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:
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.
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 (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.
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.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/roxanne-desgagnes-87838-unsplash-e1540462820675.jpg368640The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2018-10-25 06:21:262018-10-25 06:23:24Trump Approved the First-Ever U.S. Oil Facility in Arctic Waters
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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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.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/alex-epstein.jpg360640Alex Epsteinhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngAlex Epstein2018-10-17 19:16:452018-10-17 19:24:44VIDEO: The 3 Communication Obstacles Oil and Gas Supporters Face–and How to Overcome Them
Former Harvard University Physicist Dr. Lubos Motl on UN IPCC report: “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…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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Climate fearmongers, you’ve become some of the most dishonest as well as useless people in the Earth’s history.”
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.
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.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/neonbrand-441844-unsplash.jpg378639Marc Moranohttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMarc Morano2018-10-16 12:28:592018-10-16 12:30:52Former Harvard U. Physicist rejects new UN IPCC report: ‘Similar claims are on par with the spam about penis enlargement’
Much of President Donald Trump’s “60 Minutes” interview Sunday consisted of responding to veteran CBS News reporter Lesley Stahl’s questions on what have been Democrats’ talking points for months.
During one exchange, Trump described to Stahl how the media treated his predecessor, President Barack Obama, much differently.
“I disagree, but I don’t want to have that fight with you,” Stahl replied. “All right, I’ll get in another fight with you.”
Trump responded: “Lesley, it’s OK. In the meantime, I’m president—and you’re not.”
Here’s a look at six of the biggest topics discussed and Trump’s responses.
1. Separating Illegal Immigrant Families
Stahl pressed Trump on his administration’s suspended policy of separating children and parents who illegally cross the southern border.
“Well, that was the same as the Obama law. You know, Obama had the same thing,” Trump said.
Stahl shot back: “It was on the books, but he didn’t enforce it. You enforced it. You launched that, the zero tolerance policy, to deter families with children coming.”
Trump defended his position, saying: “When you allow the parents to stay together, OK, when you allow that, then what happens is people are going to pour into our country.”
Stahl asked: “So are you going to go back to that?”
After some back and forth, Trump said: “No, I want all the laws changed.”
2. A Lecture on Climate Change
Although it began as a question, Stahl seemed to be lecturing Trump on climate change by saying she wished he would travel to Greenland to see the melting ice.
“Do you still think that climate change is a hoax?” Stahl asked.
Trump answered in the negative, adding:
I think something’s happening. Something’s changing, and it’ll change back again. I don’t think it’s a hoax, I think there’s probably a difference. But I don’t know that it’s man-made. I will say this. I don’t want to give trillions and trillions of dollars [to counter climate change]. I don’t want to lose millions and millions of jobs. I don’t want to be put at a disadvantage.
Stahl then talked about some presidential travel to prove her point.
“I wish you could go to Greenland, watch these huge chunks of ice just falling into the ocean, raising the sea levels,” Stahl said, without a question.
She went on to tell Trump that scientists with the federal government contend climate change is man-made.
“We have scientists that disagree with that,” Trump said, later adding: “I’m not denying climate change. But it could very well go back.”
Stahl: “But that’s denying it.”
The exchange then devolved into Trump and Stahl challenging each other to name a scientist who backs up their point.
“They say that we had hurricanes that were far worse than what we just had with Michael,” Trump said.
Stahl: “Who says that?”
Trump: “People say.”
Stahl: “But what about the scientists who say it’s worse than ever?”
Trump challenged her to name some scientists.
“You’d have to show me the scientists,” he said, “because they have a very big political agenda, Lesley.”
Stahl conceded: “I can’t bring them in.”
3. Kavanaugh and Ford
Trump said Democrats acted “horribly” during the confirmation battle over new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused by a California woman at the 11th hour of sexually assaulting her when they were teens in the early 1980s.
Stahl, however, questioned whether Trump had created more divisions and asked him about a speech in Mississippi where he specified the gaps and contradictions in research psychologist Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the incident she alleged occurred about 36 years ago.
“You go out and you go to Mississippi and you mimicked Professor Blasey Ford. You mimicked her,” Stahl said.
Trump said of his remarks: “Had I not made that speech, we would not have won [the confirmation fight]. I was just saying she didn’t seem to know anything, and you’re trying to destroy a life of a man who has been extraordinary.”
“Washington, D.C., is a vicious, vicious place,” @realDonaldTrump says.
Stahl asked in a shocked tone: “Why did you have to make fun of her?”
Trump: “I didn’t really make fun of her.”
Stahl: “Well, they were laughing.”
The CBS reporter recalled Ford being asked by a senator about “the worst moment” during the alleged incident.
“And she said, ‘When the two boys laughed at me, at my expense,’” Stahl said, paraphrasing, then telling the president: “And then I watched you mimic her and thousands of people were laughing at her.”
Trump pushed back, saying: “The way now Justice Kavanaugh was treated has become a big factor in the midterms. Have you seen what’s gone on with the polls?”
He told Stahl that he believed he treated Ford with respect.
“But you seem to be saying that she lied,” Stahl said.
“You know what?” Trump shot back. “I’m not going to get into it, because we won. It doesn’t matter. We won.”
4. Russia, China, and Election Meddling
When Stahl asked whether Russian President Vladimir Putin was involved in assassinations, Trump replied: “Probably he is, yeah.”
During the segment aired on “60 Minutes,” Stahl noted that 32 people have been charged, convicted, or pleaded guilty in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian election interference
The network showed images of Trump’s short-term campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who was convicted for unrelated financial crimes, and of Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying on a government disclosure form, also unrelated to the Russia probe.
However, Stahl didn’t mention that her 32 number includes two dozen Russians indicted for meddling in the presidential campaign, largely through social media.
Trump told Stahl: “They [Russians] meddled, but I think China meddled too.”
Stahl looked shocked, asking: “Why do you say China? The Russians meddled.”
Trump replied: “Because I think China meddled also.”
Stahl seemed to break into an admonishing mood.
“This is amazing,” Stahl said. “You’re diverting the whole Russian thing.”
She later asked: “Will you pledge that you will not shut down the Mueller investigation?”
Trump was noncommittal.
“Well, I don’t pledge anything,” Trump said. “I don’t want to pledge. Why should I pledge to you? If I pledge, I’ll pledge. I don’t have to pledge to you.”
5. Trusting White House Staff
First lady Melania Trump said in a recent interview with ABC News that she doesn’t trust some people in the White House.
“I feel the same way. I don’t trust everybody in the White House, I’ll be honest with you,” Donald Trump told Stahl.
Stah asked whether Trump ever wonders about White House staffers, “Is he wearing a wire?”
“Not so much a wire. I’m usually guarded,” Trump said. “I think I’m guarded anyway. But I’m not saying I trust everybody in the White House. I’m not a baby. It’s a tough business.”
“This is a vicious place,” Trump said. “Washington, D.C., is a vicious, vicious place. The attacks, the bad mouthing, the speaking behind your back. You know, and in my way, I feel very comfortable here.”
6. Relations With NATO
Trump has warmed up to NATO, made up of the United States and Western allies that assure one another of mutual defense, largely because more NATO members have agreed at his insistence to spend 2 percent of their annual GDP on defense.
But Stahl pressed the president as if he were still hostile to NATO.
“Are you willing to get rid of that Western alliance?” Stahl asked.
Trump said he likes NATO.
“But you know what? We shouldn’t be paying almost the entire cost of NATO to protect Europe and then on top of that, they take advantage of us on trade,” the president added. “They’re not going to do it anymore. They understand that.”
Stahl: “Are you willing to disrupt the Western alliance? It’s been going for 70 years. It’s kept the peace for 70 years.”
Trump: “You don’t know that.”
Stahl asked whether Defense Secretary James Mattis had warned Trump to stick with NATO.
“Is it true Gen. Mattis said to you, ‘The reason for NATO and the reason for all these alliances is to prevent World War III?’”
Trump denied this.
“Frankly, I like Gen. Mattis,” Trump said. “I think I know more about it than he does, and I know more about it from the standpoint of fairness, that I can tell you.”
After more back and forth, Trump asserted: “I will always be there with NATO, but they have to pay their way. I’m fully in favor of NATO, but I don’t want to be taken advantage of.”
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EDITORS NOTE: This column with photos and videos is republished with permission. The featured image is of President Donald Trump talking to reporters as he departs Monday with first lady Melania Trump to tour hurricane damage in Florida. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/Newscom)
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“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’)
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.
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!
‘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.’
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.
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.”
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:
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:
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.”
Climate Depot reports on UN IPCC report here, here & 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 scientist claims Trump ‘poses the single greatest threat’ to Earth’s climate – A former UN lead author of the United Nations climate reports, Dr. Michael Mann, has ramped up the stakes of the new “dire” UN climate change report by claiming the “latest [UN] report underscores the danger that [President] Donald Trump poses to the planet.” The UN report “makes clear we need to reduce emissions dramatically, vastly exceeding our Paris targets. Yet Trump probably poses the single greatest threat to meeting those targets,” Mann, a Penn State professor, told ThinkProgress on October 8.
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.
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.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/alex-epstein-interview-e1539200639509.jpg280478Alex Epsteinhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngAlex Epstein2018-10-10 15:44:062018-10-10 15:46:43Alex Epstein on Big Concepts, Solar Impact, Human Innovation, and more!
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 Timesreports 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.
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.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Denver-Colorado-night-628x353.jpg353628Committee For A Constructive Tomorrowhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngCommittee For A Constructive Tomorrow2018-10-05 15:35:492018-10-05 15:40:31Three ‘Green’ ballot initiatives to shut down fossil fuels this November
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.
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.
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.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/jason-leung-684196-unsplash-e1538165904721.jpg408640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2018-09-28 16:18:372018-10-04 06:37:13It’s time for Floridians to demand exploring for oil and natural gas off our shorelines
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.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/BLUE-MOVIE.jpg361640Committee For A Constructive Tomorrowhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngCommittee For A Constructive Tomorrow2018-09-25 18:39:552018-09-25 18:39:55VIDEO: From Green to Blue
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.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Stink-Eye-1080x675-e1537878085323.jpg400640Eye On Jacksonvillehttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngEye On Jacksonville2018-09-25 08:22:212018-09-25 08:39:15Special Report: JAE … Who or What caused this Stinking mess? by Lloyd Brown
Nothing reveals the disparities between the “haves” and the “have nots” like a climate conference.
As I drove from Jerry Brown’s San Francisco global warming summit to view CFACT’s billboard campaign revealing the folly of California’s new 100% renewable / zero CO2 energy law, I saw something shocking. From the elevated highway above Oakland, I saw that I was passing over one of the Bay Area’s many homeless camps. I got off the highway to say hello. There I met Gerry Damiano, an extraordinary man, and a clearer thinker than the Governor Jerry in my rear view.
“I think he’s (Brown’s) living in the past,” he said, “Los Angeles has over 60,000 on the streets… They’re killing our jobs… I think he needs to change priorities. We pay for it in extra taxes on our fuel, we pay for it on the price we pay for power of any kind, and we get no benefit.”
At CFACT we’ve seen this time and again.
At UN COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico, CFACT bused delegates from their air conditioned luxury hotels and meeting rooms to the nearby neighborhood of La Libertad where people live without electricity.
At UN Rio+20 CFACT allied with with activists from the “favelas,” (squatter villages) that line the mountains surrounding Rio de Janeiro‘s luxurious Copacabana and Ipanema beaches where the VIPs were staying, to reveal the nightmare expensive energy means for the poor.
The climate elite shuttle about in private jets and limousines, like 18th century French nobles in gilded carriages, ignoring the high costs and low (if any) benefits of their “solutions.” They are self-absorbed and blissfully disconnected from the realities impacting real people’s lives.
When electricity prices drive manufacturers out of state, will California’s ruling class take it in stride, or demand the rest of us share their self-inflicted pain?
Left-wing climate policy strangles economies and hits the poor hardest.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/CFACT-HOMELESS-CAMP-INTERVIEW.jpg362640Committee For A Constructive Tomorrowhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngCommittee For A Constructive Tomorrow2018-09-20 05:47:092018-09-20 05:49:05VIDEO: California’s 100% ‘renewables’ law viewed from a homeless camp
CFACT put up two new billboards during Governor Brown’s climate summit that tackle California’s ridiculous 100% renewables / zero emissions law head on.
The billboards are on the Sierra Highway between Palmdale and Rosamond, California, just north of Los Angeles.
The first depicts a road sign that warns, “Insane Electricity Prices Ahead.” That’s a no-brainer. We’ve seen this story before. The data is in. California is making the exact same mistakes that wrecked energy markets in Europe.
Inefficient “renewables” caused electricity prices in countries like Germany, Denmark and Spain to double and triple, placing great hardships on ratepayers and making it tough for their industries to compete. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “Engergiewende,” or energy transition, is estimated to have cost over one half TRILLION Euros by 2025. Meanwhile all those solar panels and wind farms can’t meet Europe’s energy needs. Anti-nuclear campaigners overlap with climate campaigners so Germany’s nuclear reactors are shutting down. That leaves coal in charge of keeping the lights on. Despite mind-boggling useless spending, European emissions have not declined.
Who gets hit the hardest?
CFACT’s second billboard features a vanity license plate which reads “PWR HIKE — 100% renewables with one million+ energy poor? California’s pipe dreamin.'”
Energy poverty is no joke. California leads the nation in poverty and homelessness. Tripling California’s electricity price will hit the poor the hardest. It’s the ultimate regressive tax. California elites won’t like it, but can take high costs in stride. It’s not the same for people struggling to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads.
Al Gore, Michael Bloomberg, Jerry Brown, Alec Baldwin and the rest of the gilded elite just don’t get it.
California’s mistaken new energy law spells trouble for everyone. As business flees, the politicians in Sacramento are going to want to inflict the same burdens on the rest of us to “make things fair.”
This energy-wound is self inflicted. California should adopt a wiser course and others should avoid repeating their mistake.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/cfact-california.jpg369640Committee For A Constructive Tomorrowhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngCommittee For A Constructive Tomorrow2018-09-18 15:55:232018-09-18 15:55:44Insane electricity prices ahead
Greenhouse gas emissions continued to plummet during President Donald Trump’s first year in office, according to new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data.
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.
