Category Archives: Environment

Path to a Greener Future: Tax Kids or Just Ban Them Outright, by Mike “Mish” Shedlock

Posted on October 22, 2021 | 1 comment

This is for those with a dark and cynical sense of humor. From Mike “Mish” Shedlock at mishtalk.com:

The Greens need to step up to the plate with some truly sustainable proposals. I have a couple of ideas.

Ban Having Kids
 

Ironies of Build Back Better

President Biden wants free college education, free preschool for kids, and increased child tax credits. 

All of these proposals subsidize the single worst thing we can do for the environment: have kids. 

Kids eat, need medical services, eventually become teenagers and drive cars. And as shocking as this might seem, kids grow up and travel, eventually by airplane.

Poor Nations Say They Need Trillions From Rich Ones

Yesterday, I commented Hello President Biden, Poor Nations Say They Need Trillions From Rich Ones

It’s one thing for developed countries like the US to demand a cleaner future, but it’s another thing to attempt to force G7 goals on the rest of the world.   

About Those Climate Change Goals

John Kerry was speechless when he learned Poor Nations Need Trillions From Rich Ones to meet climate change goals.

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Californication, Continued, by Eric Peters

Posted on October 20, 2021 | Leave a comment

The more people cannot afford personal transportation, the more they have to rely on the transportation the government allows them. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:

The Californication of the car industry is about to accelerate – once the former head of California’s notoriously anti-car Air Resources Board, Steven Cliff becomes the new head of the federal “safety” apparat, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Which somehow is involved in dictating how much gas mileage your next new vehicle must deliver – at your expense, of course.

NHTSA has “proposed” increasing the mandatory minimums that every company making cars (and trucks) must achieve by 8 percent – by 2026. For those not hip to what it costs to achieve such a gain, it may be helpful to review what has been necessary to achieve compliance with the current mandatory minimum “corporate average” of 36 miles per gallon . . .

The replacement of port fuel injection in favor of direct injection, an extremely high-pressure form of fuel injection that operates at several thousand pounds of pressure vs. the 30-40 pounds typical of port fuel injection systems and which requires wholesale re-engineering of the engine as well as the fuel system. An additional hole must be bored into each cylinder – for the injector – and a separate fuel-injection circuit added to prevent carbon fouling of the intake valves, which in a PFI system are automatically kept clean by the solvent action of gasoline washing them down. DI also involves multiple fuel pumps to achieve the necessary pressure step-up from tank to injector.

The retirement of most naturally aspirated six cylinder engines in favor of heavily turbocharged four cylinder engines. Many vehicles in the $30k or so price bracket – including family sedans like the Honda Accord and Mazda6, the VW Passat, etc. – used to offer six cylinder engines and most luxury-badged vehicles in the $50k or so price bracket such as the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and BMW 5 Series sedans came standard with one. As of 2022, none of the vehicles in the latter class come standard with them – and only a few in the former class (such as the Toyota Camry) still offer one.

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Nationalism to Confront Globalism in Glasgow, by Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted on October 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

Green piety goes out the window when people are freezing. From Patrick J. Buchanan at buchanan.org:

“Extraordinary, isn’t it? I’ve been hearing all about COP,” said the queen to the duchess of Cornwall. “Still don’t know who is coming. … We only know about people who are not coming. … It’s really irritating when they talk but they don’t do.”

Queen Elizabeth II was expressing her exasperation at the possible number of no-shows at the U.K.’s coming climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.

Among the absentees may be Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose country generates more carbon dioxide than the U.S. and EU combined.

Behind the queen’s exasperation, however, lies a political reality.

Nations like China are discovering that meeting goals for cutting carbon emissions can stall economic growth to where the regime itself is at peril.

Forced to choose between what is best for the country now and what is better for mankind in some indeterminate future, leaders are putting the needs of the nation today over the call of the world of tomorrow.

As the countdown to Glasgow proceeds, China’s energy situation is described by The New York Times:

“China’s electricity shortage is rippling across factories and industries, testing the nation’s status as the world’s capital for reliable manufacturing. The shortage prompted the authorities to announce on Wednesday a national rush to mine and burn more coal, despite their previous pledges to curb emissions that cause climate change.

“Mines that were closed without authorization have been ordered to reopen. Coal mines and coal-fired power plants that were shut for repairs are also to be reopened. Tax incentives are being drafted for coal-fired power plants. … Local governments have been warned to be more cautious about limits on energy use that had been imposed partly in response to climate change concerns.”

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Support For Climate Change Skyrockets After Computer Models Show It Will Flood California

Posted on October 18, 2021 | 1 comment

From The Babylon Bee:

U.S.—A new climate model shows that much of southern California will be underwater in the future as a result of uninhibited climate change. These stark images have had a profound effect on public opinion, causing a huge spike in support for climate change.

“You mean, just by driving around in my gas guzzler, I could flood all the homes of those coastal elites?” asked Greg Butler, who lives in rural Kansas. “Cool! Why am I still talking to you? I should be driving!”

“I don’t even believe in climate change,” said Evelyn Klein of Boise, Idaho, “but now I hope it’s real. So what do I do to help it along? Eat more meat? I can do that!”

This pro-climate-change attitude has alarmed many rich, left-wing Californians. “You stupid redneck hicks,” said Hollywood producer Alan Stevenson. “Don’t you understand? You all need to make huge, personal sacrifices or my beachfront property is ruined!”

Still, in middle America, there is a newfound vigor for helping climate change, with everyone trying to do their part. And if someone doesn’t have the time or ability to add to climate change, they can now buy carbon credits — money that goes toward people cutting down trees to help add more carbon to the air.

https://babylonbee.com/news/new-computer-models-showing-california-under-water-causes-huge-spike-in-support-for-climate-change

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Let Us Count the Ways, by James Howard Kunstler

Posted on October 18, 2021 | Leave a comment

When does Democratic economic and political stupidity proceed to the point where the whole shebang collapses? From James Howard Kunstler at kunstler.com:

What America really wants to know is: after those months of “family leave,” did Pete Buttigieg get the hang of lactating? Hey, if sexuality is just a “social construct,” then the functions of sexuality must be teachable. So now Pete can move on to ovulation lessons and become the “birthing person” of his dreams. Pete’s dreams are America’s dreams, you see.

In the meantime, though, America has a little transportation problem that a Secretary of Transportation might look into if he wasn’t so busy performing a gender reeducation parable for the Woke family values crowd. Namely, that federal rules combined with California Air Resource Board regulations are destroying the trucking industry, a major link in the broken supply-chains for the gazillion products and parts that an advanced technological economy needs to keep on keeping on.

Under the rules, for example, California wants to phase-out tractor trailer rigs more than three years old, and eliminate all trucks that run on fossil fuels by 2035. Now, it happens that most of the truckers who service the ports of southern California are independents. They have to buy their own rigs, on which many make the equivalent of a mortgage payment, because a semi-rig can cost as much as a house. Of course, the rig must be allowed to operate for the duration of the loan. The new government regulations cancel that financial formula, and with it, the trucking industry. So much for the good intentions of the eco-wonks.

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The California Version of The Green New Deal and an October 16, 2020, EPA Settlement With Transportation is What’s Creating The Container Shipping Backlog – Working CA Ports 24/7 Will Not Help, Here’s Why, by Sundance

Posted on October 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

When you’ve got the kind of economic snafu that you have with California’s ports, governments are always the first and foremost usual suspect. From Sundance at theconservativetreehouse.com:

undreds of requests for details on the specifics of the container shipping backlog.  So, I spent 3 days calling sources, digging for details and gathering information on the substantive issue at hand.  The epicenter of the problem is not what is being outlined by financial media, corporate media and politicians who have a specific interest in distracting from the issues at hand.  This has nothing to do with COVID-19.

The issues being discussed today relate to events that happened a long time ago.  As a matter of fact, it was so predictable that Amazon, Walmart, UPS, FedEx, Samsung, The Home Depot and Target all had taken actions years ago -long before COVID- because they knew this day would come.  It was not accidental that those companies showed up at the White House to discuss the issue, because there’s now a full court press to hide it.

There is one very specific regional issue driving the problem.  Read on:

The trucking issue with California LA ports, ie the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and the Port of Long Beach (POLB), is that all semi tractors have to be current with new California emissions standards.  As a consequence, that mean trucks cannot be older than 3 years if they are to pick up or deliver containers at those ports.  This issue wipes out approximately half of the fleet trucks used to move containers in/out of the port.  Operating the port 24/7 will not cure the issue, because all it does is pile up more containers that sit idle as they await a limited number of trucks to pick them up.  THIS is the central issue.

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“The Revenge of the Fossil Fuels”, by James Rickards

Posted on October 15, 2021 | Leave a comment

Sunshine and windpower are renewable, but they’re also intermittent and their technology is nowhere near to making them a replacement for fossil fuels. From James Rickards at dailyreckoning.com:

What have the climate alarmists been screaming about for the past 40 years or so? Their agenda is well-known. They want to close nuclear plants; shut down coal electric generators; eliminate natural gas and oil-fired electrical plants; and substitute wind, solar and hydropower in their place.

According to the fanatics, this substitution of renewable energy sources for so-called “fossil fuels” and uranium-powered plants would reduce CO2 emissions and save the planet from the existential threat of global warming.

Everything about this climate alarmist agenda is a fraud.

The evidence that the planet is warming is slight and the effect is likely temporary with global cooling in the forecast. The contribution of CO2 emissions to any global warming is not clear and is at best unsettled science and at worst another fraud.

Most importantly, global energy demand is growing much faster than renewables can come online, meaning that oil, natural gas, clean coal and nuclear energy will be needed whether renewables grow or not.

Wind and Solar Won’t Cut It

Wind turbines and solar panels cannot be the backbone of a modern energy grid because they are intermittent sources. Wind turbines require continual wind and solar panels require continual sunlight. Turbines don’t produce when the wind stops. Solar panels don’t produce at night or on cloudy days.

I have firsthand experience with this because I once built the largest off-grid noncommercial solar panel array in New England. You learn quickly to do laundry, run the dishwasher and use other high-energy electrical appliances on sunny days because you’ll need to conserve your batteries through the snow and rain.

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Is Decarbonization Threatening Europe’s Energy Security? By Haley Zaremba

Posted on October 14, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Decarbonization” is going to be much more difficult than the Green New Dealers and all its other proponents think. From Haley Zaremba at oilprice.com:

  • The energy crisis that is unfolding across the globe could set the world back in terms of carbon emissions as coal and gas demand skyrockets.
  • China will burn and import more coal this year than it did last year, seriously imperiling the nation’s own emissions pledges as well as the world’s chances of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.
  • Achieving net-zero is going to require an extremely delicate balancing act as the world struggles to move away from fossil fuels while keeping the economy running smoothly.

Later this month about 25,000 people are headed to Glasgow for the 26th annual United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), known as COP26. The UK, this year’s host of the Conference of the Parties, has asked participants to submit more ambitious targets for emissions reductions by 2030 in order to enable the possibility of achieving global net-zero emissions by mid-century. Conference leaders have also asked for increased monetary contribution to climate adaptation and mitigation funds, and have the stated goal of finalizing the regulatory framework for implementing and enforcing the pledges made in the 2015 Paris agreement.

At the same time that the world ramps up for the latest and most robust global climate meeting, an energy crisis is unfolding in Europe and Asia which could set the world back in terms of carbon emissions, and which showcases just how difficult the road to decarbonization will be. As global economies have surged back to life in the post-pandemic era, demand for consumer goods and services has skyrocketed. While consumers have largely bounced back to business as usual, however, supply chains have not been able to keep up.

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Here is The Hidden $150 Trillion Agenda Behind The “Crusade” Against Climate Change, by Tyler Durden

Posted on October 14, 2021 | Leave a comment

There’s a lot of money to made on climate change. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

We now live in a world, where bizarro headlines such as the ones below, have become a daily if not hourly occurrence:

  • *TREASURY TO STUDY IMPACT OF CLIMATE ON HOUSEHOLDS, COMMUNITIES
  • *TREASURY LAUNCHES EFFORT ON CLIMATE-RELATED FINANCIAL RISKS
  • *BRAINARD: CLIMATE-SCENARIO ANALYSIS WILL HELP IDENTIFY RISKS
  • *BRAINARD: CLIMATE CHANGE COULD HAVE PROFOUND ECONOMIC EFFECTS
  • *MESTER: FED LOOKS AT CLIMATE CHANGE FROM VIEW OF RISKS TO BANKS
  • *FED IS TAKING THE RIGHT COURSE ON MONITORING CLIMATE CHANGE
  • *FED SHOULD CONSIDER CLIMATE-CHANGE RISK TO FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Now, in case someone is still confused, none of these institutions, and not a single of the erudite officials running them, give a rat’s ass about the climate, about climate change risks, or about the fate of future generations of Americans (and certainly not about the rising water level sweeping away their massive waterfront mansions): if they did, total US debt and underfunded liabilities wouldn’t be just shy of $160 trillion.

So what is going on, and why is it that virtually every topic these days has to do with climate change, “net zero”, green energy and ESG?

The reason – as one would correctly suspect – is money. Some $150 trillion of it.

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Wall Street’s Takeover of Nature Advances with Launch of New Asset Class, by Whitney Webb

Posted on October 14, 2021 | Leave a comment

There is nothing Wall Street can’t monetize, and that includes nature. From Whitney Webb at unlimitedhangout.com:

A project of the multilateral development banking system, the Rockefeller Foundation and the New York Stock Exchange recently created a new asset class that will put, not just the natural world, but the processes underpinning all life, up for sale under the guise of promoting “sustainability.

Last month, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced it had developed a new asset class and accompanying listing vehicle meant “to preserve and restore the natural assets that ultimately underpin the ability for there to be life on Earth.” Called a natural asset company, or NAC, the vehicle will allow for the formation of specialized corporations “that hold the rights to the ecosystem services produced on a given chunk of land, services like carbon sequestration or clean water.” These NACs will then maintain, manage and grow the natural assets they commodify, with the end of goal of maximizing the aspects of that natural asset that are deemed by the company to be profitable.

Though described as acting like “any other entity” on the NYSE, it is alleged that NACs “will use the funds to help preserve a rain forest or undertake other conservation efforts, like changing a farm’s conventional agricultural production practices.” Yet, as explained towards the end of this article, even the creators of NACs admit that the ultimate goal is to extract near-infinite profits from the natural processes they seek to quantify and then monetize.

NYSE COO Michael Blaugrund alluded to this when he said the following regarding the launch of NACs: “Our hope is that owning a natural asset company is going to be a way that an increasingly broad range of investors have the ability to invest in something that’s intrinsically valuable, but, up to this point, was really excluded from the financial markets.”

Framed with the lofty talk of “sustainability” and “conservation”, media reports on the move in outlets like Fortune couldn’t avoid noting that NACs open the doors to “a new form of sustainable investment” which “has enthralled the likes of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink over the past several years even though there remain big, unanswered questions about it.” Fink, one of the world’s most powerful financial oligarchs, is and has long been a corporate raider, not an environmentalist, and his excitement about NACs should give even its most enthusiastic proponents pause if this endeavor was really about advancing conservation, as is being claimed.

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