PODCAST: 6/21/2023 The Date that Greta Thunberg Predicted would be the ‘End of the World’ thumbnail

PODCAST: 6/21/2023 The Date that Greta Thunberg Predicted would be the ‘End of the World’

By Karen Schoen

Well folks this is it. 6/21/2023 was the day that Greta Thunberg told the world that unless we give up carbon and all of the things that bring us joy and pleasure and become miserable and afraid like her, humans will cease to exist.  Human beings according to Greta, had five years to correct our climate denying sins and give up fossil fuels and cheap energy. But guess what?  We didn’t and we are still here.  Time to call this a hoax, lie or fraud.  Green energy is designed to control humans into a behavior suitable for the desired ideology and redistribute the wealth of the middle class. Time to stop giving corporations who hate you your money.  Boycotts work.  CRT, SEL, ESG, LGBTQ, Climate, are  scams.

But what if the children were taught those lies from K-12. Would they give Greta  some validity? Would they change their life style? Will your children “rat” on you if you don’t?   You will be forced to accept and accommodate man-made climate change which doesn’t exist. Climate changes.  The Earth is constantly rotating on its axis and the position of the Earth in correlation to the sun determines the seasons and depending upon the volatility of the Sun, our climate changes.  The Sun, moon, evaporation, cloud all play a major part. But a poor science education enables people to be scared into believing the government will help stop a hurricane by everyone would just stop cows from farting.  Rather than teaching how to deal with a disaster the government waits till the disaster is over and prolongs assistance allowing chaos to fester. The people scream and then the government comes in for the rescue. The people just lost control of their county.

By confusing pollution with climate, people believe that giving up fossil fuel will save the planet. Sorry Greta we are still here and just like giving up straws, it doesn’t make a difference.   Make sure you tell everyone. They lie and have no right to take away gas autos or anything else. Time to say NO. Show me the science. They don’t have a right to make law.  They need to prove their regulations which are supposed to explain existing law. You can have your car but it will be so expensive due to regulation compliance.  Besides, they want you to rely on transportation they can control.

Regulations to own businesses, houses, cars  will become so cost prohibitive you won’t be able to afford it.  So instead of the government teaching its citizens how to live in certain weather patterns and coming up with programs to make life easier by knowing what to do and to avoid. But in order for the programs of the left to work they have to have a nation in fear.  He who will give up rights and freedoms for safety and security from their government deserve neither. The government is made up of people chosen not because of competence but because of skin color, ethnicity or any other group you can divide. They are incompetent aside from being communist Marxist anti-American evil people. So what can we do about it?

Well right now the focus Nationwide is on education.   We must take advantage of of the crisis.  Start by checking your school’s scores  The scores can be found on the naep.org website that is the nation’s report card and it is quite pathetic. In Florida you will find that 23% of eighth graders are proficient in math and 29 % are proficient in Reading. This is horrible. It’s the curricula stupid.

Get involved. What can you do? Lots.  You know they are going to lie and say that it is because of Covid. Lie.  This was going on before Covid. Yes, because of Covid the scores  got worse. this has been going on since Common Core, the program designed to keep kids 2 years behind.  This year when the schools are adopting textbooks, get involved. Don’ t let them choose international publishers who are creating global citizens with international authors talking about American democracy.

So join me today and learn what the new statutes are and how you can benefit from them, what to look for and the new microschool program the Florida Citizens Alliance created and how you and your child can benefit. Remember: this is always about the money. If you take your child out of public school the school loses money If they lose enough money they will talk to you.  You have the upper hand taking your children your child out of public school is not as hard as you think.  There are so many things that you can do. We have to be able to make sure that our future generation is literate.

America…Great people doing great things. What will you do? Doing nothing is affirmation. Is America worth saving?

Guest: Ryan Kennedy

The program Manager for Educational Policy and Advocacy for Florida Citizens Alliance. His interest in education started in college when he started interning with the Florida Citizens Alliance in 2018 where he worked on many projects, including the 2021 Porn in Schools Report, where FLCA shed light on the dangerous materials in schools.

The Faith, Family, and Freedom initiative is an initiative to try to provide options for families to get out of government schools by homeschool and/or create one room school houses, micro schools, etc.

The Bills we are supporting are the Heartbeat bill, HB 1069 and HB 1223 relating to sexual materials in schools, and the bills to ban transgender treatments for minors.

Guest: Christy Devigili. Founder of Microschool Program

Website:  Goflca.org

Remember: Everything is connected. Nothing is random, Everyone follows the same plan. ALL PLANS ARE BASED ON LIES. Globalists must control opposition. Globalists must take away our voice.

Globalists only care about MONEY, POWER and CONTROL. Don’t give them yours. Boycotts work. Stop using their services and products.  Vote the RINOS out. Vote with your fingers and with your wallet. There is a lot you can do.

©2023. Karen Schoen. All rights reserved.

California To Blame For Water Scarcity Not Climate thumbnail

California To Blame For Water Scarcity Not Climate

By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

You may have heard about California’s perennial woes with drought and flooding. Governor Newsom, like a parrot with limited vocabulary, dutifully squawks out “climate change” as being the culprit.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

CFACT’s Gabriella Hoffman investigates the situation and documents her findings in a brand new, just released CFACT Conservation Nation video.

Watch it and learn more about the real problems Californians are facing with water scarcity.

This is not a climate issue, but one of simple water mismanagement. Between October 2022 and January 2023, over 6.4 million acre-feet of water were diverted from agricultural and municipal uses and foolishly flushed into the Pacific Ocean.

“We are in a perpetual drought because we don’t manage water,” said Johnny Amaral, chief operating officer of Friant Water Authority. “I’m here to say that hydrology in California really hasn’t changed a whole lot in the last 125 years. There’s ups and there’s downs, which is why all these projects were built to begin with, recognizing that hydrology ebbs and flows. There are periods of wet years, followed by periods of dry, so all this elaborate system of dams and canals and pump stations was built deliberately to deal with that.”

As Gabriella shows, this is not a problem without a solution. Residents of Northern California and Central Valley have answers to the problem and voted for more water management reforms. But powerful environmental special interests and corrupt politicians in Sacramento are obstacles to this progress. They must be exposed and stopped from wrecking further havoc.

We must blunt the false climate assertions blathered about by Governor Newsom and spread the word about the need for proper water management and construction of critical infrastructure projects like reservoirs and dams.

For nature and people too.

AUTHOR

Craig Rucker

President and co-founder of Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow.

RELATED ARTICLE: Supreme Court’s WOTUS ruling will shake things up across the board

EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Here’s Why Europe’s Energy Giants Are Pivoting Back To Oil thumbnail

Here’s Why Europe’s Energy Giants Are Pivoting Back To Oil

By The Daily Caller

Two of Europe’s largest energy firms are pivoting from green energy back to their core oil and gas businesses, a move that industry experts tell the Daily Caller News Foundation signals a willingness to take political hits as oil and gas continue to be major sources of revenue.

Both Shell and fellow U.K. energy firm BP opted against further cuts to oil production recently, in a bid to restore investor confidence as their renewable ventures struggled, according to Bloomberg. While the moves were met with criticism from climate-focused investors — activist investors and protestors attempted to storm the stage at Shell’s annual shareholder meeting in late May — the companies are likely to stay the course despite criticism, thanks to the reliability of oil and gas to drive profits despite the emergence of green energy, Dan Kish, senior research fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, told the DCNF.

“Smart energy executives looking at the long term recognize that politics are fleeting,” Kish said. “Politicians may be flighty and distracted by today’s shiny objects, but real business sense combined with a knowledge of engineering and physics shows that real energy makes good business because it is what people need and want.”

Shell CEO Wael Sawan described his company’s shift as a “fundamental culture change” during a Wednesday presentation intended to draw investors, especially American ones, to support the company, The Wall Street Journal reported. Shell performed poorly in 2022 compared to U.S. titans Exxon Mobil and Chevron in 2022, and Sawan has made playing catch up a priority.

BP made a similar decision, opting to increase investments in oil and gas while slowing its advancement toward green alternatives.

“At the end of the day, we’re responding to what society wants,” BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney said.

Ryan Yonk, senior research faculty at the American Institute for Economic Research, described many green investments and climate commitments as a sort of “green-washing” that companies are more likely to view as a “cost of doing business” as opposed to a genuine driver of profits, in a statement to the DCNF. BP saw shares surge more than 15% in the days following its February announcement that it would cut just 25% of its hydrocarbon output by 2030, as opposed to its original target of 40%, according to Reuters.

“The profitability of these types of endeavors is generally much lower than market-driven innovation and growth because they are defensive in nature and driven not by consumer demand but by either actual regulatory action or the expectation that it will occur,” Yonk said. “Fossil fuels are currently, and the evidence suggests they will be for the foreseeable future a significant and important part of energy production in the US and across the world.”

While political pressure may have pushed companies towards green projects in the past, the current political landscape is much more amenable to oil and gas, Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the DCNF. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine set off an energy crisis in both the U.S. and Europe, giving companies a “strong incentive” to pump more oil while providing them the political cover to be “more candid” about the necessity of such investments, Ebell said.

“The EU’s oil majors have an even harder time than America’s trying to remain politically correct while continuing to produce the energy the world needs and make sufficient profits to satisfy shareholders and invest in new production,” Ebell told the DCNF. “They are faced with the reality that renewables produce little energy at a high cost.”

While Shell re-committed to its target of net-zero emissions by 2050 in a Wednesday press release, it also said in a footnote that such a change was dependent on societal factors. There would be “significant risk that Shell may not meet this target” if society at large had not made a shift to net zero by then, the company said.

Shell and BP did not immediately respond to a DCNF request for comment.

AUTHOR

JOHN HUGH DEMASTRI

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Biden’s World Bank Head Promises To Spend ‘As Much As We Possibly Can’ On Climate Change

The Greens’ Program: The Suicide of Europe

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


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.

Arsonist Charged with Setting Massive Yosemite Park Fire That Democrats Blamed on Climate Change thumbnail

Arsonist Charged with Setting Massive Yosemite Park Fire That Democrats Blamed on Climate Change

By The Geller Report

One might begin to suspect that Democrats set these fires in order to blame their climate change myth. Eco-terrorism.

The fire destroyed over 127 houses and burned 19,244 acres of vegetation, 66 outbuildings and threatened ancient Sequoias.

No media mea culpa and another one of their enormous, fantastic lies.

Man, 71, charged with setting massive Yosemite park fire initially blamed on climate change

By Isabel Keane, NY Post, June 18, 2023:
A 71-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly starting a devastating massive forest fire in Yosemite National Park that was previously thought to have been caused by climate change.

Edward Fredrick Wackerman of Mariposa, Calif., was busted Friday on suspicion of arson for allegedly igniting the Oak Fire, which destroyed 127 homes, caused thousands of people to evacuate and ravaged nearly 20,000 acres of vegetation in July 2022.

The suspect is facing charges of suspicion of aggravated arson, arson that causes great bodily injury and arson causing damage or destruction of inhabited structures, the California Department of Forestry said.

It isn’t clear how Wackerman may have started the blaze or what finally led to his arrest. Mariposa County District Attorney Walter Wall said a Tuesday press conference on the case is planned.

“Ed Wackerman is facing several felony charges, including aggravated arson. These charges carry serious legal consequences and the District Attorney is committed to ensuring a fair trial and upholding justice,” Wall said in a statement posted online.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

There is No Such Thing as “Bad Science”! thumbnail

There is No Such Thing as “Bad Science”!

By John Droz, Jr.

It’s easy to be confused about this, but don’t be fooled…


The Left has an aggressive campaign to undermine America. Some people will be surprised to find out that one of their primary targets is Science. There are several reasons for this — for instance, that Science is a gatekeeper against bad technical ideas.

Why that is a BIG DEAL is that the Left is intent on (for example) undermining our economy. (We can’t be the world’s superpower with a crippled economy.) One way of doing that is to subvert our , the backbone of our economy.

Their strategy for sabotaging our Electric Grid is to have it severely burdened by unreliable and expensive energy sources, like wind and solar (see here).

Since this is a technical matter, no energy sources should be added to our Electric Grid without going through a scientific assessment, confirming that they are a net societal benefit. This has NEVER been officially done, as the wind and solar lobbyists know quite well that the Science results would be a failure.

The Left’s response to negative Science verdicts is to try to convince the public that “Science has become corrupted,” or that it is “bad Science.” In other words, they would like to remove Science from being a gatekeeper — even in cases like wind and solar where they have been successful in bypassing the gatekeeper.

Two key things need to be understood about real Science: 1) Science is a process, and 2) Science is apolitical. [By definition a process is an inanimate procedure, so it can not have virtues.]

What is the process? For this layperson overview, the answers are the Scientific Method and a Scientific Analysis (see Appendix H). Consistent with their plan, the Left is vigorously attacking the Scientific Method — e.g., see this explanation. K-12 students in some 45 states are no longer being taught the Scientific Method (see here)!

OK, so how do we explain the hundreds of studies where the Science process was not followed and/or the experimenters were clearly trying to promote a political agenda?

Easy. None of those are actually Science. Instead, they were pretenders like political science, pseudo-science, astrology, etc.

But these “studies” were often done by credentialed (e.g., Ph.D.) people claiming to be scientists. Isn’t (by definition) the work of scientists, Science? NO!!!!!

Regretfully, there are thousands of scientists who have abandoned their professional commitment to Science, for a variety of reasons, like: 1) financial incentives [e.g., grants], 2) concerns for job security, 3) to assure career advancement, 4) peer pressure, 5) interest in promoting a political agenda they have deemed to be important.

In such situations, this is where anti-science problems like Confirmation Bias and Cognitive Dissonance are often seen. These wayward scientists are well aware that their actions are contrary to Science — and one of their most common internal justifications is “the end justifies the means.” (Note that this “value” standard flies in the face of the Judeo-Christian values the country was founded on.)

Just like there are lawyers who act illegally and priests who act immorally, scientists are people too. However, when lawyers are caught acting illegally there is a procedure where they are disbarred. Likewise, when priests act immorally there is a procedure where they are defrocked.

Unfortunately, there is no such procedure to retract the degrees of scientists who act contrary to the standards of Science. Worse, these fallen parties are often rewarded(!) by getting lucrative financial support from organizations, etc. who benefit from their deviation from real Science.

No wonder the public is confused!

It is imperative to clearly understand that the terms “Science” and “Scientists” are NOT synonymous! Just because a study is signed by several credentialed scientists does NOT mean that the study followed the processes of Science and was apolitical. In other words, a report by scientists does not mean that it is a Scientific Report.

And to our initial point here, such studies are NOT examples of “bad Science,” but rather are classic cases of bad scientists, or good scientists behaving badly.

There is no such thing as “bad Science!”

Here are other materials by this scientist that you might find interesting:

Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.

WiseEnergy.orgdiscusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.infocovers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.infomultiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2023 Archives. Send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?

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Critically Thinking about Wind and Solar

By John Droz, Jr.

Are there any scientifically proven NET benefits from either?


This will be brief, as I’ll cut to the chase.

A journalist recently asked me the following thoughtful question:

“I’m working on an article that looks at the climate impacts of wind energy. There are some studies linked below (and you likely know others), that show that drawing kinetic energy from the wind at large scale will have an adverse impact on climate.

“Proponents of wind energy insist that human impacts on the climate are so catastrophic that we need to spend trillions to convert electrical generation to wind and solar. So, why are these (and other) negative impacts on the climate from wind being mostly ignored or dismissed as trivial? As wind energy spreads further and wider, these liabilities will get substantially worse.”

My answer:

You are asking a legitimate question — which has only one answer:

Wind and solar energy are NOT being promoted for any NET BENEFITS to ratepayers, taxpayers, citizens, businesses, the environment, or the climate!

The proof of that is that there are NO scientifically-proven wind or solar energy NET BENEFITS to ratepayers, taxpayers, citizens, businesses, the environment, or the climate!

For example, please read my powerful, short Report regarding the wind energy part, which includes the studies you cited, plus MANY more! Regarding Solar there are multiple major concerns that are almost never properly addressed in state regulations or local ordinances.

I’ll repeat the key part:

Wind and solar energy are NOT being promoted for any NET BENEFITS to ratepayers, taxpayers, citizens, businesses, the environment, or the climate!

The proof of that is that there are NO scientifically-proven wind or solar energy NET BENEFITS to ratepayers, taxpayers, citizens, businesses, the environment, or the climate!

Instead, wind and solar promotion is:

  1. about virtue signaling,
  2. taking advantage of the public’s technical illiteracy,
  3. exploiting the weakness that many local communities are blinded by the money,
  4. optimizing the reality that many citizens defer to authority,
  5. leveraging the fact that critical thinking has become a lost skill,
  6. evidence of the powerful influence of special-interest lobbyists on our legislators,
  7. etc.

‘Nuff said.

©2023. John Droz, Jr. All rights reserved.

Here are other materials by this scientist that you might find interesting:

Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.

WiseEnergy.orgdiscusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.infocovers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.infomultiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2023 Archives. Send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?

The Climate Lobby Is Openly Plotting To Steal Our Freedom thumbnail

The Climate Lobby Is Openly Plotting To Steal Our Freedom

By The Daily Caller

During her May 15 speech to The Beyond Growth Conference held by the European Parliament, European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen, citing a 1970s de-growth plan published by the Club of Rome, made reference to the European Union’s “social market economy” five times in a span of less than 150 words.

A “social market economy,” of course, is a reference to the sort of central economic planning engaged in by authoritarian socialist governments throughout history. “And this is exactly why we put forward our European Green Deal,” Von Der Leyen told the conference. “Building a 21st century clean-energy circular economy is one of the most significant economic challenges of our times.”

The agenda of the Beyond Growth Conference focused on devising plans to manage the destruction of economic growth that is a centerpiece of the real agenda of the energy transition. Limitations on energy minerals and other resources required by wind, solar and electric vehicles, and on the ability to continue printing trillions of debt-funded dollars and Euros in a vain attempt to subsidize them to the scale required to displace fossil fuels inevitably means the forcing of common citizens in the Western world to scale down their standards of living and limit their mobility to meet the net-zero by 2050 goals being dictated at the global level. Thus, the need for the EU to move “beyond growth” and back to a more primitive mode of living.

Rising recognition and acceptance of these limitations, along with the success by Western governments in enforcing authoritarian edicts on their populations during the COVID-19 pandemic, is now leading to a rapid evolution in the overarching narrative and talking points related to the energy transition. The former energy transition narrative of “we will scale up renewables and EVs and you won’t even notice the difference in your daily lives” has been transformed to “we will scale everything down and you will just have to live with it” with stunning speed during 2023.

report titled “The Urban Mobility Scorecard Tool: Benchmarking the Transition to Sustainable Urban Mobility” issued by the World Economic Forum in May is another great example. Based largely upon a 2017 UC Davis report titled “3 Revolutions in Urban Transportation,” the WEF report advocates for authoritarian governments to force the reduction of the numbers of vehicles on the road from the current global estimate of 1.45 billion to just 500 million. The UC Davis report went largely unnoticed in 2017 because the climate alarmist lobby had not been sufficiently emboldened at that time to publicly discuss its real goals. But that mask is now coming off.

The authors of the WEF report claim citizens who can no longer own cars would still be allowed to move away from their planned cities of the future, but only via “shared transport,” i.e. electric buses and a new network of thousands of miles of high-speed rail. But California has clearly shown that thoughts of building a huge network of tens of thousands of miles of new high-speed rail in the western world in the next 27 years is a complete fantasy. California’s own high-speed rail boondoggle, originally proposed 27 years ago in 1996, has seen its budget blossom from $8 billion to over $130 billion, and still hasn’t managed to lay a single mile of rail.

The real world simply does not conform itself to fantasies like this plan, and everyone at the WEF is fully aware of that reality. Thus, what this plan really amounts to is a scheme to enable the speeding-up of implementation of socialist/authoritarian governments in the West to enforce the new restrictions on the lives of common citizens, an effort that began to accelerate during the COVID pandemic. Authoritarian governments always endeavor to restrict the free flow of information outside of approved propaganda, and restricting mobility is a key means of achieving that goal.

As we see the EU and the WEF now freely admitting, economic de-growth and forcing citizens of Western nations to live smaller, less prosperous lives are the real end goals of this energy transition. The narrative has officially shifted, and we would do well to take them at their word.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

DAVID BLACKMON

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

RELATED ARTICLES:

National Geographic Says Climate Change Is ‘Greatest Threat to Humans’ As They Fly Around The World on Private Jets

VIJAY JAYARAJ: The World Is Running Away From Unreliable Green Energy

DAVID BLACKMON: Dems Roar Right Past Gas Stove Ban For Even Bigger Goals

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


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.

Green industrialization greatly increases CO2 emissions thumbnail

Green industrialization greatly increases CO2 emissions

By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

Despite calling for rapid reduction in CO2 emissions, the left is rushing green industrialization which will dramatically increase emissions for the foreseeable future. This obvious absurdity has yet to be admitted.

On the one hand, there is growing literature on the enormous material requirements required for building huge numbers of wind and solar power generating systems. Then the growing realization that gas-fired backup will keep renewable power generation CO2 emissions high. See my article Offshore wind may not reduce CO2 emissions.

Combining these two factors means CO2 emissions should rise, not fall, as green industrialization proceeds. Both factors are ignored, but both are big. The energy transition increases emissions. It is that simple.

On the material side, we are talking about what I call “supply chain emissions.” It should be obvious that rebuilding the electric power system is hugely emission intensive. We are talking about a tremendous amount of mining, processing, and construction, with lots of transportation at each step.

By way of example, let’s take one of my favorites — the huge monopiles that hold up offshore wind-generating towers. In this case, we focus on New Jersey’s ridiculous goal of adding 11,000 MW of offshore wind, up from its present level of zero wind. It is ridiculous because New Jersey already has all the generating capacity it needs. Supposedly this wind power is going to make the weather better or keep it from worsening, but that is another silly topic.

These monopiles are very big. For simplicity, let’s say a steel cylinder is 30′ in diameter and 300′ long, although some are bigger. Each weighs something like 2,500 tons. It is first driven into the seafloor, then hollowed out and backfilled with concrete.

Steel and cement-making both create a lot of CO2 emissions, and there are so-called emission factors for both. Steelmaking creates about 2 tons of CO2 per ton of steel, so just producing the raw steel in one monopile puts out 5,000 tons of CO2. This does not include making the monopile, which involves a lot of shaping, cutting, welding, etc.

There is something like 15,000 tons of concrete in a finished monopile, and the chemical emission factor is about 1,250 pounds of CO2, giving around 9,000 tons of CO2 per pile. This does not include the energy required for cooking the limestone to make cement, which requires a great deal of heat.

So, simply producing the basic materials causes about 14,000 tons of CO2 per monopile. Assuming for simplicity that the average turbine is 11 MW we need 1,000 monopiles, which works out to a whopping 14,000,000 tons of CO2 just to make the steel and concrete.

This huge number does not include energy-intensive activities like mining the iron ore and limestone or cooking the latter or the numerous transportation steps along the way from mine to final erection.

For now, the steel piles are made in Europe, most likely Spain, so they must be shipped something like 5,000 miles. Many of the giant substations, each filling a flatbed ship, come from as far away as Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore. Iron ore is itself a major ocean shipping commodity. So there will be a lot of transport emissions.

And this is just the monopiles. On top of these come the huge towers, turbines, and blade sets. The turbine assemblies alone are now up to 850 tons, including many tons of copper. Then too, there are thousands of miles of undersea power cables. Every generator is wired to a substation, which is then tied to massive power lines running back to shore. Plus, there will be a great deal of onshore grid development in order to handle all this new juice coming from new places.

This is emission-intensive industrialization on a grand scale. There will certainly be huge CO2 emissions for the next decade or more. What we need is supply chain emission analysis.

There is no way green industrialization of electric power can reduce emissions in the foreseeable future.

VIDEO: 96% of U.S. Climate Data is Corrupted, New Report Finds thumbnail

VIDEO: 96% of U.S. Climate Data is Corrupted, New Report Finds

By The Geller Report

The report neglected to mention “deliberately” corrupted — a means to a malevolent end.

96% of U.S. climate data is corrupted

By: Jazz Shaw June 11, 2023

This seems like an appropriate time for a story like this to pop up since it involves both smoke clouds and climate change. You probably heard how AOC was quick to blame the clouds of smoke wafting down from the Canadian wildfires last week on climate change. As you likely expected without even needing to check, that turns out to be nonsense. But the underlying facts that prove its nonsensical nature turn out to be well rooted in science. And researching this question turns up something even more interesting, which we’ll get to in a moment.

You should check out the work of veteran meteorologist Anthony Watts of the Heartland Institute. He’s been studying the weather and the climate in general for a very long time. He travels around the country inspecting meteorological equipment and studies historical weather data from around the world. One of the first findings he would like the public to be aware of is that not only are wildfires common in many parts of North America, but the reality is that in the 21st century, they have actually been less numerous than they were in the past. They’re just getting more attention from the press and on social media.

Rather than focusing discussion on what the real or imagined harms may be, how to mitigate them, and how to help people, climate activists are taking the opportunity to blame “climate change” for the smoke. The reality is wildfires are becoming less frequent and severe as the planet modestly warms. As wildfires become less frequent, it is nonsensical to blame the few wildfires that remain on climate change…

“Peer-reviewed studies and verified satellite observations show beyond a shadow of a doubt that wildfires in the long term, mid-term, and short term have become less frequent and less severe as the Earth modestly warms. The likely reason is the measured increase in evaporation from the world’s oceans, which has resulted in more frequent global precipitation.”

That’s not the shocking part of the story, however. When discussing the “modest warming” that the planet has exhibited, there is a need to have solid data. But as Dr. Watts has examined weather stations around the country, he has discovered that the available data may be nearly useless when attempting to quantify very slight changes in average temperatures. That’s because more than 90% of the data is “corrupted.” And the reason for that is the reality that the vast majority of thermometers that NOAA relies on are improperly installed and maintained, leading to the recording of artificially higher temperatures.

A new study, Corrupted Climate Stations: The Official U.S. Surface Temperature Record Remains Fatally Flawed, finds approximately 96 percent of U.S. temperature stations used to measure climate change fail to meet what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) considers to be “acceptable” and uncorrupted placement by its own published standards.

The report, published by The Heartland Institute, was compiled via satellite and in-person survey visits to NOAA weather stations that contribute to the “official” land temperature data in the United States. The research shows that 96% of these stations are corrupted by localized effects of urbanization – producing heat-bias because of their close proximity to asphalt, machinery, and other heat-producing, heat-trapping, or heat-accentuating objects.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Why is Bill Gates releasing 30 million genetically modified mosquitoes into 11 countries including the U.S.? thumbnail

Why is Bill Gates releasing 30 million genetically modified mosquitoes into 11 countries including the U.S.?

By Dr. Rich Swier

Well this is interesting. Presidential Democrat primary candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. posted a tweet that asks why Bill Gates’ Columbian mosquito factory is releasing genetically modified mosquitoes into 11 different countries including the state of Florida.

Should Bill Gates be releasing 30 million genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild? Part of the mentality of earth-as-engineering-object. What could possibly go wrong?https://t.co/o4AdfFJ4NO

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 10, 2023

In August of 2022  Bill Gates wrote on his blog an article titled “This factory breeds 30 million mosquitoes per week. Here’s why.“,

These mosquitoes are allies in the fight against dengue and other deadly viruses.

Bill Gates | August 15, 2022

Inside a two-story brick building in Medellín, Colombia, scientists work long hours in muggy labs breeding millions and millions of mosquitoes. They tend to the insects’ every need as they grow from larvae to pupae to adults, keeping the temperature just right and feeding them generous helpings of fishmeal, sugar, and, of course, blood.

Then, they release them across the country to breed with wild mosquitoes that can carry dengue and other viruses threatening to sicken and kill the population of Colombia.

This might sound the beginnings of a Hollywood writer’s horror film plot.

But it’s not.

This factory is real.

And the mosquitoes being released don’t terrorize the local population. Far from it. They’re actually helping to save and improve millions of lives.

Read more.

Futurism in an article titled “Bill Gates Funded the Company Releasing Gene-Hacked Mosquitoes” reported,

The Gates foundation funded Oxitec’s work to design gene-edited mosquitoes

by DAN ROBITZSKI

The British biotech company Oxitec is moving ahead with its controversial plan to release hundreds of millions of gene-hacked mosquitoes, an experimental new form of targeted pest control, in the Florida Keys.

The goal is essentially to introduce a new genetically altered version of the Aedes aegypti mosquito — which can spread diseases like dengue and malaria — that can only hatch male, non-biting offspring, in order to gradually reduce the population.

A connection that has gone mostly unremarked during the experiment’s rollout is the involvement of Microsoft co-founder and public health philanthropist Bill Gates in the funding of the company, confirmed by Oxitec back in 2018, through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Based on past reports, it seems that the Gates Foundation pledged about $4.1 million to Oxitec in 2018 to develop a new mosquito that would target malaria in the Americas, South Asia, and eastern Africa. Oxitec was also reportedly awarded $5 million for its Aedes mosquitoes — the kind set for release in Florida — through the Gates Foundation’s Global Grand Challenges initiative in 2010. Meanwhile, Science Magazine reported in 2010 that the Gates Foundation had dished out $19.7 million for a project in which Oxitec took part.

We’ve reached out to both Oxitec and the Gates Foundation for clarification about the relationship.

Gates’ involvement complicates the already much-criticized initiative. On the one hand, the experiment could lead to an extraordinary way to control disease, potentially saving hundreds of thousands of lives per year. But critics say it could fail, backfire, or open up the doors to more troubling applications of the technology. And the idea that one of the world’s wealthiest people can help push through gene-editing experiments that are unleashed on the open ecosystem is, to say the least, a touchy subject.

[ … ]

READ MORE: Gates Foundation and Oxitec Fight Malaria with Genetically-Modified Mosquitoes [Labiotech]

More on Oxitec: Residents Furious at Release of 500 Million Gene-Hacked Mosquitoes

Read more. [Emphasis added]

We agree with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s questioning why? As RFK, Jr. stated, “Should Bill Gates be releasing 30 million genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild? Part of the mentality of earth-as-engineering-object. What could possibly go wrong?”

A lot can go wrong and may already have!

©2023. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

Who’s to blame for the massive wildfires in the Northeast? Canada! thumbnail

Who’s to blame for the massive wildfires in the Northeast? Canada!

By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

Who’s to blame for the massive wildfires festooning the Northeast in smoke?

CFACT’s Marc Morano puffed a cigar on Jesse Watters to illustrate the point that the fault lies not with your energy use, but with bad Canadian government policy!

“This is Canadian natural disaster mismanagement,” Marc said, “and now they’re trying to blame global warming, which makes it what? Our fault! It’s our SUVs, it’s our gas stoves!”

Marc Morano released a report on wildfires today, saying, “The media and climate activists are again weaponizing wildfires and linking them to climate change. Wildfires, both globally and in Canada, have been declining significantly. Better forest management, cracking down on arson, and improved fire impression practices are what is needed, not the Green New Deal.”

The WSJ summed up the fundamental disconnect between left-wing energy policy and informed forest and climate management perfectly, writing:

“A study this spring in the journal Science estimated that burning boreal forests in North America and Eurasia in 2021 released 1.76 billion tons of CO2, nearly twice as much as global aviation that year… Government land management policies that prevent wildfires from spreading out of control, such as prescribed burns, would reduce CO2 emissions more than offshore wind or electric-vehicle mandates. Alas, this doesn’t fit with the climate left’s book of Revelation.”

The Greens decreed decades ago that forests should be left uncleared and fires allowed to burn.  Fires are an important part of the life cycle of the forest, but in today’s world fires can be controlled and managed.  Yet for the misanthropic left, better a tree burn than be harvested.

Frank Lasee posted some key facts, including some good news at CFACT.org.  Despite the worst Green efforts to turn back the clock, wildfires overall are in decline worldwide.  The United States saw it’s worst wildfire in 1871.  Frank points out that the worst fires occur where Green ideologues leave forest brush uncleared.  That would be California and the federal government for starters.

There is nothing natural the warming-Left won’t seize upon to advance their narrative.  However, in the case of wildfires, there is a man-made element to blame.

In this case, blame poor Canadian government policy which means, blame the left.

For nature and people too.

AUTHOR

Craig Rucker

President and co-Founder, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow.

EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Regime Now Targeting Your Furnace thumbnail

Biden Regime Now Targeting Your Furnace

By The Geller Report

“They’re going to have to, in many cases, install new equipment to exhaust gas out of their home….this rule would require additional retrofits for a lot of consumers. And those retrofits can be extremely cost prohibitive.” — Richard Meyer, American Gas Association 

Democrats hate you.

Between 40%-60% of the current residential furnaces on the market currently would be prohibited under the proposed regulation

By Thomas Catenacci | Fox News June8, 2023:

Biden’s green energy agenda targeting appliances, household items

Power the Future Executive Director Daniel Turner joined ‘Fox & Friends’ to discuss how the policies are ‘taking a toll’ on Americans and the broader concerns surrounding the push.

The Biden administration is expected to soon finalize regulations restricting which home gas-powered furnaces consumers are able to purchase in the future.

According to experts, the regulations — proposed in June 2022 by the Department of Energy (DOE) — would restrict consumer choice, drive prices higher and likely have a low impact on greenhouse gas emissions. The agency could finalize the rules targeting residential gas furnaces, which more than 50% of American households rely on for space heating, at any point over the upcoming weeks.

“This is a classic example of one size not fitting all,” Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “Every home is different, every homeowner is different and people are best off having a wide range of choices. They can work with their contractor to make the best decision for their home and their circumstances.”

“The efficiency standard would effectively outlaw non-condensing furnaces and condensing alternatives would be the only ones available,” Lieberman said. “Those are more efficient, but they cost more. And installation costs could be a big problem for some houses that are not compatible with condensing furnaces.”

“These efficiency measures not only reduce carbon and methane emissions, but also provide huge material benefits to American households in the form of cleaner air, modernized technology, and cheaper energy,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said after proposing the furnace standards last year.

Under the proposed regulations, DOE would require furnaces to achieve an annual fuel utilization efficiency (AFUE) of 95% by 2029, meaning manufacturers would only be allowed to sell furnaces that convert at least 95% of fuel into heat within six years. The current market standard AFUE for a residential furnace is 80%.

Because of the stringent AFUE requirements, the regulations would largely take non-condensing gas furnaces — which are generally less efficient, but cheaper — off the market. But consumers who replace their non-condensing furnace with a condensing furnace after the rule is implemented face hefty installation costs.

“There are some really technical reasons why this is such a concerning rule,” Richard Meyer, the vice president of energy markets, analysis and standards at the American Gas Association (AGA), told Fox News Digital in an interview. “It has to do with the ability for consumers to be in compliance with this new efficiency standard.”

“They’re going to have to, in many cases, install new equipment to exhaust gas out of their home. These higher efficiency units, or so-called condensing units — a lot of consumers have them in their home, but a lot of consumers don’t. So, this rule would require additional retrofits for a lot of consumers. And those retrofits can be extremely cost prohibitive.”

Keep reading.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Wants To Give Power Over Defense Contracts To Climate Activist ‘Cabal’ Bent On Curtailing Economic Growth thumbnail

Biden Wants To Give Power Over Defense Contracts To Climate Activist ‘Cabal’ Bent On Curtailing Economic Growth

By The Daily Caller

The Biden administration is pushing to give veto power over major Pentagon contracts to a group of climate activist groups that advocate for establishing “guardrails” on economic growth, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.

The administration proposed a rule in November that requires major contractors for the Department of Defense (DOD), NASA and Government Services Agency (GSA) to submit climate-related goals to a consortium of activist organizations, called the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), for validation. If the SBTi rejects the contractor’s plan to reduce emissions, the company would no longer be eligible to compete.

However, the groups behind the SBTi are part of the Global Commons Alliance, a climate activist network that seeks to limit economic development and set up international watchdogs to monitor climate pledges of governments and private companies, according to a DCNF review of the network’s activities. The Alliance’s components advocate for limits on consumption, redistribution of resources between rich and poor people and a more ambitious set of goals to mitigate perceived changes to the climate.

Additionally, scientists involved in the Alliance have argued for the need to limit Earth’s population to preserve the climate.

The Biden administration is “placing our defense needs in the hands of these people whose interests may not be in defense,” Dan Kish, a senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, told the DCNF.

“These seem to be offshoots of the interests of the World Economic Forum — people who consider themselves smarter and better and wealthier and more powerful than the rest of the subjects of the world, and seek to impose their will,” he added.

‘Playing God’: The Coalition Of Climate Orgs Behind The SBTi

In 2015, sustainability professionals from the World Resources Institute (WRI), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) and UN Global Compact came together after the Paris Climate Accords to find ways for corporations to set benchmarks and devise plans to meet the goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, according to Technology Review. The SBTi emerged from the coalition, and is working on developing guidance for so-called science-based emissions reduction goals for various industries.

The groups behind the SBTi also created the Science Based Targets Network, or SBTN, to “[build] on the momentum of the [SBTi],” according to the group’s website, which lists the SBTi’s constitutive organizations as “among our core founding partners.” The SBTN helps companies and cities create and monitor targets, which it calls Science Based Targets for Nature, in a bid to preserve nature “in line with scientifically defined limits and on a socially equitable basis,” according to the group’s website.

However, the SBTN relies on research from the Earth Commission, an organization seeking to establish “guardrails” on human activity to protect the climate; both organizations operate under the umbrella of the Global Commons Alliance.

“The goal is to translate the scientific guardrails defined by the Earth Commission, into tangible science-based targets for nature, specifically tailored to cities and companies by the Science Based Targets Network,” the Earth Commission’s website reads.

In a February 2023 journal article, scientists from the Earth Commission stressed the importance of reducing “indirect drivers” of climate change, such as human population size and growth.

“Many of the factors causing global biodiversity decline are associated with economic growth and speculation,” the researchers wrote in the journal article. Achieving “justice” and a “nature-positive” society requires “reducing over-accumulation of capital” and associated excess production and consumption among wealthy countries.

Additionally, a November 2022 paper sponsored by the Earth Commission, which called for a “radical redistribution” of resources, found that if everyone on the planet had minimum access to life necessities, the planet’s climate disaster triggers would be violated by up to 26%. “Having ‘too little’ therefore results from others having ‘too much,’” the authors conclude.

In practical terms, states can even-out resources between rich and poor countries through “taxation, internalizing costs, overseas aid, universal basic incomes, voluntary limits on consumption, and education,” according to the scientists.

In May, the SBTN introduced new environmental targets, broadening their scope to include not only reducing greenhouse gas emissions but updating so-called “planetary boundaries” meant to restrain the scope of human economic activity to protect human, animal and plant habitats.

Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment, explained the concept of planetary boundaries to the DCNF: “We have far exceeded the ‘carrying capacity’ of the Earth.”

“So first, let’s figure out exactly what it is (for example, no more than one billion people), which can then be the basis for imposing ‘science-based’ policies to make people less numerous and a lot poorer.” Such policies would send the earth “back to the Stone Age,” he said.

“These people are basically playing God,” said Kish.

The Earth Commission and the SBTN overlap in terms of shared resources, founding partners and aims under the umbrella of the Global Commons Alliance, while the groups that founded both the SBTi and the SBTN are partners of the Alliance, their websites show. While the Biden administration’s rule only mentions the SBTi, experts suggest it opens channels for the other groups to influence how the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies decide which companies should receive government contracts.

“SBTN is a separate but related organization [to SBTi] focusing on SBTs beyond climate,” SBTN spokesperson Arabella Stickels told the DCNF.

“We shouldn’t be delegating the authority for what’s important for our national defense and our national defense contractors to some third party groups,” Kish told the DCNF.

‘Less Bang For Our Buck’

Under the Biden administration’s proposed rule, the SBTi will effectively have veto power over key Pentagon contracts.

According to the proposal, any company holding $50 million or more in contracts with the DOD, NASA or GSA must report all second and third-order greenhouse gas emissions generated by its operations. Two years after the rule goes into effect, they’ll also be required to submit a “science-based target” to the SBTi for validation.

If they fail their inspection, the SBTi will return the target and offer the company a second chance to submit a more appropriate emissions reduction target.

In practical terms, that means groups involved in the SBTi are “establishing not only industrial policy, but military policy,” Kish told the DCNF. “And that means that we’ll get less bang for our buck.”

The SBTi “appears to be a cabal and is certainly a racket,” Ebell said.

The DOD awarded roughly $383 billion in contract spending in 2021, according to analysis firm Deltek; however, the Pentagon’s largest defense contractors aren’t featured in the SBTi dashboard yet, meaning they haven’t yet committed to the initiative.

The #SafeAndJust #EarthSystemBoundaries are finally live, in @Nature: https://t.co/6D4yEjMGj1

For 4+ years, the Earth Commission @SafeJustPlanet has worked to quantify the conditions needed for the Earth and everything that lives on it to thrive.

Read on 🧵👇

— Global Commons Alliance (@globalcommonshq) May 31, 2023

The Pentagon did not say whether or how the department would work with the SBTN, though it maintains that combating climate change is a top priority.

“All requirements are pre-decisional as the rule proposal is pending,” Kelly Flynn, a DOD spokesperson, told the DCNF. “We have nothing further to provide at this time beyond what is stated in the proposed rule.”

Empowering the SBTi to make decisions regarding key Pentagon contracts could undermine Congress’ authority to allocate funds for national defense, according to Kish.

“Congress is one that appropriates and allocates the money for the defense of the nation, which is one of our premier reasons for being in the social contract that we have under the Constitution,” said Kish. Yet, the Biden administration is seeking “to offshore this to some people who have some grand ideas who are then going to impose their will on our defense contractors,” Kish said.

The White House did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Investigative reporter and Pentagon correspondent.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Complete Collapse’: Here’s How ESG Destroyed One Nation’s Economy

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


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.

Plans to Slaughter 200,000 Farting Cows to Save Planet from ‘Global Warming’ Inbox thumbnail

Plans to Slaughter 200,000 Farting Cows to Save Planet from ‘Global Warming’ Inbox

By The Geller Report

It starts with cows..

if this kind of inhumanity and carnage is heralded as some kind of ‘benefit to planet’, their is a madness afoot. The ruling class has lost its collective mind and they mean to take us down.

In the latest effort to reduce emissions from agriculture, Ireland said it may kill 200,000 cows. Meanwhile, climate activists have American farms and ranches in the crosshairs.

By: Kevin Killough, Cowboy State Daily, June 02, 2023:

Climate activists are coming for livestock producers and farmers.

European governments have been targeting the agriculture industry for several years. The Telegraph reports that Ireland’s government may need to reduce that country’s cattle herds by 200,000 cows over the next three years to meet climate targets.

In an effort to reduce nitrogen pollution, Reuters reported the European Union last month approved a $1.6 billion Dutch plan to buy out livestock farmers.

Front And Center

Now the Biden administration is targeting American agriculture.

Special President Envoy For Climate John Kerry recently warned at a climate summit for the U.S. Department of Agriculture that the human race’s need to produce food to survive creates 33% of the world’s total greenhouse gasses.

“We can’t get to net-zero. We don’t get this job done unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution,” Kerry said.

Microsoft Billionaire Bill Gates also is obsessing about cattle emissions, providing financial support to companies that are developing seaweed supplements and gas masks for cows.

It’s ‘Groupthink’

Katy Atkinson, an agricultural advocate who raises cattle in Albany County, told Cowboy State Daily that this conversation on emissions from the industry isn’t considering the beneficial impacts of cattle to the environment and the climate.

“Groupthink happens a lot around the climate change conversation. We get tunnel visioned on one piece of it without considering the full ramifications of what’s going to happen if we remove cattle from the land,” Atkinson said.

She said cattle contribute to drought resistance, soil health and wildfire reduction. Just before cattle were introduced to North America and the industry began raising them, Atkinson said there were thousands of buffalo roaming the plains.

Cows and buffalo are both ruminants, which is a type of animal that brings back food from its stomach and chews it again. These animals’ digestive systems produce methane emissions. Today’s cattle population is similar in numbers to that of the buffalo herds.

“So, the methane emissions from ruminant animals aren’t anything new,” Atkinson said.

Trapping Carbon

Cattle also benefit plant life, Atkinson said.

“You need ruminant animals to forage grasses, because they’re the only things that can,” she explained.

Pigs, for example, are monogastric and can’t break down high fiber content in grasses. Cow’s digestive system can break the grasses down, and then they fertilize the ground.

So, through proper cattle grazing management, Atkinson said the cattle she’s raising are helping plants to grow.

In the atmosphere, the methane they burp out — most of it is released through the mouth of the animal — breaks down in 10 to 15 years into carbon dioxide and water. The plants that cattle help to grow use that carbon dioxide. The carbon then gets put back into the soil through the grasses’ roots.

“So the cattle are essential in helping to keep that carbon trapped in the ground,” Atkinson said.

Atkinson said cattle have other benefits to the climate that are being ignored in the focus on just their emissions. Whenever soil cracks or fissures, it releases carbon into the air.

The animals walking upon the soil compacts it and helps keep the carbon trapped in the soil.

She said one study done by the University of Florida found that between 10% and 30% of the world’s carbon storage is found under the feet of U.S. cattle.

Keep reading.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Lab-grown ‘meat’ worse for environment than retail beef: Study thumbnail

Lab-grown ‘meat’ worse for environment than retail beef: Study

By MercatorNet – Navigating Modern Complexities

The lab-grown meat industry is propped up more by hopeful modelling than favourable data.


The high-tech utopia we keep hearing about will have to wait, if a recent pre-print study on laboratory-cultured meat products is to be believed.

According to researchers at the University of California, Davis, and the University of California, Holtville, “sustainable” meat alternatives have a carbon footprint that is likely “orders of magnitude” higher than retail beef based on current and near-term production methods.

Cultured meat production may be pumping out between four and 25 times more carbon dioxide per kilogram than regular beef, according to the new research, which assessed energy use and greenhouse gas emissions through all stages of production.

If the study passes peer review, its conclusion would be damning: lab-grown meat, long touted as a clean, green alternative to the traditional butcher process, could be harming the planet more than the industry it’s trying to displace.

Truly, who could have guessed that growing meat in giant steel bioreactors using highly-processed pharmaceutical products would be worse for the environment than a herd of cows chewing grass?

The researchers did not rule out the possibility that technological advances that enable a move from using pharmaceutical-grade ingredients to their food-grade equivalents could eventually tip the scales in favour of artificially grown meat.

“It’s possible we could reduce its environmental impact in the future, but it will require significant technical advancement to simultaneously increase the performance and decrease the cost of the cell culture media,” according to UCD food scientist Edward Spang.

However, the team’s findings suggest that in its current state, the lab-grown meat sector is propped up more by hopeful modelling (read: wishful thinking) than favourable present-day data.

Derrick Risner is another of the UCD food scientists who worked on the study. He wrote that their findings were important “given that investment dollars have specifically been allocated to this sector with the thesis that this product will be more environmentally friendly than beef,” adding, “my concern would just be scaling this up too quickly and doing something harmful for the environment”.

According to Science Alert, which reported on the pre-print study:

While cultured meat uses less land than herds of cattle or flocks of sheep, not to mention less water and antibiotics, environmental costs of the highly specific nutrients required to grow the product rapidly add up.

These include running laboratories to extract growth factors from animal serums, as well as growing crops for sugars and vitamins.

Then there’s the energy required to purify all of these broth ingredients to a high standard before they can be fed to the growing meat lumps. This energy-intensive, extreme level of purification is needed to prevent introducing microbes to the culture.

In their research, the California-based team also reviewed the most climate-friendly beef production systems already in operation today. They found that these outperformed even the best synthetic meat processes available.

The California researchers are not the first to have reached the conclusion that real beef is better for the planet than artificial alternatives.

A 2019 University of Oxford study published in the journal Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems likewise found that the energy used to make cultivated meat could release more greenhouse gases than traditional farming.

Modelling traditional versus lab-grown meat options 1,000 years into the future, the team in Oxford concluded that synthetic meat would only be “climactically superior” depending on “the availability of decarbonized energy generation and the specific production systems that are realized”.

Reporting on the 2019 research, Vox summarised: “Yes, cows produce a lot of methane, and methane is very bad for global warming. Yet it only lasts in the atmosphere for a dozen years. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, lasts more than a century. And you know what releases a lot of CO2? Labs — including those that make cultured meat.”

So while start-ups in Silicon Valley continue to pour millions of investment capital into poor substitutes with a bigger carbon footprint than Betsy, do your part for the environment and order your favourite fillet next time you dine out.

AUTHOR

Kurt Mahlburg is a writer and author, and an emerging Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith. He has a passion for both the philosophical and the personal, drawing on his background as a graduate… More by Kurt Mahlburg

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

South Dakota Farmers Face Land Theft By Climate Hoaxers thumbnail

South Dakota Farmers Face Land Theft By Climate Hoaxers

By The Geller Report

Appalling and terrifying. When John Kerry said US farm confiscations were not off the table, he meant it.

Read through this thread.

South Dakota Farmers Face Carbon-capture Land Theft

By: Rebecca Terrell June 1, 2023

Farmers in South Dakota are facing egregious intimidation tactics by a private company that wants to use eminent domain to confiscate valuable farmland for carbon-capture pipelines.

Summit Carbon Solutions requested a restraining order against Brown County farmer Jerad Bossly.

The company claims he threatened the lives of its representatives who showed up unannounced to survey his property, a farm that has been in his family for four generations.

He told The New American that when they arrived, he was about 12 miles away, working in a field. His wife was home, recovering from gallbladder surgery, and was taking a shower when the Summit surveyors knocked at her door. They entered the house, but finding no one there, they proceeded to an outbuilding where one of them walked in. In the tweet below you can see footage from one of Bossly’s security cameras, which captured all of this movement.

Next, the Summit staff walked out onto the Bossly’s property and started setting up a tripod. By that time, Mrs. Bossly, with Jerad on the phone, confronted them and asked them to leave. Jerad said that the sheriff should be present if the company wanted access to his land. So the surveyors left.

His wife called Jerad back later that day to say a detective had just left the farm. Summit had reported Bossly for threatening to kill the surveyors. They also charged him with contempt of court for interfering with their survey activities.

Keep reading.

It’s crazy to me because sinking CO2 into the ground is the opposite of basic science.

CO2 + Trees + Sun = Wood

How does anyone not know this?

— Phantom Shadow (@Fuknutz) May 31, 2023

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: DAVID BLACKMON: Is Texas Turning Its Back On Renewable Energy?

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Climate Lockdowns Begin: France bans short-haul flights ‘to cut carbon emissions’ thumbnail

Climate Lockdowns Begin: France bans short-haul flights ‘to cut carbon emissions’

By Marc Morano


Marc Morano comment on banning short airline flights:

“You were warned! This is what a climate lockdown looks like. This is what the Great Reset looks like. The climate agenda demands you give up airline travel, car travel, cheap reliable energy, and plentiful food. Net Zero goals are now dictating vehicle shortages to force more people into mass transit.

They’re going after your freedom of movement; they’re going after private car ownership, they’re going after everything it means to be a free person and turning it over to the administrative state.” 

By: Marc Morano – Climate Depot – June 1, 2023 7:33 AM

France Bans Short-Haul Flights to Tackle Climate Change

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65687665

France has banned domestic short-haul flights where train alternatives exist, in a bid to cut carbon emissions.

The law came into force two years after lawmakers had voted to end routes where the same journey could be made by train in under two-and-a-half hours.

The ban all but rules out air travel between Paris and cities including Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux, while connecting flights are unaffected.

Critics have described the latest measures as “symbolic bans”.

Laurent Donceel, interim head of industry group Airlines for Europe (A4E), told the AFP news agency that “banning these trips will only have minimal effects” on CO2 output.

He added that governments should instead support “real and significant solutions” to the issue.

Airlines around the world have been severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic, with website Flightradar24 reporting that the number of flights last year was down almost 42% from 2019.

The French government had faced calls to introduce even stricter rules.

France’s Citizens’ Convention on Climate, which was created by President Emmanuel Macron in 2019 and included 150 members of the public, had proposed scrapping plane journeys where train journeys of under four hours existed.

But this was reduced to two-and-a-half hours after objections from some regions, as well as the airline Air France-KLM.

French consumer group UFC-Que Choisir had earlier called on lawmakers to retain the four-hour limit.

“On average, the plane emits 77 times more CO2 per passenger than the train on these routes, even though the train is cheaper and the time lost is limited to 40 minutes,” it said.

It also called for “safeguards that [French national railway] SNCF will not seize the opportunity to artificially inflate its prices or degrade the quality of rail service”.

France’s Ban on Short-Haul Flights Will Kill People – ‘You’re 2,200 times more likely to die when traveling by car as opposed to by airplane’

https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/12/02/is-france-banning-private-jets-everything-we-know-from-a-week-of-green-transport-proposals

By Lottie Limb  with AFP  •  Updated: 23/05/2023

The idea for the ban originally came from a Citizens’ Assembly.

France’s ban on short-haul domestic flights comes into force 23 May.

Under a government decree, any journeys that are possible in less than two-and-a-half hours by train cannot be taken as a flight.

France is also cracking down on the use of private jets for short journeys in a bid to make transport greener and fairer for the population.

Transport minister Clément Beaune said the country could no longer tolerate the super rich using private planes while the public are making cutbacks to deal with the energy crisis and climate change.

Which flights are now banned in France?

The law will mostly rule out air trips between Paris Orly airport and regional hubs such as Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux.

Critics have noted that the cutoff point is shy of the roughly three hours it takes to travel from Paris to the Mediterranean port city Marseille by high-speed rail.

As rail services improve, more routes could be added such as those between Paris Charles de Gaulle and Lyon and Rennes as well as journeys between Lyon and Marseille. They currently don’t meet the criteria for the ban because trains to airports in Paris and Lyon don’t allow passengers to arrive early in the morning or late in the evening.

Connecting flights are unaffected by the new law.

Train services must meet certain conditions to replace flights

The new law specifies that train services on the same route must be frequent, timely and well-connected enough to meet the needs of passengers who would otherwise travel by air – and able to absorb the increase in passenger numbers.

Could short-haul flights soon be banned in Europe? – In October 2021, Greenpeace demanded an EU-wide ban on any flights where the rail journey would take under six hours.  … Germany also has short-haul flights in its sights. While not banning or cutting back on them, the German government recently doubled the amount of tax levied on short flight tickets. Spain, meanwhile, has said it wants to eliminate all short-haul flights by 2050. …Austria has taken a similar tack: when the government bailed out Austrian Airlines during the pandemic, the carrier was ordered to stop operating its Vienna-Salzburg route so that customers could prioritise train travel instead.

In October 2021, Greenpeace demanded an EU-wide ban on any flights where the rail journey would take under six hours.

So how do you persuade people to take trains and coaches over planes? Well, one way is through banning short-haul flights outright, especially when there are valid bus or train alternatives. And that’s a route that several European countries have already taken – but could more follow suit?

A couple of years ago, a poll found that 62 percent of Europeans would support a ban on short-haul flights. In other words, banning them might not just be a good, environmentally-friendly policy. It could also be pretty popular.

France bans short-haul domestic flights despite widespread criticism – Travelers will now be forced to use rail alternatives as France seeks to reduce its carbon footprint.


Related: 

Bloomberg News: ‘No More Cheap Flights Is the New Reality for Air Travel’ – ‘As Climate Compliance Laws Get Stricter’

Bloomberg News: Airlines must have enough emissions allowances to cover every metric ton of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere on flights starting and ending in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland. … That is effectively going to double their carbon costs over just three years. … Over the next three decades, aviation has to transform itself from a polluting industry — planes are responsible for 2.5% of global CO2 emissions — to a net-zero one. …

The Great Travel Reset: No more cheap flights is new reality for Europeans – Net Zero holidays for the well-off only as ‘climate compliance laws’ get stricter for airlines

Meanwhile, China is still planning to expand its network of airports from 241 (at the end of 2020) to 450 by 2035.

Via Net Zero Watch: “Airlines face an expensive and challenging few decades ahead as climate compliance laws get stricter. … It’s the new reality for flying as airlines face a huge decarbonization challenge and tightening climate-compliance laws… Airlines must have enough emissions allowances to cover every metric ton of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere on flights starting and ending in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland.”

“Are we going to have to give up flying to save the planet? Many climate campaigners have been saying so for years, but now Sustainable Aviation – a trade body which represents the UK aviation industry – seems to agree, at least in the case of less well-off passengers.” 

The UK aviation industry seems to have nodded along with the idea that some passengers are going to be priced out of the air…Today, it has published a ‘road map’ showing how the industry intends to decarbonise, in order to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 – in line with the government’s self-imposed, legally-binding target. It proposes that 14 per cent of emissions cuts will come from ‘demand reduction’ – i.e. potential passengers being put off flying by a rise in the price of airline tickets…The UK aviation industry seems to have nodded along with the idea that some passengers are going to be priced out of the air in order for Britain to reach its net zero target.


‘Puritans of the Green Deal’ promote ‘unworkable utopia’ – ‘For the first time since it began, the EU’s agenda is to impoverish Europeans’– ‘If their crusade succeeds, cars, meat, and seaside holidays will be for the rich, just as they were a hundred years ago’ … The Puritans of the Green Deal intend above all to reduce the consumption, rampant consumerism, and free lifestyle of Europeans. If they really believed we would be baked in twenty years’ time, they would be promoting nuclear power stations.

Get ready: In a declared ‘climate emergency,’ you can’t fly commercial unless it is ‘morally justifiable’ – Activist Holthaus sets rules for the ‘use for luxury aviation emissions in a climate emergency’

COVID lockdown: People ‘must make a declaration as to why they need to travel’ – Proposed Climate lockdown: ‘You can’t fly commercial unless it is ‘morally justifiable’

2021: Watch: COVID lockdowns morphing into climate lockdowns – Morano on Tucker Carlson

Watch: Morano on Tucker Carlson: We Will Go From COVID Lockdowns To ‘Climate Lockdowns’ 

Collapse of energy, food, transportation systems prompt calls for government nationalization of industries – Echoes 1930s push for Great Reset style reforms

WaPo touts report calling for ‘global tax’ on commercial flying (but not private jets) – ‘Would require’ global ‘centralized system to track passports’

WaPo: A report suggests a novel way of curbing climate pollution from air travel: A global tax on people who fly the most, with the proceeds going toward research and development into sustainable aviation fuels…The report from the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation recommends a frequent flier tax that starts on the second flight each person takes per year, at a rate of $9. It would then steadily increase, reaching $177 for the 20th flight in a single year.  … Although the authors didn’t attempt to include private jet travel, due to a lack of data, Zheng said that including a similar tax for those using private jets could further shift the burden to the world’s wealthiest consumers.


‘Rationing could save the planet’: UK celebrity Joanna Lumley calls for a return of war time restrictions in bid to tackle climate change – Rationing airline travel & meat

May 2021: Climate lockdowns!? New International Energy Agency’s ‘Net-Zero’ report urges ‘behavioral changes’ to fight climate: ‘A shift away from private car use…. upper speed limits’ & thermostat controls; limits on hot water & more!

The Leftist Climate Hoax Agenda Is Buying Its Way Into The News thumbnail

The Leftist Climate Hoax Agenda Is Buying Its Way Into The News

By The Geller Report

The news is a fiction much like your favorite episodic TV series. They manufacture a story, frame it, bring in the actors to sell it. Until America understands this, we are susceptible to manipulation and thought control.

By: Larry Behrens, The Federalist, May 30, 2023

Take a moment to consider the phrase “Joe Biden’s hard-hat environmentalism” that appeared in a recent Associated Press article. Examining Biden’s controversial energy policy and assigning it the positive spin of “hard-hat environmentalism” is something that makes sense as a White House press release or something from the Biden campaign, but not the AP, a purported objective carrier of the news.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident.

One recent analysis found AP stories mentioned the phrases “climate change,” “global warming,” and “Climate disaster” hundreds of times since receiving grants totaling $8 million in early 2022. The stated purpose of the money is to fund the AP’s “Climate Journalism Initiative,” which would employ 20 new reporters to “transform how the AP covers the climate story.”

Perhaps it also funded the story that gave us Biden’s hard-hat environmentalism?

In another example from the story, former top Clinton adviser John Podesta is heavily quoted in his role as overseer of the $369 billion for green energy from Biden’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act. The story fails to mention Podesta’s political operative past, including his unofficial title of “White House clean-up chief” during the Clinton years. Also quoted are the extreme eco-groups the Natural Resources Defense Council and Center for Biological Diversity. They are all given a lot of space in a story with a lot of reach.

As a wire service, the hard-hat rebranding from the AP will appear in thousands of newspapers across the world as news. We don’t know if the millions the AP received for climate coverage played a role in helping Biden rebrand his energy policy, and that’s precisely the point.

It is no secret that across the country, particularly in rural areas, newspapers are struggling to survive. It’s not unusual to walk into a small-town newspaper and find one person covering what used to be two or even three different full-time positions. The environmental left recognized this struggle and is now providing money and reporter reeducation to fill the void with its own version of the news.

It’s an ethically questionable but smart strategy that is paying immediate dividends.

As just one of many examples, the nationally recognized Poynter Institute recently offered $15,000 grants to reporters or newsrooms willing to cover the Great Lakes area with some eco-strings attached. Any reporter wanting in on the money will have to tell Poynter “A brief description of what they will probe, why they believe there is a story to be told, and how they plan to report the story.” Put another way, reporters must disclose what they cover and how they will cover it before the money flows.

The program receives “funding support” from the Joyce Foundation, and it didn’t take long to see who provides their support. According to documents filed with the IRS, none other than Bloomberg Philanthropies provided millions to Joyce — yes, as in billionaire and climate darling Michael Bloomberg.

By following the bouncing ball of eco-money, there’s a troubling pattern of a frontline journalism association offering grants to reporters, provided they disclose how they will report their stories, by using money that can be traced back to a billionaire with a big green agenda. If it all seems confusing, that’s because it was designed that way.

Proponents of the green movement are putting millions into grants to sneak content supportive of their agenda under the umbrella of news outlets. Sure, the first story or two may include a small disclaimer at the end noting how the story is part of a project funded by an organization. However, green funders put many layers between themselves and the final project to ensure their fingerprints are nowhere to be found.

Keep reading.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden’s ‘Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde Approach’ To Mining Critical Minerals Could Derail His Own Green Dreams, Critics Say thumbnail

Biden’s ‘Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde Approach’ To Mining Critical Minerals Could Derail His Own Green Dreams, Critics Say

By The Daily Caller

  • The Biden administration’s policies limiting domestic mining of key minerals are hindering its effort to transition the U.S. economy to green technologies while increasing America’s dependence on China, industry experts and lawmakers told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  • The administration has taken steps to block major mining projects in Arizona, Alaska and Minnesota, and has been increasingly securing supplies for critical minerals from foreign partners, according to Axios.
  • “I cannot understand why this administration wants to lock in Chinese dominance of mineral supplies instead of investing in a secure, domestic supply chain,” Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia told the DCNF.

President Joe Biden’s mining policies run counter to his efforts to transition the U.S. economy to green technologies while increasing the industry’s dependence on China, industry experts and lawmakers told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Although the White House in 2022 called for “responsible mining” in the U.S. to reduce reliance on Chinese minerals, the administration has taken steps to block major mining projects in ArizonaAlaska and Minnesota, often citing environmental impacts. China currently dominates the supply chain for most minerals necessary for electric vehicles and other green technologies like solar panels, holding a near-monopoly on processing of cobalt, lithium, graphite, manganese and nickel, according to a report by the Institute for Energy Research (IER), an energy think tank.

Despite pressure from a bipartisan group of senators, the U.S. Geological Survey recently declined to name copper a critical mineral — a designation that would prioritize permits for mining projects — a move that Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said would have significant negative consequences for national security and run counter to the administration’s interests, in a statement to the DCNF.

“I cannot understand why this Administration wants to lock in Chinese dominance of mineral supplies instead of investing in a secure, domestic supply chain,” Manchin — a frequent sparring partner with the administration over climate issues — said. “Copper remains vital to our energy security and economic growth, and the United States cannot remain the superpower of the world without a strong domestic supply chain. … If a mineral isn’t listed until after we are already dependent on foreign suppliers, it will be too late — as illustrated by our current dependence on China for many of the minerals in electric vehicles.”

President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, will support the green manufacturing and energy industries with an estimated $1.2 trillion in government funding — more than three times the government’s initial estimates — and incentivize some $3 trillion in private investments, according to analysts from Goldman Sachs. To support this massive spending spree, the Biden administration has secured deals with more than a half dozen foreign countries to develop a mineral supply chain, a strategy that the National Mining Association — a trade group representing U.S. mining companies — criticized for using “short-term band-aids” while ignoring “long-term, systemic supply chain problems,” in a statement to the DCNF.

The Biden Administration continues to stop U.S. mining and U.S. jobs. Instead, Biden wants more reliance on Chinese critical minerals and materials. This is un-American.https://t.co/7OaONq2ePY

— Congresswoman Debbie Lesko (@RepDLesko) May 23, 2023

“Unfortunately, we are hearing more about U.S. deals to source minerals overseas than we are about mining projects being approved here at home,” NMA spokeswoman Ashley Burke told the DCNF. “America’s growing domestic mineral needs have led us to the highest mineral reliance in our country’s history, yet the administration seems to be doubling down on this glaring and growing vulnerability and placing obstacles in the way of domestic production instead of removing them.”

Dan Kish, a senior fellow at the IER, described the administration as having a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde approach” to mining, simultaneously pushing to “electrify everything … driving demand up” while making it “harder and harder” to develop minerals in the U.S., in a statement to the DCNF. He estimated that electric vehicles require roughly six times as much critical minerals compared to their traditional gas-powered counterparts, and anticipates that the increased demand amid limited supply would likely push up mineral prices.

“As mineral demand is skyrocketing, the Biden Administration has banned mining in my northern Minnesota district as well as in Alaska and Arizona,” said Republican Rep. Pete Stauber of Minnesota, referencing the administration’s efforts to effectively kill  the Twin Metals mine in the state. “Meanwhile, the Biden Administration is insistent on making America reliant on global supply chains controlled by unfriendly actors and continues to look abroad for minerals which threatens our national security. This Administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Congo where child slave labor is used and the Chinese Communist Party controls 15 of 19 major mines. This is immoral and insulting.”

Chinese Communist Party-linked Ganfeng Lithium is the largest shareholder of the Canadian firm Lithium Americas, which received approval by the Trump administration to operate the Thacker Pass mine, the largest known source of lithium in the U.S. and third largest in the world. The company began construction on the Nevada mine in March after its approval was upheld by a federal judge in February, pending a final environmental review by the Biden administration.

In an early May Senate hearing, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland defended the administration’s efforts to block domestic mining projects because it was protecting “valuable” ecological resources and appeared to be on the verge of tears over climate change in late April when defending the administration’s push for green energy. Haaland had previously refused to say whether she believed it was better for the U.S. to produce oil domestically, or import it from foreign sources.

Beyond supply chain concerns, President Biden’s push to transition the nation to primarily use green manufacturing and energy sources is running headlong into real estate concerns, as states hurry to prepare the massive sites necessary to sustain such projects. Despite this, the Environmental Protection Agency in recent months has proposed a series of aggressive emissions standards that will push the electrification of America’s passenger car and trucking fleets and lead to the shutdown of noncompliant coal and gas-fired power plants by 2040.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan at the time praised the administration’s vehicle standards for being “readily achievable” thanks to the president’s “Investing in America agenda” that will “secure America’s global competitiveness.”

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

AUTHOR

JOHN HUGH DEMASTRI

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘We’re Not Expecting Anything Good’: Oil Drillers Brace For Biden’s New Rules

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


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.

The Great American Electric School Bus Boondoggle thumbnail

The Great American Electric School Bus Boondoggle

By The Daily Caller

Washington, D.C. could use another fiscal hawk like the late Sen. William Proxmire of Wisconsin.

During his Senate career from 1957 to 1988, Proxmire instituted a regular Golden Fleece Award, with which he mocked “the biggest, most ridiculous or most ironic example of government spending.”

Among his infamous recipients was the Department of Justice, receiving the award for conducting a study on why prisoners desire to escape.

Another honoree was the U.S. Postal Service, spending $4 million on an ad campaign urging Americans to write more letters.

In today’s government borrow-and-spend climate, Proxmire would find an embarrassment of riches for his satirical accolades. Here’s one that would surely join the ranks:

In the hardy fishing, timber, and tourism town of Wrangell, Alaska, the school district had the idea to apply for a federal grant for a new electric school bus. With the Environmental Protection Agency distributing nearly $1 billion in these electric school bus grants last year, it was raining money.

In October, the Biden Administration awarded $395,000 to Wrangell for the purchase of the electric bus, intended to expedite the transition to zero-emission vehicles and foster “cleaner air in schools and neighboring communities.

Here’s the rub: Most students in this Alaska town can walk to school or catch a ride with an older sibling or parent who works at the school. Wrangell, with its 2,100 souls and only about 25 miles of road, has a school system serving 263 students and two school buses. And there are no neighboring communities in Wrangell, unless you get on a ferry or a plane.

As for the clean air aspect, Wrangell boasts some of the cleanest air in America. It’s situated in the middle of the nation’s largest national forest, the Tongass, which is the size of Virginia yet has a population of only 70,000 across its numerous islands and archipelagos. Between the millions of carbon-capturing trees and millions of acres of carbon-absorbing ocean, Wrangell is in a rainforest that is already on hydro power. It’s not belching much of anything into the air, which is swept clean by ocean breezes.

But somehow Wrangell, in spite of its voters’ overwhelming preference for President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020, won a grant from the Biden Administration.

Its success was due to the fact that more northern communities in Alaska can’t use electric buses, as their batteries just don’t last in the cold winters, and the last thing communities need is to have a bus full of children break down in sub-zero blizzards. For most of Alaska, electric vehicles don’t make sense.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski was euphoric. After all, Wrangell is where her father, former Sen. Frank Murkowski, and his wife, Nancy, live. She brought home the bacon.

“Congratulations to the Wrangell School District for being a recipient of the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program, established by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Wrangell’s new electric school bus will enhance the district’s ability to operate efficient and safe bus routes. I am thrilled to witness Alaskan communities reaping the benefits of my bipartisan infrastructure law,” she said in a statement.

The projected cost of the new electric bus is $375,000, with an additional $20,000 designated for a charging station.

Thus, the nearly $400,000 to transport even half of those 263 students pencils out to $1,500 per student. That $400,000 amounts to 8% of the district’s annual $5 million operating budget.

This alone would qualify it for Proximire’s Golden Fleece Award, although “Golden Fleet” would also be appropriate.

But then, an unexpected hurdle arose: The EPA grant stipulates that the bus company must dispose of one of its diesel-fueled buses. Not a mere sale or decommissioning of the bus, but complete destruction was required.

Taylor Transportation, the company that has the bus contract in Wrangell, questioned the wisdom of destroying a perfectly functional school bus from its fleet.

With the clock ticking, the district approached the EPA with a proposal: Could Wrangell purchase a bus in another jurisdiction, destroy it, present evidence of its destruction to the federal agency, and subsequently qualify for the grant for the new electric bus?

The EPA saw no apparent obstacles to this unconventional workaround.

For the past few weeks, Wrangell scoured other states for a bus that fit EPA’s criteria, which includes that the bus must have served as a functional student transporter for the last two years.

In other words, the bus Wrangell buys and destroys cannot be the dilapidated remnants of a Burning Man excursion.

In addition, not just any method of destruction will suffice. The EPA has regulations governing the disabling of a diesel school bus—no cliffs can be involved, for instance.

Sen. Proxmire would revel in the circus that is this wasteful endeavor.

Within the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, bizarre trinkets like this abound for every community across America, enough to keep Golden Fleece Awards going for years.

Regardless of party, we need more fiscal hawks like Proxmires and fewer spendthrift Murkowskis in the Senate.

We need senators who will put their foot down on wasteful spending, not put their foot on the gas for borrowing against the futures of our children.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

SUZANNE DOWNING

Suzanne Downing is publisher of Must Read Alaska.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


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.