Climate
February 9, 2021 — Steven Hayward
The climatistas are urging President Biden to declare climate change to be a national emergency, thereby tripping enhanced presidential powers under the profligate National Emergencies Act. Trump employed the NEA to divert defense funds to build some of the border wall that Congress refused to fund, and Biden might well raid the defense budget for more windmills or something. My guess is Biden is holding back this step in case
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January 29, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Monsieur John F. Kerry is the Harris-Biden administration’s Climate Ambassador. He is assisted in his diplomatic duties by National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy. Earlier this week they held a press briefing with the psickening Jen Psaki. I have embedded the video below. It is excruciating. The White House transcript can be read without the full effect of Kerry’s otherwise audible hauteur. The gentleman from Madame Tussauds killed the Keystone Pipeline
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January 25, 2021 — Steven Hayward
For 30 years or more, I’ve been pointing out that when you hear someone at an environmental group, such as the Sierra Club or NRDC, has the title “senior scientist,” you can usually assume the person is a lawyer. Hence this detail from a Northwestern University roundup of Biden’s climate science team jumps out: Some scientists have reservations about the new team, particularly about the need to stress climate reform.
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January 22, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
In his first day as president, Joe Biden had something for almost everyone in his far-left coalition. For the climate alarmists, he signed an executive order revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. For the radical LGBT crowd, he signed an executive order that I read as calling on schools across the country to allow transgender athletes to participate in the sport of their gender identity. (It says, “Children
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January 18, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Word is out today that Joe Biden plans to cancel the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline on Day One in office. Leaving aside potential legal difficulties (I can imagine that, depending on the exact status of the permit, Trans-Canada may have a strong case for damages before the U.S. Federal Court of Claims), this is pure symbolism, as it will not reduce the amount of oil consumed in the
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January 12, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Big Tech censorship is the issue of the day, and it isn’t just President Trump and other conservative leaders whose speech is being suppressed. The heavy hand of censorship has also come down on discussion of the highly-controversial theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. A party line has been pronounced, and you deviate from it at your peril, regardless of the scientific evidence, which strongly supports the skeptical view. My
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December 29, 2020 — Steven Hayward
It has been widely noted that many of our government leaders seem to like the air of crisis and the exertion of emergency power that the COVID pandemic has enabled. And there has been open support among the climatistas applying the kinds of strictures used to battle COVID to climate change as well. The superficiality of this parallel will be lost on lots of people—after all, how well are the
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November 24, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Joe Biden has selected John Kerry — old foghorn himself — to be “climate czar”, as some accounts label the job, or “climate envoy”, as other accounts call it. I don’t think the climate will heed a czar. I’m not sure it will even accept an envoy. However, the actual job is perfect for Kerry at one level. As Kevin Williamson says, naming Kerry as the climate envoy is “a
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November 23, 2020 — Steven Hayward
News item: Biden intends to name John Kerry to be his “climate czar.” News item: Oil and gas stocks soaring on Wall Street today. Coincidence? I think not! I can think of no greater condign punishment for the International Order of Climatistas than sending Mr. Flower-Power Zipper Pull to their annual gabfests. This is the man who puts the goober in “lugubrious.” I hope and expect that he will take
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October 28, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Last week we reported on a survey that found climatistas fly more often than other academics/scientists/activists, a result entirely unsurprising to our readership. Today Nature magazine gets around to reporting on the survey, passing along some additionally embarrassing facts that I missed the first time around. The Nature story reports that, yes, indeed climate scientists fly more than other experts, but “make greater effort to offset their emissions.” That sentence
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October 20, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Whole lot of news items today worth brief notice. • The most unsurprising headline of the day, from the Times of London: Climate Experts Fly More Often Than Other Scientists Scientists who specialise in climate change fly more than other researchers, according to a study by Cardiff University that has prompted calls for them “to look in the mirror” before demanding that others cut emissions. . . The difference could
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September 16, 2020 — Steven Hayward
The western fires haven’t gone away yet, and likewise it is too much to hope that the climatistas would give up their narrative that climate change is the dominant factor in increasing fire area and intensity. Herewith a second helping of some facts and data to supplement our previous item on this topic. Start with NASA’S Earth Observatory, which presents data showing that on the global scale wildfires actually declined
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September 13, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Churchill once defined a fanatic as “someone who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject,” so it was entirely predictable that the climatistas would declare the massive wildfires raging in the west right now are proof that the climate change debate is over. Shut up, they explained. Governor Gruesome Newsom says so, so there! Also the Los Angeles Times today: The real reason for the large fires is the
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July 28, 2020 — Steven Hayward
The poor climate campaign has been having a hard time getting its usual media attention amidst the more immediate panic and media freakout over COVID-19 (which is why CNN enlisted Greta Thunberg for a panel on COVID-19), and the economic cost of the virus shutdown is not helping the greens as a demonstration project of what would occur with their preferred policies that would shrink the world economy in the
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July 17, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Michael Shellenberger is author of the new book Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All. Quillette excerpted it in “Why I Believe Climate Change Is Not the End of the World.” Last month John Tierney reviewed the book for the Wall Street Journal in “False Gods for Lost Souls.” Tierney writes: [Shellenberger] chronicles environmental progress around the world and crisply debunks myth after gloomy myth. No, we are not
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July 10, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Despite wanting to ignore the tedious and repetitive subject of climate change (the biggest loser from the COVID-19 crisis, by the way), now and then there is some actual news worthy of note. Here are two items of interest: • Several years back we reported on the preposterous energy claims of Stanford Prof. Mark Jacobson (most of whose Stanford colleagues think him a joke), who claims the U.S. can derive
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July 1, 2020 — John Hinderaker
The International Energy Agency says we have only six months left to save the world from global warming: [A]ccording to the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), we only have six months left to prevent total climate change disaster. “This year is the last time we have, if we are not to see a carbon rebound,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol told the Guardian on Thursday in an article
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