were happy with her service and that she was attentive to them at all times was impeccable. She took it very seriously but it almost seemed to be a pressure upon her.
Behind her sad face, I appreciated her dedication to her role and her work ethic. I wondered what sadness lay inside her heart and what hope she may have lost unknown to us, and yet here she was in this world which attempts to instil fear in us and destroy us every day. Her standards were still high. She was an overcomer. Head and shoulders above those with absolutely no scruples. That type of beauty shows up the ugliness.
The other instance was on our last short visit to a town called Keswick.
It was dull and very busy, people were pushing and shoving, littering the streets with food and drink. It was the school holidays and there were lots of bored children. I was inwardly sighing at the sheer number of heavily tattooed men and women, and they could have been such nice people for all I knew. It was a far cry from the surrounding beauty of the area, and I noticed the downward pull which was trying to take me with it.
However, as were walking away a voice pierced the air which made some people stop and listen.
A young girl was singing. Her voice was so loud, clear and pure without the use of a microphone or speaker, that it seemed to pierce through the chaos in a superior fashion. It was naturally beautiful with a very special message.
The song she was singing was the classical Nessun Dorma (Let No One Sleep) and although she sang in Italian, people seemed to understand the message.
Some people came to a standstill and tears filled their eyes.
Others walked past as if she was not there at all, indifferent, laughing or shouting and oblivious to the people who wanted to listen. Why couldn’t they get the message? It was like light cutting through darkness.
It is believed Nessun Dorma is really a response to the upheavals of World War I, a place of such cruelty and horror, but that somehow Love and Hope still exists.
We should be in no doubt that we are in a final war with evil. It is cunning and sly and comes as an angel of light pretending to care about people’s health and the environment, but it can only use these issues together with those who align to it, for its own selfish advantage and agenda. There is an awful lot of cruelty and horror taking place in this beautiful world.
Does Love and Hope still Exist
I do believe that for those who can see through these plans there is a great deal of light which has come to this earth to show us this darkness, and for that we should have great hope that all will be revealed.
Our brief encounters may turn to close encounters of the genuine kind.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Romans 8:18
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Shirley Edwardshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngShirley Edwards2023-08-24 05:58:132023-08-24 06:06:38Climate Change in the UK.
