Climate
July 16, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Those were the topics for my appearance last night on Sky News Australia’s excellent Outsiders program, as I continued my effort to explain the inexplicable to Aussies. Note the frequent Power Line plugs:
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July 15, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Our pal Ken Green, currently conducting our Power Line University short course based on his new book, The Plague of Models: How Computer Modeling Corrupted Environmental, Health and Safety Regulations, had the genius idea to ask ChatGPT to write a 750-word essay based only on the prompt, “Write 750 words about the limitations of mathematical climate models.” The result was a lucid and cogent summary of the problems with climate
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July 14, 2023 — Scott Johnson
My vocabulary of opprobrium is insufficient to do justice to Biden administration climate czar John Kerry. There is no leftist bromide he can’t spout with suffocating self-regard. He emits hot air in quantities sufficient to warm the planet. We remain proud of our small role in saving the planet from a Kerry presidency in 2004. Yesterday Kerry testified before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability. C-SPAN has
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July 2, 2023 — Elizabeth Stauffer
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released a report on Friday about a relatively new technology called solar radiation modification that could be used in the fight against climate change. According to the report, SRM is a form of “geoengineering” that “offers the possibility of cooling the planet significantly on a timescale of a few years.” The University of Oxford defines “geoengineering” as “the deliberate large-scale intervention
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June 26, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Most DC-based trade associations end up becoming advocates for the administrative state within their sector or individual member companies (the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a prime example of a “pro-business” group going native inside the Beltway), so it is good to see a trade association bluntly push back against the conventional wisdom. Let’s start with the nitwit who runs the United Nations: The U.S. Oil and Gas Association decided
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June 20, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Every day we see new predictions of doom due to “climate change.” Of course, we are pretty well inured to such prophecies since we have lived with them for decades and they haven’t come true. All of the current climate hysteria is based not on observation of actual temperatures, which are benign, but on projections from models that are generated by people who make a living by scaring other people
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June 20, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Turns out the world’s energy consumers aren’t the only people the climatistas are bullying. From the Financial Times: Female delegates at UN climate talks allege they were bullied, abused and sexually harassed by male negotiators, casting a deeper shadow over this year’s COP28 summit. Delegates at the UN talks in Bonn this month told the Financial Times of several instances where female delegates faced intimidation or harassment from male counterparts,
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June 16, 2023 — Steven Hayward
There are a number of lawsuits in various states of play around the country with plaintiffs, typically kids fronting for environmental groups, demanding that a judge issue an injunction to curtail fossil fuels (or find energy companies liable for climate change damages), but a parallel case hit the wall at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals today. In Maine Lobstermen’s Association v. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the court reviewed
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June 10, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Paul Driessen has an excellent piece at Watts Up With That? He discusses the pernicious “sue and settle” practice that left-wing activists and government agencies are pursuing, and argues for venuing climate-related litigation in the federal courts. But I want to focus on his comments on the environmental evils of “green” technologies: he litigants and courts will also encounter the bitter reality that the “fundamental transformation” they so earnestly seek
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June 2, 2023 — Steven Hayward
The latest thing from the climatistas (John Kerry in particular) is that we have to give up modern agriculture, which has been a disaster in the countries that have tried this like Sri Lanka. Our pal Steve Moore reminds us that at the end of last year the Biden climatistas were claiming climate change would threaten crop yields: Someone at the Department of Agriculture didn’t get the memo. Here’s their
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May 29, 2023 — Steven Hayward
You didn’t actually think the leftist drive for “reparations” would end only with blacks did you? “Reparations” is merely the latest slogan for the perennial leftist dream of wholesale wealth confiscation and redistribution, and whatever tool comes to hand will be used. So of course there is a mounting call for “climate reparations,” ostensibly paid by fossil fuel companies, but of course that means in practice you and me and
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May 21, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The scientific method works as follows: 1) You come up with a hypothesis. 2) You look for the implications of the hypothesis. What will be the case if the hypothesis is true, but will not be the case if the hypothesis is wrong? 3) You carry out observations or run experiments to find out whether the facts implied by the hypothesis do or do not obtain. 4) If you find
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May 5, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is a fool. He nevertheless thinks extremely highly of himself. His vanity is only one component of his clown show. To borrow a line from Bob Dylan’s “Idiot Wind,” it’s a wonder he still knows how to breathe. Heritage Foundation scholar Diana Furchtgott-Roth contributed the latest episode in Whitehouse’s long-running Looney Tunes saga when she testified on Wednesday before the Senate Budget Committee on “the real price
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May 1, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Well, First Republic Bank finally went down the drain today after circling it for several weeks. I wonder if these kinds of things might have had anything to do with it: The irony here is that First Republic is going to be acquired by J.P. Morgan. And it was Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan’s CEO, who signaled most directly that the move to force banks to stop financing fossil fuel production
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April 18, 2023 — Steven Hayward
As you know, the eco-fascist wing of the climate campaign has been blocking roadways, defacing artwork and gluing themselves to museum walls and exhibits, and otherwise being a “performative” nuisance. I fully suspect they will begin sabotage of pipelines, gas stations, electrical substations (if they haven’t already in several instances in the U.S.). But for now, the new frontier for Klimate Klown exhibitionism is . . . snooker tournaments: 🧡
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April 11, 2023 — Steven Hayward
As everyone knows, the increase in home runs a couple decades back was due mostly to steroid use, but it turns out that all major league sluggers need for their home run totals to soar is more carbon dioxide emissions. I wish we could say we’re making this up: Baseball Home Runs Are Increasing Thanks to Climate Change, Study Says In a paper published Friday in the Bulletin of the
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March 31, 2023 — Steven Hayward
It is hard to single out the most egregious demagogue in the U.S. Senate, but near or at the top of my list is Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. He likes to blast “dark money” even though Democrats by far receive more so-called “dark money” than conservatives or Republicans. (I’m updating my periodic Lexicon of Political Terms accordingly, to reflect that “dark money” means “donations from the private sector that
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