Environment

The Farmers Win

Featured image Farm revolts have spread across Europe, most recently in France where farmers blocked roads leading into Paris. Local grievances vary somewhat, but fundamentally farmers have been rebelling against the environmental insanity that afflicts the EU even more than it does the U.S. So farmers have been rebelling on behalf of the rest of us, since left-wing environmental policies are designed to make food (especially meat) vastly more expensive, so as »

Juice—Power, Politics, and the Grid, Part 5: “Industrial Cathedrals”

Featured image The final installment of Robert Bryce’s new documentary decries our short-term thinking about what is almost literally the backbone of modern civilization: the electricity grid. We take it for granted, and allowed it to become the plaything of the green dreamers. We are setting ourselves up for catastrophe. If you haven’t already, there’s still time to sign up for Robert’s free Substack (he has a cool podcast, too). It’s worth »

The peasants are revolting, German edition

Featured image In the old Wizard of Id cartoon, when the King is advised the peasants are revolting, the King responds, “You can say that again.” This time around they are revolting in Germany. Spiked editor Tom Slater writes in his weekly email: “German farmers have had enough. On Monday, thousands of tractors and tens of thousands of farmers descended on Berlin, capping off a week of nationwide demonstrations. It was a »

Random thoughts on the passing seen

Featured image I have adapted the heading of this post from the great Thomas Sowell’s occasional columns expressing “random thoughts on the passing scene.” It is unbelievable how many apothegms he formulated and shibboleths he pierced in those occasional columns. In no way can I rise to Sowell’s standards. I only claim to have a few random thoughts. Random I can do. Sowell compiled numerous random thoughts from his columns in Part »

The Spy Who Came in for the Gold

Featured image Ten years ago this month, “climate expert” John Beale, the EPA’s highest-paid employee, was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison. His crime was like something from Ian Fleming on LSD. [You can see Power Line’s coverage of this story from the time starting here.] In 1994, Beale told his EPA bosses he was actually a CIA spy working in London, India and Pakistan when he was actually kicking back »

They’re Coming For Your Beef

Featured image You’re not paranoid. The global ruling class really does want to stop you from eating beef. And pork. And chicken. From Climate Depot: The world’s most-developed nations will be told to curb their excessive appetite for meat as part of the first comprehensive plan to bring the global agrifood industry into line with the Paris climate agreement. The global food systems’ road map to 1.5C is expected to be published »

Green Ideology as Class Warfare

Featured image I generally think of green dogma as something that the gentry class imposes on the rest of us–you peons have to live more poorly, never mind my yacht and private jet. But there is another side to it, as well, as we see in the Guardian: environmentalism as a manifestation of class envy. The article describes green angst in the advertising industry: There is increasing agreement that although individual behaviour »

Vaclav Klaus, After All

Featured image SALZBURG, Austria, October 19—Back in August of 1990 I attended my first-ever meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in Munich, West Germany, not far from my current temporary location. I was still a sluggish graduate student at the time, long past when I should have completed my dissertation, but somehow I had contrived to snag a fellowship to attend, and present a paper whose precise topic I don’t now recall, »

Apple Cringe

Featured image Apple product launches in the Steve Jobs era always used to include a large measure of P.T. Barnum, with Jobs ending with, “And one more thing. . .” Then he’d either pull out a new device or unveil a new software development like iTunes or new “wow” features in the App store. This week Apple launched the iPhone 15, and CEO Tim Cook’s “one more thing. . .” turned out »

Wind Energy Will Never Be Affordable

Featured image There is a financial crisis in the wind industry. You can see it in headlines like Support for offshore wind sinks as costs soar, and The ill wind of offshore wind projects. At the Telegraph, Matt Ridley sums up the ineluctable reasons for the current crisis: The MPs who have forced Rishi Sunak into a U-turn on onshore wind power love to repeat the favourite slogan of the wind industry: »

The Pipeline from Hell

Featured image Did you know that there is a federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)? But of course there is. And you might suppose that since pipelines carry mostly oil and natural gas, it would be housed inside the Department of Energy. But no: it is part of the Department of Transportation. So we have yet another instance of government cabinet department that does nothing to produce an increased supply »

Wind Energy: A Doomed Industry

Featured image The Wall Street Journal reports that the wind industry has fallen on hard times: The wind business, viewed by governments as key to meeting climate targets and boosting electricity supplies, is facing a dangerous market squall. After months of warnings about rising prices and logistical hiccups, developers and would-be buyers of wind power are scrapping contracts, putting off projects and postponing investment decisions. The setbacks are piling up for both »

$50 Trillion of Futility

Featured image One of the climate alarmists’ most intractable problems is the disproportion between the problems their models forecast and the solutions they propose. That is, if you believe the models, there is no remotely plausible course of action we can follow that makes a perceptible difference. So our impoverishment is pointless. The hero of the Senate, John Kennedy, made this point while questioning Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk. The exchange occurred »

Courtroom Setback for the Climatistas?

Featured image 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 »

Quotations from Chairman Joe

Featured image His Fraudulence addressed the League of Conservation Voters annual capital dinner last night. The White House has posted the transcripts of his remarks here. Dear readers, see if you can grok this: And on day one of my presidency, we moved to re-enter the Paris Accord, because the United States should lead the world — lead the world in climate. (Applause.) Last December, the world did follow our lead when »

About Those Wildfires

Featured image Here in the Twin Cities, around mid afternoon the skies took on a pink haze. The air burned one’s eyes and smelled slightly smoky. It was smoke from Canadian wildfires, wafting southward. These days, pretty much any inconvenient phenomenon is blamed on the all-purpose hobgoblin of “climate change.” Thus with the out of control Canadian fires. But in fact, the North American climate has not changed in any way that »

Environmentalists Want to Make Their Religion Official

Featured image By now it is hardly original to point out that environmentalism has become a religion, with the climatistas being a full-fledged cult. Time magazine, which somehow sill exists, thinks we should make Earth Day an official religious holiday: The Case For Making Earth Day a Religious Holiday [O]n this 53rd Earth Day we thought it useful to pose what a real Earth Day should represent and how it could form »