Energy Archives - Page 13 of 35

Ford Burns Through Billions, Expects to Lose $12 Billion on Electric Vehicle Line

March 25, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Geller Report

Despite the losses, Ford continues to push forward and hopes to manufacture two million EVs a year by 2026 and hit an 8% profit margin for its EV division. The company is chasing Elon Musk’s Tesla for EV sales in the U.S. and remains far behind the electric car giant. Tesla, which started in 2003, lost money for ten years before finally turning a profit in 2013. Musk’s company made $12.6 billion in 2022, an impressive jump from $5.5 billion in 2021.

They don’t care. As long as the Democrats are running/ruining the economy with their environmental/climate garbage, it’s the American taxpayer that will have to pay for this mess.

Ford Says It Will Lose $3 Billion on EVs This Year as It Touts Startup Mentality

Ford Motor Co. expects to lose about $3 billion on its electric-vehicle business this year, a reminder of how far traditional auto makers have to go in turning their EV portfolios profitable.

Ford disclosed the figure Thursday while outlining a new financial-reporting structure intended to give investors better insight into the performance of its three business units. Ford finance chief John Lawler described the EV division as a startup inside the 119-year-old company, and said it is normal for a fledgling business to rack up losses.

Ford shares were down about 1.3% in afternoon trading Thursday…

Read more.

Ford Projects Its EV Division Will Lose Billions This Year

The Ford Motor Company is going full throttle toward electric vehicle manufacturing, but that decision will cost the Michigan-based carmaker billions this year alone.

Ford said Thursday that it expects its EV division will lose $3 billion in 2023 as it pushes to produce more vehicles and build electric battery plants in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Michigan, The Financial Times reported. The carmaker wasn’t surprised by the massive loss of money as it views its EV division, known as Model e, as a “start-up.”

“Ford Model e is an EV start-up within Ford and, as everyone knows, EV start-ups lose money while they invest in capability, develop knowledge, build volume and gain share,” said John Lawler, Ford’s chief financial officer.

Despite the losses, Ford continues to push forward and hopes to manufacture two million EVs a year by 2026 and hit an 8% profit margin for its EV division. The company is chasing Elon Musk’s Tesla for EV sales in the U.S. and remains far behind the electric car giant. Tesla, which started in 2003, lost money for ten years before finally turning a profit in 2013. Musk’s company made $12.6 billion in 2022, an impressive jump from $5.5 billion in 2021.

Ford plans to explain its financials in more detail to investors and how it will stick to its goal of selling only zero-carbon emission vehicles by 2040, according to The Financial Times. Ford is relying on Ford Blue, its gas-powered vehicle production, to fund the carmaker’s transition to EVs.

Ford Blue is expected to rake in $7 billion this year, and the company’s commercial vehicles division, Ford Pro, is expected to double last year’s earnings to $6 billion this year. Lawler blamed spending on new battery plants and battery technology for the carmaker’s EV losses.

Last month, the carmaker was criticized for collaborating with a Chinese company to build a battery plant in Michigan. In its proposal, Ford said it would partner with the Chinese company Contemporary Amperex Technology on the plant that would employ 2,500 people when it begins production in 2026.

Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin withdrew his state from consideration for the new battery plant because of Ford’s partnership with the Chinese company. Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, however, has pushed for the battery plant to come to the Great Lakes State and celebrated Ford’s decision to build the plant in Michigan.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

Inflation Reduction? Dems’ Climate Spending Spree Could Cost $1.2 Trillion, Analysts Say

March 24, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Daily Caller

Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) could cost roughly $1.2 trillion in green energy subsidies, more than four times an initial government forecast of outlays, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing analysts from Goldman Sachs.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) initially forecast that the law, a cornerstone of President Joe Biden’s efforts to decarbonize the U.S. economy, would cost the government $370 billion to boost investments in green technology, according to Bloomberg. Goldman Sachs’ findings mirror those of analytics firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, which reported in February that the estimated cost of battery manufacturing tax breaks would be roughly $136 billion over the next 10 years, more than four times the $30.6 billion estimated by the CBO.

“Early analysis of the IRA relied on unrealistic expectations to keep cost estimates down,” Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “As time has progressed and those rosy forecasts are pushed outside the realm of possibility, the real cost is becoming increasingly clear.”

Goldman analysts estimate that private companies, spurred by government benefits, will invest an additional $3 trillion, Bloomberg reported. Biden specifically called out “every single” Republican for siding with “special interests” over the American people in opposing the bill, in remarks made after he signed it into law in August.

The IRA offers a variety of tax credits and subsidies to wind, solar and battery production and encourages U.S.-based mining by linking battery subsidies to a requirement that at least 40% of all minerals are mined domestically or from certain allies. The bill also expanded a federal loan program to support research and development of advanced batteries to be used in vehicles.

The massive climate bill would have an effect on inflation that was “statistically indistinguishable from zero,” according to a preliminary estimate made by the University of Pennsylvania Penn Wharton Budget Model made in July. President Joe Biden last August touted a letter signed by 120 economists, including some Nobel prize winners, which alleged that the bill would put “downward pressure” on inflation, based on a CBO estimate that the bill would cut government spending by $300 billion over 10 years, the Associated Press reported contemporaneously.

Then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy argued at the time that the bill would spend “half-a-trillion of your money,” building on “trillions in wasteful spending that caused runaway inflation” in an August debate on the bill.

“Passing this bill today means more expensive bills for Americans tomorrow. And anyone who says otherwise isn’t telling the truth,” McCarthy said. “Your pocketbook is their plan to fund more inflationary spending.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a DCNF request for comment.

AUTHOR

JOHN HUGH DEMASTRI

Contributor.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘Climate Homicide’: Paper in Harvard Env. Law Review calls for ‘prosecuting’ big U.S. oil firms for ‘climate deaths’

March 24, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By Marc Morano

The wacky world of climate change strikes again! Blaming fossil fuel companies for ‘climate homicide’ is all part of the plan to merge public health and climate change. We have already seen a doctor diagnose the first patient in the world as suffering form ‘climate change’ in 2021.

Of course, the reality is exactly the opposite. During the era of fear about ‘global warming,’ climate related deaths have dropped dramatically, proving that mankind has adapted to climate change by using the very oil and other fossil fuels that Harvard Law now wants to charge companies with murder over!

See: After 100 years of climate change, ‘climate-related deaths’ approach zero – Dropped by over 99% since 1920

Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil For Climate Deaths

Harvard Environmental Law Review, Vol. 48, No. 1, 2024

70 Pages Posted: 25 Jan 2023 Last revised: 24 Mar 2023

David Arkush

Public Citizen

Donald Braman

George Washington University – Law School; Justice Innovation Lab; DC Justice Lab

Date Written: January 23, 2023

Abstract

Prosecutors regularly bring homicide charges against individuals and corporations whose reckless or negligent acts or omissions cause unintentional deaths, as well as those whose misdemeanors or felonies cause unintentional deaths. Fossil fuel companies learned decades ago that what they produced, marketed, and sold would generate “globally catastrophic” climate change. Rather than alert the public and curtail their operations, they worked to deceive the public about these harms and to prevent regulation of their lethal conduct. They funded efforts to call sound science into doubt and to confuse their shareholders, consumers, and regulators. And they poured money into political campaigns to elect or install judges, legislators, and executive officials hostile to any litigation, regulation, or competition that might limit their profits. Today, the climate change that they forecast has already killed thousands of people in the United States, and it is expected to become increasingly lethal for the foreseeable future. Given the extreme lethality of the conduct and the awareness of the catastrophic risk on the part of fossil fuel companies, should they be charged with homicide? Could they be convicted? In answering these questions, this Article makes several contributions to our understanding of criminal law and the role it could play in combating crimes committed at a massive scale. It describes the doctrinal and social predicates of homicide prosecutions where corporate conduct endangers much or all of the public. It also identifies important advantages of homicide prosecutions relative to civil and regulatory remedies, and it details how and why prosecution for homicide may be the most effective legal remedy available in cases like this. Finally, it argues that, if our criminal legal system cannot focus more intently on climate crimes—and soon—we may leave future generations with significantly less for the law to protect.

Keywords: climate change, homicide, criminal law, prosecution, accountability, causation, fossil fuels, big oil, negligent homicide, manslaughter, murder, felony murder, misdemeanor manslaughter, fraud, RICO, racketeering, conspiracy, prosecutors, public benefit corporation, environmental crime

Suggested Citation:

Arkush, David and Braman, Donald, Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil For Climate Deaths (January 23, 2023). Harvard Environmental Law Review, Vol. 48, No. 1, 2024, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4335779 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4335779

UK Guardian: Authors of paper accepted for publication in Harvard Environmental Law Review argue firms are ‘killing members of the public at an accelerating rate’

Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil For Climate Deaths – Harvard Environmental Law Review, Vol. 48, No. 1, 2024

‘Climate homicide’: Could Big Oil be sued for disaster deaths? ‘Prosecuting Big Oil for Climate Death’ urges new paper in the Harvard Environmental Law Review– The paper, “Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil for Climate Death” — written by Arkush and Donald Braman, an associate professor at George Washington University Law School — will be published next spring in the Harvard Environmental Law Review. “We concluded there aren’t really any legal or factual barriers to prosecution,” Arkush said.

See: B.C. doctor clinically diagnoses patient as suffering from ‘climate change’ – ‘Picked up his patient’s chart & penned in the words ‘climate change’

Morano: “We already have academics demanding that ‘climate change’ be added to death certificates as a cause of death.”

See: Calls to add ‘climate change’ to death certificates – New study demands ‘climate change’ be added as ‘pre-existing condition’

By: Marc Morano – Climate Depot March 24, 2023 12:25 PM

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/22/big-oil-companies-homicide-harvard-environmental-law-review

UK Guardian:

Authors of paper accepted for publication in Harvard Environmental Law Review argue firms are ‘killing members of the public at an accelerating rate’

Oil companies have come under increasing legal scrutiny and face allegations of defrauding investors, racketeering, and a wave of other lawsuits. But a new paper argues there’s another way to hold big oil accountable for climate damage: trying companies for homicide.

The striking and seemingly radical legal theory is laid out in a paper accepted for publication in the Harvard Environmental Law Review. In it, the authors argue fossil fuel companies “have not simply been lying to the public, they have been killing members of the public at an accelerating rate, and prosecutors should bring that crime to the public’s attention”. … The paper also argues that the case for climate homicide has been bolstered by attribution science, which seeks to ascertain how much the climate crisis has worsened individual extreme weather events. Some studies have even been able to attribute a specific number of extreme weather deaths to the climate crisis. The duo argue that this growing body of science is among the most powerful tools to prove that oil companies’ actions have more than met the standard for a prosecutor to bring a homicide case. Bringing homicide charges against oil companies for deaths caused by the climate crisis would be unprecedented, but corporations have been tried for homicide before. California prosecutors charged the utility PG&E with manslaughter for its role in the deadly Camp Fire that leveled the town of Paradise in 2018. And federal prosecutors charged BP with manslaughter following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. In both cases, the companies pleaded guilty and paid billions in fines and penalties.

Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil For Climate Deaths – Harvard Environmental Law Review, Vol. 48, No. 1, 2024

70 Pages Posted: 25 Jan 2023 Last revised: 24 Mar 2023

More on co-authors of paper David Arkush here and here.

“We concluded there aren’t really any legal or factual barriers to prosecution,” Arkush said.

Tony Heller of Real Climate Science Debunks:

https://realclimatescience.com/2023/03/climate-homicide/

By Tony Heller

Death rates from natural disasters including “all geophysical, meteorological and climate events” are down 95% over the past century, and academics want to sue oil companies for deaths caused by meteorological events.

POLITICO Pro | Article | ‘Climate homicide’: Could Big Oil be sued for disaster deaths?

Natural Disasters Data Explorer – Our World in Data

Fossil fuels keep billions of people alive day to day around the world. They provide our heat, light, communications and transportation. They make it possible for trucks to bring food. People who want to ban fossil fuels are advocating genocide.

On March 23, 1913 “scores” of towns were wiped out by tornadoes in six states. Omaha was largely destroyed.

24 Mar 1913, Page 13 – Arizona Republic at Newspapers.com

23 Mar 1913, Page 9 – The Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times at Newspapers.com

24 Mar 1913, 1 – Evening Times-Republican at Newspapers.com

CA Flood Victims Outraged Over Newsom’s Broken Aid Promises

March 24, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By Discover The Networks

Breitbart News reports that residents of Pajaro, California, a flooded community in Monterey County, are furious at Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and President Joe Biden for failing to deliver the federal disaster aid that was promised earlier this month.

A levee that had not been improved in decades broke during storms and caused a large area of the Pajaro Valley, where many of the nation’s vegetables are grown, to be flooded. Newsom promised $42 million in relief aid — but it turned out that the aid had been signed into law years earlier by President Trump as part of coronavirus relief, and only $300,000 was available. Worse yet, the $300,000 was not specifically for flood relief, but was available in the form of $600 for farmworkers.

Relief workers vented their frustration last week at Newsom’s apparent broken promise.

Now, the situation is even worse, according to the San Jose Mercury News, as residents recall Newsom promising that the president had promised him “an ‘immediate response’” to the state’s request for a federal disaster declaration. But the state had not yet provided that response, because they had yet to identify 1,200 homes that had suffered major damage. Many of the residents of Pajaro are currently homeless.

The Mercury News reported:

“They let us down,” said Monterey County spokesperson Nicholas Pasculli. “We’re still waiting on the presidential emergency declaration that was promised to us over a week ago. Governor, please pick up the phone and call the president and ask him to have empathy for the suffering of people in Pajaro. Ask him to sign the declaration.”

[ … ]

When evacuation orders are lifted, residents won’t be going back to the same Pajaro they left. There is still no potable water or working sewer system in the town, and about 400 buildings — nearly half of those in the town — were damaged by the flooding, according to a preliminary damage assessment by CalFire.

Gavin Newsom

7 Known Connections

Accusing “Authoritarian” Republicans of Promoting “Grievance and Victimhood”

On January 5, 2023, Newsom used his second-term inaugural address at the California state Capitol to accuse Republicans of “promoting grievance and victimhood, in an attempt to erase so much of the progress you and I have witnessed in our lifetime.” He further charged that GOP leaders were now openly venting their “long-dormant authoritarian impulses” to “prey upon fear”; passing laws that “make it harder to vote and easier to buy illegal guns”; “selling regression as progress” while promoting a “rising tide of oppression”; and striving to “silence speech, fire teachers, kidnap migrants, subjugate women, attack the Special Olympics, and even demonize Mickey Mouse.”

To learn more about Gavin Newsom, click here.

Environmental Protection Shouldn’t Mean Economic Suicide

March 24, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Economy, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Family Research Council

When I was in college in southern California many years ago, the smog could be overwhelming. Visibility was low and the sense of being closed-in by a layer of brownish-grey was ongoing. Then, one day it rained. The sky was actually blue and, to my great surprise, you could see the beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance.

In the ensuing 40-plus years, the United States has made great progress in its war against all manner of pollution. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, since the enactment of the Clean Air Act in 1970 through 2019, “the combined emissions of the six common pollutants (PM2.5 and PM10, SO2, NOx, VOCs, CO and Pb) dropped by 77 percent.” This has occurred even as energy consumption has remained at an almost constant level — despite growth in the population by about 100 million people.

The EPA also reports that “Compared to 1970 vehicle models, new cars, SUVs and pickup trucks are roughly 99 percent cleaner for common pollutants (hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and particle emissions).” Additionally, the U.S. is increasingly using renewable energy sources. One example: From 2000 through 2018, the use of coal as an energy source fell from about 23% percent of our total energy portfolio to about 13 percent. Similarly, clean natural gas went from accounting for about 24% percent of our energy consumption to about 31%. Other renewable energy sources (nuclear, solar, etc.) are also increasing. And, generally, the industrialized nations of Europe are also making notable progress.

But America still needs oil. A lot of oil. We will continue to need oil for decades to come. That is, unless we want to commit economic suicide.

That seems not to concern people on the environmental Left, who are outraged that President Biden opened up a relatively small sliver of Alaska for drilling. ConocoPhillips will drill 199 wells at three sites in the Willow Project area, employing 3,500 people outright and, over the longer term, several hundred in permanent jobs.

Here’s the irony: While America once again engages in national agony over a modest oil drilling plan, China is laughing up its sleeve at our tortured efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Just last year, China opened roughly two new coal plants a week. As recent report explains, in 2022 China’s construction of coal power plants was “six times as large as that in all of the rest of the world combined.”

India is in much the same boat. “From 2001 to 2021, India installed 168 gigawatts of coal-fired generation, nearly double what it added in solar and wind power combined,” according to one study. While the subcontinental nation is making strides toward clean energy use, the reality is that “its electricity demand will grow up to 6% every year for the next decade.”

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that America abandon its commitment to cleaner sources of energy. Rather, we have to simply be honest: If we tie ourselves to extreme environmental standards while much of the rest of the world keeps employing fossil fuels at record rates, we will only hurt our ability to foster job creation here at home and our capacity to compete successfully in the global economy.

Economic transitions can be hard. Carriage makers were no doubt unhappy with the advent of the automobile. The issue before us is how rapidly we should move toward a “carbon-neutral” economy. Under the Biden administration, even American agriculture is a target. In a biting analysis, Heritage Foundation scholar Daren Bakst reports that at last year’s White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, the administration advocated for policies that would “centrally plan how farmers produce food, what food farmers produce, and what food people eat.” The Biden plan “also appears far more concerned with environmental outcomes than efficiency, productivity, and affordability.”

As America moves toward “clean” energy, we should not do so to appease activists at the cost of jobs, prosperity, sound mining and farming policies, and our continued leadership in international markets. Our country does not exist in pristine isolation any more than the wind stops at our borders.

The only way we get a clean environment is if we have the resources to obtain it. The only way we have those resources is if we have a strong economy. And the only way we have a strong economy is if our laws and regulations make sense.

I love the memory of seeing mountains in the far distance. But I also like filling up my car’s gas tank affordably. We can have both economic growth and environmental health, but only if we also have a strong dose of national common sense.

AUTHOR

Rob Schwarzwalder

Rob Schwarzwalder is Senior Lecturer in Regent University’s Honors College.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Coordinated Effort’: Tucker Carlson Rips Corporate Media For Parroting Chinese ‘Propaganda’ On Climate Change

March 23, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Daily Caller

Fox News host Tucker Carlson ripped the media Wednesday for parroting the United Nations’ newest report on climate change, which plays into China’s “coordinated effort” to hobble the United States economically.

“Let’s pretend for a second that our country had a news media that was interested in bringing you the news, not in lecturing you about your moral inferiority, you’re so bad, or lying to you in transparently obvious ways. January 6th was an insurrection, guys. Or even forcing you to repeat whatever childish slogan they’ve come up with,” Carlson, a co-founder of the Daily Caller News Foundation, said. “Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. Okay. Trans women are women. All right, say it or else. Let’s imagine we lived somewhere completely different, in a country where the media was obligated to tell you what was actually happening in the world and why it matters. What stories would we be talking about now if we lived in that country?”

The United Nations released a 36-page report Monday that called for “equity” and the use of “cultural values” and “Indigenous Knowledge” in combating climate change while advocating for “[r]edistributive policies … that shield the poor and vulnerable, social safety nets, equity, inclusion and just transitions.”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the report a “how-to guide to defuse the climate time-bomb,” which Carlson noted was repeated by multiple media outlets in some form.

“There’s still people in this country, for example, who seem to believe the so-called climate agenda is actually about the climate or the environment or the earth or something and not a coordinated effort by the government of China to hobble the U.S. and the West and take its place as leader of the world. Which of course is exactly what’s going on,” Carlson added later, after discussing China’s involvement in deals between Iran and Saudi Arabia and a trade partnership with Russia. “It’s pretty obvious when you think about it, but most people don’t get a chance to think about it because propaganda is just too thick. It’s unceasing, it never ends.”

WATCH:

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the United States could learn much from China on how to address climate change March 10. Former Secretary of State John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s climate change envoy, said that talks with China on climate issues have stalled since the downing of a spy balloon in February.

“If you took a look at the entire U.N.’s report, and actually we spent the entire day doing that, there are big differences in how they plan to solve global warming. This time the plan is much more explicit: Make the West, the United States primarily, but also western Europe, blow up its own economy while China, the fastest growing economy in the world, doesn’t have to do anything,” Carlson said.

China approved 168 new power plants fueled by coal in 2022, according to a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM) released Feb. 27. The country was responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than any other country in 2019, the BBC reported.

“And in fact, they’re not doing anything. China is currently building two new coal plants every week. Every week,” Carlson said. “I’m not good at math but that’s like 104 a year. That’s a lot of coal plants. How many are we building a week? Zero. Pretty weird for a country committed to fighting climate change.”

AUTHOR

HAROLD HUTCHISON

Reporter.

Why Are There No EV Charging Stations at Interstate Rest Stops? Blame the Feds!

March 22, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Joe Biden’s $5 billion funding plan for electric vehicles failed to allow rest stops to offer charging stations, an Atlanta news station discovered.

When Georgia resident Anita Jefferson pulls her Tesla out of her garage each morning, she knows it’s fully charged and ready to go. But she told a local reporter her confidence disappears when she hits the interstate. Charging stations seem few and far between, even at places where you’d expect them to be, like rest stops.

“The one place you would want to travel and stop would be a state rest stop,” Jefferson told an Atlanta news station. “I want to get an answer as to why they’re not there.”

Jefferson got her answer from WXIA-TV Atlanta’s Verify team: There are no charging stations at rest stops because they are prohibited under a federal law—one that stretches all the way back to the Eisenhower administration.

‘You Would Be Paying for That Energy’

In 1956, Ike signed into law a bill—the Federal-Aid Highway Act—that paved the way (pun intended) for the interstate highway system, which included rest areas at convenient locations.

While there were numerous problems with the legislation, a relatively minor one was that it created strict limits on what could be sold at these rest stops. Today, federal law limits commercial sales to only a few items (including lottery tickets), the Verify team found. When President Joe Biden rolled out a $5 billion funding plan for states to create EV charging stations, he neglected to carve out a commercial exemption for EVs.

“You would be paying for that energy,” Natalie Dale of the Georgia Department of Transportation told WXIA-TV Atlanta. “That would count as commercialized use of the right-of-way and therefore not allowed under current federal regulations.”

Bureaucrats and Nonbureaucrats

If you think this sounds like an inauspicious roll out to the massive federal EV program, you’re not wrong.

Allowing drivers to charge their EVs at convenient, familiar locations that already exist along interstate highways is a no-brainer—yet this simple idea eluded lawmakers in Washington, DC.

Unfortunately, it illustrates a much larger problem with the top-down blueprint central planners are using to create their EV charging station network.

“We have approved plans for all 50 States, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia to help ensure that Americans in every part of the country…can be positioned to unlock the savings and benefits of electric vehicles,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a 2022 statement.

While it’s good the DOT isn’t trying to single-handedly map out the locations of thousands of EV charging stations across the country, there’s little reason to believe that state bureaucrats will be much more efficient. A review of state plans reveals a labyrinth of rules, regulations, and stakeholders dictating everything from the maximum distance of EV stations from highways and interstates to the types of charging equipment stations can use to the types of power capabilities charging stations must have.

The primary reason drivers enjoy the great convenience of gasoline stations across the country—there are some 145,000 of them today—is that they rely on market forces, not central planning. Each year hundreds of new filling stations are created, not because a bureaucrat identified the right location but because an entrepreneur saw an opportunity for profit.

Bureaucracy will never be able to match the efficiency of markets, which use millions of signals to reach decisions, and are constantly being corrected by market changes, all in the pursuit of serving customers and making a profit.

This, the economist Ludwig von Mises pointed out, is precisely the opposite of what bureaucrats do.

“A bureaucrat differs from a nonbureaucrat precisely because he is working in a field in which it is impossible to appraise the result of a man’s effort in terms of money,” Mises wrote in his seminal work Bureaucracy.

Incentives and Knowledge

Just how burdensome these regulations will prove remains to be seen.

While some states will develop EV charging plans more amenable to market forces than others, all of them are likely to suffer to some extent because the push toward EVs itself has been top-down, driven by politicians trying to push consumers off of gas-powered vehicles.

What’s clear is that the bureaucratic structure of DOT’s charging station blueprint does not bode well for consumers. Charging technology and transportation are constantly evolving, and politicians and bureaucrats simply can’t respond to these changes as efficiently as markets.

So while there is much talk today that EV charging stations will soon outnumber gas stations, there’s reason to be skeptical of this claim—even with the government’s $5 billion spending spree.

There’s little reason to believe that state planners will create a framework with the proper incentive structure to meet the market’s needs. Bureaucrats and politicians lack both the knowledge and proper incentives to create a functional EV market.

If you doubt this, just ask Anita Jefferson, who can’t even charge her Tesla at rest stops—because of a federal law passed in 1956.

AUTHOR

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. (Follow him on Substack.) His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

Dutch Farmers Fed Up With Climate Tyranny Win Shock Election Victory

March 21, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Geller Report

Dutch farmer party BBB has become the single largest party. The country has spoken and Mark Rutte must drop the ridiculous nitrogen policy and stand down effective immediately.

The Farmer-Citizen Movement, or BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB), was established in 2019 in response to the Netherlands government’s plan to “fight climate change” by restricting food production and putting farmers out of business.

The BBB (farmers citizens movement) gained a staggering 17 seats and the ruling parties have suffered severe losses and won’t reach a majority – not even with the help of the Green Party + Labour.

Dutch Farmers Fed Up With Climate Rules Win Shock Victory Against Establishment

Netherland Farmers Protesting Climate Policies

By: Kate Hirzel, Daily Caller, March 16, 2023:

The Farmer-citizen movement (BBB) in the Netherlands appeared set to win 15 of the 75 Senate seats in the nation on Wednesday, celebrating a victory over climate activists who are seeking to buy out farms and cut down on livestock numbers of Dutch farmers.

The BBB or BoerBurgerBeweging, as the party is called in Dutch, started in 2019 and won one single Lower House seat in 2021. After the recent election, the BBB is now the third-largest political party in the Netherlands.

“Nobody can ignore us any longer,” BBB leader Caroline van der Plas told broadcaster Radio 1, Reuters reported. “Voters have spoken out very clearly against this government’s policies.”

The movement started after farmers began protesting against the government’s aims to cut nitrogen emissions in half by 2030. Some emissions come from the manure of cows, pigs and chickens.

The government plans to reduce livestock by a third, which forces 11,200 farmers to sell their land to the state and another 17,600 farmers to significantly reduce livestock. After the U.S., the Netherlands is the second-largest exporter of agricultural products in the world, according to Euro News

Netherlands… Dutch farmer party BBB has become the single largest party. The country has spoken and Mark Rutte must drop the ridiculous nitrogen policy and stand down effective immediately pic.twitter.com/61ShZ8cYPh

— Pelham (@Resist_05) March 16, 2023

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

German health minister admits COVID-19 vaccines are HARMFUL after previously claiming they’re “free of side effects”

U.S. Maternal Mortality Rate Hit 60-Year Peak in 2021

Yes, Leftism Is a Religion: University Gives Greta Thunberg an Honorary Doctorate in Theology

March 21, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Energy, Environment, Politics /by DrRichSwier.com

By Jihad Watch

For the Left, it works both ways. Last year, woke students at Duke Divinity School proclaimed that “God is queer,” and for Leftists, the reverse is also true: “queerness,” along with the rest of the Left’s agenda, including climate hysteria, the vaccines, race obsessions, and every other aspect of the Left’s obsessions, are for them a god. Leftism today is a religion, a sad and tatty substitute for genuine religion, but a religion nonetheless, an all-consuming preoccupation and a prism through which the devotee sees and understands all things. The University of Helsinki confirmed this anew on Monday by announcing that it was giving climate hysteric Greta Thunberg an honorary doctorate…in theology. As David Strom said over at HotAir, “Climate Change is a religion. We all know that.” Yes, and it’s just part of the Left’s worship.

Now, once one accepts the Greta mythology, the idea of her getting an honorary doctorate is not much of a step beyond what the believer has already swallowed. If someone actually thinks that Greta Thunberg is a precocious child who has been speaking her own thoughts and giving her own opinions, and that she actually has something of substance to contribute to the pressing issues of the day, then it’s no problem at all for a university to give her some kind of honorary degree in The ScienceÔ. Give her a degree in “climate science” or “atmospheric studies” or something. But instead, the wise Finns decided to give Greta a theology degree, and that’s telling. It’s out in the open now. At least at the University of Helsinki, they don’t seem to care if people realize that the Left is not about rationality and logical thought, but about false gods of their own imagining.

Nor are the solons of the University of Helsinki by any means the first Leftists to make a religion out of their delusions. Former (haha) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Smirnoff) back in 2021 gave thanks to her god for his salvific sacrifice. No, not Jesus, silly. Did you really fall for that business about her being a Catholic? No, Pelosi prayed to her real savior: “Thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice.” A few months after that, Catholic University joined the cult by displayed a painting of George Floyd as Jesus.

Like climate change, George Floyd worship is just one aspect of the Left’s religion. New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D-Planned Parenthood) revealed in September 2021 that the COVID vaccines were a kind of sacrament: “I prayed a lot to God during this time, and you know what – God did answer our prayers. He made the smartest men and women, the scientists, the doctors, the researchers – he made them come up with a vaccine. That is from God to us and we must say, thank you, God. Thank you. And I wear my ‘vaccinated’ necklace all the time to say I’m vaccinated. All of you, yes, I know you’re vaccinated, you’re the smart ones, but you know there’s people out there who aren’t listening to God and what God wants.”

Leading the applause for the newly minted Doctor Greta, the high priestess of the climate change cult, will be the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which even has a hymn for its climate change worship: “The Climate is Changing.” It’s about as cheerful as you might think: “The climate is changing! Creation cries out! / Your people face flooding and fire and drought.” Inspiring! Not to be outdone, climate idolaters at Union Theological Seminary have begun worshipping potted plants as a “liturgical response to our climate crisis.”

Amid all this, the surprise is not that the University of Helsinki is giving Greta a theology degree, but that they’re the first to do so. Union Theological Seminary and other hollowed-out formerly Christian institutions really dropped the ball on this one. It’s telling that it took a university in Finland to honor the priestess as she deserves: it illustrates yet again how supremely unwoke America is compared to Europe, especially Scandinavia, and how much work we have to do to catch up, so that the wrath of the climate gods will be turned away from us.

But in the meantime, they’ve confirmed it in Helsinki: Leftism is a religion, and Greta is its priestess and prophet. Who will be next to receive an honor theology degree from the University of Helsinki, and be thereby certified as a priest or priestess of the Left’s cult? Sam Brinton has got to be on the short list.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

RELATED ARTICLE:

Climate Hysteria: An Obstacle for Clear Thinking

March 18, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By Matthys van Raalten

People who are afraid that life on Earth is coming to an end, and they are many, want to completely overturn our lives. One could say: they want to have control over all aspects of our lives, they want sky high taxes, obedience to the government.

If you like a tasty steak once in a while, if you like to travel by airplane to foreign destinations, if you enjoy making a ride with your car, then in the future you will have a problem. That’s at least so, in case climate hysteria is not quelled.

Behind this mental disease is fear for life itself. Fear to go your own way in life and not bother your fellow men. People who suffer from climate hysteria, and have power, are in essence all fascists, that want to dominate others and force their fear on the whole society.

Psychiatrists should come together and develop a therapy to cure masses of people of the fear that life on Earth is coming to an end. I’m not a psychiatrist, and my message is just a drop of water on a boiling hot metal plate.

Godfather of Global Warming Criticizes Climate Change Hysteria

Lorrie Goldstein – June 22, 2012

Two months ago, James Lovelock, the godfather of global warming, gave a startling interview to msnbc.com in which he acknowledged he had been unduly “alarmist” about climate change. The implications were extraordinary.

Lovelock is a world-renowned scientist and environmentalist whose Gaia theory — that the Earth operates as a single, living organism — has had a profound impact on the development of global warming theory.

Unlike many “environmentalists,” who have degrees in political science, Lovelock, until his recent retirement at age 92, was a much-honoured working scientist and academic.

His inventions have been used by NASA, among many other scientific organizations. Lovelock’s invention of the electron capture detector in 1957 first enabled scientists to measure CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and other pollutants in the atmosphere, leading, in many ways, to the birth of the modern environmental movement.

Having observed that global temperatures since the turn of the millennium have not gone up in the way computer-based climate models predicted, Lovelock acknowledged, “the problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago.” Now, Lovelock has given a follow-up interview to the UK’s Guardian newspaper in which he delivers more bombshells sure to anger the global green movement, which for years worshipped his Gaia theory and apocalyptic predictions that billions would die from man-made climate change by the end of this century.

Lovelock still believes anthropogenic global warming is occurring and that mankind must lower its greenhouse gas emissions, but says it’s now clear the doomsday predictions, including his own (and Al Gore’s) were incorrect.

He responds to attacks on his revised views by noting that, unlike many climate scientists who fear a loss of government funding if they admit error, as a freelance scientist, he’s never been afraid to revise his theories in the face of new evidence. Indeed, that’s how science advances.

Among his observations to the Guardian:

(1) A long-time supporter of nuclear power as a way to lower greenhouse gas emissions, which has made him unpopular with environmentalists, Lovelock has now come out in favour of natural gas fracking (which environmentalists also oppose), as a low-polluting alternative to coal.

As Lovelock observes, “Gas is almost a give-away in the U.S. at the moment. They’ve gone for fracking in a big way. This is what makes me very cross with the greens for trying to knock it … Let’s be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it.” (Kandeh Yumkella, co-head of a major United Nations program on sustainable energy, made similar arguments last week at a UN environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro, advocating the development of conventional and unconventional natural gas resources as a way to reduce deforestation and save millions of lives in the Third World.)

(2) Lovelock blasted greens for treating global warming like a religion.

“It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion,” Lovelock observed. “I don’t think people have noticed that, but it’s got all the sort of terms that religions use … The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can’t win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air.”

(3) Lovelock mocks the idea modern economies can be powered by wind turbines.

As he puts it, “so-called ‘sustainable development’ … is meaningless drivel … We rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient and unpleasant. I personally can’t stand windmills at any price.”

(4) Finally, about claims “the science is settled” on global warming: “One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don’t know it.”

Si vis Pacem para Bellum

The ESG Pushback Is On!

March 17, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Regulation /by DrRichSwier.com

By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

ESG, or “Environmental, Social and Governance” investing, is a pernicious left-wing tactic designed to achieve policy goals that cannot pass legislatures by distorting investment decisions.

ESG represents not only a sneaky false flag means of forcing policy decisions, but a real threat to investors large and small.

ESG may have already contributed to the insolvency of Silicon Valley Bank, which carried a portfolio high in investments made, not for the likelihood of achieving solid returns, but to curry favor with the “woke” mob.

Here are three points I made during my testimony at a North Dakota Senate hearing this week (full submission at CFACT.org) that apply equally to every state:

ESG is not concerned with advancing the economic interests of North Dakotans. Instead, it is a top-down, elitist inspired effort reflecting the interests and priorities of multibillionaires and internationalists.
ESG is random with its ratings, it’s not applied fairly, and it empowers America’s adversaries – notably China.
It simply doesn’t work. ESG investing is not getting the returns it promised investors, nor is it changing the world for the better. In fact, it’s doing the opposite!

Governor Ron DeSantis announced legislation to protect Floridians from ESG which he stated “builds on my commitment to protect consumers’ investments and their ability to access financial services in the Free State of Florida,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “By applying arbitrary ESG financial metrics that serve no one except the companies that created them, elites are circumventing the ballot box to implement a radical ideological agenda. Through this legislation, we will protect the investments of Floridians and the ability of Floridians to participate in the economy.”

“We will not stand idly by as the stability of our country’s economy is threatened by woke executives who put their political agenda ahead of their clients’ finances,” DeSantis said.

The Washington Examiner reports that DeSantis will form an anti-ESG alliance “with Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”

These states are expected, in addition to other measures, to forbid their pension funds from abandoning sound business practice in pursuit of ESG.

The life savings of pensioners, and every one of us engaged in “the pursuit of happiness” in America, are not fair game for left-wing social engineering.

AUTHOR

Craig Rucker

ILLINOIS: Another Win For NetZero Reality Coalition as Town Nixes Solar Desert

March 17, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

The new NetZero Reality Coalition scored another big win when the town of Pontiac, Illinois said NO to transforming land from natural habitat to a silicone solar desert.

Illinois town nixes solar desert

In a stunning setback for solar, the City of Pontiac, Illinois has scuttled plans to construct a solar energy project that would transform a vacant lot in town into a shiny solar desert.

At an emotional Feb. 13 hearing before the City of Pontiac Planning and Zoning Board, city official denied the application of Bundleflower Solar LLC to rezone the property so that as many as 5,568 photovoltaic solar panels could be installed there. A few days later, Bundleflower Solar withdrew its application altogether, putting an end to a project that had garnered fierce opposition from the city’s residents.

To add insult to injury, the owner of the 49-acre property, where the thousands of solar panels were to be installed, changed his mind and came out in opposition to the project.

The dramatic turnaround shows what can happen when citizens are well informed about how harmful solar (and wind) projects are, and then mobilize to stop deep-pocketed renewable-energy developers from ruining their communities.

CFACT Informs the Citizenry

CFACT was glad to be of assistance in this David v. Goliath confrontation. Two weeks before the decisive hearing, we posted an article about the project, outlining how Pontiacs residents would in no way benefit from have the solar project in their town. The article also appeared in Real Clear Energy, giving it greater coverage. Concerned residents emailed the article to their allies, and passed out hard copies to one and all. CFACT also advised the project’s opponents to pack the hearing, where – armed with the information contained in the article – they made compelling arguments to the zoning board against the project.

Zoning board hearings are usually won by people who show up, and the solar project’s few local supporters were steamrolled by Bundleflower Solar’s well-informed opponents.

Based on information supplied by CFACT, residents pointed out that solar power is intermittent and cannot supply electricity 24/7. They knew that the thousands of solar panels would produce zero power at night, zero power on cloudy and rainy days, and zero power when covered with snow during northern Illinois’s long, cold winters. As a sign of how unserious the project was, the developer didn’t even plan to install backup batteries to provide electricity when the sun was absent. Those batteries, of course, have their own environmental problems and are another reason communities should avoid solar and wind projects that include them.

Pontiac’s residents could also note that the developer was primarily interested in pocketing generous federal and state subsidies and, absent those taxpayer subsidies, the developer would never have considered putting the project in their town.

Pontiac Provides a Template

In the end, Pontiac – a city of 11,000 people, located about 60 miles southwest of Chicago – dodged a bullet. It will not be hosting a white elephant whose sole purpose is to serve narrow corporate interests as part of the ever-expanding Climate Industrial Complex.

The resistance the people of Pontiac showed should serves as a template for other communities across the nation that shows how these wasteful projects can be stopped dead in their tracts.

Author

Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

Bonner R. Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with CFACT, where he focuses on natural resources, energy, property rights, and geopolitical developments. Articles by Dr. Cohen have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Busines Daily, The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Hill, The Epoch Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Miami Herald, and dozens of other newspapers around the country. He has been interviewed on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, NBC News, NPR, BBC, BBC Worldwide Television, N24 (German-language news network), and scores of radio stations in the U.S. and Canada. He has testified before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. Dr. Cohen has addressed conferences in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Bangladesh. He has a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a Ph. D. – summa cum laude – from the University of Munich.

NetZero Reality Coalition Forms Scores First Big Win

March 14, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

CFACT is proud to be a founding member of the new NetZero Reality Coalition which aims to push back against the growing tide of leftist “green” mandates being foisted on our energy infrastructure.

The NetZero Reality Coalition (NZRC) includes free market think tanks, energy experts and legislators all dedicated to preserving the reliable, affordable energy we take for granted.

NZRC stands in opposition to leftist “NetZero” advocates who seek to tear down energy sources that work, while pushing energy sources, such as intermittent wind and solar, that are not up to the challenge of powering the world’s needs. Their radical climate and energy agenda is destabilizing our grid, causing blackouts and power disruptions, and driving up costs for average, hardworking Americans.

It was high time to start pushing back!

The first such opening salvo of this important coalition has come in Utah. There, NZRC presented information that led to a ground-breaking “Energy Security Bill” that passed the Utah legislature. This bill is now on Governor Spencer Cox’s desk awaiting his signature.

The Utah energy bill was submitted by Representative Ken Ivory. Take a look at the press release we posted to CFACT.org:

HB425 underscores that Utah supports and promotes both renewable and nonrenewable energy systems – including coal, gas, oil shale, nuclear, wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal and other sources. It clearly states that Utah has both a “duty” and “sovereign authority” to defend all necessary electricity generation from “external regulatory interference.”

The legislation thus requires “at least” 180-day prior notification of any decommissioning, disposal, retirement or closure of electricity generation facilities and equipment, whether proposed or being “forced” due to federal mandates or the high costs of compliance with federal regulations. It gives the Attorney General authority to take legal or other actions to defend the state’s energy interests.

Wind and solar profiteers and their strange Green bedfellows believe that if they destroy our reliable energy grid, somehow better energy will come. They couldn’t be more wrong. European countries such as Germany and Spain have already invested billions on wind and solar. The result? Flickering, unreliable power grids, soaring prices, sham solutions such as “biomass,” and no meaningful decrease in greenhouse gas emissions.

Consider “biomass.” Did anyone genuinely believe that cutting down North American trees, grinding them into pellets, shipping the pellets to ports and loading them onto diesel powered freighters to burn in Europe was clean, green, or somehow good for the climate? To the NetZero crowd, at least, that actually counts as “renewable!”

We cannot leave our energy to NetZero zealots or the businesses shamelessly using them to cash in.

The NetZero Reality Coalition has reported for duty just in time.

Utah was just the start. Here’s to more energy reality victories ahead!

For nature and people too.

CLIMATE MYTHOMANIA: Remembering When Scientists In 2018 Predicted the World Will End in 2023

March 12, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By Dr. Rich Swier

“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie–deliberate, contrived and dishonest–but the myth–persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” ― John F. Kennedy, commencement address at Yale University, June 11, 1962.

One of the greatest myths ever propagated by scientist, politicians and eco-activists is that the world will end on _ _ _ _ due to climate change.

We call these predictions “climate mythomania.”

The members of the cult of climate mythomaniacs are the perfect examples of those who enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

To highlight this cult of climate mythomaniacs we present to our readers a tweet by Charlie Kirk:

One of the best headlines of the year so far… ‘Greta Thunberg deletes 2018 tweet saying world will end in 2023 after world does not end’ https://t.co/ANI24c3lLq

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) March 12, 2023

There has been a long history of lies–deliberate, contrived and dishonest and myths–persistent, persuasive and unrealistic made by scientists, economists, professors, corporations, the media and their followers.

Here are some examples of getting it wrong, very wrong:

Dr. Dionysius Lardner in 1830 wrote, “Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.”
Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society in 1883 wrote, “X-rays will prove to be a hoax.”
A 1876 Western Union internal memo read, “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”
In 1903 the president of the Michigan Savings Bank advised Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad.”
Economist and Yale professor Irving Fisher in early October 1929 wrote, “what looks like a permanently high plateau…I believe the principle of the investment trusts is sound, and the public is justified in participating in them.” Two weeks after the 1929 Stock Market Crash occurred on Thursday the 24th and Tuesday the 29th of October.
In 1930, British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that there will be, “three hour shifts or a fifteen-hour work week” by the year 2030.
Albert Einstein in 1932 claimed that ”there is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. That would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.”
New York Times in a 1936 article stated, “A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 said, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox in 1946 said, “Television won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”

Ayn Rand warned,

The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.

The difference between these bad predictions is that they never became public policy. Rather they were proven false by science, the markets and consumers globally.

Today climate change has become the most egregious of public policies. It’s dangerous because it controls science, the markets and consumers globally.

That’s the difference.

The Greatest Ripoff in American History: Democrats Spent $100 Billion of Your Money on Climate Hoax

March 8, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Regulation, Science, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Geller Report

You have to wonder what its going to take for Americans to wake up to the party of treason.

Is this the greatest ripoff in American history?

America has spent $100 billion of your money on climate change. How’s that working out?

By Stephen Moore | NY Sun, March 7, 2023:

Biden admin internal climate agenda memo leaked

Former U.S. Homeland Security Adviser Dr. Julia Nesheiwat joined ‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ to discuss what the leaked climate memo indicates about the Biden administration’s priorities.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

For at least the last 20 years, politicians in Washington, at the behest of green energy groups, have spent some $100 billion of taxpayer money to fight climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. How is that going for us so far?

A recent Associated Press story, based on the latest data on global carbon emissions, provides a pretty accurate report card: “Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reached a Record High in 2022.”

The article tells us: “Communities around the world emitted more carbon dioxide in 2022 than in any other year on records dating to 1900, a result of air travel rebounding from the pandemic and more cities turning to coal as a low-cost source of power. Emissions of the climate-warming gas that were caused by energy production grew 0.9% to reach 36.8 gigatons in 2022, the International Energy Agency reported Thursday. (The mass of one gigaton is equivalent to about 10,000 fully loaded aircraft carriers, according to NASA.)”
placeholder

You’ve got to almost shriek out loud when you read this line: “Thursday’s (IEA) report was described as disconcerting by climate scientists.”

“Disconcerting”? That’s putting it lightly. We are the furthest thing from being climate change alarmists, but when you spend $100 billion of taxpayer money and achieve absolutely nothing, President Joe Biden and his green allies should be arrested for criminal fraud.

Where did all the money go? Tens of billions of dollars have lined the pockets of left-wing environmental and social justice groups that have been emitting a lot of hot air but no results. Green energy companies have milked taxpayers of tens of billions more.

Where did all the money go? Tens of billions of dollars have lined the pockets of left-wing environmental and social justice groups that have been emitting a lot of hot air but no results. Green energy companies have milked taxpayers of tens of billions more, even as wind and solar only produce about 12% of our energy.

Is this the greatest ripoff of U.S. taxpayers in history?

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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CLIMATE HOAX: Biden’s EPA Has Paid Out $1 Billion Into Climate Grants This Year

March 3, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Geller Report

It’s all one giant scam. The climate grift is the greatest political fraud in history.

Back in 1971, the great American political theorist, Ayn Rand, wrote in her book. “The Return of the Primitive” , “It has been reported in the press many times that the issue of ‘pollution’ is to be the next big crusade of the New Left activists, after the war in Vietnam peters out. And just as peace was not their goal or motive in that crusade, so clean air is not their goal or motive in this one.”

Boom.

Biden’s EPA Has Paid Out $1 Billion Into Climate Grants This Year

By Liz Sheld, American Greatness, March 2, 2023

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced over $250 million in grants are available to fund plans for projects combating “climate pollution” on Wednesday, pushing the total number of climate grants announced this year to nearly $1 billion.

The funds include $3 million for every state, $1 million for each of the 67 most populated metropolitan areas and a total of $25 million to be distributed among Native American tribes, according to the EPA press release. The grants are among the first in President Joe Biden’s new $5 billion Climate Pollution Reduction Grants (CPRG) program, which was created by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

In total, the IRA allocated nearly $370 billion to fighting climate change. The act also includes, among other things, $80 million in additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service, $2o billion in incentives for farmers to not grow crops and $2.2 billion in reparations for black farmers.

“We know that tackling the climate crisis demands a sense of urgency to protect people and the planet,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan in a statement. “President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is a historic opportunity to provide communities across the country with the resources they need to protect people from harmful climate pollution and improve our economy. These Climate Pollution Reduction Grants are an important first step to equip communities with the resources to create innovative strategies that reduce climate emissions and drive benefits across the country.”

The first $250 million from EPA’s new Climate Pollution Reduction Grants is now available! Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, we are providing resources for states, local governments, Tribes, and territories to cut climate pollution and build clean energy economies. pic.twitter.com/9VL1jbk9CR

— U.S. EPA (@EPA) March 1, 2023

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

World’s top climate scientists told to ‘cover up’ the fact that the Earth’s temperature hasn’t risen for the last 15 years

Reuters Science Correspondent: “I was wrong” on Climate

March 3, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

Neil Winton worked at Reuters for 32 years, including as global science and technology correspondent.

Winton recently admitted he “was wrong” for going along and not putting in the journalistic effort to question the media’s prevailing climate narrative.

Marc Morano posted details at CFACT’s Climate Depot.

Winton said:

When I became Reuters global Science and Technology Correspondent in the mid-1990s, the global warming story was top of my agenda. Already by then the BBC was scaring us saying we would all die unless humankind mended its selfish ways. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) was the culprit and had to be tamed, then eliminated. I had no reason to think this wasn’t established fact. I was wrong.

My Reuters credentials meant that I had easy access to the world’s finest climate scientists. To my amazement, none of these would say categorically that the link between CO₂ and global warming, now known as climate change, was a proven scientific fact. Some said human production of CO₂ was a probable cause, others that it might make some contribution; some said CO₂ had no role at all. Everybody agreed that the climate had warmed over the last 10,000 years as the ice age retreated, but most weren’t really sure why.

The sun’s radiation, which changes over time, was a favoured culprit.

My reporting reflected the wide range of views, with Reuters typical “on the one hand this, on the other, that” style. But even then, the mainstream media seem to have run out of the energy required, and often lazily went along with the BBC’s faulty, opinionated thesis. It was too much trouble to make the point that the BBC’s conclusion was challenged by many impressive scientists.

Winton went on to make an essential point about the threat Green radicalism poses to freedom that has been essential to CFACT’s mission since our founding:

The Left had lost all of the economic arguments by the 1990s, and its activists eagerly grabbed the chance to say free markets and small government couldn’t save us from climate change; only government intervention could do that.

Thank you Neil Winton for this important peek inside the world of media groupthink and your insight as to how Reuters, and so many others, lost the plot on climate.

At the dawn of the 20th century, the humorist Finley Peter Dunne wrote about newspapers that “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

No one has grown more fat and comfortable, and no one more deserving of a little journalistic affliction, than those accumulating vast power and fortunes by cashing in on climate. Just ask Reuters.

Reporters, do your job. Ask the tough questions and fully vet the climate narrative and the myriad conflicts that flow from it.

The public deserves to know.

The Incredible ‘Green Transition’ That Can’t

March 1, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Daily Skirmish – Liberato.US

Joe Biden campaigned on getting rid of fossil fuels. He said he would ban fracking and his Green New Deal proposal would completely replace fossil fuels with clean energy by 2035. He is also on record saying he plans “an incredible transition” of the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels, openly admitting that pain at the pump from high gas prices is part of the plan. His administration is rushing pell-mell into a green energy future, by, among other things, drawing on the $27 billion green energy slush fund in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.

There’s just one problem: the green energy future envisioned by the administration and other wild-eyed climate change fanatics is totally impossible and won’t ever happen.

There aren’t enough minerals on earth to make a green transition a reality. Copper, lithium, nickel, and cobalt are limiting factors, especially if you think about sustaining all-green energy into the future.

Converting all big trucks, ships, and railroads to electric – even if such a thing were possible – would require 10 times the number of power plants we have now.

To deliver reliable power from unreliable solar and wind, and avoid blackouts, would require more electrical storage capacity than is physically feasible or economically viable. Before we transition everything to green energy, wouldn’t it make sense to demand to see a demonstration project succeed, first? Of course it would. It’s also not too much to ask for a “comprehensive quantitative system-engineering life-cycle analysis of an all-renewable energy system” before we jump into it sight unseen. Such an analysis would include the costs of materials, construction, operation, maintenance, decommissioning, and disposal. And let’s see an environmental impact statement, while we’re at it. Green energy is incredibly damaging to the environment, as some on the Left are beginning to recognize. Life-cycle and environmental analysis would undoubtedly show a green transition is not physically or economically feasible.

Green energy fanatics have blinders on that don’t let them see beyond the east and west coasts. The fact is, regardless of what the U.S. does, worldwide use of coal set a record last year and is expected to increase further this year. The U.S. could do somersaults and cartwheels for green energy, but it wouldn’t make one bit of difference to global climate change computer models.

The fanatics want to leave fossil fuels in the ground and stop all oil & gas projects now, but the fact is fossil fuels will still be needed for decades if we are to avoid energy shortages, supply disruptions, and wild price swings.

Another problem is toxic waste. What are we going to do with all the obsolete wind turbines, defunct solar panels, and dead batteries a green transition would entail? No one has figured this out yet. Put them in landfills and toxic minerals will leach into groundwater. Burn them and it will all go into the air.

What happens to electricity prices if you get rid of all natural gas stoves, furnaces, and appliances and require everything to run on green energy? What happens to electricity prices if you get rid of the internal combustion engine and require all vehicles to run on batteries? Parts of Australia where gas drilling and fracking have been all but banned are already seeing double-digit increases. Consumers in U.S. states with renewable energy quotas pay higher energy prices than they otherwise would. Call it the ‘green tax’.

Vegetables are being rationed in Britain because soaring energy costs from overreliance on renewables is causing farmers to switch off their greenhouses before they go bankrupt. That’s just one consequence that flows from unchecked green mania – not enough greens to eat.

Not only would a green transition place upward pressure on electricity prices, there’s another problem, as identified in E.M. Forster’s magnificent short story The Machine Stops: once you centralize everything into one system, everything comes to a grinding halt when the system fails. A single point of failure – like an exclusively all-electric energy system – is a fundamental error well-known to anyone who has studied strategic planning. Move everything to electricity and everything will stop if electricity becomes unavailable or unreliable. That doesn’t happen now with energy sources for power and transportation diversified among coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear, and renewables. There’s a lot to be said for keeping energy diversity and not letting green energy mania put the blinders on. Our food, economic, and national security depend on it.

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Phony Climate Change Narrative: Follow the Evidence

February 28, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Daily Skirmish – Liberato.US

It’s been a bad month for the climate change crowd. More evidence came in that the Left’s phony climate change narrative is a complete crock. NASA satellite data shows there has been no global warming for eight years and five months. One ramification of this truth is that the United Nation’s IPCC predictions of global warming made in 1990 are completely wrong. That’s despite 475 billion tons of CO2 emissions. Moreover, major hurricanes hit a near-record low last year and there’s record cold in the Northeast this year. There’s temperature data going back 350 years and it shows the earth started warming after the Little Ice Age completely due to natural causes. Nobody can claim CO2 emissions were a problem in 1659 when the warming started. Supporters of the modern climate change narrative have never proven CO2 emissions cause the earth to warm up. The also ignore the obvious fact the earth’s temperature varies with the amount of sun activity and how close the earth’s orbit to the sun is at any given time.

Evidence also came in this month that many things the climate change crowd believes just ain’t so. The Left wants you to believe the seas are rising and coastal catastrophes are right around the corner. But NOAA’s coastal sea level tide gauge data continue to show no evidence of accelerating sea level rise. The Climatistas also want you to believe the polar bears are disappearing and wildlife in general is vanishing. Not true. Polar bear populations are increasing, up maybe 6,000 in the last six years. And animal populations are expanding. This includes antelope, elk, mountain lions, and bears, among other species. The recovery of the grizzly bear is so profound that the Fish & Wildlife service might accept Montana’s petition to remove grizzlies from the endangered species list.

Evidence is accumulating that renewable energy sources have problems and adverse consequences of their own. Nearly 80 rural communities rejected or restricted solar projects last year. They’re pushing back against big solar farms gobbling up their land. The Inflation Reduction Act earmarked oodles of cash for wind and solar, but the amount of land needed to build it all out is equivalent to the size of the state of Tennessee. The locals affected aren’t going to stand for it.

Wind power has a number of problems of its own. Four wind turbines have collapsed since 2021, and the blades fall off. Experts are worried the problems are accelerating in newer models. Wind turbines have to be hooked up to diesel generators to keep them warm in cold climates in the winter and the generators leak thousands of gallons of hydraulic oil on to the land. Where do you think it goes from there? There is concern putting wind turbines offshore kills the whales. Also, it’s been known since 2009 that living close to wind turbines has adverse health consequences for humans. The turbines can cause heart disease, tinnitus, vertigo, panic attacks, migraine headaches, and sleep deprivation, according to scientific evidence.

It’s clear renewable energy is not the nirvana the climate crowd makes it out to be. Evidence is also piling up that the Biden administration’s vaunted ‘green transition’ is a pipedream, not Shangri-La, and can’t ever happen. I’ll pick up with that tomorrow.

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‘Climate Change’ Causing Gun Deaths!?

February 27, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By Marc Morano

Climate Depot Update – Brought To You By the Wacky World of Climate

‘Climate change’ causing gun deaths!? – Feds Are Coming (Again) for Your Gas Stoves! – ABC News reveals ‘Logistical nightmares’ of EV charging

‘Climate change’ blamed for 8000 gun deaths in New Study in Journal of the American Medical Association – Claims ‘association between temperature & shootings’

Turns Out They Are Coming for Your Gas Stoves – Energy Dept now projects ‘roughly half of all gas stoves’ in U.S. would not meet proposed ‘efficiency regulations’

‘We plan meals around recharging the vehicles’ – ABC News: Electric vehicle drivers get candid about charging: ‘Logistical nightmare’ – ‘Charging on the go is neither easy nor fast’

Major British Newspaper Promotes Bringing ‘Back Rationing’ to ‘Fix Global Warming’ – ‘Create a scarcity of fossil fuels’

‘Climate change!’ What can’t it do?! Flashback 2020: Fatal train derailment in Scotland blamed on ‘climate change’

1) ‘Climate change’ blamed for 8000 gun deaths in New Study in Journal of the American Medical Association – Claims ‘association between temperature & shootings’

MSN.com: Becca Inglis: Gun violence is already a pressing public health concern in the U.S., and a new study has found a troubling link between it and the overheating of our planet. As temperatures across the country soar and unseasonably warm days continue, the number of gun deaths has increased. Nearly 8,000 gun shootings can be attributed to extreme temperatures, according to research published by JAMA Network. … Warmer temperatures increase the body’s stress hormones in the nervous system, which may heighten violent impulses. With daily temperatures expected to continue rising in the coming years, the number of injuries and fatalities from shootings could worsen, too. … The study suggests that measures to slow down the overheating of our planet could reduce shootings, too.

Climate Depot’s Morano – “The global warming activists have shifted the playing field, so shootings and murder statistics are now used as some sort of ‘proof’ of man-made global warming. Instead of looking at political factors like the lax enforcement of crime due to the Defund the Police movement, they would rather make outlandish claims linking shootings to climate change! The JAMA study also claims that we must address ‘climate change’ to lower gun deaths. The study implies if you don’t support the Green New Deal, then you are supporting the shooting of 8000 people.

2) Turns Out They Are Coming for Your Gas Stoves – Energy Dept now projects ‘roughly half of all gas stoves’ in U.S. would not meet proposed ‘efficiency regulations’

Free Beacon: In an analysis published earlier this month, President Joe Biden’s Energy Department acknowledged that roughly half of all gas stoves on the U.S. market today would not meet its proposed cooking appliance efficiency regulations, E&E News reported Friday. As a result, those stoves would not be eligible for purchase. Still, Energy Department spokesman Jeremy Ortiz dismissed concerns over the proposal, saying half the gas stove market “would remain if this standard is finalized as proposed.”

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano: “So the Biden admin sought to ban gas stoves, then denied it. Now they admit they want to ban gas stoves. I am old enough to remember when the ban on gas stoves was a conspiracy theory — back in January 2023!

It reminds me of how the government insisted COVID never came from a Chinese lab but now later admitted that it did. But don’t fret; the Energy Dept spokesman insists that half of our stoves would be allowed to stay under their generous climate plan. Rejoice! A total ban to save the climate is only a 50% ban. Will Americans draw the line and say NO to being forced to cook their mandated insect rations on an electric stove or fight to saute their bugs on a gas stove?! Will we draw the line somewhere?!”

3) ‘We plan meals around recharging the vehicles’ – ABC News: Electric vehicle drivers get candid about charging: ‘Logistical nightmare’ – ‘Charging on the go is neither easy nor fast’

Quiroga’s sister, who lives in Northern California, takes her internal combustion car — not her Tesla Model S — when she needs to drive across the state. Even Quiroga’s team of reporters has to carefully plan and calculate how far EV charging stations are when they conduct comparison tests among manufacturers. “These comparisons tests are a logistical nightmare. We plan meals around recharging the vehicles,” he said. “We need to have the battery at 100% or close to it to test a vehicle’s performance. We have to time everything — it requires more work.” … In December, Quiroga was in Florida driving BMW’s luxury i7 all-electric sedan. He watched as its range dropped from 240 miles to 220 as soon as he turned on the heat. “You use the luxuries … and the range plummets,” he said.

… “I was in the parking lot from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. It was a cold day.” … Bragg said her parents, who also bought a Mach-E, have complained of broken public chargers and endless lines. Sometimes they drive for miles before they can find a public charger that’s working properly, she said.

4) Major British Newspaper Promotes Bringing ‘Back Rationing’ to ‘Fix Global Warming’ – ‘Create a scarcity of fossil fuels’

5) ‘Climate change!’ What can’t it do?! Flashback 2020: Fatal train derailment in Scotland blamed on ‘climate change’‘Scotland’s transport sec. said the climate crisis is presenting increasing challenges for rail safety’ – Scottish transport secretary, Michael Matheson, said it was reasonable to presume the weather had had an impact on events, adding he hoped investigating authorities would advise whether efforts to address the challenges posed by extreme weather events should be stepped up. “[Network Rail] are well aware of our views about the need to make sure that we are taking forward the right types of mitigations that help to manage a challenge of these types of localised, intense weather events,” he said.

Climate Depot’s Morano: “Climate change has hijacked the real environmental movement. Climate concerns now trump concerns over clean air, clean water clean soil. The next time a train derails, we have learned that if you want to get the attention of the Biden administration, you need to claim that the train wreck was a result of ‘climate change’. If East Palestine Ohio had blamed the toxic train derailment on ‘climate change, Secretary Pete would have been there the same day.”

Abstract

Accusing “Authoritarian” Republicans of Promoting “Grievance and Victimhood”

‘You Would Be Paying for That Energy’

Bureaucrats and Nonbureaucrats

Incentives and Knowledge

Climate Depot Update – Brought To You By the Wacky World of Climate

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