Governments are forcing the public to buy EVs even if they don’t want the WOKE nonsense.
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., Wall Street Journal, “A zombie business or industry, in today’s parlance, is one sustained less by creative destruction than by a combination of government bailout, regulation and hidden subsidies. This is what the global auto sector is becoming.”
The auto industry gambles its finances on big electric vehicles for the rich, like Ford’s Mustang Mach-E and GM’s Hummer EV, and second-rate cars for everybody else.
If consumers and businesses cared about the CO2 they emit, the last cars they might buy are hot-selling EVs like Ford’s Mustang Mach-E or GM’s Hummer EV.
These large-battery, long-range vehicles would have to be driven many tens of thousands of miles before they rack up enough mileage and save enough gasoline to compensate for the emissions created to produce their batteries. And that’s according to their fans, whose calculations often smell of friendly assumptions about the source of the electricity consumed, whether gasoline driving is really being displaced mile for mile, and a presumed lack of progress in the meantime in reducing the carbon intensity of conventional motor fuels. Most problematic of all is the assumption that EV use causes oil to stay in the ground.
If a real incentive to reduce CO2 were in place, namely a carbon tax, buyers would gravitate to the smallest-battery vehicles and hybrids, suitable for running about town but not highway trips. These cars stand a better chance of offsetting their lifecycle emissions.
OK. Buyers aren’t drawn to the electric Mustang or Ford’s new F-150 Lightning pickup to solve climate change. These are exciting, high-tech gadgets in their own right. And that’s fine. Even so, customers’ appetite might slacken if they were told the truth. Ford leaked this week for the benefit of the investment community plans to lay off thousands of workers to fatten the profits of its conventional vehicles. This extra cash is needed to support electric vehicles that lose money despite taxpayer rebates plus hidden subsidies via our convoluted fuel-economy and trade regulations.
Ford’s leak may be a turning point. Conventional vehicles will be starved for investment from here on out, even as auto makers throw money at big-battery EVs for luxury buyers.
This trade-off could actually lead to worse emissions than otherwise (though still a rounding error in total global emissions) considering that most nonrich consumers will likely opt for gasoline-powered cars for decades to come. It also represents a gamble with the industry’s finances, which depend on large, government-protected profits from standard SUVs and pickups. If these vehicles start looking shabby and out of date due to lack of investment, the industry is in deep straits. As Ford CEO Jim Farley said in March, “we need them to be more profitable to fund” Ford’s $50 billion in spending on mostly high-end EVs, which have the least chance of being net reducers of CO2.
These outcomes make no sense in climate terms, naturally. Nissan is giving up its pioneering electric Leaf in favor of a big electric SUV aimed at affluent shoppers. One manufacturer that speaks confidently of profits in the near term from electric vehicles is Porsche—whose cars don’t rack up Camry-like mileages, don’t displace gasoline-powered trips to the Shop-Rite, and don’t stand a snowball’s chance of offsetting the emissions involved in producing their powerful batteries.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2022-07-26 05:52:242022-07-26 05:54:13If Consumers, Businesses Cared About ‘Climate’, The Last Cars They’d Buy Are Hot-Selling Electric Vehicles
A guy who lost a presidential election but made a fortune has some thoughts on the political system.
Gore, in an interview with Meet the Press’ Chuck Todd that will air Sunday, said that public sentiment is changing in regards to climate change but that “democracy is broken,”
The only people who think “democracy is broken” want to eliminate it.
Much like “the Supreme Court is broken” or “the Constitution is broken.”
The former vice president also called for the filibuster to be eliminated, saying that “we have a minority government….we have big money playing much too large a role in our politics.”
Gore, who went from an estimated $1.7 million to over $200 million knows all about “big money” and where to get it.
The environmentalist scam has been adopted by green investors who want to hijack our entire economy, as they have already hijacked the economies of entire states, like California, and countries, like those of much of Europe, and they insist on destroying anyone who stands in their way.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2022-07-26 05:38:412022-07-26 05:38:59Gore: Eliminate Democracy to Save Planet
In it, he provided an assertive defence of fuels which enable so many aspects of modern life, but which many suggest threaten our survival in the long-term.
In the decade since Epstein’s emergence on the fringes of the climate debate, concerns about rising temperatures have grown with the effect that governments have committed themselves to ever-more radical decarbonisation policies, in particular the increased use of renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
Epstein accepts the scientific evidence that the increases in greenhouse gas emissions in recent centuries due to human activity have increased the Earth’s temperatures. At the same time, he rejects the central premise of the modern environmental movement by maintaining that this does not threaten the survival of our species.
Instead, he convincingly argues that the widespread availability of fossil fuels has been crucial in leading to an unprecedented improvement in living standards in the developed world.
Counterintuitive
Not only do fossil fuels allow us to do more things and enjoy a more comfortable existence, Epstein also writes that they help humanity to guard against natural disasters and the negative impact of a gradually changing climate. For this reason, we need more fossil fuel use, not less. He writes:
“[M]ore fossil fuel use will actually make the world a far better place, a place where billions more people will have the opportunity to flourish, including: to pull themselves out of poverty, to have a chance to pursue their dreams, and — this will likely seem craziest of all — to experience higher environmental quality and less danger from climate.”
Epstein maintains that it is especially vital that the billions of people in what he calls the “unempowered world”, who currently use almost no energy, can enjoy the benefits which so many of us take for granted.
One example of the suffering which energy poverty imposes is the fact that almost 800 million people have no access to electricity, while around 2.4 billion people still rely on wood and animal dung to cook and heat their homes.
Without easy access to oil, gas and coal, people living in these environments will never escape an existence which involves so much daily hardship.
Energy use is clearly correlated with various measurements of human progress (such as increased life expectancy), and the author cites the examples of China and India whose economic rise has largely been fuelled by coal and other fossil fuels.
Their rise forms part of an often unheralded advance in living standards which has occurred in recent decades, in which the extreme poverty rate worldwide has decreased from 35% in 1990 to less than 10% today.
Epstein insists that this transformation could not have happened without fossil fuels, and he maintains that they enjoy a range of advantages including greater affordability, reliability, versatility and scalability.
Valid arguments
When it comes to the statistics he cites, again it is difficult to argue with Epstein’s stance.
Fossil fuels provide 80% of the world’s energy, whereas solar and wind power provide just 3%. Crucially, unlike wind and solar, fossil fuels are not an intermittent source of energy. They can be more easily stored and transported, and far more energy is concentrated within them.
Contrary to the claims of some commentators, they are also not running out: proven oil and gas reserves have increased in recent decades, thanks in part due to new technologies being used to extract them like fracking, which the green movement continues to fight against tenaciously.
In the area of mobile energy, oil is especially important, and is responsible for meeting virtually all humanity’s needs in the areas of shipping, aviation and heavy-duty trucking, without which the global economy would come to a shuddering halt.
Throughout the book, Epstein describes the multitude of other ways in which fossil fuels make life possible, including the powering of agricultural and industrial equipment and the use of fossil fuel materials in a wide variety of synthetic materials.
Perception
There is something more at the core of Epstein’s argument other than the evidence attesting to the importance of high-quality energy sources.
He is a philosopher by training, and he believes that the refusal of many to acknowledge the aforementioned facts stems from the popularity of an anti-impact worldview. Those who hold this viewpoint tend to seek to minimise if not eliminate the impact which humans have on a world they consider naturally safe and untainted. This also helps to explain why green activists have long opposed the use of nuclear or even hydroelectric power, neither of which contribute to emissions significantly.
Rejecting this view outright, Epstein proposes an alternative framework based around “human flourishing”, one which considers the negative impacts of carbon dioxide emissions in the context of the “climate mastery” benefits which come from having abundant supplies of energy available and being more prosperous.
This ability to cope with the vagaries of the world around us has resulted in climate-related deaths falling by 98% over the last century, even while carbon dioxide levels increased. In a similar way, technological improvements in the area of flood protection — many of which are made possible by the availability of fossil fuels — means that over 100 million now live below the level of high tide in their home area.
Epstein does not deny that the increased use of fossil fuels which he seeks will likely accelerate the pace of global warming. Instead, he simply maintains that the benefits of expanding access to energy greatly outweigh the drawbacks, while also elaborating upon the reasons why he believes many people exaggerate the risks which climate change poses.
There are many things to admire about Epstein’s central argument — in particular the insistence on recognising the importance of affordable energy to continued human prosperity and progress.
At a time when increasingly alarmist rhetoric is accelerating unwise policies, his calm and reasoned take (along with that of others like the author of False Alarm, Bjorn Lomborg) is more needed now than ever.
Quibbles
That being said, Fossil Future does not represent a major advance on Epstein’s earlier book. It covers much of the same ground and at times his analysis is too simplistic.
There are significant differences between different fossil fuels, for example, with natural gas producing only half the emissions produced by coal. Indeed, the shift from coal to gas in electricity generation in the United States has been the cause of major emissions reductions there.
Yet though he compares different energy sources, Epstein does not devote enough attention to the question of whether some fossil fuels should be favoured over others.
Even those inclined to agree with his arguments may also be perturbed by the lack of concern which Epstein has about the risks posed by climate change, compared to the attitude of Lomborg — who likens the process to having “a long-term chronic condition like diabetes — a problem that needs attention and focus, but one that we can live with.”
Epstein’s lack of scientific qualifications is another drawback, and even though he presents a cogent explanation for why the media may be overestimating the problem of climate change, many people will not take this argument seriously until it is made more firmly by specialists in the area of climate science.
In spite of this, Epstein has once again succeeded in focusing attention on facts which cannot be avoided.
“The fossil fuel elimination movement is powerful only because it has a moral monopoly, meaning that it is widely considered the only moral position,” he tells us. This is true, and by presenting readers with an alternative moral and philosophical framework with which we can examine these issues, Alex Epstein has again made a valuable contribution.
James Bradshaw works for an international consulting firm based in Dublin, and has a background in journalism and public policy. Outside of work, he writes for a number of publications, on topics including… More by James Bradshaw
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00MercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexitieshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexities2022-07-25 10:56:272022-07-25 11:17:48Fossil Fuels: Essential to Human Flourishing
On Monday, Dutch reforestation company Land Life started what has become a 35,000 acre forest fire in Spain.
These things happen. And happen.
This is the second forest fire started by Land Life in a month.
I’m starting to think that environmentalists and the rest of us have very different definitions of saving the planet.
Here’s what Land Life claims that it does.
Land Life is a tech-driven reforestation company planting trees at scale. We use a holistic approach and all of the wonderful minds of our employees, partners, and customers to create projects that remove CO2 from the atmosphere, rebuild ecosystems and work in collaboration with local communities.
Here’s what it does
“The fire started while one of our contractors was using a retro-spider excavator to prepare the soil to plant trees later this winter,” Land Life said in a statement on Thursday. “The operators alerted the emergency services. The emergency teams are working non-stop to control the fire and have fortunately established the fire perimeter. Nonetheless, we are devastated by the latest estimate that the damage will be around 14,000 hectares,” or roughly 35,000 acres.”
How many acres of trees did Land Life even plant?
It’s not clear how many acres Land Life has actually planted trees in—one blog post suggested the company aimed to plant around 20,000 acres between 2020-2021.
This is like the time that Bernie Sanders got kicked out of the Kibbutz.
The fire has forced authorities to order the evacuation of five neighboring towns, as well as a nursing home. In total, around 2,000 people had to be evacuated. Javier Lambán, the president of Aragon, said the incident is “serious and concerning,” according to local media.
Sometimes you have to break a lot of eggs to make an omelet. Or burn a lot of trees to make a forest. Or crash a lot of computers to make an OS.
As of January 1, 2021 Ernst-Jan Stigter, general manager of Microsoft in the Netherlands, will join Land Life Company as the new CEO.
This explains too much.
I’m in favor of planting trees. Personally. We just probably shouldn’t let environmentalists do it. Or much of anything else. Like at the end of Rainbow Six, take everything, leave them in the jungle knowing that while they might all get eaten by anacondas and fire ants, at least that will remove their carbon emissions from the planet.
EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2022-07-25 05:48:082022-07-25 05:48:08Environmentalists Promising to Save Planet by Planting Trees Keep Starting Forest Fires
Watch as Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) puts Biden’s Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg on the spot during a hearing on the cost to charge all electric vehicles on Tuesday, July 18th, 2022.
Congressman Massie states, “Numbers are important. It would take four times as much electricity to charge the average household’s cars as the average household uses on air conditioning. Do you think that could be — so, if we reach the goal by 2030 that Biden has of — of 50 percent adoption instead of 100 percent adoption, that means the average household would use twice as much electricity charging one of their cars as they would use for all of the air conditioning that they use for the entire year.”
Tesla Model charging
Tesla Model
Energy required to charge battery (kWh)
End charge of battery (kWh)
Model 3 Long Range
88.541 kWh
78.557 kWh
Model 3 Performance
94.242 kWh
80.818 kWh
Model S**
118.366 kWh
103.892 kWh
Model S Plaid
116.344 kWh
99.287 kWh
NOTE: Most air-conditioning units run on a cycle of 15 minutes twice per hour. The actual power consumption is at 7.7kWh.
Electric vehicle batteries need a multitude of resources to be manufactured. In the case of cobalt, the World Economic Forum has called out the extraction conditions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where more than half of the world’s cobalt comes from. Miners as young as seven years are suffering from chronic lung disease from exposure to cobalt dust. Not only does battery manufacturing account for 60 percent of the world’s cobalt use, but there are also no good solutions to replace it, which is something Elon Musk is struggling with.
This does not even address the extraction procedures, complications, ethical conditions, and emissions produced by the need for aluminum, manganese, nickel, graphite, and lithium carbonate.
With a European market estimated to reach a total of 1,200 gigawatt-hours per year, which is enough for 80 gigafactories with an average capacity of 15 gigawatt-hours per year, that need is set to increase exponentially.
The renowned German research institute IFO declared the eco-balance of diesel-powered vehicles to be superior to electric vehicles in a study released in April.
An electric vehicle requires six times the mineral inputs of a comparable internal combustion engine vehicle, according to the International Energy Agency.
At one time, “Saving the Environment” and “Fighting Climate Change” were synonymous. That is no longer true. The quest for Clean Energy through electric vehicles (EVs) epitomizes “the end justifies the means.”
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), an electric vehicle requires six times the mineral inputs of a comparable internal combustion engine vehicle (ICE). EV batteries are very heavy and are made with some exotic, expensive, toxic, and flammable materials.
The primary metals in EV batteries include Nickel, Lithium, Cobalt, Copper and Rare Earth metals (Neodymium and Dysprosium). The mining of these materials, their use in manufacturing and their ultimate disposal all present significant environmental challenges. Ninety percent of the ICE lead-acid batteries are recycled while only five percent of the EV lithium-ion batteries are.
The Bottom Line
All electric vehicles (EVs) are costly to manufacture, use exotic, expensive, toxic, and flammable materials, harm the environment and harm those children working in the mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where more than half of the world’s cobalt comes from.
Now we learn that Biden’s Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has not idea what it costs the ordinary American family to own, charge and maintain EVs. If you purchase a Tesla is will cost $45 for their outlet, and an estimated installation cost of between $750-$1500.
You see it’s not about the environment, saving the planet from climate change or what is best for the American family.
It’s all about their green agenda and its ideology. The ends justifying their nefarious means!
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2022-07-23 15:47:412022-07-26 14:29:13Charging an All Electric Car Uses 4 Times the Electricity of a Home Air Conditioner
A common (legitimate) concern with nuclear is unhealthy radiation, its usage actually emits less radiation than the burning of coal.
There is a deafening silence surrounding nuclear energy. Yet, if you are to believe the current climate alarmism on display, the world’s future is hanging by a thread. Indeed, the forceful climate marches in London last week, the Greta Thunberg-ization of the world’s youth, and David Attenborough’s new Netflix documentary are all symptoms of a growing call to arms. According to them, climate change is real and impending, and, in young Greta’s words, they “want you to panic.”
The situation appears dire. Yet, assuming it is, there seems to be a gap in reasoning. Politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are calling for a “Green New Deal,” which would seek to remove America’s carbon footprint by 2030 by “upgrading” every single one of the 136 million houses in America, completely overhauling the nation’s transport infrastructure (both public and private), and somehow simultaneously guaranteeing universal health care, access to healthy food, and economic security—without any consideration of cost. In other words, a complete pie-in-the-sky scheme that is more concerned with virtue-signaling than with pragmatic reality.
But if these people truly care about the environment and the damage being caused by climate change, why is no one talking about nuclear?
Nuclear Power
Nuclear is fully carbon-free and therefore a “clean” energy source in carbon terms. This is crucial considering the primary villain of climate change is CO2; switching to nuclear would directly cut out carbon emissions and thus represent a significant step forward, except for the construction phase (which would create a one-off nominal carbon debt about equal to that of solar farms). It has successfully contributed to decarbonizing public transport in countries such as Japan, France, and Sweden.
It is also often overlooked that nuclear is the safest way to generate reliable electricity (and far safer than coal or gas) despite Frankenstein-esque visions of nuclear meltdowns à la Chernobyl, which are ridiculously exaggerated and exceedingly rare.
Nuclear is also incredibly reliable, with an average capacity of 92.3 percent, meaning it is fully operational more than 330 days a year, which is drastically more reliable than both wind and solar—combined.
Finally, whereas a common (legitimate) concern with nuclear is that it creates unhealthy radiation, its usage actually emits less radiation than, for example, the burning of coal. Moreover, the problem posed by waste is more psychological and political nowadays than it is technological. Despite the Simpsons-inspired image of green, murky water, nuclear waste is, in fact, merely a collection of old steel rods; the nuclear waste produced in America over the last 60 years could all fit into a single medium-sized Walmart. Furthermore, it is not only securely stored in concrete-and-steel casks in the middle of deserts, but it also loses radiation over time and can actually be recycled to extend the life of nuclear production by centuries.
France and Sweden
There are explicit success stories that attest to the power of nuclear. France and Sweden, which have some of the lowest per capita carbon emissions in the developed world, both rely heavily on nuclear (72 percent and 42 percent, respectively) rather than on wind or solar power. France generated 88 percent of its electricity total from zero-carbon sources, and Sweden got an even more impressive 95 percent. At the same time, these countries have some of the lowest energy prices in Europe, whereas renewable-heavy countries such as Germany and Denmark have the two highest energy prices on the continent—without much carbon reduction to show for it relative to France and Sweden.
So why, if people such as Ms. Ocasio-Cortez care as much about the climate as they claim to, are they seemingly so blindly attracted to over-ambitious, unrealistic proposals? Indeed, a near-utopiazation of renewables fails to take into account many of the issues associated with these while neglecting the advantages of nuclear.
Renewable energy isn’t always reliable, as mentioned (which makes sense when you consider the fact that the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow). When the reliability of these renewables falters (wind turbines only provide energy 34.5 percent of the time, and solar panels an even lower 25.1 percent), expensive and carbon-heavy stop-gap measures act as backup.
Ecological Problems
There are also ecological problems. Wind and solar farms require tremendous amounts of wildlife-cleared land and are often protested by local conservationists. Electricity from solar panels on individual homes, on the other hand, a plan AOC apparently endorses, is twice as expensive, thus making it unaffordable for many American households. Though the debate rages, there is also a case to be made for the fact that wind turbines represent serious hazards to rare and threatened birds such as eagles and other birds of prey. They also threaten marine wildlife such as porpoises and coral reefs.
When compared more directly with various forms of renewable energy, the narrative also skews in nuclear’s favor. Solar farms require 450 times more land than do nuclear power plants; nuclear plants require far fewer materials for production than solar, wind, hydro, or geothermal; and solar produces up to 300 times more hazardous waste per terawatt-hour of energy than nuclear.
Yet the issues aren’t merely technological and ecological. Indeed, there is an argument that renewables such as solar and wind will become more and more efficient and cheaper over time, which is certainly true (though some experts dispute the net validity of this claim). A different problem, however, is that the context within which they are promoted, such as the “Green New Deal,” often translates into economic madness (the GND would cost up to $90 trillion according to some). It is striking how the Green New Deal encapsulates not only climate change but also health care, jobs, and housing.
Indeed, it goes much further than simply combating the issues facing our environment, incorporating a much wider agenda of socio-economic transformation. And this is why some, such as Michael Shellenberger (president of Environmental Progress—a pro-nuclear, climate change NGO), argue that left-wing politicians in the mold of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez idealize renewables: they provide an environmentalist façade for increased government intervention in areas far beyond the climate.
Expensive and Risky, but Worthwhile
Of course, nuclear isn’t perfect; it is still very expensive (though this is increasingly solvable through more standardization and long-termism), the risk of Fukushima-like disasters will probably always exist, and the localized environmental impacts are concerns to be addressed. Most importantly, the political will is still lacking.
Despite the fact that the public and private sectors spent a combined $2 trillion between 2007 and 2016 on solar and wind power, solar energy still only accounted for 1.3 percent, and wind power 3.9 percent, of the world’s electricity generation in 2016. Operating at a scale of 94 times more in federal subsidies in America for renewables than for nuclear, this looks like an unsustainable trend. Imagine if it had been invested in nuclear instead.
Rather, the Ocasio-Cortezes of the world, who are by far the most vociferous when it comes to climate change, should put money where their mouths are. Though this article is far from exhaustive and was unable to account for all the nuances and intricacies of environmental and energy policy, it seems that, at the very least, nuclear deserves a spot at the table if we are serious about saving our planet.
Christopher Barnard is the Head of Campaigning & Events for Students For Liberty UK, as well as a final-year Politics & International Relations student at the University of Kent. He tweets at @ChrisBarnardDL.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2022-07-22 14:06:192022-07-22 14:10:28If Climate Change Is a Dire Threat, Why Is No One Talking about Nuclear Power?
We recently received a text message from Team Energy—Energy Citizens on their efforts to make American energy independent again. The text message stated, “Did you see that recently we unveiled a 10 in 2022 Plan to restore US energy leadership & fuel economic recovery? It’s no secret that energy and fuel prices are rising & with this plan policymakers can help unlock American energy, fuel economic recovery, & strengthen national security. Read the plan & sign your name: text.energycitizens.org/10in22.”
We live in very uncertain times. Inflation is at historic levels. The cost of fuel is soaring.
Global and domestic supply chains are in disarray. Vladimir Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine has brought suffering and instability to Europe not seen since World War II.
Each of these challenges has a direct tie to energy, and each can be improved with assertive American energy leadership. Unfortunately, the federal government is not doing everything it can to unleash American energy potential. In some cases, policymakers in Washington are standing firmly in the way of strengthening our domestic energy sector.
That’s why we are calling on Congress and the administration to enact 10 simple – but significant – policy reforms that will boost American energy potential, ease inflation and supply chain woes, and bolster our allies in Europe that are most impacted by the war in Ukraine.
Washington policymakers must support policies that encourage energy investment, create new access, improve our supply chains, and keep unnecessary regulation from restricting energy growth. 10 in 2022 will take major steps to achieve these vital goals.
The world is calling out for energy leadership. America can and should step up fast.
We are passionate and determined to see our nation develop balanced energy policies that strengthen our communities, support our families and make our nation more secure. We encourage discussion about our nation’s energy issues.
Energy Citizens is a movement focused on keeping America #1 in energy production and putting America’s national security first. We are a diverse community of Americans who strongly believe that, in order to have a better future, we need affordable, reliable, and safe energy.
President Joe Biden could declare a climate emergency as soon as this week, according to The Washington Post, in a bid to implement elements of his environmental agenda as climate legislation has stalled in Congress.
Leading Biden administration officials are debating ways to advance the president’s agenda, and the president is prepared to announce a number of new initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reported the Post, citing three people familiar with the matter. The internal discussions come after Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia told party leaders last week that he opposes the plans to advance this month’s significant economic package that includes billions of dollars toward slashing carbon emissions and promoting green energy.
White House Economic Adviser Jared Bernstein told reporters at a press briefing Monday that Biden would work “aggressively to attack climate change.”
“Realistically there is a lot he can do and there is a lot he will do,” Bernstein stated.
“Unilaterally declaring a climate emergency will not reduce emissions by one molecule,” American Exploration & Production Council CEO, Anne Bradbury said on Twitter Tuesday. “In fact, many of the policies that could follow from declaring a climate emergency would increase emissions while driving up costs for American families.”
Democratic lawmakers are also calling on Biden to use his powers to enact further climate policies amid failed legislative action and the Supreme Court’s recent decision to limit the regulatory abilities of the Environmental Protection Agency.
On Monday, Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said it was time for Biden to take massive, unilateral executive actions on climate change, even if the Supreme Court rules them unconstitutional.
“There is probably nothing more important for our nation and our world than for the United States to drive a bold, energetic transition in its energy economy from fossil fuels to renewable energy,” Merkley told reporters on Monday, according to the Post.
“This also unchains the president from waiting for Congress to act,” Merkley said, referencing the recent legislative impasse.
Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said that lawmakers should continue to pursue legislation in a statement on Monday.
“While I strongly support additional executive action by President Biden, we know a flood of Republican lawsuits will follow,” Wyden said, according to the Post.
“Legislation continues to be the best option here,” he added.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2022-07-19 13:35:262022-07-19 17:22:19REPORT: Biden Poised To Declare Climate Emergency To Ram Through Green Agenda
“Attacks on me are, quite frankly, attacks on science,” said Anthony Fauci to widespread ridicule or approval, depending upon which side you are on. If you doubt his judgment personally, you must not believe in “the science.” Fauci went on to claim that all of the “things he’s talked about” were “fundamentally based on science.”
Let’s put the weasel words aside and recognize that what he wants you to believe – that all his official policy recommendations (“all the things I’ve talked about”) were firmly proven effective through application of the scientific method – is demonstrably false. The most rigorous, most scientific studies show precisely the opposite.
Fauci was a proponent of what has become to be known as “lockdowns,” the widespread closure of businesses and/or stay-at-home orders for the general population. Dozens of studies show this had no demonstrable effect on the spread of Covid-19. As one after another came out, Fauci went on talking about lockdowns as if this evidence did not exist.
Now, there are studies being conducted every day on this or that aspect of Covid-19 and I’m sure Fauci and his supporters can produce links to some that support lockdowns. While there are no absolutes, here is a general observation: the most scientific studies – the randomized controlled trial studies with large sample sizes measuring results in the real world – tend to point towards the inefficacy of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). NPIs include (anti)social distancing, masks, and lockdowns.
Less scientific studies – those with small sample sizes or based on laboratory experiments rather than experience in the real world – tend to point towards efficacy. Remember the experiment on mannequins wearing masks? You get the picture.
Let’s not forget that early in 2020 Fauci said a study based on a single case of asymptomatic spread of Covid-19 “lays the question to rest.” And guess what? It turned out the patient documented in the case had never been asked if she had symptoms. When it turned out she was symptomatic at the time of transmission, the study was unpublished. Subsequent studies failed to prove asymptomatic spread was significant. A December 2020 study looking at secondary attack rates within the same household – published right on the NIH (Fauci’s agency) website – says it’s miniscule if it exists at all.
Yet, Fauci goes on talking as if this study doesn’t exist. He has no choice. Without asymptomatic spread, there is no justification for lockdowns or mandating masks for asymptomatic people.
On a rare occasion where the largely useless national media confronted Fauci with a question about how Texas could be doing so well four weeks after abandoning all Covid restrictions, he had no answer. “Maybe they’re doing more outside,” he mused. Then, he went on recommending the same policies as if the question had never been posed.
Fauci wasn’t alone. When White House coronavirus advisor Anthony Slavitt was asked why locked down and masked California and restriction-free Florida were having similar results in terms of Covid spread, he began his answer with perhaps the only honest words that have escaped a public health official’s mouth: “There is so much of this virus that we think we understand, that we think we can predict, that is just a little bit beyond our explanation.” But then, in literally the same breath, he said we do know masking and social distancing work.
Now, you don’t have to be a trained journalist for the obvious follow-up question to occur to you: “No, Mr. Slavitt, the question I just posed to you suggests we don’t know masking and social distancing work because we are seeing equivalent results in states that are and are not following those policies.”
Of course, that follow-up was not put to Slavitt. And you really have to ask yourself why.
The Problem With Blindly Trusting “The Science”
The failure of scientists to be scientific is not a new phenomenon. Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) dealt directly with the tendency of scientists to reject evidence that contradicts the prevailing theory or “paradigm.”
“Part of the answer, as obvious as it is important,” wrote Kuhn, a Harvard educated philosopher of science, “can be discovered by noting first what scientists never do when confronted by even severe and prolonged anomalies. Though they may begin to lose faith and then to consider alternatives, they do not renounce the paradigm that has led them into crisis.”
Kuhn’s overall thesis challenged the prevailing understanding at the time that science proceeds in a linear fashion, with new discoveries incrementally adding to the accumulated knowledge that preceded them. Instead, argued Kuhn, science throughout history has featured a series of revolutions, where paradigms like the geocentric theory of the solar system or Newtonian physics collapsed under the weight of “anomalies” (evidence which contradicted the theory) and made way for new paradigms like the heliocentric theory of the solar system and Einsteinian physics.
There is much nuance in Kuhn’s argument which his critics have tended to ignore, but one takeaway that we’re seeing proved in real time is that these scientific revolutions are only revolutionary because of the tendency for scientists to cling to a theory regardless of evidence that refutes it. Kuhn argues that scientists will not abandon a disproven theory until a new theory is presented that they are convinced explains the evidence better than the old.
What makes the New Normal so strange is that a scientific revolution occurred with no anomalies. It was firmly established by a century of scientific research that suggested nonpharmaceutical interventions weren’t effective in combating respiratory viruses. Indeed, Fauci himself initially repeated the established scientific consensus that lockdowns and mask mandates were not effective policy responses. He even discouraged people from voluntarily wearing masks.
Then, he and the rest of the government scientists did a complete about face. There was no new evidence that motivated this. They simply abandoned the prevailing scientific consensus based on a desire to do something – even though the scientific evidence before, during, and after the outbreak of Covid-19 said what they wanted to do wouldn’t work. As a result, there is now a New Normal paradigm based on…nothing.
It should be noted that there were plenty of non-government scientists protesting vehemently right from the beginning. The authors of the Great Barrington Declaration were already loudly protesting lockdowns as early as April 2020. Others contested asymptomatic spread, the mortality rate initially reported (they were right), and the efficacy of masks.
Here is the problem. This New Normal paradigm can’t collapse in the face of anomalies, no matter how numerous they are, because the anomalies are now simply ignored. Anyone who calls attention to them, no matter how credentialed or qualified, is systematically discredited.
In such an environment, unsubstantiated assertions like “Covid-19 spreads asymptomatically” and “lockdowns and mask mandates work” continue to form the basis of policy. The same goes for vaccine mandates.
The Price of Obedience
It’s not that evidence against New Normal science can no longer be found. Much of it is available right on the websites of the government agencies denying it. It is simply a matter of saying “no” when governments and media demand you refuse to believe your lying eyes and obey.
Obedience has a price. We will be feeling the economic effects of lockdowns for many years. An entire generation of children will suffer psychological damage from being forced to wear masks during their most formative years. The damage to society as a whole from lockdowns, mask mandates, and (anti)social distancing policies may be immeasurable.
Neither can you simply go along to get along until things “get back to normal.” If and when the COVID Crisis finally ends, there is a Climate Crisis already teed up to begin as surely as night follows day. It will feature the same breathless media propaganda and ignoring of contrary evidence as did the COVID Crisis. The cost this time will be a significantly and permanently lower standard of living for you and your children.
That’s the price of obedience. Are you willing to pay it?
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2022-07-19 13:19:192022-07-19 13:23:14The Author Who Warned Us Against Blindly Trusting ‘The Science’
Morano: “I liken it to they compare the climate crisis to having cancer and the green energy transition, the Green New Deal is their version of chemotherapy. Yeah, you’re gonna be sick, you’re gonna be vomiting, you’re gonna be laid up, but just when you get to the other side of that, you’re gonna be cancer free or in this case, climate crisis-free. So in their minds, this is the necessary bitter medicine that we have to go through — that the Netherlands is going through. What Sri Lanka is going through. What Germany and England are going through, as they’re facing blackouts and energy shortages and economic devastation and inflation.”
Morano on Fox & Friends:
‘We’ve reached peak climate insanity’ as Sen. Manchin kills Biden’s bill – ‘Completely unhinged’ activists claim a pork barrel fed spending bill will alter Earth’s geologic history!
Climate activists are ‘completely unhinged’ after Manchin decision: Climate publisher | https://t.co/ARJXEte1L1
Morano: “I liken it to they compare the climate crisis to having cancer and the green energy transition, the Green New Deal is their version of chemotherapy. Yeah, you’re gonna be sick, you’re gonna be vomiting, you’re gonna be laid up, but just when you get to the other side of that, you’re gonna be cancer free or in this case, climate crisis-free. So in their minds, this is the necessary bitter medicine that we have to go through — that the Netherlands is going through. What Sri Lanka is going through. What Germany and England are going through, as they’re facing blackouts and energy shortages and economic devastation and inflation.”
Climatedepot.com publisher Marc Morano praises Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., for rejecting a climate spending bill and slams climate activists for pushing ‘necessary bitter medicine’ solutions to the climate.
Rough Transcript:
Will Cain: Climate spending bill potentially doing any major green legislation before the midterms…So does (W.VA) Sen. Manchin make a good case here with reaction is Marc Morano, publisher of ClimateDepot.com. Marc, great to see you this morning. You know, I think it’s unavoidable. It’s interesting what happens overseas what is happening across the world. You know, we’re seeing precursors of it right here back home when not that’s food shortages in Sri Lanka, climate change proposals in the Netherlands. And here’s Joe Manchin, seemingly standing in the way at least in part of some of this stuff, making it back to the United States.
Marc Morano: Yes, I’ve already said Europe is much further ahead with the insanity of their energy policy than the United States. So if you want to know what’s going to happen in the US, look to Europe, and we’re seeing devastating energy news in Europe. And what Joe Manchin did — what he did was phenomenal. It reveals that just insanity of the current climate energy movement, Green New Deal movement if you will, he pulled out of this deal that they were trying to push on him with all sorts of bribes on the climate bill that President Biden is pushing the build back better $2 trillion.
They are completely unhinged because one politician is not going to support a pork barrel spending bill, which they somehow think is going to save the planet. Just another pork barrel spending bill in Washington somehow has this power.
Will Cain: So Marc, how do you explain the insanity? Do you think that the likes of Chuck Schumer and others look across the world and see what’s going on with hyperinflation and food shortages and think it’s disconnected from climate policies or do they think that you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet that it’s worth, you know, it’s worth a little human suffering to save the habitat?
Marc Morano: You’re spot on Will. That’s exactly what they think. When you hear everyone from Transporation Sec. Pete Buttigieg to Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen. They believe this is going to be a painful transition, but it’s necessary.
I liken it to they compare the climate crisis to having cancer and the green energy transition, the Green New Deal is their version of chemotherapy. Yeah, you’re gonna be sick, you’re gonna be vomiting, you’re gonna be laid up, but just when you get to the other side of that, you’re gonna be cancer free or in this case, climate crisis-free.
So in their minds, this is the necessary bitter medicine that we have to go through — that the Netherlands is going through what Sri Lanka is going through what Germany and England are going through, as they’re facing blackouts and energy shortages and economic devastation and inflation.
It’s all worth it because we’re going to solve the climate crisis, which is nuts because even John Kerry, the U.S. climate envoy said if the US and Europe zeroed out our emissions the Earth wouldn’t even notice in terms of CO2 emissions because China, India, the developing world’s economies are ramping up so fast that global CO2 emissions are going up. So if we were trying to save the planet, just hamstringing our economy and punishing our people has no impact on global emissions.
Will Cain: You know what I would love to see Marc, and we’ll leave it here. But I would love to see their description of the planet post — in your analogy, chemotherapy. What is their description because we have that they have told us piecemeal, it’s fewer humans on this earth? So it’s less population. I’m sure it’s not going to apply to them and their families. You know, it’s less impact on the earth. So whatever that means shorter lifespans, fewer people, less human flourishing. I’d like to know Bill McKibben, his description of a healthy planet because I think we wouldn’t all agree with the picture of health.
New York Times GUEST ESSAY: What Joe Manchin Cost Us – By Leah C. Stokes – Dr. Stokes is an associate professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. – Excerpt: “Like other young people, Mr. Manchin’s grandchildren will grow up knowing that his legacy is climate destruction. … Hold your children close tonight. Leave some water out for the birds. And make a plan to call your elected leaders to demand climate action, to rip out your fossil fuel furnace or to buy an e-bike. The climate crisis is getting worse, and Congress is one vote short of saving us.”
JEFF GOODELL of Rolling Stone: “West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin just cooked the planet. I don’t mean that in a metaphorical sense. I mean that literally. Unless Manchin changes his negotiating position dramatically in the near future, he will be remembered as the man who, when the moment of decision came, chose to condemn virtually every living creature on Earth to a hellish future of suffering, hardship, and death.”
New York Times: John Podesta, former senior advisor to President Obama: “It seems odd that Manchin would choose as his legacy to be the one man who single-hadedly doomed humanity.” …
“Privately, Senate Democratic staff members seethed and sobbed on Thursday night, after more than a year of working and weekends to scale back, water down, trim and tailor the climate legislation to Mr. Manchin’s exact specification, only to have it rejected from the finish line.”
Climate Depot’s Marc Morano: “The New York Times seems bent on updating Gordon Gekko’s phrase from the 1987 film Wall Street: Chaos, for lack of a better word, is GOOD. Climate activists in academia, the Biden admin. and the media seem to think the more humans suffer, the more the planet will benefit. This is more evidence that economic calamity, debt, inflation, supply chain issues, and skyrocketing meat and energy costs are not the unintended consequences of the climate agenda, but the INTENDED consequences. Chaos conditions the public to accept more centralized control of their lives. Vladimir Lenin reportedly once said, ‘worse is better’ or ‘the worse, the better’ to cheer on chaos and the destruction of the existing order to impose his ideology.”
“Politicians are more or less so warped by party feeling, by selfishness, or prejudices, that their minds are not altogether balanced. They are the most difficult to cure of all insane people.” — Robert E. Lee, from his personal journal, circa 1860
“A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elite, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society.” — Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
“Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms such as you have named…but a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.” — Robert A. Heinlein, in his book Friday
“For us in Russia, communism is a dead dog, while, for many people in the West, it is still a living lion.” — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
As a youngster, my church and my family educated me as to what was coming in the future, Biblically and politically. I knew about communism, but back then I didn’t know it had been around since the early 19th century. President Kennedy was shot and killed when I was a junior in high school. Then came the murders of Martin Luther King and two months later, Bobby Kennedy. Tanks rolled down the streets of Chicago in April and August of 1968, and a 10 p.m. curfew was declared for the entire city. Apartment buildings were boarded in case of attacks by rioters. Chicago was on fire, looting and burning was everywhere after King’s death. Mayor Richard J. Daley told the police, shoot to injure if they are stealing, shoot to kill if they’re starting fires.
Fires were dotted across the South Side and the Near North Side. Six hundred fires burned destroying 28 blocks on Chicago’s West Side. Daley, looking down from a police helicopter, broke into tears. He asked, “What did they do to my city?” That was 1968.
I don’t believe I fully realized the enormous consequences of what had happened back then, and it wasn’t the beginning; it was just another piece of the slow destruction of our beloved nation.
Murders on the world stage, every one of them for an evil purpose.
In 2020, the assassinations were aimed at the “Rule of Law” and our culture. Antifa, BLM and smaller communist groups joined together to riot and destroy public property and to set fire to anything that would burn, all allegedly because of George Floyd’s death. Police were injured and some killed, often outnumbered, or told to stand down while cities and towns were set ablaze. Monetary damages reached two billion.
Instead of mayors telling the police to halt the violence by shooting those who set fire, they encouraged the riots. Kamala Harris promoted the Minnesota Freedom Fund that bailed out a twice-convicted rapist accused of sexual assault, an alleged murderer and a woman accused of shooting at police. And no one can forget Maxine Waters urging rioters to attack people when they see them in restaurants, at gas stations, etc. She actually asked Minnesota rioters to get more “confrontational.”
Our once courteous and well-bred culture has been purposely eviscerated.
Now we face an even worse threat. Alex Berenson reports that official Canadian data show vaccines now RAISE the risk of death from Covid. It’s much the same in Britain and worldwide. We all know it, but Big Pharma, WHO, FDA, CDC, NIH all continue.
Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum, made it clear when he said, “The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine and reset our world.”
There’s only one conclusion, they want us dead. Those who survive will be enslaved.
Control of food production will guarantee massive genocide.
Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street
In August of 2021, Jim O’Neill wrote a stunning expose of Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street entitled Monolithic Monopoly. Take a gander at it. Jim has listed the large companies of which Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street are top shareholders. His article first alerted me to Blackrock’s Chairman and CEO, Larry Fink.
In March of 2022, Investopedia reported, “BlackRock Inc. (BLK) is by some measures the biggest investment management company across the globe, with more than $10.0 trillion in assets under management (AUM) as of Dec. 31, 2021. [1] As a major publicly traded company with a market capitalization of about $112.3 billion, Black Rock provides investment and technology services to both institutional and retail clients around the world.”
According to a May 1, 2022 Newstarget article, Blackrock and Vanguard have taken over centralized food production technologies and will have near-total control over the future food supply in America. It’s been under the radar for the majority of America, and it certainly doesn’t bode well for the future. Remember Kissinger’s famous quote, “Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”
The USDA and FDA have already approved lab grown meat, genetically modified cattle, and are funding the globalists to research and develop cellular agriculture as well as indoor growers and genetics companies, while they slack on regulations for gene-edited produce.
Union Pacific is mandating railroad shipping reductions by 20%, impacting CF Industries Holdings, the world’s largest fertilizer company. Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street happen to be the top shareholders of Union Pacific, and BlackRock and Vanguard are in the top 3 shareholders of CF Industries Holdings.
Only 10 companies control almost every food and beverage brand in the world. Vanguard and Blackrock are the top shareholders in most of these companies. Their plans include owning all the seeds, produce and meat. Everything will be grown inside secured facilities after a gene splice or inside a petri dish, and farmland will become dormant due to overreaching regulations, lack of supplies, and manufactured inflation.
Bill Gates owns tons of our farmland, 242,000 acres, but insists that all foods will eventually be grown in huge indoor vertical farming and will be in urban areas where people will migrate to, more like forced into. Who gets to sit at the table with healthy produce served up by Gates while the rest of the population eats gene-edited produce from locked-down facilities, delivered to their local grocery store, and accessed only through a digital ID? Check out the 11-minute video of one of these farms in Wyoming.
But guess what else Gates owns? In an April 27, 2022 article on controlled food systems, we read, “The Consultative Group of International Agriculture Research (CGIAR) holds the world’s largest private seed banks consisting of 10% of the worldwide germplasm across the globe, which is controlled by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, and World Bank, managing 768,576 accessions of hijacked farmers seeds.” How lovely! Total control by total evil!
“In August 2020, Monsanto/Bayer helped found a startup called Unfold, which develops new vegetable seed varieties specifically geared for vertical farms. According to investigative journalist, Corey Lynn, ‘GMOs already account for 75 to 80% of food Americans consume,’ and once fresh produce is under patent, that percentage will inch closer to 100%.
The University of California is also working on plant-based mRNA vaccines. The idea there is to disseminate vaccines through the conventional food supply, which puts a whole new spin on the old adage to ‘Let thy food be thy medicine.’” (Oh yummy!)
Good old Monsanto/Bayer who has allegedly poisoned the planet with Roundup’s cancer-causing glyphosate has a long and evil history. Eva Moses Kor and her twin were in Auschwitz. Mrs. Kor sued Bayer and stated, “They were right there with Dr. Joseph Mengele at Auschwitz.” The parties negotiated a settlement establishing the creation of a $5 billion fund for the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future. I was fortunate to have had a lengthy conversation with Eva in 1997; what an unbelievably amazing woman.
German companies, Bayer and BASF, two of the world’s largest suppliers of seed, are both heavily involved with the vertical farm industry.
It was during the Obama administration in 2014 when congress established the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research Act (FFAR) through the Farm Bill, which ultimately created a non-profit organization outside of the government with a $200 million kickoff from taxpayer dollars and additional millions in support from Bill Gates as seen here, and here. Then a 15-member board of directors was appointed which unsurprisingly included deputy director Dr. Robert Horsch of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and high-ranking employees from Cargill and the Aspen Institute, among others.
In June of 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was held in Rio de Janeiro. It is known as the “Earth Summit.” In the book, “Earth Summit, Agenda 21, The United Nations Programme of Action from Rio,” the foreword is written by Maurice Strong, who was at the time, the Secretary-General, United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.
He starts out telling us that humanity is in the midst of a profound civilization change and we can see the signs everywhere and that all the people who attended the Rio summit and all the people of the world, there are exhilarating and uplifting signs.
He states, “While it is still too early to provide a precisely calibrated measure of the ultimate success of the Earth Summit, I believe it has ignited a wildfire of interest and support at every level of society in every corner of the planet.” He goes on to tell us that since the Summit, “There has been a profusion of conferences, seminars, symposia and other organized colloquies of major sectoral groups. Industrialists, economists, financiers, engineers, scientists – those who, in truth, hold the levers of economic power and change –have joined the constituency of earnest environmentalists in a commitment to the fulfillment of the hopes and aspirations engendered by Rio.”
Strong continues, “In short, the movement to turn the world from its self-consumptive course to one of renewal and sustenance has unmistakably spread from the grass roots to the brass roots. The Declaration of Rio and its Agenda 21 action programme are now, it seems clear, on everyone’s agenda.”
United Nations Agenda 21/30 is now called the “Great Reset.” All of this was planned long ago and it is fast coming to fruition.
Conclusion
Fifty-nine years ago, President Kennedy was murdered in Dallas. Five years later, Martin Luther King was fatally shot in Memphis, Tennessee. On April 4th, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy, who just announced his presidential candidacy, delivered the news to a predominantly black neighborhood in Indianapolis that King had died. That night, amid one of the most chaotic years in American history, the country burned. Riots broke out in more than 100 cities, including Washington, where at least a dozen people died. Two months later, Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The country reeled in shock, horror, and disbelief.
In March of 2020, America was locked down due to COVID. We lost many of our unalienable rights, especially those of the first amendment. That summer, Antifa and Black Lives Matter looted and torched the entire country.
America was set ablaze, but the Insurrection Act was never used. There were no Mayors like Richard J. Daley.
Communism isn’t on its way, it’s already here.
Klaus Schwab wants to “reflect, reimagine and reset our world.”
Yes, a reset to totalitarian control. The world population and all its resources will be run by governments empowered to “fairly” distribute goods and services to the people.
Food production is the number one target of control by the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset. The key to genocide is food control and a totalitarian slave system.
As Americans, we must make Schwab’s “rare but narrow window” an impossibility.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Kelleigh Nelsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngKelleigh Nelson2022-07-18 07:46:182022-07-18 07:46:18The Global Food System and Totalitarian Control
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http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00John Droz, Jr.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJohn Droz, Jr.2022-07-17 11:48:182022-07-18 07:33:40AWED MEDIA BALANCED NEWSLETTER: We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.
Since the 1920s, atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased from about 305 parts per million to more to more than 400 ppm.
The latest talking point of progressive politicians, pundits, and activists is that America cannot afford not to spend trillions of dollars to “solve the climate crisis” because global warming is an existential threat. As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) put it, “You cannot go too far on the issue of climate change. The future of the planet is at stake, OK?”
Abysmal Benefit-Cost Ratio
That is sham wisdom even if climate change were the terror Sen. Sanders imagines it to be. The resources available to public and private decision makers are finite. Resources allocated to “climate action” are no longer available to make mortgage payments, pay college tuitions, grow food, fund medical innovation, or build battleships. Prudent policymakers therefore not only consider the costs of policy proposals but also compare the different benefit-cost ratios of competing expenditures. As it happens, the benefit-cost ratios of carbon suppression policies are abysmal.
For example, just the direct expense of the electric sector portion of the Green New Deal would, conservatively estimated, cost $490.5 billion per year, or $3,845 per year per household, according to American Enterprise Institute economist Benjamin Zycher. Yet even complete elimination of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would avert only 0.083°C to 0.173°C of global warming 70 years from now—a policy impact too small to discernibly affect weather patterns, crop yields, polar bear populations, or any other environmental condition people care about.
The climate “benefit” over the next 10 years would be even more minuscule. Yet during that period, Zycher estimates, the annual economic cost of the GND electric sector program would be about $9 trillion. It is unwise to spend so much to achieve so little.
No Planetary Emergency
The doomsday interpretation of climate change is a political doctrine, not a scientific finding, as Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg shows in a recent series of tweets and University of Alabama in Huntsville atmospheric scientist John Christy explains in a new paper titled “Falsifying Climate Alarm.”
Nobel economist Stiglitz tells us we need to suffer through hardship equal to World War III to fight climate change His economic arguments for accepting policy costs of $100+ trillion are unfocused and wrong Climate seems to eradicate any common sensehttps://t.co/kuVJDlYMjH
In the aforementioned tweets, Lomborg rebuts an op-ed by Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz, who advocates spending trillions of dollars annually to combat climate change, which he calls “our World War III.” As evidence, Stiglitz claims that in recent years weather-related damages cost the U.S. economy 2 percent of GDP—a figure for which he gives no reference.
Lomborg deftly sets the record straight. Aon Benfield reinsurers estimate that during 2000-2017, weather-related damages cost the United States about $88 billion annually, or 0.48 percent of GDP per year, not 2 percent. More importantly, extreme weather is a natural feature of the Earth’s climate system. The vast majority of those damages would have occurred with or without climate change. “Does Stiglitz believe there is no bad weather without climate change?” Lomborg asks.
In the United States, hurricanes are the biggest cause of weather-related damages. Hurricanes have become more costly over the past 120 years but not because of any long-term change in the weather. Once historic losses are adjusted for increases in population, wealth, and the consumer price index, U.S. hurricane-related damages show no trend since 1900.
The past three decades are generally agreed to be the warmest in the instrumental record. Yet during that period, damages due to all forms of extreme weather as a share of global GDP declined. In other words, despite there being many more people and lots more stuff in harm’s way, the relative economic impact of extreme weather is decreasing. It is difficult to reconcile that trend with claims that ours is an “unsustainable” civilization.
Lomborg provides an even more telling rebuttal point in a previous Tweet. Since the 1920s, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations increased from about 305 parts per million to more than 400 ppm, and global average temperatures increased by about 1°C. Yet globally, the individual risk of dying from weather-related disasters declined by 99 percent.
Stiglitz claims we cannot afford not to spend trillions to mitigate climate change because “our lives and our civilization as we know it is at stake, just as they were in World War II.” Lomborg notes that in the peer-reviewed literature, unchecked climate change is estimated to cost 2-4 percent of global GDP in 2100. That “is not the end of the world,” especially considering that, despite climate change, global per capita incomes in 2100 are expected to be 5-10 times larger than today.
Ironically, in the “socio-economic pathways” (SSPs) literature, the richest SSP is the one that relies most on free markets and fossil fuels.
Source:Keywan Rhiahi et al. 2017. “This world [SSP5] places increasing faith in competitive markets, innovation and participatory societies to produce rapid technological progress and development of human capital as the path to sustainable development. . . . At the same time, the push for economic and social development is coupled with the exploitation of abundant fossil fuel resources and the adoption of resource and energy intensive lifestyles around the world.”
John Christy’s new paper, published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, summarizes two of his recent peer-reviewed studies. In 2017, Christy and fellow atmospheric scientist Richard McKnider examined 37.5 years of satellite data in the global troposphere (bulk atmosphere). Christy and McNider factored out the warming effects of El Ninõ and the cooling effects volcanic aerosol emissions. The underlying greenhouse warming trend—the dark line (e) in the figure below—is 0.095°C per decade, or about one-fourth the rate forecast by former NASA scientist James Hansen, whose congressional testimony launched the global warming movement in 1988.
Christy and McNider estimate that when atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations double, global warming will reach 1.1°C—a quantity called “transient climate response.” Christy comments:
This is not a very alarming number. If we perform the same calculation on the climate models, you get a figure of 2.31°C, which is significantly different. The models’ response to carbon dioxide is twice what we see in the real world. So the evidence indicates the consensus range for climate sensitivity is incorrect.
In 2018, Christy and economist Ross McKitrick set out to test the accuracy of climate models. They examined model projections in the atmosphere between 30,000 and 40,000 feet, in the tropics from 20°N to 20°S. The atmosphere warms fastest in that portion of the atmosphere in almost all models used by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), such as the Canadian Climate Centre model, shown below.
In 102 model runs, the average warming in the “hot spot” portion of the tropical atmosphere is 0.44°C per decade, or 2°C during 1979-2017. “However, the real-world warming is much lower; around one-third of the model average,” Christy reports.
You can also easily see the difference in warming rates: the models are warming too fast. The exception is the Russian model, which has much lower sensitivity to carbon dioxide, and therefore gives projections for the end of the century that are far from alarming. The rest of them are already falsified, and their predictions for 2100 can’t be trusted. If an engineer built an airplane and said it could fly 600 miles and the thing ran out of fuel at 200 and crashed, he wouldn’t say ‘Hey, I was only off by a factor of three’. We don’t do that in engineering and real science. A factor of three is huge in the energy balance system. Yet that’s what we see in the climate models.
Statements like the following are increasingly common in popular media, academic journals, and political discourse: “The evidence that anthropogenic climate change is an existential threat to our way of life is incontrovertible.” Not so—not even close.
Marlo Lewis, Jr. is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Lewis writes on global warming, energy policy, and public policy issues. Marlo has been published in The Washington Times, Investors Business Daily, TechCentralStation, National Review, and Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy. He has appeared on various television and radio programs, and his ideas have been featured in radio commentary by Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2022-07-16 14:16:562022-07-16 14:16:56Climate-Related Deaths Are at Historic Lows, Data Show
Examining the problem, reaction, solution/thesis, counter thesis, solution, or the dialectic scam of the left.
There certainly seems to be more than one understanding of this phrase. Here is our shot at it. Of course, there are scholars of Hegel/Marx who read this site, and we welcome any corrections or other interpretations of this well known phrase.
Picking Global Warming as an example, we have a completely invented problem which of course can be manipulated in any way needed to end up at the point you want to land on. Primarily, the destruction of the West with its notions of free market economy and individual rights. Since the problem is fake, and created and enforced by “consensus” (See video below) all the reactions from people calling it out as fake must be dealt with using the dialectic attack of hate speech. This was fabricated by a second generation Frankfurt School acolyte, a certain Habermas, in the form of “Discourse Theory”.
For the past many decades, various leftist controlled governments and leftist think tanks, have attempted to use the element of Carbon as a means to control industry and humanity in a highly selective manner. Like slavery as an issue, we must only examine the ‘problem’ of CO2 production in Western and free market nations, more accurately perhaps, in cultures with the concept of individual rights as being sacrosanct. We must not look at slavery in Africa or Islam ever but must focus on the past actions in The USA pretty much exclusively in terms of passing moral judgment. And we must not look at really dirty industrial activity, let alone CO2 production in China or India but must pretend that CO2 produced by any and all means connected to humans in the West as an existential threat to the entire planet.
There should be no need to try and disprove the idea that CO2 is a problem on this site. I do have a dedicated page to the science of ithere on Vlad but I don’t maintain it very well as to engage in a debate based on a lie is to lose that debate since only one side seeks to know the truth and the power of the lie is much greater in the short run. At least where the goal is destruction.
One fact though, is that where CO2 is produced, more life happens. Plants grow etc. Plants, and life, are made of carbon. Even on the side of highways, plants tend to thrive from a truly poisonous form of carbon, CO1 or Carbon monoxide. CO2 is actually pumped into greenhouses to help plants hit their optimal growth rate.
But let’s pretend that CO2 production was a problem. Then why are those who wrap themselves in a false flag of environmentalism, so opposed to nuclear power? Its the obvious solution to those who claim that carbon dioxide is an existential threat to the planet. Whatever the issues with nuclear power, it cannot be as bad as that.
And then there is this:
Geothermal
A very worthy deeper dive:
So we have a solution now for food production that is safe, energy efficient and absorbs far more carbon than it produces.
Global Warming is a consensus based thing though. Meaning communists agreed on creating it and presenting it as an existential problem in order to get to the solution they want, which is communism. No real world approach to solving even the non-problem of “global-warming” will be entertained and any attempt to expose it as the fraud it is will be met with charges akin to hate speech. “Climate-denier” for example, makes moral equivalence with a Holocaust denier to one who would deny the ‘existential threat of global warming’. A fairly palpable use of the Hate-Speech tactic.
More recently, in order to destroy farming in the Netherlands and replace these farms with what will almost certainly be beehive brutalist housing for illegal mostly Muslim and African migrants forced on the local population since before 2015, a new element and compound had to be demonized as an existential threat. Nitrogen, which makes up damn near 80% of the total atmosphere, and ammonia.
I won’t even bother to deal with the issue of nitrogen. To think that the tiny amount of nitrogen released on a few dutch farms justify the actions against farmers we see in the Netherlands is even worthy of rebuttal on that basis, means a lack of understanding of the tactic at play. Much like when one knows that nearly all human beings are born either a man or a woman (with the exception of extremely few genetic mutations which end with those individuals as they tend to be sterile) and to pretend these are fungible is, well risible.
So let’s look at the new threat of ammonia.
How could we somehow solve the issue of ammonia in a way that would satisfy those who claim its a problem while maybe at the same time, solving other problems many are concerned about:
The bottom line is:
The problems we are bombarded with, from Covid to vaccine hesitancy. From global warming to cow flatulence. From Nitrogen to ammonia, are all fake problems which, even by engaging about it, causes us to lose. These are not problems at all, and some, to the extent they might be, are selectively enforced against the Western nations and peoples with zero effort to deal with these non-problems in places like China, North Korea, India and other places where the raw production of these gasses and so on are orders of magnitude higher than in the West.
We need to understand that so much of what we engage with on a day to day basis is we, the intellectual descendants of Socrates, being constantly basted with pseudo-reality and false cosmologies in order to destroy Western civilization where it actually lives.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Vlad Tepes Bloghttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngVlad Tepes Blog2022-07-13 14:45:312022-07-13 14:50:29Marx and the Banning of Elements in the Periodic Table
The term “pedestrian” has a derogatory meaning because peasants walked while nobles were “equestrians” and rode horses. The industrial revolution eliminated this class difference, as it did so many others, by making car ownership available to the masses until eventually Herbert Hoover was able to boast that “Republican prosperity has reduced and increased earning capacity” to “put the proverbial ‘chicken in every pot’ and a car in every backyard to boot.”
Democrats have spent two generations trying to get those cars out of every backyard.
Biden is trying to bring back Obama’s mileage standards that were estimated to raise car prices by 20%.The goal is to “nudge 40% of U.S. drivers into electric vehicles by decade’s end.”
Will 40% of Americans be able to afford electric cars that cost an average of $54,000 by 2030?
Not likely. Nor are they meant to. Biden’s radical ‘green’ government, which includes Tracy Stone-Manning, the former spokeswoman for an ecoterrorist group as the head of the Bureau of Land Management, isn’t looking to nudge drivers into another type of cars, but out of cars.
Gas prices are a way to price Americans out of car ownership under the guise of pushing EVs.
Biden’s Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm responded to American concerns about high gas prices by urging them to buy electric cars. Granholm, who had promoted a green energy tycoon who spent years in prison for fraud, who had served on the board of directors of an electric battery company, and made millions divesting stock in an electric vehicle manufacturer, is a fan.
“Most electric vehicles are now cheaper to own than gas-powered cars from the day you drive them off the lot,” Granholm tweeted.
That isn’t actually true, but actual cars have become more expensive to own, largely because of efforts by the Biden administration, and by various states, including California. That hasn’t however made electric cars any more affordable for ordinary Americans.
The average price of an electric car shot up to $54,000 in May. Car prices in general have risen in the Biden economy, but electric cars are naturally expensive. The raw material costs for an average electric car are up to over $8,000. That’s compared to $3,600 for an actual car.
When your raw material costs are that high, electric cars will be inherently unaffordable.
The Obama administration pumped billions in taxpayer money into battery and electric car manufacturing, the majority of which failed, on the theory that enough government subsidies would lower battery costs. Not only was much of that money lost, but currently electric battery costs hover around the $160 kilowatt-hour mark. Green boosters cheer that’s far down from over $1,000 per kWh a decade ago, but that still adds up to the reality that an electric car capable of traveling for even short distances needs a battery that alone costs thousands.
The Nissan Leaf, which approaches $30,000 once the reality of MSRP in the current sales market is taken into account, is one of the cheapest electric cars around, and has a range of only 149 miles. Replacing its battery can set back car owners $6,500 to $7,500. And that’s even when you can manage to find one or someone willing to replace it. In less than 3 years, Leafs lose 20 miles of range. By the fifth year, they have lost 30 miles. And it’s all downhill from there.
The Nissan Leaf was initially a hit, but car manufacturers quickly realized that anyone willing to overpay that much for substandard performance had money to burn. The electric car market is now thoroughly dominated by luxury vehicles subsidized by taxpayers. And the Leaf went from 90% market share to less than 10%. The EV market is now a taxpayer-funded status symbol.
The dirty truth about the “clean” car market is that it consists of traditional car companies and Tesla frantically trying to unload a limited share of luxury electric cars on wealthy customers to cash in on the emissions credits mandated by states like California. Tesla makes more money reselling these regulatory credits to actual car companies than it does selling cars. Taxpayers and working class car-owners pick up the bill for the entire luxury electric vehicle market.
A market that they are shut out from by design.
The “green” vision is not a world in which everyone has their own electric car. It’s one of collective transport, of buses, light rail, and car-pooling through shared rides and roving self-driving cars. The only vehicle the average consumer is supposed to own is a bicycle.
While the Biden administration is still pretending that it’s out to “encourage” electric car ownership by making actual cars too expensive for much of the country to afford, others are saying the quiet part out loud.
“Car-lovers will doubtless mourn the passing of machines that, in the 20th century, became icons of personal freedom. But this freedom is illusory,” an Economist article predicted.
“There will be fewer cars on the road—perhaps just 30% of the cars we have today,” the head of Google’s self-driving car project predicted.
“The days of the single occupancy car are numbered,” Brook Porter at G2 Venture Partners, a green energy investment firm, thundered in an article titled, The End of Cars in Cities.
Dan Ammann, the former president of GM, claimed that “the human-driven, gasoline-powered, single-passenger car” is the “fundamental problem” in a post titled, “We Need to Move Beyond the Car”. He has since gone to work for Exxon-Mobil.
Predictions are cheap, but car bans are expensive and all too real. The European Union voted to back a ban on the sale of non-electric cars by 2035. California is also pushing for a similar 2035 ban on the sale of new actual cars in the state. Officials noted that the ban would push more than half of mechanics out of work and leave much of the state unable to afford cars.
Canada has its own 2035 car ban. Last year, Governor Newsom and Governor Cuomo, along with 10 other governors, urged Biden to impose a 2035 car ban on all Americans.
Electric cars aren’t actually “cleaner”. The mining processes that produce “green” technologies are as dirty, if not dirtier, and trade dependence on oil for dependence on rare earth metals, and dependence on the Middle East for dependence on Communist China. The one thing that they decisively accomplish is to make it impossible for ordinary Americans to own cars.
And that is what environmentalists really want. But not just them.
The vision of a nation in which private car ownership is a luxury good, in which cars have been priced out of the reach of most people through environmental measures that concentrated on gas-powered vehicles, and then added more taxes and fines for the waste” and “inefficiency” of an individual owning a vehicle is not very far away.
The technocratic sales pitch is that ride-sharing and self-driving cars will make car ownership unnecessary. Why own a big clunky machine when you can own nothing and be happy?
The reality is that car ownership offers mobility and independence. That is exactly what the leftist radicals making social policy want to eliminate. Gas prices are not Putin’s price hike, they’re the green dream. And that dream isn’t to put you in a Nissan Leaf. It’s the Pol Pot dream of dismantling civilization and rolling back the industrial revolution.
Once the dark age norms of their dark enlightenment are restored, peasants will go back to being pedestrians and only the progressive philosopher kings will ride.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2022-07-13 06:52:052022-07-21 06:25:32The End of Private Car Ownership
