Environmental Extremism

Mnuchin says Greta Thunberg should study economics before calling for fossil fuel divestment

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin took a shot at Greta Thunberg — the famed teen climate activist — on Thursday over her push at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, for companies to immediately cease all investments in fossil fuels. Mnuchin was at a news conference in the Alpine town when he was asked about Thunberg’s earlier appeal to abandon older sources of energy, according to Reuters. “Is she the chief economist? … After she goes to college and studies economics in college, she can come back and explain that to us,” he was quoted saying. Thunberg, 17, from Sweden, has been embraced by celebrities and is seen by supporters as a fierce, young voice capable of rallying support for her cause: to clean up the environmental mess left by previous generations. Her detractors view her as a media-generated star who admitted that she was surprised when she was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.” There appears to be no love lost between Thunberg and President Trump, who called Time magazine’s decision “ridiculous.” Thunberg said in September that talking to Trump at the U.N. General Assembly in New York City would have been a waste of time. In Davos, Thunberg took part in a panel discussion hosted by The New York Times, where she told the audience there is a real need for immediate action on climate change. “Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour,” she said, according to the Times. “Let’s be clear. We don’t need a ‘low carbon economy.’ We don’t need to ‘lower emissions.’ Our emissions have to stop.” Trump and Thunberg were both in Davos at the same time and “sparred indirectly,” the Reuters report said, though Trump appeared to “extend an olive branch” when he told reporters he wished that he was able to hear her speak before he left.

Good on Sec. Mnuchin calling out this kid with NO life experience, and who knows absolutelynothing about economics.  She’s propped up by the media left because she’s young and spouting their talking points.  Someone needs to ask her how she got to Davos.  Did she take a plane?  A car?  Typical liberal hypocrisy…..

Doomsdays that didn’t happen: Think tank compiles decades’ worth of dire climate predictions

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently suggested Miami would disappear in “a few years” due to climate change. The United Nations is convening a “Climate Action Summit” next week. And climate activist Greta Thunberg is on Capitol Hill this week telling lawmakers they must act soon. But while data from NASA and other top research agencies confirms global temperatures are indeed rising, a newly compiled retrospective indicates the doomsday rhetoric is perhaps more overheated. The conservative-leaning Competitive Enterprise Institute has put together a lengthy compilation of apocalyptic predictions dating back decades that did not come to pass, timed as Democratic presidential candidates and climate activists refocus attention on the issue. The dire predictions, often repeated in the media, warned of a variety of impending disasters – famine, drought, an ice age, and even disappearing nations – if the world failed to act on climate change. An Associated Press headline from 1989 read “Rising seas could obliterate nations: U.N. officials.” The article detailed a U.N. environmental official warning that entire nations would be eliminated if the world failed to reverse warming by 2000. Then there were the fears that the world would experience a never-ending “cooling trend in the Northern Hemisphere.” That claim came from an “international team of specialists” cited by The New York Times in 1978. Just years prior, Time magazine echoed other media outlets in suggesting that “another ice age” was imminent. “Telltale signs are everywhere — from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest,” the magazine warned in 1974. The Guardian similarly warned in 1974 that “Space satellites show new Ice Age coming fast.” In 1970, The Boston Globe ran the headline, “Scientist predicts a new ice age by 21st century.” The Washington Post, for its part, published a Columbia University scientist’s claim that the world could be “as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age.” Some of the more dire predictions came from Paul Ehrlich, a biologist who famously urged population control to mitigate the impacts of humans on the environment. Ehrlich, in 1969, warned that “everybody” would “disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years,” The New York Times reported. According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Ehrlich, warning of a “disastrous” famine,” urged placing “sterilizing agents into staple foods and drinking water.” Those predictions were made around the time former President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency. Since then, the U.S. has adopted a series of environmental reforms aimed at limiting emissions. Years after those initial predictions, media outlets and politicians continue to teem with claims of apocalyptic scenarios resulting from climate change. Earlier this month, leading Democratic presidential candidates held a town hall on the issue and warned about the “existential” threat posed by a changing climate. Before the end of the month, 2020 candidates are expected to have another climate forum at Georgetown University. CEI’s report came just before the U.N. Climate Action Summit on Sept. 23, an event that promises to “spark the transformation that is urgently needed and propel action that will benefit everyone.” It also came a week after Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., warned that Miami would be gone in a “few years” because of climate change. She was responding to critics of her ambitious “Green New Deal,” which seeks to reach net-zero emissions within just decades. Ocasio-Cortez, whose plan has been endorsed by leading presidential candidates, previously joked that the world would end in 12 years if it didn’t address climate change. But short-term predictions weren’t a laughing matter in the years following “An Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary produced by former Vice President Al Gore. In 2008, ABC released an ominous video about what the world would look like in 2015. As the video warned about rising sea levels, a graphic showed significant portions of New York City engulfed by water. Gore himself famously predicted in the early 2000s that Arctic ice could be gone within seven years. At the end of seven years, Arctic ice had undergone a period of expansion…

It’s interesting that in Great Britain, the courts there ruled that Al Gore’s book “Earth in the Balance” is not allowed to be used in any of the schools as a textbook or resource because an analysis of that book revealed more than 13 major factual errors; assertions he either made that were factually inaccurate, OR predictions he made that never came to pass.  And yet, the enviro-wackos continue to turn to him as some authority on so-called “global warming” (or it’s latest term, “climate change”).  If only we had such common sense quality control here in America..  Kudos to CEI for putting out this report exposing the extreme liberal enviro movement, and their debunked chicken little nonsense.  We hope other credible organizations, institutions, and scientists follow CEI’s lead.

Joe Bastardi: Climate change agenda is being driven by hysteria, not facts

Throughout my 40 year career as a meteorologist, I have tried to live up to the responsibility I inherited from my predecessors. I was taught to strive for objective truth, irrespective of where the data would lead. Science is not a belief system based on feelings or subjective motives. It is about facts, evidence, theories and experimentation in search of a conclusion. The impassioned speech by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to Congress last week revealed volumes about the intent and commitment of those pushing the Green New Deal. I can’t help but question if their positions are based on facts. Ocasio-Cortez’s statements about adverse climate effects and policy proposals reflect a lack of knowledge about energy policy and the geopolitical and financial impacts of abandoning fossil fuels in a quick and reckless manner. “The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,” she said earlier this year – a statement clearly designed to elicit panic but hardly based on fact. In this age of political hysteria, we must all educate ourselves on the facts – the actual science. Unfortunately, there seems to be a total lack of awareness about important issues that scientists like myself – who aren’t paid by research grants – are concerned about. Instead, climate science is being used as a political weapon, and the voices of scientists like me are being ignored or even vilified. I was under the impression that in the United States, all voices and arguments should be heard. Climate science is not settled science. If it was, why would there be a continuous flow of money to research it? For example, is AOC aware that in the fossil fuel era, in spite of a four-fold increase in population, deaths have plummeted? Or that personal GDP and life expectancy – true measurements of progress – have dramatically increased? Or that world prosperity is rising while poverty is falling? And does AOC know that in the geological history of the Earth, there is no apparent direct link between carbon dioxide and temperature? AOC is trying to capture the imagination of young people to exact a specific result – the adoption of policies that cripple our way of life and push us towards socialism. But the charts above are only a few examples of data that should cause us to pause and ask questions about the direction that the Green New Deal wants America to go in. We should also ask why there is such a hurry to get there. For every current event that is used to whip up hysteria, there has been a past event that was even worse, but that people either ignore or are ignorant about in the first place. Extreme weather has always occurred and will inevitably continue. If climate alarmists do not know about the many arguments that question the credibility of their ideas, how is it even possible for their ideas to be seriously considered? Much of what is being proposed in the Green New Deal should not only cause skepticism, but should be considered draconian and even geopolitically dangerous. The migration towards cleaner, alternative energy needs to be done in a methodical, sustainable and intelligent way, otherwise, the consequences could be far worse than anyone can imagine. Perhaps we should pause and consider why none of the global warming models from two decades ago have come to fruition. Perhaps we should slow down and think about the consequences of allowing our adversaries to supply the world with cheap energy, because one thing is for sure – wind farms and solar panels won’t get the job done. The objective reader should examine all sides of the climate debate and should ask himself: Are the consequences of acting hastily worse than not acting at all? I think many are skeptical of rushing forward. We must rein in the political hysteria and fear-mongering that is driving the climate change agenda.

Agreed!!  And well said, Joe.  Joe Bastardi is a pioneer in extreme weather and long-range forecasting and the chief meteorologist at weatherbell.com. He is the author of “The Climate Chronicles: Inconvenient Revelations You Won’t Hear From Al Gore — and Others.”       🙂

Opinion/Analysis: Trump Vindicated as Paris Climate Agreement Unravels

The Paris Climate Agreement is a dead non-binding treaty walking. All the signatories know this, none of them will admit it. So instead, we have to endure the ritual spectacle of UN delegates racking up yet more air miles and dumping their carbon footprint on a new location in order to wail hysterically that much, much more needs to be done to save the planet from the greatest threat evah. This week the UN’s clown caravan has moved to Bangkok, Thailand – the preliminary to an even bigger meeting, COP24, in December in Katowice, Poland. As the South China Morning Post reports, the auguries aren’t good: “Time is running out to save the Paris Agreement, United Nations climate experts warned Tuesday at a key Bangkokmeeting, as rich nations were accused of shirking their responsibility for environmental damage.” That’s because – just as they were in Paris 2015 – the negotiations are caught between a rock and a hard place. Western countries don’t want to stump up for what is essentially an attempted shakedown by poorer countries demanding more handouts in the name of “climate justice.” Developing economies – as they have cunningly managed to designate themselves – like India and China and the rest of the BRICs have absolutely no interest in hampering their economies with carbon emissions cuts, not least because they recognise that “global warming” is just a scam invented by Euro Weenies who want to decide how the world is run. That’s why, as Townhall reports, they are all going mad for coal: “[Climate Justice] was the idea that developed countries should pay developing countries compensation for the slowing down of their economic growth that would result from the mandatory transition from coal to more expensive renewable energy sources, as proposed in the agreement. Despite the approval of such funding, both India and China continued to expand their coal consumption. They continue to import, export, and use coal extensively. At their current pace, neither country will ever achieve their emission targets as mentioned in their respective INDCs. Russia, meanwhile, is quietly developing its coal infrastructure despite its claims of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. In 2015, Russia’s coal production stood at 186.37 million TOE (Tons of Oil Equivalent). It jumped to 206.33 million in 2017. The country is expanding its coal infrastructure to enable more streamlined transport of coal across the country and to meet the increase in exports due to demand from its Asian neighbor China.” Meanwhile, in the other BRIC, the most likely candidate to win Brazil’s next elections – Conservative Jair Bolsonaro – has vowed to pull his country out of the Paris Agreement. So, all in all, President Trump has every right to feel vindicated at his decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement. All that is left for his critics to do is wail and gnash their teeth, making impotent demands like this one from a bunch of 200 arthouse luvvies – led by Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche. They have written to France’s Le Monde newspaper, claiming that climate change is the “greatest challenge in the history of mankind” and demanding that all necessary measures be taken by governments – no matter how unpopular their decisions may be. The signatories are a Who’s Who of some of the most attractive actresses in French cinema – Binoche; Isabelle Adjani; Marion Cotillard; Catherine Deneuve, plus a few Americans who want to be burnished by association with moody, arthouse French cinema (Tim Robbins, Rufus Wainwright, etc), plus some French rappers no one outside France has heard of. Unfortunately, no one cares.

More like “fortunately..”  lol   The whole Paris Climate Agreement was a con from the get-go.  The absolute worst pollution violators are India, China and Russia…all of whom had no intention of ever agreeing to these accords.  Yet, Obama was hell-bent on tying our hands behind our back economically and unilaterally agreeing to that nonsense.  Ironically, Obama never submitted it to the Senate for ratification, even when the Dems controlled it, because even the Dems wouldn’t ratify it.  So, instead, Obama did what he did throughout his presidency; brazenly violated the Constitution and just signed it anyway.  Then, Trump did the only thing he could do; pull the U.S. out of the accords.  The fact that a federal judge ruled Obama’s actions unconstitutional made the decision academic.

Suckers beware: Your $10 reusable steel drinking straw may be counterfeit

As several cities take aim at reducing their carbon footprint by banning plastic straws, one company says there’s a new problem that could soon plague the U.S.: counterfeit reusable straws. FinalStraw sought to create a collapsible, stainless steel straw that consumers could reuse. The straw even comes with a carrying case. However, Emma Cohen, the company’s co-founder, told BuzzFeed News on Monday that counterfeiters flooding websites like Amazon and eBay are creating an issue. “The whole purpose was to reduce waste,” Cohen said, adding the counterfeit straws created a “bigger waste problem.” Searches across Amazon and eBay found that knockoff stainless steel straws were prevalent, according to BuzzFeed News. While FinalStraw intends to sell its item for $20 apiece, other places were selling theirs for $10. Cohen and co-founder Miles Pepper reported more than 200 listings on Amazon, eBay and Alibaba were using FinalStraw’s promotional photos to advertise the knockoffs. FinalStraw doesn’t have a listing on these websites because its final product won’t be ready until November, according to BuzzFeed News. Those who have bought the counterfeit straws have complained to FinalStraw about their purchases falling apart. “People are just genuinely confused,” Cohen told BuzzFeed News. “Some are angry and upset.” Pepper said the company plans to go after the straw sellers after its trademark and patent applications go through. The race for an alternative straw version was kicked off when cities like San Francisco and Seattle announced plans to reduce the use of plastic straws at restaurants. San Francisco became the largest U.S. city last month to ban restaurants and retailers from providing customers with plastic straws. Businesses in the city will have to meet the new guidelines by January 1, 2020. Disney and Starbucks have also announced plans to ban plastic straws.

If FinalStraw and other similar companies want to market such a product, then we’re all for it!  The free market is the place to address this issue; NOT by the fascist Democrat politicians telling us what we can and cannot use to drink a beverage with.  That said…  This is the insanity that happens when we allow political correctness to take over our lives.  Thankfully, I live in a city that still allows plastic straws.  Unreal..

Analysis: Climate Alarmists Finally Admit ‘We Were Wrong About Global Warming’

Climate alarmists have finally admitted that they’ve got it wrong on global warming. This is the inescapable conclusion of a landmark paper, published in Nature Geoscience, which finally admits that the computer models have overstated the impact of carbon dioxide on climate and that the planet is warming more slowly than predicted. The paper – titled Emission budgets and pathways consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 °C – concedes that it is now almost impossible that the doomsday predictions made in the last IPCC Assessment Report of 1.5 degrees C warming above pre-industrial levels by 2022 will come true. In order for that to happen, temperatures would have to rise by a massive 0.5 degrees C in five years. Since global mean temperatures rarely rise by even as much as 0.25 degrees C in a decade, that would mean the planet would have to do 20 years’ worth of extreme warming in the space of the next five years. This, the scientists admit, is next to impossible. Which means their “carbon budget” – the amount of CO2 they say is needed to increase global warming by a certain degree – is wrong. This in turn means that the computer models they’ve been using to scare the world with tales of man-made climate doom are wrong too. One researcher – from the alarmist side of the argument, not the skeptical one – has described the paper’s conclusion as “breathtaking” in its implications. He’s right. The scientists who’ve written this paper aren’t climate skeptics. They’re longstanding warmists, implacable foes of climate skeptics, and they’re also actually the people responsible for producing the IPCC’s carbon budget. In other words, this represents the most massive climbdown from the alarmist camp. But you certainly wouldn’t guess this from the way the scientists are trying to spin their report. Click here to continue…

Bill Nye ‘The Old People Must Die To Save The Planet Guy’

Bill Nye has a new nickname. It’s not as snappy as his old one, “the Science Guy,” but it’s a lot more accurate. Nye wants all the old people to die, preferably sooner rather than later, because they stand in the way of his holy mission to save the planet from climate change. He told the LA Times: ” Climate change deniers, by way of example, are older. It’s generational. So we’re just going to have to wait for those people to “age out,” as they say. “Age out” is a euphemism for “die.” But it’ll happen, I guarantee you — that’ll happen.” Perhaps he could have some help from his zany colleague Marcello Arguello, a stand-up comedian who writes scripts for his Emmy-nominated [lol] show Bill Nye Saves The World. Arguello apparently shares his enthusiasm for some kind of old peoples’ cull, as she recently confided to her friends on Twitter in the wake of the Congressional baseball shootings. “If a few old ass conservative white men have to die in order to get the gun control issue discussed, then I’m willing to take that risk.” She subsequently deleted the tweet but expressed no regrets for the sentiment. Elsewhere in his LA Times interview, Nye was given space to rehearse many of his favorite straw men arguments about climate change. Like the one about climate skepticism being the same as not believing in the moon landings.

Bill Nye is a complete fraud..  Anyway, to read the rest of this excellent op/ed by James Delingpole, click on the text above.

Al Gore Says God Told Him to Fight Global Warming

Former Vice President Al Gore is now telling his climate disciples that God commands us to go forth and fight global warming. Engaging in some advanced publicity for his new global warming film spectacular, “An Inconvenient Sequel,” Gore told Interview Magazine that God didn’t create global warming and wants us to fix it. In his comments, Gore equated the fight against global warming to a religious-based, moral crusade similar to the civil rights fight, women’s suffrage, and the abolitionist movement during the Civil War era. Gore insisted that it is a moral imperative to fight against climate change. “Regarding the climate movement,” Gore said warming to his point, “there are people who say, ‘God is in complete control of everything that happens, and if the Earth is getting warmer, then maybe God intends that.’” Gore then rejected that conceit. “Well, no,” the million-dollar mansion-owing former veep insisted. “God intends for us to take responsibility for how we treat God’s creation, and if we choose to use the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet as an open sewer for 110-million tons of global-warming pollution every day, the consequences are attributable to us.” He concluded saying, “And if you are a believer, as I am, I think God intends for us to open our eyes and take responsibility for the moral consequences of our actions.” Gore’s new film is a sequel to his famed “An Inconvenient Truth,” a shockumentary filled with mistaken assertions and failed predictions. Despite the many inaccuracies of his previous film, in an interview last year Gore still insisted that he “underestimated” how bad global warming is. “I wish the film had over-estimated the seriousness of the crisis, but unfortunately it actually underestimated how serious it is,” the one-time Tennessee Senator said.

Here at The Daily Buzz, we’ve been talking about how these extreme-liberal, enviro-wackos have been treating their liberal global warming/climate change agenda almost like a religious cult.  To these people, environmentalism IS their religion.  And now, Al Gore is saying that his cause has a holy calling.  Gee…isn’t that amazing?  Al Gore is a total and complete fraud.  His first film is full of factual inaccuracies, and his predictions have been a total bust.  And yet, people still listen to that idiot….probably because they’re suckers and follow him, and drink his cult Kool-Aid.

Obama declares vast areas of Alaskan coast off-limits to drilling

President Obama used his executive authority Friday to close more than 40,000 square miles of Alaska’s coast from oil and gas leases. The president’s order covering the waters offshore of Nome and surrounding St. Lawrence Island also create a 112,300-square-mile area, named the Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area, where a task force will be required to help coordinate federal activities “focusing a locally tailored collection of protections related to oil and gas, shipping and fishing,” the White House said. The move comes one day after Alaska’s congressional delegation sent Mr. Obama a letter objecting to the closing of offshore waters from future oil and gas leases. “The governor of Alaska, the leadership of the North Slope and northwest Arctic boroughs, the majority of the tribal leadership representing Alaska natives who live in the Arctic, a supermajority of the members of the Alaska state legislature, and an overwhelming majority of the Alaskan people also oppose the withdrawal of acreage in these areas,” wrote Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, and Rep. Don Young, all Republicans. The White House said the Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area will focus “locally tailored” protections on marine resources. The area supports the annual migration of bowhead and beluga whales, Pacific walrus, seals and migratory birds.

What an obnoxious tool!!  Of course this, and many other of Obama’s extreme liberal, agenda-driven executive orders like this will be repealed once Trump gets into office.  Hang in there Alaska!  Help is on the way!

Obama races to impose tougher greenhouse gas rules, and much more

The Obama administration is introducing a last-minute barrage of costly environmental regulation pronouncements that Republicans have vowed to repeal as soon as possible after Donald Trump’s January 20 presidential inauguration. The recent outpouring adds to the administration’s dubious record of producing more than 600 major regulations — those estimated to cost more than $100 million each — during its tenure, according to a study by the American Action Forum, a Washington-based think tank. Case in point: an announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency, one of the administration’s most energetic rule-makers, on Wednesday that after lengthy study, it would push ahead with tougher greenhouse gas emission standards, equivalent to 54.1 miles per gallon fuel efficiency, for passenger cars and light trucks for the years 2022-2025. EPA says the standards will prevent emission of some 6 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases over the vehicles’ life span. Technically speaking, EPA’s administrator has until April 18, 2017, to make a so-called “final determination” about the rules — but is doing it sooner, the agency says, for reasons of “long-term regulatory certainty and stability.” Translation: EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy is certain to be out of the job by then, and the ruling will likely hit a brick wall in a much more climate-skeptical Trump administration. The public has until December 30 — three weeks before Inauguration Day — to comment on the move. Within hours, the EPA announcement was decried by Sen, Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, as “another administrative avenue for President Obama to force his climate ideologies on American businesses and consumers,” through a fuel economy program that is “broken and rife with inequalities.” Inhofe said he looked forward “to working in the next Congress with the new administration to pare back all of the legacy-saving regulatory actions this administration will continue to advance as their January 20 deadline approaches.” Inhofe’s legacy-saving jibe was apt enough: the fuel economy final determination makes explicit reference to the Paris climate agreement signed by the U.S. and more than 190 other countries, which also came into force this month — and from which President-elect Trump vowed on the campaign trail to withdraw (Trump has since declared he is “keeping an open mind” about the document.) Moreover, the determination, while it makes no additional regulations post-2025, makes the case for further emissions reductions, averaging 4.3 percent annually, for the following quarter-century in order to meet the long-term goals of the Paris agreement. Cars and trucks are hardly the only products to get the eleventh-hour regulatory treatment from EPA and other agencies, in the waning months of the administration. In August, EPA and the Department of Transportation finalized additional follow-on standards through 2027 for emissions from medium- and heavy-duty trucks and other vehicles that the agencies said would save 1.1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases, even while they pushed up the price of big trucks by some $14,000 by some estimates. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx called the new rules “a huge win for the American people.” The estimated cost of the regulation, according to American Action Forum, is about $29.3 billion. The EPA’s first-ever regulations covering methane emissions from the oil and gas industry were finalized in May, and significantly toughened from an earlier version. They are now the focus of a court battle led by the state of Texas, which called the tough emission standards a “gross demonstration of federal over-reach.”

No kidding!!  No wonder our national debt has crossed the $20 TRILLION dollar mark!!  Thankfully, Donald Trump has vowed to make repealing many of these onerous and costly (and mostly unconstitutional) regulations one of his first acts as President.  Unreal..