California Wildfires are NOT due to ‘climate change’

Gov. Brown blames climate ‘deniers’ for worsening wildfires – Scientific evidence refutes him: ‘Less fire today than centuries ago’ – Wildfires are NOT due to ‘climate change’ – Book Excerpt

California Governor Jerry Brown is blaming “climate deniers” for more California’s devastating wildfires despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that wildfires are not historically worse or caused by “global warming.” See:

Jerry Brown: Climate-Change Deniers ‘Definitely Contributing’ to the ‘New Abnormal’ of Wildfires– California Gov. Jerry Brown said all climate-change deniers are “definitely contributing” to the fatal wind-whipped wildfires that have pummeled northern and southern parts of the state over the past few days, as well as blazes “in the coming years.”

JERRY BROWN BLAMES ‘THOSE WHO DENY’ GLOBAL WARMING FOR DEADLY WILDFIRES

Gov. Brown joins other high profile climate activists in blaming bad weather on “climate deniers.” Most recently, Sen. Chuck Schumer actually said on the Senate floor, “If we would do more on climate change, we’d have fewer of these hurricanes and other types of storms.” See: Sen Schumer goes full witchcraft: ‘If We Would Do More on Climate Change, We’d Have Fewer of These Hurricanes’

Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from author Marc Morano’s new 2018 best-selling book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change.

(Move over Rachel Carson! – Morano’s Politically Incorrect Climate Book outselling ‘Silent Spring’ at Earth Day – Order Your Book Copy Now! ‘The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change’ By Marc Morano)

Book Excerpt:

Wildfires

The mainstream media seems to be very sure that wildfires are getting worse because of man-made global warming. ABC World News Tonight warned in 2014 that “here in America, more wildfires, intense burns” have arrived courtesy of climate change. CBS This Morning featured climate fear promoter Michio Kaku, predicting “hundred-year droughts, hundred-year
forest fires” and claiming that “something is very dangerously happening with the weather.”

Al Gore also thinks he knows all about wildfires. “All over the West we’re seeing these fires get much, much worse,” Gore said in 2017, adding, “the underlying cause is the heat.”

But the science tells a very different story. A 2016 study published by the Royal Society reported, “There is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago” and the “global area burned” has seen a “slight decline over past decades.” The study, by Stefan Doerr and Cristina Santín of Swansea University in Wales, noted that “many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem, with widely held perceptions both in the media and scientific papers of increasing fire occurrence, severity and resulting losses. However, important exceptions aside, the quantitative evidence available does not support these perceived overall trends.”

The study also found that the data for the western U.S. indicates “little change overall, and also that area burned at high severity has overall declined compared to pre-European settlement. Direct fatalities from fire and economic losses also show no clear trends over the past three decades.” The researchers concluded, “The data available to date do not support a general increase in area burned or in fire severity for many regions of the world. Indeed there is increasing evidence that there is overall less fire in the landscape today than there has been centuries ago, although the magnitude of this reduction still needs to be examined in more detail.”

According to the study, “fire is a fundamental natural ecological agent in many of our ecosystems and only a ‘problem’ where we choose to inhabit these fire-prone regions or we humans introduce it to non-fire-adapted ecosystems.

The ‘wildfire problem’ is essentially more a social than a natural one.” Researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid found that “climate change” is not to blame for increased forest fires in the Mediterranean basin. “The change in the occurrence of fires that are recorded in the historical research cannot be explained by the gradual change in climate.” The fires instead “correspond to changes in the availability of fuel, the use of sources of energy, and the continuity of the landscape.”

In the United States, wildfires are also due in part to a failure to thin forests or remove dead and diseased trees. In 2014, forestry professor David B. South of Auburn University testified to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that “data suggest that extremely large megafires were four-times more common before 1940,” adding that “we cannot reasonably say that anthropogenic global warming causes extremely large wildfires.”

As he explained, “To attribute this human-caused increase in fire risk to carbon dioxide emissions is simply unscientific.” The evidence is so strong that even the Los Angeles Times featured an article rebuking Governor Jerry Brown for his claims that California’s 2015 wildfires were “a real wake-up call” to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which he claimed were “in many respects driving all of this.” The Times article noted, “But scientists who study climate change and fire behavior say their work does not show a link between this year’s wildfires and global warming, or support Brown’s assertion that fires are now unpredictable and unprecedented. There is not enough evidence, they say.”

Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist at the Geos Institute in Ashland, Oregon, has conducted research on fires in the western United States and found them declining. “If we use the historical baseline as a point in time for comparison, then we have not seen a measurable increase in the size or the severity of fires,” DellaSala said. “In fact, what we have seen is actually a deficit in forest fires compared to what early settlers were dealing with when they came through this area.”

A 2014 study found that Colorado wildfires have not become more severe since the 1900s. “The severity of recent fires is not unprecedented when we look at fire records going back before the 1900s,” said research scientist Tania Schoennagel. The study, “one of the largest of its kind ever undertaken in the western United States,” was published in the journal PLOS ONE and funded by the National Science Foundation.

Related Links:

Wildfires are not worse — despite media hype about ‘global warming’

A Geological Perspective of Wildfires: ‘Global biomass burning during past century has been lower than at any time in past 2000 years’

Wildfires are not worse — despite media hype about ‘global warming’

Plummeting Forest Fire Burn Acreage – Down 80% since 1930’s – And forest fires are down 90% since CO2 was at pre-industrial levels – when an area larger than the state of California burned every year.

California’s ‘new normal’ of winter wildfires doused by climate scientists – Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, compiled data from 1926-2017 showing that the acreage burned by U.S. wildfires has dropped fourfold since peaking in the 1930s, which was posted on the skeptics’ website Climate Depot. “The destructive fires in California are not unexpected given the wet winter last year and resultant plant growth, followed by hot and dry weather since then in which the vegetation dried out,” University of Colorado Boulder meteorologist Roger A. Pielke Sr. said. “An important issue is an extent humans have deliberately or inadvertently started the fires,” Mr. Pielke said. “If these were not started by people (including sparks from power lines), how many fires would there have been naturally? Probably none.” “As to whether this is a ‘new normal,’ it is easy (and inaccurate) to blame climate change just from added CO₂,” said Mr. Pielke, “when in reality the reasons for the fires and the damage they are causing are more complex.”

Peer-Reviewed studies, historical data reject claims California wildfires are due to man-made climate change

Fires far worse last century: Claim global warming causing wildfires goes up in — flames

Prominent forestry scientist goes from environmentalist hero to victim after his research reverses ‘old growth’ logging concepts – “Against the Grain” by Warren Cornwall in Science, 6 October 2017.

Trump Blames CA Wildfires On Forest Mismanagement, Threatens To Cut Off Federal Funding

BLAMING GLOBAL WARMING FOR NORTHWEST’S WILDFIRES IS ‘SERIOUSLY MISINFORMED,’ SAYS CLIMATE SCIENTIST

Report: Poor Management of Forests, Not Global Warming, To Blame for Widespread Wildfires

Climatologist Dr. John Christy rebuts wildfire and heatwave claims: ‘Our most serious heatwaves were in the 1930’s. We have not matched those at all’

STUDY: HUMANS, NOT GLOBAL WARMING, SPARKED ALMOST ALL OF CALIFORNIA’S WILDFIRES – Ninety-five percent of wildfires that ravaged California in the past 100 years were caused by humans, according to a forthcoming study in the International Journal of Wildland Fire. “In most of California, if we could stop ignition during extremely high winds and drought and heat spells, like now, that will be an effective approach,” lead author and U.S. Geological Survey wildfire expert Jon Keeley told The San Jose Mercury News of his soon-to-be-published study. While the public debate largely rages around global warming’s role in wildfires, Keeley’s study shows that human interaction with the landscape, no matter the climate, is causing most fires.

Environmentalists’ Plan To Solve California’s Wildfire Problem — Ban Fossil Fuels

Climate Scientist Calls Out Media (and Mann) ‘Misinformation’ On Wildfires And Global Warming

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by luke flynt on Unsplash.

Energy & Environmental News [+Video]

Here is the latest Energy and Environmental Newsletter.

Maybe due to the recent US elections, there’s a very high quantity of reports and articles in this cycle. I’ve tried to simplify this by having a special section on Nuclear Energy in this issue of the Newsletter. There are quite a few excellent (and surprising) articles in that part (like this and this), so please check them out.

In my continuous effort to make it clearer to citizens how to succeed in a local wind war, I just added a new page to my website: Winning. Let me know if you have any questions, or suggestions for improvements to that significant page.

I was asked an interesting question: what are some of the better books about the Climate Change issue? I know others have tackled this before, but I thought an update was appropriate — so I put together a list of good book related to this topic. If you have corrections and/or additions, please let me know and I will update.

Speaking of Climate Change, I’m starting the highlights of this Newsletter with a short video from Dr. Jordan Peterson — a phenomena. If you don’t know who this no-hold-barred scientist is, you’re in for a treat and a breath of fresh air.

Some of the more informative Global Warming articles are:

Short Video: Jordan Peterson on Climate Change
IPCC: Where Dictators Overrule Scientists
Report: IPCC SR15 Climate Change Report is Based on Faulty Premises
Moving The Goalposts, IPCC Secretly Redefines ‘Climate’
UN’s Solution to Climate Change: End Capitalism
The UN Admits That The Paris Climate Deal Was A Fraud
3 Surprises About Nobel Laureate Nordhaus’s Model of Climate Change
Levin TV: Dr. Pat Michaels on Global Warming, wind energy, etc.
National Association of Scholars: Making Science Reproducible
The Intrinsic Value of Nature and the Proper Stewardship of the Climate
500 Million Years of Unrelatedness between Atmospheric CO2 and Temps
Video: Is the Global Temperature Record Credible?

Some of the more interesting Energy related articles are:

Federal renewable energy subsidies reduce reliability, hinder the market
BBC Mislead Again — This Time About the Cost of Wind Power
Report: Natural Gas Economics Outshines Solar, Blows Past Wind
The Production Tax Credit: Corporate Subsidies & Renewable Energy
Green Energy Mandates Could Double Your Electric Bills
Former Wind Energy CEO Charged In Million Dollar Fraud Scheme
MA Town Board of Health Says Turbines Negatively Affecting Public Health
New Medical Research: Infrasound Negatively Impacts Heart Health!

Note 1: We recommend reading the Newsletter on your computer, not your phone. Some documents (e.g. PDFs) are easier to read on a computer. We’ve tried to use common fonts, etc. to minimize issues.

Note 2: Our intention is to put some balance into what most people see from the mainstream media about energy and environmental issues… As always, please pass this on to open-minded citizens, and link to this on your social media sites. If there are others who you think would benefit from being on our energy & environmental email list, please let me know. If at any time you’d like to be taken off this list, simply send me an email saying that.

Note 3: This Newsletter is intended to supplement the material on our website, WiseEnergy.org. The most important page there is the Winning page.

Note 4: I am not an attorney, so no material appearing in any of the Newsletters (or our WiseEnergy.org website) should be construed as giving legal advice. My recommendation has always been: consult a competent licensed attorney when you are involved with legal issues.

Trump Approved the First-Ever U.S. Oil Facility in Arctic Waters

The Department of the Interior approved what could be the first-ever oil and gas production facility in U.S.-controlled Arctic waters Wednesday.

Hilcorp Alaska submitted a proposal to build a 9-acre gravel island off the coast of Alaska in the Beaufort Sea. The artificial island, called the Liberty Project, will serve as a well-pad that will support a drilling rig, pipelines and storage facilities similar to other artificial islands in the area.

2019-2024 Alaska Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Draft Proposed Program Areas

2019-2024 Alaska Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Draft Proposed Program Areas (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management)

“We’re announcing approval of the Hilcorp Liberty Project, which if completed, will be the first production facility ever located in federal waters off Alaska,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a statement. “American energy dominance is good for the economy, the environment, and our national security.”

“Responsibly developing our resources, in Alaska especially, will allow us to use our energy diplomatically to aid our allies and check our adversaries,” Zinke added. “That makes America stronger and more influential around the globe.”

Environmentalists have been critical of Trump’s energy policies in Alaska and have singled out the Liberty Project as “a big risk.”

“Giving us Liberty could give us the death of imperiled whales and polar bears. Conditions in the Arctic are brutal, and a major oil spill in this remote location would be impossible to clean up,” Center for Biological Diversity attorney Kristen Monsell said in a statement after the project was proposed. “There are too many things that could go wrong with this project to take such a big risk.”

Former President Barack Obama banned oil and gas drilling in the Beaufort Sea in December 2016. After taking office, President Donald Trump rescinded Obama’s Five-Year-Plan controlling oil and gas leasing in federal waters. Scrapping the plan lifted the Beaufort Sea ban and reopened vast stretches of the Outer Continental Shelf along the coasts of the U.S. to potential oil and gas development.

“Available information indicates that the Beaufort Sea possesses great oil and gas potential,” Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Alaska OCS director James Kendall said in a statement announcing the reversal of the ban.

The Liberty Project represents a goal Alaska’s congressional delegation has shared since Obama took the oil reserves beneath the Beaufort Sea out of play. Alaska’s GOP lawmakers, Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan as well as Rep. Don Young, have insisted that opening the Beaufort Sea, as well as the Cook Inlet, back up to oil and gas development be a top priority for the Trump administration’s energy policy in Alaska.

“Such a program will maximize agency resources and reflect the areas with the broadest support for development among Alaskans,” the three lawmakers told Zinke in a January letter.

Follow Tim Pearce on Twitter

RELATED ARTICLE: Trump Is Beginning To Tap Into Those Massive Alaska Oil Stores He Just Opened

EDITORS NOTE: Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. This column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Roxanne Desgagnés on Unsplash.

U.S. CO2 Emissions Plummet Under Trump While The Rest Of The World Emits More

  • U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell 2.7 percent from 2016 levels, according to the EPA.
  • Emissions on a per-capita basis hit a 67-year low last year, federal data shows, and supporters are touting EPA’s data as proof Trump’s agenda is working.
  • EPA’s new data comes on news that, globally, greenhouse gas emissions are set to rise to historic highs by the end of the year, despite nearly 200 countries signing the Paris climate accord.

Greenhouse gas emissions continued to plummet during President Donald Trump’s first year in office, according to new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data.

Based on data from more than 8,000 large facilities, EPA found greenhouse gas emissions, mostly carbon dioxide, fell 2.7 percent from 2016 to 2017. Emissions from large power plants fell 4.5 percent from 2016 levels, according to EPA.

“Thanks to President Trump’s regulatory reform agenda, the economy is booming, energy production is surging, and we are reducing greenhouse gas emissions from major industrial sources,” EPA acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement.

Earlier this year, the Energy Information Administration reported that per-capita greenhouse gas emissions hit a 67-year low during Trump’s first year in office.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration.

EPA’s new data follows news that, globally, greenhouse gas emissions are set to rise to historic highs by the end of the year, despite nearly 200 countries signing the Paris climate accord. Global greenhouse gas emissions also rose in 2017.

China is the main culprit behind rising emissions, but India and other developing countries contribute. However, recent reports have detailed how European countries aren’t on track to meet their own emissions reduction goals.

A recent report from the Climate Action Network Europe found that emissions cuts among most European Union members were “nowhere close enough” to meet the goals of the Paris accord. Trump pledged to withdraw from the Paris accord at the earliest possibility, in 2020.

On the flip side, the U.S. led the world in emissions cuts for the ninth time this century, according to the oil giant BP’s annual energy statistics. BP reported that European Union “emissions were also up (1.5%) with just Spain accounting for 44% of the increase.

German and French emissions increased 0.1 and 2 percent, respectively, last year, BP reported, while the “UK and Denmark reported the lowest carbon emissions in their history.”

Long held up as a poster child for fighting global warming, Germany is on track to miss its 2020 emissions targets. The government will likely instead push its goal of cutting CO2 emissions back to 2030.

Reactions after Bavaria state election in Berlin

German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leadership meeting in Berlin, Germany, October 15, 2018. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch.

Europe’s recent struggles with emissions cuts has emboldened supporters of Trump’s approach to emissions cuts, prioritizing private sector technology over government regulations.

“These achievements flow largely from technological breakthroughs in the private sector, not the heavy hand of government,” Wheeler said in a statement.

However, critics of the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda say actions today will cause emissions to increase in the future. Environmentalists and some states have sued to stop the administration rolling back Obama-era environmental regulations.

Democrats and environmentalists hope to use Trump’s rolling back of environmental regulations to drive voters to the polls in November.

“We know what everyone who wants to fight back must do: vote on November 6th. We know where the allegiances of Trump and his accomplices in Congress lie. Now it is up to us to make the change that is needed,” Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune said in a statement.

Activists opposed to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline project tie themselves to the White House fence during an environmental protest in Washington

Civil rights activist Julian Bond (top row, 3rd L), Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune (top row, 4th L), and activists opposed to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline project tie themselves to the White House fence during an environmental protest in Washington, DC, United States on February 13, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo.

A major reason the U.S. has been able to cut emissions is the availability of low-priced natural gas. In the last decade, drillers have been able to use hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling to unlock vast shale gas reserves.

Low-priced natural gas has replaced much U.S. coal-fired capacity in recent years, which has in turn lowered emissions. Additions of wind and solar energy have also played a smaller role in reducing emissions.

“The Trump Administration has proven that federal regulations are not necessary to drive CO2 reductions,” Wheeler said. “While many around the world are talking about reducing greenhouse gases, the U.S. continues to deliver, and today’s report is further evidence of our action-oriented approach.”

COLUMN BY

Michael Bastasch | Energy Editor.

Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

VIDEO: The 3 Communication Obstacles Oil and Gas Supporters Face–and How to Overcome Them

I mentioned that I spoke to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) on the topic of “How to Win Hearts and Minds.”

In that speech I shared what I think are three of the biggest challenges in communicating about oil and gas and my basic strategy for overcoming them. A video of the speech is now online. You can watch it here.

EDITORS NOTE: Alex Epstein is author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. Follow Alex at @AlexEpstein, sign up for his newsletter at http://industrialprogress.com. For speaking inquires to to http://alexepstein.com/speaking. This video is republished with  permission.

Former Harvard U. Physicist rejects new UN IPCC report: ‘Similar claims are on par with the spam about penis enlargement’

By Dr. Lubls Motl

Lubos Motl in 2011.jpg

The boys have cried wolf too many times

A decade ago, I would probably read the press release in its entirety – plus several pages of the full report that I would pick as important or representative. The climate hysteria was already perfectly understood to be pseudoscientific hogwash promoted by left-wing activists. But there was still something new in it, something that provoked us, something we were afraid of.

I am no longer reading this garbage – and neither does an overwhelming majority of the people. There’s absolutely no true, useful, or original content in this stuff. Almost identical predictions have been proven incorrect hundreds of times. Self-described “climate scientists” and their public faces such as Al Gore have been predicting the end of the world for 2000, 2009, 2010, 2015, and every other year. Jehovah’s Witnesses can no longer compete in the number of these failed predictions of the end of the world. Nothing that would even remotely resemble their doomsday predictions has ever materialized.

These days, similar claims are on par with the spam about penis enlargement. Who was interested in such things has probably undergone the procedure, whatever it is. Others just treat it as the pollution in their mailboxes, newspapers, and on TV screens.

Spam!

The IPCC has just published a “special report 15”press releaseFAQSummary for abusers in politicsTwitter hash tagGoogle News.

I believe that the number 15 identifying the report only refers to 1.5 °C, a revived temperature change that is promoted – not for the first time. Well, maybe I missed 14 similar previous reports. (I only know the numbering of the IPCC reports that recently ended with 5 or so.) OK, these people repeat their screaming that the Earth is frying and collapsing, tropical forests and everything else will evaporate by 2030 if not by the next Christmas, we need to stop our civilization more abruptly than previously claimed and reduce our planned temperature increase from 2 °C to 1.5 °C. And the temperature change must be measured not relatively to the pre-industrial era but relatively to a new randomly chosen period, 1850-1900.

Well, I don’t even have energy to repeat more of this stuff. We’ve been bombarded by effectively equivalent garbage hundreds of times, the specifics of the newest report are completely irrelevant and uncorrelated with any events, insights, or new scientific evidence. All this fearmongering is just a random mutation of nonsense that everyone has seen many times, with some completely irrelevant and random new noise. One example of such noise is that these folks try to revive and praise biofuels again – many years after even Al Gore has admitted that the promotion of biofuels has been a giant and harmful blunder. In the absence of any genuine evidence, should we pay any attention to some random people’s effort to resuscitate this completely misguided direction in the fuel industry? Also, these new authors label nuclear energy “dangerous”. Anti-nuclear, pro-biofuel: the only thing you can say is that the IPCC was retaken by some of the even more unhinged green activists than during the previous reports.

The Earth’s climate is not threatened at all. The forest area was increasing in recent decades – by as much as 35% in Europe, mostly due to the reforestation of Eastern Europe. There is absolutely nothing special about 1850-1900 or about 1.5 °C or about 2 °C. Nothing special will happen when some temperature change reaches 1.5 °C or 2 °C. We won’t even be able to pinpoint that moment, not even with a decadal accuracy, not even with the most precise apparatuses, and not even with additional decades of hindsight. Even a warming by 10 °C would be safe but we’re pretty sure that we can’t get more than 1-2 °C in a century, the same change that has occurred in the recent 100 years and led to no clearly enough negative developments.

The tropical forests are also doing fine. The climate is more stable in these climatic zones. On top of that, the forests themselves create a local, even more stable climate for the flora and fauna that lives under the trees. There is simply zero justification for any kind of climate-related worries. The people spreading this ideology still believe in the efficiency of Goebbels’ “The lie that is repeated 100 times becomes the truth”.

But I no longer think that this stuff is efficient. This fearmongering is just spam and almost all people treat it like spam. The number of people who are inclined to be attracted by it is negligible and it is not growing. Only the people who consider themselves to be obedient soldiers of any far left-wing movement pay lip service to that junk but they don’t really believe it, either. Just look at the attractiveness of this stuff through an example on the web. Take the U.S. government’s most famous technological institution – yes, it’s NASA, the men who sent 12 other men on the Moon – and its department for climate hysteria. Yes, I am talking NASA’s GISS.

Who is the boss of it right now? Yes, it’s Gavin Schmidt, the successor of James Hansen. Did he promote the “special report”? Yes, he did. He promoted it on the professional climate fearmongers’ most important website, the Real Climate, funded by the wealthiest manipulator with the information in the world, George Soros, in 2004. How influential is RealClimate.org? Use Alexa to see that Real Climate is less influential than this blog.

But surely the special IPCC report about the looming end of the world changes this arithmetics, doesn’t it?

OK, here is Gavin Schmidt’s Real Climate blog post about this new special report about the Armageddon that is around the corner. It is short and you can see that he was frustrated when he was writing it – it was just another waste of time when he repeated all these superstitions that no one believes, not even himself. What is the reaction of the public to this NASA’s #1 fearmonger with an amplifier provided by George Soros?

After two days, the article has 10 comments. None of them commenters seems really interested in this stuff anymore, either. The IPCC wants to dramatically change the behavior of 7+ billion people but they can’t find more than 10 people in the world who would actually be attracted by such an idea. Not even a quote by a recent Berlin marathon winner at the end of Schmidt’s text allowed him to attract readers. But the previous sentence of mine will actually double the number of his readers! 😉

Message to all climate fearmongers: Give it up. This unscientific movement has already peaked in 2009, it has been dying a slow and painful death for about a decade, and you will be much happier if you accelerate it and make the climate hysteria die quickly and abruptly. If you help to accelerate this dying, if you will help all the sane people to expose how utterly idiotic and corrupt this movement has been, you will feel much happier. And you will also save lots of money because it may cost you, George Soros, a million dollars to brainwash another person – and most of these converts are just inconsequential simpletons. Climate fearmongers, you’ve become some of the most dishonest as well as useless people in the Earth’s history.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by NeONBRAND on Unsplash.

Analysis: Trump KO’s ’60 Minutes’ on ‘climate change’

“Trump’s skeptical remarks were ‘scientifically, politically and economically accurate.” – Marc Morano – Climate Depot

The mainstream media once again attempted to challenge President Donald Trump on “climate change,” but Trump emerged unscathed by refuting typical climate claims with accurate and remarkably scientific comments in an October 14, 2018, 60 Minutes interview. (Even the mainstream media acknowledged Trump’s overall interview victory: See:  Variety: ’60 Minutes’ Was Outmatched by Trump – ‘He won every segment of the interview’)

Video here: 

A Climate Depot analysis finds that President Trump’s climate remarks were scientifically, politically and economically accurate. Finally, the United States has a president who understands “global warming”! See: Full climate transcript: Trump: Scientists who promote ‘climate’ fears ‘have a very big political agenda’ – [As Variety noted, Trump understands how to battle the mainstream media: Reporter Lesley Stahl asked Trump about “the scientists who say [the effects of climate change are] worse than ever,” but was [she] unprepared to cite one; knowing, now, that the human factor will not work on Trump, a broadcaster should be prepared to cite hard facts in a faceoff with the President.]

President Trump to 60 Minutes: “I think something’s happening. Something’s changing and it’ll change back again,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a hoax. I think there’s probably a difference. But I don’t know that it’s manmade. I will say this: I don’t want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don’t want to lose millions and millions of jobs.” … “I’m not denying climate change,” he said in the interview.

Reality Check: President Trump is frankly giving his assessment of man-made climate change and his understanding is in agreement with some very high profile scientists. Trump has been remarkably consistent with his climate views, demanding that the “The Nobel committee should take the Nobel Prize back from Al Gore” in the wake of the Climategate revelations in 2010.

Trump is also correct on so-called climate “solutions” costing “trillions and trillions” of dollars. See: ‘GLOBAL WARMING’ ‘SOLUTIONS”  COULD COST $122 TRILLION  & Bjorn Lomborg on UN climate deal: ‘This is likely to be among most expensive treaties in the history of the world’

The peer-reviewed scientific literature is also bolstering Trump’s comments: 368 New 2018 Papers Support A Skeptical Position On Climate Claims

Prominent scientists agree with President Trump:

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Dr. Ivar Giever told the new book, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change,” that “The Earth has existed for maybe 4.5 billion years, and now the alarmists will have us believe that because of the small rise in temperature for roughly 150 years (which, by the way, I believe you cannot really measure) we are doomed unless we stop using fossil fuels…You and I breathe out at least thirty tons of CO2 in a normal lifespan, but nevertheless, the Environmental Protection Agency decided to classify rising carbon-dioxide emissions as a hazard to human health.”

The claim here is that carbon dioxide can have a warming impact on the atmosphere, but this does not mean CO2 is the control knob of the climate. As the University of London professor emeritus Philip Stott has noted: “The fundamental point has always been this. Climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, or variables, and the very idea that we can manage climate change predictably by understanding and manipulating at the margins one politically-selected factor (CO2), is as misguided as it gets.” “It’s scientific nonsense,” Stott added. Even the global warming activists at RealClimate.org acknowledged this in a September 20, 2008 article, stating, “The actual temperature rise is an emergent property resulting from interactions among hundreds of factors.”

Atmospheric scientist Hendrik Tennekes, a pioneer in development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at the Netherlands’ Royal National Meteorological Institute, has declared (as quoted in my book): “I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached.”

Richard Lindzen, an MIT climate scientist, said that believing CO2 controls the climate “is pretty close to believing in magic.” Climate Depot revealed the real way they find the “fingerprint” of CO2.

“We are creating great anxiety without it being justified … there are no indications that the warming is so severe that we need to panic,” award-winning climate scientist Lennart Bengtsson said. “The warming we have had the last 100 years is so small that if we didn’t have meteorologists and climatologists to measure it we wouldn’t have noticed it at all.”

University of Pennsylvania Geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack noted in 2014, “None of the strategies that have been offered by the U.S. government or by the EPA or by anybody else has the remotest chance of altering climate if in fact climate is controlled by carbon dioxide.”

In layman’s terms: All of the so-called ‘solutions’ to global warming are purely symbolic when it comes to climate. So, even if we actually faced a climate catastrophe and we had to rely on a UN climate agreement, we would all be doomed!

Renowned Princeton Physicist Freeman Dyson: ‘I’m 100% Democrat and I like Obama. But he took the wrong side on climate issue, and the Republicans took the right side’ – An Obama supporter who describes himself as “100 per cent Democrat,” Dyson is disappointed that the President “chose the wrong side.” Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere does more good than harm, he argues, and humanity doesn’t face an existential crisis. ‘What has happened in the past 10 years is that the discrepancies between what’s observed and what’s predicted have become much stronger.

Nobel Prize-Winning Scientist Dr. Ivar Giaever, Who Endorsed Obama Now Says Prez. is ‘Ridiculous’ & ‘Dead Wrong’ on ‘Global Warming’ – Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Dr. Ivar Giaever: ‘Global warming is a non-problem’ – ‘I say this to Obama: Excuse me, Mr. President, but you’re wrong. Dead wrong.’

‘Global warming really has become a new religion.’ – “I am worried very much about the [UN] conference in Paris in 2015…I think that the people who are alarmist are in a very strong position.’

Green Guru James Lovelock reverses belief in ‘global warming’: Now says ‘I’m not sure the whole thing isn’t crazy’ – Condemns green movement: ‘It’s a religion really, It’s totally unscientific’ – Lovelock rips scientists attempting to predict temperatures as ‘idiots’: “Anyone who tries to predict more than five to 10 years is a bit of an idiot, because so many things can change unexpectedly.” – Lovelock Featured in Climate Hustle – Watch Lovelock transform from climate fear promoter to climate doubter!

Trump on 60 Minutes: Lesley Stahl tells Trump: “I wish you could go to Greenland, watch these huge chunks of ice just falling into the ocean, raising the sea levels.” – President Trump responds: “And you don’t know whether or not that would have happened with or without man. You don’t know.”

Reality Check: Once again, President Trump has peer-reviewed science on his side.

See: ‘Staggering’ Ice Melt ‘Deceptions’: Greenland’s Ice Sheet Melt Has Added Just 0.39 Of A Centimeter To Global Sea Levels Since 1993

2017: Greenland Ice Mass Increases To Near Record 

Analysis of Greenland temperatures finds they ‘were just as high in 1930s & 40s as they have been in recent years’ – Recent Summer temps are lower – Summer ‘temperatures since 2000 for the main part are, if anything, lower then the 1930s and 40s’

Climatologists: ‘The death of the Greenland disaster story’ – ‘Taming the Greenland Melting Global Warming Hype’ – Climatologists: ‘Humans just can’t make it warm enough up there to melt all that much ice’

Study finds ice isn’t being lost from Greenland’s interior – Published in journal Science

New paper shows N. Greenland was warmer during the early 20th century (1920-1940) & during Medieval Warm Period

Defying Climate Models, Greenland Cooled By -1.5°C During 1940-1995 As Human CO2 Emissions Rates Rose 600%

Flashback 1939: Scientist warns of ‘catastrophic collapse’ of Greenland’s ice

Flashback 1947: Warming in Arctic, Antarctic & Greenland to cause sea level ‘rise in catastrophic proportions’

President Trump to 60 Minutes: “But it (climate change) could very well go back. You know, we’re talking about over a … millions of years.”

Reality Check: Once again, President Trump is accurately citing Earth’s history. The climate has varied over billions of years, millions of years, hundreds of thousands of years, thousands of years, hundreds of years and decades.

Ivy League geologist Robert Giegengack, former chairman of the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke out against fears of rising CO2 impacts promoted by Al Gore and others. Giegengack noted that “for most of Earth’s history, the globe has been warmer than it has been for the last 200 years. It has rarely been cooler.” He explained: “[Gore] claims that temperature increases solely because more CO2 in the atmosphere traps the sun’s heat. That’s just wrong … It’s a natural interplay. As temperature rises, CO2 rises, and vice versa. … It’s hard for us to say that CO2 drives temperature. It’s easier to say temperature drives CO2.”

In 2014, Giegengack told Climate Depot: “The Earth has experienced very few periods when CO2 was lower than it is today.”

Paper finds the Alps were nearly ice-free 2000 years ago during the Roman Warming Period

New paper finds Norway glaciers much larger today than during Roman & Egyptian warming periods & Holocene climate optimum — Published in Quaternary Science ReviewsStudy: It was WARMER in Roman and Medieval times – ‘Previous estimates of historical temperatures during the Roman era and the Middle Ages were too low’

Don’t let history be rewritten! The facts about the 1970s global cooling ‘consensus’

President Trump to 60 Minutes: “They say that we had hurricanes that were far worse than what we just had with Michael,” said Trump, who identified “they” as “people” after being pressed by “60 Minutes” correspondent Leslie Stahl.

Reality Check: Bravo, President Trump. The “they” that President Trump is referring to even include the UN IPCC reports! See:

UN IPCC Report Admits Extreme Weather Events Have Not Increased

Meteorologist Joe Bastardi explains Hurricane Michael: ‘This is not climate change’

Extreme Weather Expert Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.: Category 4+ land-falling hurricanes have decreased over 70% since 1970

Blaming bad weather/hurricanes on Trump and/or ‘global warming’ is a throwback to medieval witchcraft – Book Excerpt
Analysis: Many of Hurricane Michael’s ‘record-breaking’ claims don’t stand up to scrutiny
Sen Schumer goes full witchcraft: ‘If We Would Do More on Climate Change, We’d Have Fewer of These Hurricanes’ – Schumer claims: Human Beings Could Reduce Frequency of HurricanesMeteorologist Joe Bastardi explains Hurricane Michael: ‘This is not climate change’

Book counters media hype on 1 in 100-year and beyond weather events: ‘It is perfectly normal to have a 1 in 100-year event every year’

President Trump to 60 Minutes: Stahl asked Trump, “What about the scientists who say it’s worse than ever?” the president replied, “You’d have to show me the scientists because they have a very big political agenda.”

Reality Check: Yes! Once again, President Trump is correct.  ‘Global warming’ fears are predicated on “a very big political agenda” and that agenda is pushed hard by the activist scientists. See:

Media touts UN IPCC as World’s Top Scientists — But who are they? Answer: Activists

German Climate Scientist Accuses IPCC Of Alarmism: Calls climate fears ‘fictional’

Warmist Eric Holthaus: New IPCC report calls for ‘rigorous backing to systematically dismantle capitalism’

UN scientist claims Trump ‘poses the single greatest threat’ to Earth’s climate

UN IPCC is ‘a purely political body posing as a scientific institution’ – The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change – Book excerpt
‘Same old, same old’ –  Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry on New UN IPCC report – ‘The IPCC still has not made a strong case for this massive investment to prevent 1.5C warming’
Former Harvard U. Physicist rejects new UN IPCC report: ‘I am no longer reading this garbage’ – ‘Similar claims are on par with the spam about penis enlargement’New UN IPCC report warns of yet another tipping point! Give UN trillions or we die! Trump ‘poses the single greatest threat’ to climate

The following is an excerpt from the new 2018 best-selling book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change.

Prof. John Brignell: “The creation of the UN IPCC was a cataclysmic event in the history of science. Here was a purely political body posing as a scientific institution. Through the power of patronage, it rapidly attracted acolytes. ‘Peer review’ soon rapidly evolved from the old style refereeing to a much more sinister imposition of The Censorship.”

Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning environmental physical chemist from Japan, is another UN IPCC scientist who has turned his back on the UN climate panel. Kiminori declared that global warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history….When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.”

UN IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri admitted the IPCC is an arm of world governments and serves at their “beck and call.” “We are an intergovernmental body and we do what the governments of the world want us to do,” Pachauri told the Guardian in 2013.

In 2012, a year before the report came out, former UN climate chief Yvo de Boer announced that the next IPCC report “is going to scare the wits out of everyone.” He added, “I’m confident those scientific findings will create new political momentum.”

UN IPCC is ‘a purely political body posing as a scientific institution’

Climate Depot reports on UN IPCC report herehere & here

Statement by Marc Morano, publisher of Climate Depot and author of the 2018 new book: “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change.” –
Morano: “The UN claims they were struggling with how bad to convey the allegedly ‘grim’ news about climate change. But what the media is not telling the public is these UN climate reports are self-serving reports that have predetermined outcomes. The UN hypes the climate ‘problem’ then puts itself in charge of the ‘solution.’ And the mainstream media goes along with such unmitigated nonsense. The UN even leaks their true motivation with these reports, calling for “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society. 

My new book details the many UN scientists who have resigned and turned against the UN. The UN IPCC has admitted these “solutions’ they are advocating for have nothing to do with science. Scientists are not impressed with this latest UN attempt this week to re-engineer every aspect of human life.

The Associated Press’ Seth Borenstein has attempted to bolster the scientific credentials of the UN IPCC, Borenstein wrote on October 7: “The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its gloomy report at a meeting in Incheon, South Korea.” But what Borenstein leaves out is that the UN IPCC won the Nobel PEACE Prize for political activism, not a Nobel scientific award. And there is a good reason why the UN IPCC won’t be winning any Nobel prizes for science. See below.

The UN IPCC is at it again and the media is drooling over the alarm. See:

UN issues yet another climate tipping point – Humans given only 12 more years to make ‘unprecedented changes in all aspects of society’

The new book, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change”, reveals, climate tipping points have a long history of repetition, moved deadlines and utter failure. The book documents that the earliest climate “tipping point” was issued in 1864 by MIT professor who warned of “climatic excess” unless humans changed their ways.

Book excerpt: 

Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from author Marc Morano’s new 2018 best-selling book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change. The section below is excerpted from  CHAPTER 13: “The Ever-Receding Tipping Point”: 

(Move over Rachel Carson! – Morano’s Politically Incorrect Climate Book outselling ‘Silent Spring’ at Earth Day – Order Your Book Copy Now! ‘The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change’ By Marc Morano)

Book Excerpt – Bonus Chapter: Have We Advanced since the Middle Ages?

CHAPTER 13 The Ever-Receding Tipping Point – Page 215
Deadlines Come and Go – Page 217
The Last Chance – Page 220
“Serially Doomed” – Page 222

1864 Tipping Point Warns of “Climatic Excess”

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is from WhiteHouse.gov.

Alex Epstein on Big Concepts, Solar Impact, Human Innovation, and more!

The Right Media published an interview with me stating:

Alex Epstein is the founder and President of the Center for Industrial Progress (CIP). He’s joined Ben Shields today to discuss the climate, the science, the tech, and the physics behind the energy industries. Alex’s book, ‘The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels’: http://industrialprogress.com/store/ If you feel compelled to donate, superchat should be available, but paypal cuts out the middleman (YT) and assures more of your money goes to the destination you so choose.

Three ‘Green’ ballot initiatives to shut down fossil fuels this November

Three initiatives are on the ballot this November in Colorado, Arizona, and Washington State, all aimed at severely restricting fossil fuel use and development within these states’ borders.

With the Trump administration putting a stop to aggressive action on climate change at the federal level, environmentalist groups across the nation are trying to achieve their goals through action on the state level.

In Colorado, Proposition 112 seeks to increase the “setback” requirement for new oil and gas activity on non-federal land – increasing it from 500-ft to 2,500-ft from designated structures and vulnerable areas. In laymen’s terms, this means that there can be no new drilling within 2,500 feet of essentially any structure – whether it is a house, fire station, garage, or whatever — on non-federal land.

Colorado Rising, the group pushing for the enactment of Proposition 112, says that the 2,500 feet setback is necessary “…based on peer-reviewed health studies indicating that health impacts are greatest within a half mile of a ‘fracking’ site.” In fact, the group even hints that this distance is not far enough. “Some studies indicate that a more appropriate minimum setback should be 1 mile, and the average evacuation distance for a well blowout is 0.8 miles.”

But such statements are rebutted by numerous other studies, including a four-year long one carried out by President Obama’s EPA which found that fracking created no adverse impact on water quality.

The Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Coalition (COGCC), a Colorado State government agency, also provided a report showing that at least three of the top five oil and gas producing counties in Colorado would be significantly impacted by the measure. The initiative would make it almost impossible to develop oil and gas east of the Rockies.

Also, according to an analysis performed by a coalition of the Colorado Association of Realtors, the Colorado Bankers Association, Colorado Concern, Common Sense Policy Roundtable and Denver South Economic Development Partnership, the definitions of what the language in the measure refer to is very unclear. Proposition 112 says that there will be no new drilling within 2,500 feet of an “occupied structure and any area designated for additional protection.”

The analysis states that “it is likely that ‘Occupied Structure’ would encompass far more buildings than ‘High Occupancy’ thus increasing not only the distance of new oil and gas activity from structures but also increasing the number of structures subject to setback.”

Bob Schaffer, a former congressman from the state, wrote an op-ed in the Coloradan against Proposition 112, formerly known as Initiative 97. He said, “85 percent of Colorado’s non-federal land would be off-limits to new natural-gas harvesting. A restriction of Initiative 97’s magnitude, according to a June analysis released by the Colorado Alliance of Mineral and Royalty Owners, could cost our state an unfathomable $26 billion in lost revenues, and legal takings claims.”

In Arizona, Proposition 127 would amend the Arizona State Constitution to mandate that 50% of power derived from public utilities must come from renewable resources by 2030. Nuclear power is not counted as a “renewable” option under the measure.

Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona Committee claims passage of this initiative will create “thousands of good jobs.” They claim that the number of jobs in Arizona’s solar industry is diminishing when compared to the national average, and Proposition 127 is needed to reverse that trend. Few specific data are referenced.

In contrast, analysis performed by the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University paints a starkly different picture. Their research found that Proposition 127 would hardly be an economic boon to the Grand Canyon State – in fact it would cause disposable personal income to plummet by a hefty $23.0 billion in the coming decades (2018-2060). In addition, the study also found that Prop 127 would cause some 305,000 “job years of employment” to be lost, and the Arizona economy as a whole would lose a whopping $36.8 billion in Gross State Product.

Added to this are other concerns. According to group “NO on 127,” the ballot measure would also cause the Palo Verde nuclear power plant to close by 2025, costing the State $55 million in property tax revenue annually.

In Washington State, Initiative 1631 proposes to enact a “fee” on carbon emissions of $15 per ton, starting in 2020, which then goes up $2 per ton every single year. The Atlantic reports that in 2035, the fee is projected to reach $55 per ton. At that point state lawmakers will have the option to either freeze the cost in place or continue to let it increase by $2 per year.

The reason proponents are calling this a “fee” and not a “tax” is because the revenues generated by this Initiative can only be spent on projects relating to climate change, carbon emissions, and transitioning from fossil fuels. Lawmakers would thus be unable to use the money generated for other purposes. A 15-member board would be in charge of deciding how to spend the funds. It remains unclear, however, exactly how this roughly $1 billion in new revenue every year would be spent by the board.

Dana Bieber, spokeswoman for the “No on 1631 Coalition” said, “This very powerful 15-member panel will be responsible for doling out billions upon billions of dollars … I think when we are talking about the greatest challenge of our time — and that’s climate change — I don’t think we should leave it in the hands of 15 unelected people.”

The Atlantic further explains that supporters of Initiative 1631 claim the measure will only cost residents $10 a month in a “worst-case scenario.” But opponents say this is unrealistic.

The Seattle Times reports that Puget Sound Energy, which relies on coal and gas for 60% of its power generation, would be hit much harder by this policy than Seattle City Light, which is supported by hydroelectricity in the region. When utilities pass the cost of the fee onto consumers, some ratepayers will be hit much harder than others.

Monty Anderson, the Executive Secretary of the Seattle Building & Construction Trades Council, which represents some 20,000 workers, is opposed to Initiative 1631. “It’s just a large gas tax. That’s the way we see it, and that’s the problem,” Anderson said. “And I don’t think they are going to stop investing in alternative energy just because we don’t have a special gas tax here.”

The voters of Colorado, Arizona, and Washington State will be making important choices this November. Their decisions will either inspire, or deflate, future efforts by environmentalist groups to continue pushing radical green policies at the state level.

About the Author: Adam Houser

Adam Houser coordinates student leaders for CFACT’s collegians program and writes on issues of climate and energy.

EDITORS NOTE: This column and image originally appeared on CFACT. Republished with permission.

Two Charts Confirm that Fossil Fuels Rock — Renewables Fizzle

On What’s Up With That  David Middleton in a column titled “There Has Never Been An Energy Transfer” published the following charts:

Middleton concludes, “It’s a fossil fueled world.” Any questions?

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by Zbynek Burival on Unsplash.

It’s time for Floridians to demand exploring for oil and natural gas off our shorelines

Floridians will vote on Ballot initiative NO. 9 –  TITLED: Prohibits Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling; Prohibits Vaping in Enclosed Indoor Workplaces on November 6, 2016. If this ballot initiative passes it will have a profound impact on Florida’s economic future.

BALLOT INITIATIVE NO. 9:

Prohibits drilling for the exploration or extraction of oil and natural gas beneath all state-owned waters between the mean high water line and the state’s outermost territorial boundaries. Adds use of vapor-generating electronic devices to current prohibition of tobacco smoking in enclosed indoor workplaces with exceptions; permits more restrictive local vapor ordinances.

Floridians and businesses in the Sunshine state depend on cheap, reliable and plentiful energy to survive and prosper. The tourism, agricultural and construction industries are especially vulnerable to increased cost for energy and fossil fuels.

In an August 8th, 2018 article titled “Environmental Activists Ignore The Strong Case For Offshore Oil Drilling” Executive Director of the Florida American Petroleum Institute David Mica wrote:

While environmental activists continue to push the same weak claims for opposing offshore energy exploration and production despite successful operations elsewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, there are 56,000 reasons why Florida should open its waters to exploration.

That’s the number of high-paying Florida jobs Florida could see by 2035 if it embraces its offshore opportunities. And the benefits don’t stop there.

Mica points out additional offshore oil and gas production could positively impact:

  • National security: Why depend on foreign, often hostile, sources of energy when we have the potential to secure our own resources here at home?
  • Exports: With abundant domestic energy resources, the U.S. can be the world’s energy leader, creating jobs at home and enhancing security for our allies abroad. Win-win.
  • Increased Safety: Offshore operations today are safer than ever before. Since 2010, more than 100 standards have been created or strengthened, including for improved safety and environmental management, well design, blowout prevention, and spill response.
  • Price at the pump: Every barrel of oil we produce domestically adds stability to the global oil supply, putting downward pressure on prices. As the third largest consumer of motor fuels in the U.S., Florida benefits from greater domestic energy production and has the potential to significantly contribute to it as well.
  • Environmental Protection: Florida has received more than $908 million in federal funding over the past five decades to conserve our precious natural and historic treasures. That funding comes from oil and natural gas revenues. We can safely produce energy and use the revenues for important environmental conservation throughout the state. Another win-win.
  • Hurricane disruptions: Everyone in Florida knows the potential damage hurricanes can have on daily life and livelihoods. Further diversification of the nationwide energy infrastructure network would help prevent disruptions to gasoline supply after storms.
  • Energy conservation: Greater use of natural gas for electricity generation has helped drive U.S. carbon emissions to 25-year lows. Florida is on the front lines of this exciting trend, generating more than 60 percent of its electricity from clean, affordable natural gas and demonstrating that energy production and environmental progress are not mutually exclusive.
  • Florida’s Tourism Economy: Decades of experience in the Gulf of Mexico confirm that energy development can safely coexist with fishing and tourism, as state officials with firsthand experience enthusiastically attest.

In the Sunshine State news article “Explore Offshore Makes Their Case for More Energy Exploration off Florida Coasts” Kevin Derby reported:

The national “Explore Offshore” campaign, which was launched in June, is led by former U.S. Veterans Affairs Sec. Jim Nicholson, who led the Republican National Committee (RNC), and former U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2016 election cycle.

[ … ]

Nicholson was in Tallahassee on Wednesday [August 15, 2018] and made the case for expanding energy exploration in the Sunshine State.

“Our American way of life and the freedoms we enjoy are undoubtedly linked to access to affordable, reliable energy,” Nicholson said. “At the same time, 94 percent of America’s offshore energy resources are completely off-limits to natural gas and oil development, disallowing hundreds of thousands of American jobs and abundant domestic energy supply, and keeping us reliant on foreign sources.

“As we plan ahead as a country, access to our offshore energy resources is a key part of the nation’s economic future and national security, and that is why I am pleased to chair the national Explore Offshore USA coalition,” Nicholson added. “Uniting supporters from Virginia to Florida, we will continue to work to ensure access to our offshore energy resources to support reliable, affordable energy, boost national security, and assure a strong United States economy.”

Cheap, reliable and plentiful energy is the life blood of any economy. Those who would deprive Floridians of these natural resources, like the Obama administration, do not have our best interests in mind.

RELATED ARTICLES:

There Has Never Been An Energy Transition

Offshore Energy Exploration Is Safe, Has Been Going on for 81 Years

Voters: Offshore Energy Is Good for Florida

The Benefits of U.S. Offshore Oil and Natural Gas Development in the Eastern Gulf

How Do You Tell If The Earth’s Climate System “Is Warming”?

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by Jason Leung on Unsplash.

VIDEO: Alex Epstein’s Q&A with energy MBA students at TCU

Two years ago I got an invitation from TCU professor Ed Ireland to talk to his energy MBA students. The class had read my book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, and Ed wanted them to have the chance to ask me their toughest questions. (You can view it here.)

It was one of the most enjoyable Q&As on energy I’ve done, and so I was excited when Ed invited me back again this year to discuss fossil fuels with a new class of energy MBAs. This time we covered a lot of interesting territory including the meaning of “sustainability,” my biggest pollution concerns, the criminalization of nuclear, and California’s commitment to be “100% CO2-free” by 2045.

After reading “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels,” Professor Ed Ireland’s Energy MBA students bring their toughest questions in this remote Q&A session with me.

Upcoming Speeches

I’m getting ready for a bunch of speaking engagements that are coming up in the next few weeks.

  • 9/26 – California Tripartite Conference
  • 10/1 – Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC)
  • 10/8 – Independent Lubricant Manufacturers Association (ILMA)
  • 10/9 – New Mexico Oil and Gas Association (NMOGA)

If you’re interested in having me speak at a high level event, here is the latest list of the topics I cover:

Clarity

  • Human Flourishing and Energy Progress
  • The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
  • Our Fossil Future: Why Fossil Fuels Will Continue to Outcompete Solar, Wind, and EVs
  • What Exactly is “Social Responsibility Investing”? A Human Flourishing Approach
  • The Moral Case for Fossil Fuel Investment
  • How Moral Biases Cause Bad Investments
  • Understanding the ESG Threat
  • The Moral Case for Nuclear Power
  • The Moral Case for GMOs
  • The Moral Case for Chemicals

Persuasion

  • “Arguing to 100”: How to reframe the debate instead of reacting to the debate
  • How to Win Hearts and Minds
  • How to Talk to Anyone About Energy
  • Asymmetric strategy: How to persuade more people with fewer resources
  • Constructive Conversations Workshop
  • Asymmetric Strategy Workshop

Inspiration

  • The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
  • Energy Heroes
  • The Oil Industry’s Millennial Problem—And How to Solve it

To host me on one of these topics or any other topic click the button below.

Send Event Details 
 

The Human Flourishing Project: Relaxed productivity (part 1)

On the latest episode of The Human Flourishing Project I discuss what “relaxed productivity” is, why it’s so desirable, and what practices can help us achieve it.

Visit our Facebook page and join in the discussion. And for the latest news visit humanflourishingproject.com where you can sign up to receive email updates.

Popular link

To learn more and get free resources visit http://industrialprogress.com/speaking

VIDEO: From Green to Blue

As fall nips the air — it’s movie watching time.

Filmmaker J.D. King does a great job bringing you the stories of how the Green movement impacted real people’s lives.  He offers a better alternative – A cleaner world through freedom, science and prosperity.

Here’s the official description:

For decades, we’ve been told that Earth is threatened by the activity and even the existence of Mankind. Green policies dictate that the noble response is sacrificing freedom and prosperity to save the planet from peril. Concerned about the future of our country and planet, award-winning filmmaker JD King sets out on a cinematic journey to challenge the Green status quo. Will carbon emissions really cause climate catastrophe? Are we in danger of running out of resources? Is development truly harmful for the environment? Is Green merely a disguise for a new Red? BLUE not only exposes Green’s agendas, but also casts a bold new vision: that through freedom we can realize a fuller potential for humanity and this beautiful planet we call home. 

Professor Matt Malkin of UCLA writes:

In BLUE, filmmaker JD King takes you into some of the most spectacular forest lands in North America, and introduces you to many of the real people who have made their lives there for generations. They are now in a desperate battle to save everything they value, their land, their jobs, their families, their way of life. You may be shocked to discover that their worst enemy has become the ‘environmental’ movement. Do our new environmental governors really know what is best for these rich precious lands? To the contrary, JD King explores the reality underneath the rhetoric, and shows that this movement is no longer about humans’ proper conservancy of nature, but is all about seizing the new ‘green’–of money, power and dictatorial control. Can rational rules for these lands–based on the human values of rights and freedom–prevail? Some of the true stories you will see in this movie may outrage you, some of them will move and inspire you, but you will never take the claims and demands of ‘environmental leaders’ at face value again after experiencing BLUE.

Blue is beautifully filmed and compellingly told.

I enjoyed it and and I think you will too.

Check out “Blue.” You can get your copy at the CFACT store.

Special Report: JAE … Who or What caused this Stinking mess? by Lloyd Brown

In 1973, seemingly was sitting pretty: 100 percent dependent on oil to produce electricity and invested in a long-term fuel contract to buy oil.

Suddenly, a little known outfit called OPEC – an Arab oil cartel – decided to triple the price of oil.

The wise men who had secured that contract now looked like fools and the public was irate as electricity rates soared.

Over the next few decades, OPEC’s power waned and the city-owned independent authority managed to diversify its fuel supply and make its plants adaptable. For many years local rates were among the lowest in Florida.

Ten years ago, the JEA made another bet. It decided to “go nuclear” in a big way by entering into a contract with Georgia municipal electric utilities to help build a nuclear plant and buy the electricity it would produce.

That, too, has gone south.

Nuclear is risky. Although it produces clean energy it is opposed by environmentalists and heavily regulated by the government.

Last year, South Carolina dropped plans to build a nuclear plant after pouring $10 billion into the project.

Plant Vogtle in Georgia has been a mess almost from the start. Local politicians have eyed the deal nervously, trying to assess how much the cost could be to the city if it failed.

With the JEA’s estimated cost moving into the billions, the city now has sued to get out of the contract. Its partner also is suing JEA for breaching the contract.

In effect, the city is asking the court to nullify the contract because the city failed to protect itself adequately.

That’s a rather stark admission and it raises the question of why didn’t the General Counsel’s Office do a better job?

The irony is that in the 1970s, it was the city’s general counsel who blew up a deal with Offshore Power Systems to provide nuclear power plants in Jacksonville. Harry Shorstein argued that the proposed contract did not provide the city with adequate protection. Civic leaders enamored of the prospect of thousands of jobs fumed, but the deal fell apart.

The city also is complaining that the City Council never approved the agreement.

Why not?

As I recall, when the JEA partnered with Florida Power & Light to build the St. Johns River Power Park on the Northside at a cost of $2 billion, the council voted to approve it – but only with the stipulation that the city would have no part in building or operating the plant.

The late Councilman Bill Carter said he didn’t think the businessmen involved in the project wanted to have a bunch of politicians involved in the deal.

The council also approves JEA bond sales and the JEA’s budget.

But JEA has said a new “unlimited cost-plus reimbursement agreement” was implemented without its approval in June 2017 after the project’s original general contractor, Westinghouse, declared bankruptcy. The amended agreement reportedly increased JEA’s liability to more than $2.9 billion, and the original cap of $1.4 billion is no longer in effect.

The Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, near Waynesboro, Ga., near the South Carolina border, is one of Georgia Power’s two nuclear facilities and is one of three nuclear facilities in the Southern Company system. Construction of the plant started in 1974. Two units began operating in the late 1980s.

The current project is to add two units. If it is ever completed, Plant Vogtle would be the largest power station in the nation.

Although it is large to local ratepayers, the JEA stake is relatively small in the overall deal. Its agreement is with the Municipal Electric Association of Georgia (MEAG), which has a 23 percent stake in the overall project that now exceeds $27 billion.

Last month, JEA’s CEO Aaron Zahn sent a sharply worded letter to the head of MEAG demanding that MEAG withdraw from the troubled project. Under the agreement, JEA has to pay 41 percent of MEAG’s share of the cost, and that obligation exists even if the project is not built, MEAG contends.

A vote by the three majority owners is scheduled Sept. 24 on whether the project will continue.

Another irony is that Westinghouse — the original owner of Vogtle that went bankrupt last year from the financial burden – also was the parent of OPS, which built a plant on Blount Island in the 1970s from which it planned to build floating nuclear power plants that would be used by JEA and other utilities worldwide.

The mess is affecting everyone. Georgia Power’s bond rating has been lowered, and the holding company, Southern Co., says failure of the project could significantly affect its earnings. Moody’s credit rating service has moved JEA’s financial outlook from “stable” to “negative,” citing major concerns with JEA’s financial ties to Plant Vogtle.

JEA has entered into an agreement that obligates it to a huge cost, yet it has no ownership in the project. In its suit, the city says “the City and JEA are uncertain as to the validity of the PPA (power purchase agreement) and seek a declaration of JEA’s rights, duties and obligations thereunder. “

If JEA is stuck with having to pay a share of the rising cost of units that may never produce power, JEA customers could take a drubbing, although the utility says it is taking steps to prevent that from happening.

Many questions remain, such as: How did the original agreement come into being without City Council approval? Did the General Counsel’s Office help negotiate and write the agreement the city now is calling unfair?

We asked the General Counsel’s Office those questions and got a big, fat “No comment.”

In my experience, when everyone clams up, it means somebody dropped the ball.

ABOUT LLOYD BROWN

Lloyd was born in Jacksonville. Graduated from the University of North Florida. He spent nearly 50 years of his life in the newspaper business …beginning as a copy boy and retiring as editorial page editor for Florida Times Union. He has also been published in a number of national newspapers and magazines, as well as Internet sites. Married with children. Military Vet. Retired. Man of few words but the words are researched well, deeply considered and thoughtfully written.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on Eye On Jacksonville.

INFOGRAPHIC: Side by Side Comparison of Candidates for Governor of Florida

This infographic provides a comparison of the policy positions of Gubernatorial Candidates Republican Ron DeSantis and Socialist Andrew Gillum.

Infographic provided by Ron DeSantis for Governor campaign.

EDITORS NOTE: The modified featured image is by Alex Perez on Unsplash.