Environment Archives - Page 43 of 54

How CO2 Supply Chain Mayhem Almost Caused a Meat Shortage in Britain

December 19, 2021/in DrRichSwier.com, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

In recent months, many of us have faced empty shelves, long lines, and frustrating delays as supply chains have seized up around the country, and indeed the world. Some have argued that the government should step in to fix these issues, blaming the problems on “corporate greed” and “the free market”. But while it may be tempting to blame private companies for our current woes and see the government as the savior, the reality is not that simple. Indeed, far from being the solution, government intervention in the market is arguably the primary cause of these problems in the first place.

A good case study for this issue is Great Britain. Back in September, the nation’s supply chain issues got so bad that they almost had major disruptions in their food supply. The UK government has been intervening in an attempt to fix the problems in the short run, but the situation is still extremely precarious.

So who is responsible for these issues? Well, let’s follow the supply chain link-by-link and see if it can lead us to the culprit.

Link 1: Carbon Dioxide

The immediate problem that food producers are facing is a shortage of food-grade carbon dioxide (CO2). The meat industry is particularly affected by this shortage, since CO2 is used in many meat production processes. But aside from that, the gas also plays a key role in modified atmosphere packaging, which is used to prolong the shelf life of many food products. It’s also used in carbonated drinks (hence the name) like beer and soda, and in its solid form as dry ice it is used to keep fresh food cool during transportation.

Why is there a shortage of CO2? Well, most food-grade CO2 comes from fertilizer plants, because CO2 is a byproduct of the fertilizer manufacturing process. These plants, however, have been producing far less CO2 than normal. So to understand why there’s so little CO2, we need to investigate the fertilizer plants. This brings us to the next link in the chain.

Link 2: Fertilizer Plants

Two of the biggest fertilizer plants in the UK are owned by a company called CF Industries. Together, they normally produce about 60 percent of the UK’s food-grade CO2. However, these plants were actually shut down for a large part of September, which drastically reduced the UK’s CO2 production.

The reason they were shut down is because natural gas, an essential part of the fertilizer process, has been very expensive in recent months. With the price of this key input so high, it was actually uneconomical for the plants to operate, so they decided to shut down temporarily in hopes of restarting their operations once the price of natural gas came back down. But why is natural gas suddenly so expensive? This brings us to the third link in the chain.

Link 3: Natural Gas

First, to say that natural gas prices are high in Britain is really quite the understatement. According to Industry group Oil & Gas UK, wholesale prices for gas in September were up 250 percent since January, and had increased 70 percent since August. As one UK energy CEO remarked, this is “the most extreme energy market in decades.”

So what’s causing the high prices? A number of factors. High global demand has played a role, especially since roughly 60 percent of the UK’s natural gas supply is imported. Lower solar and wind output have also been factors, as well as outages at some nuclear stations. The cold winter in 2020 also resulted in depleted stocks (since people use natural gas to heat their homes), and several gas platforms in the North Sea have closed to perform maintenance that was paused because of the COVID-19 lockdowns.

But one of the biggest sources of price volatility is the dearth of natural gas storage facilities in the UK.

“The UK currently has very modest amounts of storage, less than 6% of annual demand.” writes Michael Bradshaw, a Professor of Global Energy at the University of Warwick. “In Germany, France, and Italy, storage covers about 20% of annual demand,” he continues for context. Another report noted that the UK has enough storage to last for about 7 days, whereas Germany and France have roughly 90 days of storage.

While storage is far from the only factor affecting natural gas prices, it certainly plays a significant role. But why does Britain have so little storage capacity? This brings us to the final link in the chain.

Link 4: Natural Gas Storage

One of the reasons for Britain’s low storage capacity is that a storage facility called Rough, which used to provide a significant percentage of the UKs natural gas storage, was decommissioned in 2017 as a result of age-related deterioration.

Industry leaders were concerned about the resulting lack of storage at the time, and have been warning about the issue ever since.

“Rough makes up an impressive 70% of the UK’s storage working gas volume,” Timera Energy noted back in 2017, when permanent closure was still being deliberated. “This can be contrasted with Rough’s contribution to the UK’s daily deliverability, at around 25%. And it is the deliverability that the UK market will miss most.”

They go on to explicitly discuss the likely impact of the closure on the price of natural gas. “The loss of deliverability should boost spot price volatility as it reduces the buffer of supply flexibility available to respond to swings in daily demand…The loss of working gas volume is likely to mean that supply shocks…have a sharper and more prolonged price impact.”

The need for more storage was reiterated in 2019 by another industry leader named InfraStrata Plc. “There is more demand in the market than we can satisfy,” said John Wood, the CEO of InfraStrata. “The market in the U.K. is sending out strong economic signals for additional gas storage capacity.”

So why wasn’t more storage built? Well, as it turns out, natural gas storage is taxed and regulated very heavily in the UK, much more so than other industries. Indeed, one of the largest gas storage operators in the country, called Storengy, explicitly called attention to these problems back in 2018, pointing out the “punitive” and “extortionate” tax levels that are applied to storage facilities as well as the numerous regulations that burden the industry.

As a result of these barriers, many potential storage projects have remained on the shelf, since they are prohibitively expensive in the current business environment. Thus, even though the demand is clearly there, the market has been unable to meet it, because taxes and regulations have severely crippled the industry.

This analysis is hardly exhaustive, of course. But at least with respect to the storage issue, it seems clear that government intervention in the market is the primary cause of the food supply chain disruptions.

Innumerable Antecedents

One of the interesting things about this story is how it highlights the plethora of people, items, and systems that work together to keep our grocery shelves full. First, we discovered that food producers rely on CO2. That led us to investigate fertilizer plants and the crazy natural gas market, and then from there we explored natural gas storage and learned about the many ways that government intervention has been crippling that industry. Of course, most people wouldn’t intuitively connect gas storage regulations with food availability, but the rippling unintended consequences of these policies are very real nonetheless.

In his famous essay “I, Pencil,” Leonard Read similarly draws attention to the “innumerable antecedents” of everyday items, such as the seemingly simple lead pencil.

“Just as you cannot trace your family tree back very far, so is it impossible for me to name and explain all my antecedents,” Read wrote, speaking as the pencil. He goes on to discuss some of the many ancestors of the pencil, the people and things that went into producing it, and he points out how they all depend on one another. Indeed, you can’t mess with the trucking industry without impacting the production of pencils, just as you can’t mess with natural gas storage without impacting food supplies.

With that said, trucking and natural gas are not only ancestors of pencils and food. They are also ancestors of many other products, and this leads to an important insight. In reality, it’s actually somewhat misleading to speak of supply chains, as if the economy consisted of independent, linear processes. The economy is much more accurately characterized as one giant supply web, a multiplicity of interconnected processes that all depend on each other in various ways.

With this in mind, it quickly becomes apparent why interfering with the economy can be so dangerous. When the government breaks one part of the web, they aren’t just impacting one chain, they are creating countless unintended consequences, many of which are impossible to foresee.

If we’re lucky, those consequences will only lead to higher prices. If we’re not so lucky, empty grocery shelves await.

Addendum: Addressing the Problem

To address the looming crisis, the UK government ended up bailing out CF Industries, the company that owns the fertilizer plants. The deal, which was finalized on September 21, resulted in one of the two plants resuming operations, with the UK government providing “limited financial support,” which the Environment Secretary later clarified was “going to be into many millions, possibly the tens of millions [of euros].”

Since then, the government has brokered a deal between CF Industries and its CO2 buyers. Though the details are unclear, the government seems to be involved in setting the price of CO2, which would constitute even more intervention in the market.

But intervention is not the solution here. When governments intervene, they inevitably distort price signals, leading to increasingly inefficient outcomes. The real solution is for the government to stop causing the problem in the first place by removing the taxes and regulations that are standing in the way of the natural gas storage market.

Granted, it will take some time before the storage market can adjust, but even in the interim, the best way to address these problems is to let markets and prices do their thing.

COLUMN BY

Patrick Carroll

Patrick Carroll has a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo and is an Editorial Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education.

U.S. Gas Prices up 55% Since December 2020

December 17, 2021/in DrRichSwier.com, Economy, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Geller Report

U.S. Gas Prices up 55% Since December 2020 – Dr. Rich Swier

Electric Batteries Are Not Emissions Free

December 17, 2021/in DrRichSwier.com, Energy, Environment, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By Royal A. Brown III

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” – John F. Kennedy

The below article is a WOW factor one and should be required reading in every High School Science class. Batteries are not emissions free and certainly contribute to so called “Climate Change” yet activists who push the persistent, persuasive and unrealistic myths of Climate Change are also advocates for “alternative power sources” including solar, wind and battery powered devices like all electric cars.

By Bruce Haedrich

When I saw the title of this lecture, especially with the picture of the scantily clad model, I couldn’t resist attending. The packed auditorium was abuzz with questions about the address; nobody seemed to know what to expect. The only hint was a large aluminum block sitting on a sturdy table on the stage. When the crowd settled down, a scholarly-looking man walked out and put his hand on the shiny block, “Good evening,” he said, “I am here to introduce NMC532-X,” and he patted the block, “we call him NM for short,” and the man smiled proudly.

“NM is a typical electric vehicle (EV) car battery in every way except one; we programmed him to send signals of the internal movements of his electrons when charging, discharging, and in several other conditions. We wanted to know what it feels like to be a battery. We don’t know how it happened, but NM began to talk after we downloaded the program.

Despite this ability, we put him in a car for a year and then asked him if he’d like to do presentations about batteries. He readily agreed on the condition he could say whatever he wanted. We thought that was fine, and so, without further ado, I’ll turn the floor over to NM,” the man turned and walked off the stage..

“Good evening,” NM said. He had a slightly affected accent, and when he spoke, he lit up in different colors. “That cheeky woman on the marquee was my idea,” he said. “Were she not there, along with ‘naked’ in the title, I’d likely be speaking to an empty auditorium! I also had them add ‘shocking’ because it’s a favorite word amongst us batteries.” He flashed a light blue color as he laughed. “Sorry,” NM giggled then continued, “three days ago, at the start of my last lecture, three people walked out. I suppose they were disappointed there would be no dancing girls.

But here is what I noticed about them. One was wearing a battery-powered hearing aid, one tapped on his battery-powered cell phone as he left, and a third got into his car, which would not start without a battery. So, I’d like you to think about your day for a moment; how many batteries do you rely on?”

He paused for a full minute which gave us time to count our batteries. Then he went on, “Now, it is not elementary to ask, ‘what is a battery?’ I think Tesla said it best when they called us Energy Storage Systems. That’s important. We do not make electricity – we store electricity produced elsewhere, primarily by coal, uranium, natural gas-powered plants, or diesel-fueled generators. So, to say an EV is a zero-emission vehicle is not at all valid. Also, since forty percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. is from coal-fired plants, it follows that forty percent of the EVs on the road are coal-powered, n’est-ce pas?”

He flashed blue again. “Einstein’s formula, E=MC2, tells us it takes the same amount of energy to move a five-thousand-pound gasoline-driven automobile a mile as it does an electric one. The only question again is what produces the power? To reiterate, it does not come from the battery; the battery is only the storage device, like a gas tank in a car.”

He lit up red when he said that, and I sensed he was smiling. Then he continued in blue and orange. “Mr. Elkay introduced me as NMC532. If I were the battery from your computer mouse, Elkay would introduce me as double-A, if from your cell phone as CR2032, and so on. We batteries all have the same name depending on our design. By the way, the ‘X’ in my name stands for ‘experimental..’

There are two orders of batteries, rechargeable, and single use. The most common single-use batteries are A, AA, AAA, C, D. 9V, and lantern types. Those dry-cell species use zinc, manganese, lithium, silver oxide, or zinc and carbon to store electricity chemically. Please note they all contain toxic, heavy metals. Rechargeable batteries only differ in their internal materials, usually lithium-ion, nickel-metal oxide, and nickel-cadmium.

The United States uses three billion of these two battery types a year, and most are not recycled; they end up in landfills. California is the only state which requires all batteries be recycled. If you throw your small, used batteries in the trash, here is what happens to them.

All batteries are self-discharging. That means even when not in use, they leak tiny amounts of energy. You have likely ruined a flashlight or two from an old, ruptured battery. When a battery runs down and can no longer power a toy or light, you think of it as dead; well, it is not. It continues to leak small amounts of electricity. As the chemicals inside it run out, pressure builds inside the battery’s metal casing, and eventually, it cracks. The metals left inside then ooze out. The ooze in your ruined flashlight is toxic, and so is the ooze that will inevitably leak from every battery in a landfill. All batteries eventually rupture; it just takes rechargeable batteries longer to end up in the landfill.

In addition to dry cell batteries, there are also wet cell ones used in automobiles, boats, and motorcycles. The good thing about those is, ninety percent of them are recycled. Unfortunately, we do not yet know how to recycle batteries like me or care to dispose of single-use ones properly.

But that is not half of it. For those of you excited about electric cars and a green revolution, I want you to take a closer look at batteries and windmills and solar panels. These three technologies share what we call environmentally destructive embedded costs.”

NM got redder as he spoke. “Everything manufactured has two costs associated with it, embedded costs and operating costs. I will explain embedded costs using a can of baked beans as my subject.

In this scenario, baked beans are on sale, so you jump in your car and head for the grocery store. Sure enough, there they are on the shelf for $1.75 a can. As you head to the checkout, you begin to think about the embedded costs in the can of beans.

The first cost is the diesel fuel the farmer used to plow the field, till the ground, harvest the beans, and transport them to the food processor. Not only is his diesel fuel an embedded cost, so are the costs to build the tractors, combines, and trucks. In addition, the farmer might use a nitrogen fertilizer made from natural gas.

Next is the energy costs of cooking the beans, heating the building, transporting the workers, and paying for the vast amounts of electricity used to run the plant. The steel can holding the beans is also an embedded cost. Making the steel can requires mining taconite, shipping it by boat, extracting the iron, placing it in a coal-fired blast furnace, and adding carbon. Then it’s back on another truck to take the beans to the grocery store. Finally, add in the cost of the gasoline for your car.

But wait – can you guess one of the highest but rarely acknowledged embedded costs?” NM said, then gave us about thirty seconds to make our guesses. Then he flashed his lights and said, “It’s the depreciation on the 5000-pound car you used to transport one pound of canned beans!”

NM took on a golden glow, and I thought he might have winked. He said, “But that can of beans is nothing compared to me! I am hundreds of times more complicated. My embedded costs not only come in the form of energy use; they come as environmental destruction, pollution, disease, child labor, and the inability to be recycled.”

He paused, “I weigh one thousand pounds, and as you see, I am about the size of a travel trunk.” NM’s lights showed he was serious. “I contain twenty-five pounds of lithium, sixty pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, and 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic. Inside me are 6,831 individual lithium-ion cells.

It should concern you that all those toxic components come from mining. For instance, to manufacture each auto battery like me, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth’s crust for just – one – battery.”

He let that one sink in, then added, “I mentioned disease and child labor a moment ago. Here’s why. Sixty-eight percent of the world’s cobalt, a significant part of a battery, comes from the Congo. Their mines have no pollution controls, and they employ children who die from handling this toxic material. Should we factor in these diseased kids as part of the cost of driving an electric car?” NM’s red and orange light made it look like he was on fire.

“Finally,” he said, “I’d like to leave you with these thoughts. California is building the largest battery in the world near San Francisco, and they intend to power it from solar panels and windmills. They claim this is the ultimate in being ‘green,’ but it is not! This construction project is creating an environmental disaster. Let me tell you why.

The main problem with solar arrays is the chemicals needed to process silicate into the silicon used in the panels. To make pure enough silicon requires processing it with hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, trichloroethane, and acetone. In addition, they also need gallium, arsenide, copper-indium-gallium-diselenide, and cadmium-telluride, which also are highly toxic. Silicon dust is a hazard to the workers, and the panels cannot be recycled.

Windmills are the ultimate in embedded costs and environmental destruction. Each weighs 1688 tons (the equivalent of 23 houses) and contains 1300 tons of concrete, 295 tons of steel, 48 tons of iron, 24 tons of fiberglass, and the hard to extract rare earths neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium. Each blade weighs 81,000 pounds and will last 15 to 20 years, at which time it must be replaced. We cannot recycle used blades. Sadly, both solar arrays and windmills kill birds, bats, sea life, and migratory insects.

NM lights dimmed, and he quietly said, “There may be a place for these technologies, but you must look beyond the myth of zero emissions. I predict EVs and windmills will be abandoned once the embedded environmental costs of making and replacing them become apparent. I’m trying to do my part with these lectures.

Thank you for your attention, good night, and good luck.” NM’s lights went out, and he was quiet, like a regular battery.

Wrong again Biden: Tornadoes Are Weather, Not Climate

December 16, 2021/in Environment, Liberty, ThePricklyPear.org /by ThePricklyPear.org

By Craig Rucker

Devastating tornadoes struck America’s heartland Friday night leaving death, destruction, and heartache in their trail.

When asked whether the tornadoes were due to climate change President Biden replied, “Everything is more intense when the climate is warming and obviously it has some impact here.”

CFACT’s Marc Morano reports at Climate Depot that weather and climate experts were shocked by the President’s misstatement. These tornadoes were tragic, but were natural weather, not climate. Marc is currently scheduled to appear tonight on Fox News Primetime at 7:00 PM EST.

Weather expert Chris Matz said, “this is utter bullsh*t… Here are the facts: No overall trend in U.S. tornado activity since 1954, but EF-3+ down 50.
Climate scientist Dr. Roy Spencer said, “To claim ‘global warming’ as cause for tornadoes ‘is directly opposite to the clear observational evidence.’”
Extreme weather expert Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. noted that the UN IPCC report states, “Trends in tornadoes… associated w/ severe convective storms are not robustly detected … attribution of certain classes of extreme weather (e.g. tornadoes) is beyond current modeling and theoretical capabilities.”
Tony Heller who runs the Real Science blog said in a video: “History and science aren’t among Joe Biden’s strong points.”
Legendary forecaster Joe Bastardi posted at CFACT.org that if “that’s all Biden knows, the chart from NOAA shows he knows next to nothing.”

When a natural disaster strikes it calls upon the best in all of us to help those in need.

Exploiting natural tragedy to push a political agenda is wrong.

*****

This article was published on December 13, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from CFACT, The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow.

Hypocrisy, Not Climate Concern, Dominated COP-26

December 14, 2021/in Economy, Environment, Featured, Politics, ThePricklyPear.org /by ThePricklyPear.org

By H. Sterling Burnett

Global elites regularly decry the supposedly “existential” threat purported human-caused climate change poses to the environment, civilization, and even human survival.

These elites propose policies intended to avert global climate disaster, almost all of them involving ending the use of fossil fuels and fundamentally changing how people live, forcing us to live in high-density urban settings along mass transportation nodes and eat locally supplied vegetarian diets. But the elites don’t act as if they believe their rhetoric.

The alarmed climate elites’ hypocritical “do as I say, not as I do; hair shirts and gruel for thee, but not for me” attitudes were on full display at the U.N. climate conference, COP-26 for short, held in Glasgow, Scotland from October 31 through November 13.

If world leaders and the mandarin bureaucrats who supposedly serve them and the wider public were really concerned human greenhouse gas emissions endanger the Earth, they could have hosted the entire conference, backroom negotiations and all, via Zoom, Skype, Streamyard, or any of the numerous other conferencing services. After all, the world just spent a year on lockdown with media interviews, international negotiations, and legislation still getting done.

Barring virtual communication, COP-26’s participants could have arrived via commercial or shared transport and eaten only locally sourced vegetarian or vegan meals, as they propose for the unwashed masses. They didn’t do that. Instead, according to the Scotsman, carbon dioxide emissions from COP-26 were more than double those of COP-25 and more than any previous international summit in history. Sixty percent of the conference’s more than 100,000 tons of emissions was from transportation alone, with the remainder coming from water use, heating and cooling of five-star accommodations, and meat-heavy gourmet meals made with food flown or shipped in from around the world.

The world’s leading climate scolds, those wealthy, self-appointed saviors of the Earth who would have common people give up air travel and private cars, arrived in a stream of more than 400 private jets, spewing more emissions in two weeks than is emitted by more than 1,600 average people in the United Kingdom in a year. If their own pronouncements of planetary doom are to be believed, it seems Bank of America, Jeff Bezos, and other multibillion-dollar businesses and individuals feel you must first kill the Earth before you can save it.

Conference host Boris Johnson, prime minister of the United Kingdom, jetted in from a meeting of the G-20 in Rome (where climate was also discussed), only to berate the world for its profligate use of fossil fuels.

Johnson harangued the assembled attendees for their nations’ alleged climate crimes, saying, “When it comes to tackling climate change, words without action, without deeds are absolutely pointless.” Yet, after being on the ground in Glasgow for about a day, he took a private jet back to London instead of taking the train, which emits far less carbon dioxide. Later, near the conference’s end, Johnson jetted back to Glasgow to express his belief that hard commitments to reduce carbon dioxide emissions significantly were vital to saving the world. His actions spoke loudly, and they belied his words.

To be fair, COP-26 is hardly the first time those in power—who are constantly telling the poor of the world they must live with less to save the planet—have declined to live up to the ideal they set for others. President Joe Biden’s climate czar, John Kerry, is famous for using his family’s private jet to attend climate negotiations and award dinners. His excuse: he’s important! Evidently, this somehow means he is to be held to a lower standard than others. BTW, John, usually if you want to set an example you hold yourself to a higher standard than others. Just a thought.

Then there is actor/activist Leonardo DiCaprio, who once again made an appearance at a climate summit. We all know actors set the lifestyle example to which an environmentally conscious person should aspire. To his credit, for once DiCaprio flew commercial. Perhaps his image needed burnishing. After all, he is widely known for travelling repeatedly for pleasure every year via private planes and private yachts. DiCaprio has real chutzpah. As detailed in Luxury Launches,

Despite coaching viewers to “work together” to fight climate change while accepting his first Oscar in March, DiCaprio chose to fly private to pick up an award from a clean-water advocacy group at the Riverkeeper Fishermen’s Ball and back to Cannes to attend an AIDS benefit gala 24 hours later.

DiCaprio excuses his personal carbon profligacy by saying he pays someone to plant trees on his behalf. That reminds me of the medieval Catholic Church selling indulgences to wealthy sinners who could afford it.

Then there is our climate Cassandra-in-chief, former vice-president Al Gore, who profited handsomely off fossil fuels, raking in $70 to $100 million for the sale of his cable news network, Current TV, to Al Jazeera. After years of claiming we must abandon oil and gas production and promoting legislation and lawsuits to force people to do so, Gore sold his station to a company primarily owned by the government of Qatar. That government makes most of its annual revenue from oil production and is a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). It’s akin to Baptists taking donations from bootleggers.

Not to be outdone, former president Barack Obama appeared at COP-26 to complain about climate hypocrisy. “For most of your lives you’ve been bombarded with warnings about what the future will look like if you don’t address climate change, but you see adults who act like the problem doesn’t exist,” Obama opined. “You are right to be frustrated.”

With whom should they be frustrated? Obama spent eight years as president warning climate change was causing the seas to rise rapidly and they would soon swamp much of the U.S. Eastern seaboard. Upon retiring, however, he bought an $11.75 million beachfront home in Martha’s Vineyard, just inches-to-feet above sea level. As far as I can tell, he isn’t investing in sea walls to keep out the supposedly rising tides.

None of the famous people who claim we are causing planet-killing climate change through human energy use, housing infrastructure, and agricultural systems live as if they believe this is true.

That’s something to think about the next time such a person gives a speech or appears on television saying you should give up your car, air travel, hamburgers and barbeque, and standalone single-family home in order to save the planet. They aren’t including themselves among those who should be forced to give up things.

The policies elitists are proposing will impose higher energy costs, which many people—the working poor, those on fixed incomes, and those on lower-middle incomes—will struggle to pay for. Yet the elites make no sacrifices themselves. Even if they did, the cost of their policies to them would be beneath their margins of error at the bank.

Wealthy climate alarmists apparently have a two-year-old’s self-awareness and ability to delay gratification. They remind me of Democrat apologists who claim inflation is a good thing or at least not so bad, admonishing the poor to “suck it up” and pay the higher costs without complaint. It’s not a good look, and it certainly doesn’t inspire confidence that they really believe the Earth hangs in the balance.

*****

This article was published on December 2, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from The Heartland Institute.

Meteorologist: Biden’s tornado climate link ‘utter bullsh*t’

December 13, 2021/in DrRichSwier.com, Energy, Environment, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By Marc Morano

‘Opposite to observational evidence’ – Tornadoes blamed on global cooling in 1970s.

Meteorologist Chris Martz on tornado climate link: “This is utter bullshit.” … “Here are the facts: No overall trend in U.S. tornado activity since 1954; but EF-3+ down 50%.”

Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer: “To claim ‘global warming’ as cause for tornadoes ‘is directly opposite to the clear observational evidence’”

Even the UN IPCC disagrees with Joe Biden – Extreme Weather Expert Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. noted: UN IPCC AR6 WG1 states: “trends in tornadoes… associated w/ severe convective storms are not robustly detected” … “attribution of certain classes of extreme weather (eg, tornadoes) is beyond current modeling & theoretical capabilities” … “how tornadoes… will change is an open question”

Tony Heller Video: Biden Discusses Tornadoes In Kentucky: “History and science aren’t among Joe Biden’s strong points.” — Tony Heller of Real Climate Science Rips Biden

Tornadoes blamed on…Global Cooling! – July 14, 1974 – Lincoln Journal Star – Excerpt:

“Droughts, floods, blizzards, tornadoes, typhoons, and hurricanes have plagued much of the nation and the world in recent years. Most people considered these weather conditions to be abnormal and temporary, but instead, climatologists now believe the first half o the 20th century was blessed with unusually mild weather and that the global climate has begun returning to a harsher — but more normal — state. For the long run, there is mounting evidence of a worldwide cooling trend.”

December Tornadoes are not rare:

Also see: Biden on tornadoes: ‘We all know everything is more intense when the climate is warming’ – Reality Check: Big tornadoes down 50% since 1954 – Meteorologist Chris Martz rebuts Biden: “Here are the facts: • No overall trend in U.S. tornado activity since 1954; but EF-3+ down 50%.”

Tropical cyclone activity below-normal in 2021 across Northern Hemisphere & US tornadic activity also below-normal

Geologist Gregory Wrightstone: Joe Biden spins tornado misinformation

Biden uses tornado tragedy to further climate agenda: But ‘data shows that these winter tornadoes are not becoming more frequent’

By: Marc Morano – Climate Depot – December 12, 2021 9:23 PM

Biden uses tornado tragedy to further climate agenda: But ‘data shows that these winter tornadoes are not becoming more frequent’– Climate analyst Paul Homewood: “Provisional data from the NWS indicates that the tornadoes which hit Mayfield, Kentucky and Edwardsville, Illinois were both EF-3s. Although most tornadoes occur in spring and early summer, strong tornadoes are not unheard of in winter. Indeed, on average since 1950 there have been five tornadoes every winter of EF3 and greater strength. And the official data shows that these winter storms are not becoming more frequent:

Despite the latest outbreak, the number of tornadoes this year has been well below average. ”No F5 Winter Tornadoes In The U.S. For Fifty Years – Last one occurred in 1971

The US has been hit by six F5 winter tornadoes since 1950, the last ones occurring fifty years ago.

1953-12-05 MS 1957-12-18 IL 1971-02-21 LA 1971-02-21 LA 1971-02-21 MS 1971-02-21 MS #

Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer in 2019: “To claim ‘global warming’ as cause for tornadoes ‘is directly opposite to the clear observational evidence’”– Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer: “The last half of the 65-year U.S. tornado record had 40% fewer strong to violent tornadoes than the first half. To claim that global warming is causing more tornadoes is worse than speculative; it is directly opposite to the clear observational evidence.”

Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.: “But none of that justifies making obviously false claims about the state of current science, even if made in support of a worthy cause by someone I voted for.”

Tony Heller Video December 12, 2021:

Biden Discusses Tornadoes In Kentucky: “History and science aren’t among Joe Biden’s strong points.”

Tony Heller’s visuals from his December 12, 2021 video:

Tornadoes blamed on…Global Cooling! – July 14, 1974 – Lincoln Journal Star – Excerpt: “Droughts, floods, blizzards, tornadoes, typhoons, and hurricanes have plagued much of the nation and the world in recent years. Most people considered these weather conditions to be abnormal and temporary, but instead, climatologists now believe the first half o the 20th century was blessed with unusually mild weather and that the global climate has begun returning to a harsher — but more normal — state. For the long run, there is mounting evidence of a worldwide cooling trend.”

1976: ‘Frequently Freakish Weather” due to “global cooling.” – The High Point Enterprise

April 1974: “If sufficient action isn’t taken in the next few months, countries could disappear from the face of the earth,” United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim said last month, referring to the horrific drought now ravaging West Africa. (Tribune Australia)

The Collapse of Climate-Related Deaths: Deaths have ‘fallen over 90% since 1920’

Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer in 2019: “To claim ‘global warming’ as cause for tornadoes ‘is directly opposite to the clear observational evidence’”

Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer: “The last half of the 65-year U.S. tornado record had 40% fewer strong to violent tornadoes than the first half. To claim that global warming is causing more tornadoes is worse than speculative; it is directly opposite to the clear observational evidence.”

Geologist Gregory Wrightstone: Joe Biden spins tornado misinformation – December 12, 2021 – In 2017, while researching tornado data, I archived the NOAA site’s page on tornadoes and data. At the time, NOAA specifically warned that pre-Doppler radar records of tornadoes (before 1995) are unreliable:

“One of the main difficulties with tornado records is that a tornado, or evidence of a tornado, must have been observed. Unlike rainfall or temperature, which may be measured by a fixed instrument, tornadoes are short-lived and very unpredictable. A tornado in a largely unoccupied region is not likely to be documented. Many significant tornadoes may not have made it into the historical record since Tornado Alley was very sparsely populated during the early 20th Century.”

Because of this, NOAA recommended (at the time) only using the strongest tornadoes as a measure of pre-Doppler numbers and provided this chart that documented an overall decrease in the number of strong and violent storms that were categorized as >EF 3 (I have added the carbon emissions to the chart).

Figure 1 – Tornadoes: NOAA (2017) NCEI Historical Records and Trends, https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-information/extreme-events/us-tornado-climatology/trends CO2: Boden 2016 Global Regional and National Fossil-Fuel CO2 Emissions. CDIAC

NOAA today takes one to their latest iteration, which showcases a chart of ALL tornadoes dating back to 1950 and shows a steady and significant rise in the number of tornadoes from 1950 to the late 1990s. Bear in mind, that just a few years ago, NOAA specifically warned against using exactly this data because it would under-count the numbers before 1995.

Figure 2 – Tornadoes: NOAA (2017) NCEI Historical Records and Trends, https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-information/extreme-events/us-tornado-climatology/trends

All of this begs the question: Why would a government agency promote flawed data? The answer is simple: It “confirms” their preconceived notion of increasing severe weather and provides support for alarming claims of ever-increasing death and destruction.

October 2021: NOAA Gets Caught Disappearing Inconvenient Tornado Data: Removes webpage showing ‘number of strong tornadoes has declined since the 1970s’– Paul Homewood: “It is absolutely clear that the number of strong tornadoes has declined since the 1970s. Alarmingly, however, this page has been ‘disappeared’, and the link now comes up with this:

Fortunately, Wayback still has a copy of the original web page, and I also have it on file. It is blindingly apparent that NOAA found their original assessment far too inconvenient, something that should be kept out of the public domain at all cost.”

The Politically Incorrect Guide To Climate Change – 2019 – By Marc Morano

Page 203: Greg Carbin, tornado warning coordination meteorologist at NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

According to Carbin, “NOAA statistics show that the last 60 years have seen a dramatic increase in the reporting of weak tornadoes, but no change in the number of severe to violent ones.”64 And as extreme weather expert Roger Pielke Jr.’s analysis of the data reveals, “Tornadoes have not increased in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at least 1950, and there is some evidence to suggest that they have actually declined.”65 Pielke found, “Over the past six decades, tornado damage has declined after accounting for development that has put more property into harm’s way.” The bottom line: “Recent years have seen record low tornadoes.”

Climate analyst Paul Homewood explained how NOAA tried to spin global warming fears in 2017 by inflating the tornado statistics. “According to NOAA, the number of tornadoes has been steadily growing since the 1950s, despite a drop in numbers in the last five years. But with increased National Doppler radar coverage, increasing population, and greater attention to tornado reporting, there has been an increase in the number of tornado reports over the past several decades. This can create a misleading appearance of an increasing trend in tornado frequency,” Homeward pointed out. “The bottom line is that the NOAA headline graph is grossly dishonest,” he explained. “NOAA themselves know all of this full well. Which raises the question—why are they perpetuating this fraud?”

Blame for Recent Tornadoes On ‘Global Warming’ Is Incorrect– Patrick Marsh, a Storm Prediction Center meteorologist, reported that outbreaks of 50 or more tornadoes really aren’t uncommon, having happened 63 times in U.S. history. There are even three instances of more than 100 twisters in single years. Roy Spencer reminds us once again not to conflate three decade or- longer climate cycles with seasonal weather which naturally varies from year to year. He writes, “The alarmist claims of AOC, Gore, and Sanders are not just speculative; they are opposed by our observations and by meteorological theory.”

New tornado study ‘underlines just how corrupt climate science has become’ – 2019 Analysis debunks claim tornadoes getting more frequent in Southeast– Climate analyst Paul Homewood: “Sometimes a story comes along which underlines just how corrupt climate science has become…Anybody with any expertise on tornadoes knows that there has been an increase in tornado reports over recent years simply because of better reporting…To include the weakest EF-0 tornadoes in the study fundamentally undermines the whole exercise, given that EF-0s now account for over 60% of all tornadoes…So, what happens when we only look at the stronger EF3+ tornadoes in Alabama? Surprise, surprise, they have become much less frequent!”

1896 Tornado Killed 400 People In St. Louis

1890 Tornado Killed Nearly 200 People in Louisville

The Easter 1913 Tornado Outbreak

VIDEO: Fracking Our Way to Energy Independence

December 8, 2021/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

We live in a world where we take countless conveniences for granted.

We heat and cool our homes with the turn of a knob or press of a button. We turn on the lights for as long as we like with the flip of a switch.

What makes all this modern ease possible?

Reliable, affordable energy. And much of that is thanks to hydraulic fracturing, aka “fracking.”

Check out CFACT’s latest “Conservation Nation” video which highlights the importance of fracking in our daily lives.

Of course, not everyone recognizes fracking’s importance. Many on the Left view the affordable energy fracking provides as something to be attacked, not praised.

And attack they have. Fracking has come under criticism from the media, activists, and liberal politicians at all levels.

Can fracking, and the many small family-owned operators within the industry, survive?

That’s what Gabriella Hoffman investigates on the latest episode of CFACT’s Conservation Nation YouTube series. Hoffman gets the perspective straight from the operators and rig workers themselves.

Watch the new segment.

While the first segment explores how fracking works, “Part 2” takes on the purported claims of environmental harm it causes as well as the impact regulatory assaults are having on the industry.

This winter, whenever you shuffle to the thermostat and turn it up a couple degrees, remember to think of the workers who are out in the field harvesting the energy we all take for granted.

They deserve to be thanked and appreciated – not vilified by politicians and the media.

Watch the latest episode of Conservation Nation here and learn the facts.

WATCH PART 1: Drilling into the truth behind fracking.

Renewable Energy Experts Cast Doubt On Biden’s Wind Power Plans

December 7, 2021/in DrRichSwier.com, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Daily Caller

The Biden administration’s aggressive plans to transition away from fossil fuels to a decarbonized electric grid may be impossible to achieve, according to energy experts.

To achieve President Joe Biden’s net-zero emissions by 2050 goal, for example, the U.S. would need to triple its existing transmission line infrastructure, according to a 2020 Princeton University study. The U.S. would also need to invest $3.4 trillion in transmission line expansions, including lines connecting new solar and wind energy generation to the grid, the study concluded.

“The current power grid took 150 years to build. Now, to get to net-zero emissions by 2050, we must build that amount of transmission again in the next 15 years and then build that much more again in the 15 years after that,” Jesse Jenkins, a Princeton researcher and co-author of the study, said, E&E News reported.

Since Biden took office, he has pledged to cut U.S. emissions 50% by 2030, have a 100% carbon-free grid by 2035 and have the economy reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. As part of the president’s clean energy agenda, the Department of the Interior unveiled plans to fund up to seven offshore wind farms nationwide with a total capacity of 30 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 in October.

However, the 30 GW of power proposal falls far short of the 300 GW that offshore wind farms on the East Coast would need to produce to achieve net-zero, Tufts University environmental engineering expert Eric Hines said, according to E&E News.

“Once we get beyond that first 30 GW, we are really going to have our hands tied as an industry,” Avangrid Renewables president Bill White said during a recent conference, E&E News reported.

The Oregon-based Avangrid is a major developer of renewable energy technology that owns a 50% stake in a wind project off the coast of Massachusetts. The project, which is under construction and is on pace to be the first of its kind in the U.S., will consist of 62 wind turbines and generate 800 megawatts per year.

Overall, there are just 14 offshore projects in development along the East Coast, E&E News reported. While the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) continues to coordinate with a number of states on several projects, the agency has noted that the U.S. will need more wind projection to reach its energy goals.

“We will indeed need more capacity,” BOEM’s head of renewable energy, James Bennet, said, according to E&E News.

Wind and solar generation, though, have been criticized for being unreliable sources of energy since they almost never produce the amount of power they are capable of. Offshore wind, for example, produces just 45% of its energy capacity because of its intermittent production capability, Energy Information Administration data showed.

“We’ve supplanted geographically-specific policies for a general policy that wind and solar are generally good and fossil fuel is bad,” American Institute for Economic Research senior faculty Ryan Yonk previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “And that puts the ability to consistently produce energy at a reasonable price in jeopardy.”

COLUMN BY

THOMAS CATENACCI

Energy and environment reporter.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The Covid, Climate Alliance

December 7, 2021/in Education, Email, Environment, Featured, Liberty, Politics, ThePricklyPear.org /by ThePricklyPear.org

By Joe Bastardi

Maybe it is all just a big Coincidence — Covid and Climate.

I have 2 chapters in my book on this matter. The book was written in March and April of 2020 so it predates the evolution of what you see

(btw it is available here and it is stocking stuffer size, sort of). Keep hawking it, as unlike some things one writes where they are current, then in the past, this book is just as current now as when it was written)

In any case, I have to question whether this is all a coincidence.

Think about it. What does Marxism seek to do? It is a top-down authoritarian form of governance where control of the free will and freedom of the individual is a must. This force’s dependence on the state, and in the spiritual aspect, forces a person to choose between that dependence and one’s religious belief.

So what are you seeing here? Covid policy is a tactic to control. The Virus is GOING TO NATURALLY MUTATE TO GET AROUND ANY TYPE OF ARTIFICIAL RESISTANCE. Nature does that all the time. But think what the reaction, no matter what the intention, has done. It forced a sense of fear and almost blind reliance, and outsourcing of one’s freedom, to someone who will take care of you. The age-old question of is it better to be safe or strong enough to resist a threat comes to mind. Those seeking safety first will trust someone else rather than themselves. How else can you explain an almost blind allegiance to someone who has not actively treated a patient in a practice for over 30 years, over doctors on the front lines offering suggestings on how to stop this? Dr Fauci, who is now floating the trial balloon of renewed lockdowns. Right in time for the holidays.

They want to talk math and science right? Okay. Tested positives are near 50 million. It is hugely telling that the people pushing a vaccine have not set up antibody testing stations around the country with the availability of testing or vaccination sites, You can get the shot anywhere, but you can’t tell if you have Covid antibodies in the same ratio, It is common knowledge now that natural immunity ( and for goodness sakes. This should be intuitive). Why isn’t the French vaccine available here? It uses the tried and true method of prevention, stimulating your body to create its own antibodies and then becoming more mutation resistant.

Nature is a stronger and longer defense against COVID. So why would you not want to get an actual count of people with antibodies?, rather than a tested count? THAT MAKES NO SENSE. And it is baffling how people don’t see that. Or don’t ask why vaccines like the one above are not available. Dr Fauci says it spread 5x faster than flu. By HIS IDEA the whole country should have had it by now. But no matter let’s take how many people have been vaccinated. It is over 230,000,000 million, You have 50 million immune and if the vax is so powerful that it is our patriotic duty to get it, even though there is a risk.

Now given the recent surge, if all this vax talk was true, then how is it we are seeing such a surge with so many fewer people that are supposedly the ones that are responsible. There are only 50 million “unprotected”. Something is wrong here with what we are being told. My suspicion is what many of us know, the man-made vax simply fades. And a lot of vaxed people are walking around not understanding that they are likely no better off than an unvaxed person and certainly not better off than someone that had covid ( of which I believe there are many more). They are actually at risk from a false sense of security.

Covid is dangerous. It is a blight. But either the people that are pushing all this are incompetent, or they are purposely hiding the examples above I gave

Why shut down frontline doctors aggressively treating this with therapeutics? Why isn’t the more classic French Version available here? There are countless questions, and they get blocked with an aggressive campaign to isolate, demonize and destroy, the classic Marxist tactic.

Now to climate. FORCED ADHERENCE IS HERE. You are seeing it in the form of price rise. Biden has created the mess and now has decided we need to look at those evil energy companies for raising prices. There is a calculated step up. Arrogant elitists tell us we can afford an extra dollar a pound for turkeys. Meat prices rise, so more people have to figure out what else to eat. An energy secretary laughs at the problem on the video, saying she wished she had a magic wand to force the now all-powerful again OPEC to lower their prices. And so people, the poorest especially must react. Just like Covid, a form of class warfare and chaos develops. Quite frankly I can not believe this is an accident. Nor do I believe Joe Biden hatched this. His history proves he is incapable of such things, but more than willing to adapt such things ( please just look at his record). However, those that wish to take down the freedoms of this country or who have written books supporting the redistribution of American wealth as the penalty for what we have done ( gee I wonder who THAT is) are smart enough and also are ENOUGH OF A LEADER, WHERE THEY WILL KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT FOR THE BIGGER CAUSE, can do it. They use setbacks such as Trump’s rise to power to regroup and come on stronger. So for whatever reason, they have a Covid and Climate alliance, along with the other chaos they crave to gain control, that is the wave we are facing.

Can you see the link? ITS DECEPTION ( or put it this way, a designed plan to hide all pieces of the puzzle). We are told it is getting worse all the time, yet there is no time better for living on the planet than now. That is why life expectancy has surged. Because of that, Covid can claim more lives. The argument that more people are dying is absurd. 1) of course more people are dying there are more living. 2) There should be more people dying from natural disasters ( which of course are now blamed on man) because more people are living in harm’s way. Yet this graphic blows all that out of the water without having to argue over the polar bears or whatever or listen to Bill Nye and Greta drop F-bombs.

So if it’s worse than ever how were there 28x more deaths with 1/4 the population of today in 1930? It’s flat out false to assert man’s influence is ruining life. The earth is greener than ever in the satellite era, more people are living longer, more people are living in disaster-prone areas, YET THE ATTRIBUTED AMOUNTS OF DEATH ARE DROPPING.

We are in big trouble as far as what this nation was founded on. That the population as a whole is so uncurious about things like this, and not only accept what they are told but become agents for the deception by trying to force what they are told on others who actually look at these things, is the biggest problem. The devil’s biggest tool is to drive wedges into what we love the best. Our families, our friends, our way of life. To destroy what God has given every person and is so wonderfully spoken in the words of the founders. Whether you think the whole thing is a fairy tale or not is your business, but the old adage the road to hell is paved with good intentions is backed up by Mencken’s ”the urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule” rings loud and true today. Whoever or whatever is behind all this, and perhaps it is just plain dumb luck, is capitalizing on it. Be it Covid, Climate, or whatever, there are just too many common links to ignore what is an almost otherworldly design to destroy the American experiment. And no matter what the actual cause, the erosion of our foundations is evident. And we have no one to blame but ourselves. If the nation falls, it’s because we became comfortable and complacent rather than virtuous and vigilant.

I think Paul Harvey nailed it back in 1964.

*****

This article was published on November 29, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from CFACT, The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow.

Environmental Impact Study Must Precede ‘Build Back Better’

December 6, 2021/in DrRichSwier.com, Energy, Environment, Immigration /by DrRichSwier.com

By Michael Cutler

Bill’s immigration amnesty would devastate U.S. ecology and U.S. economy.

The leaders of the Democrat Party claim to be concerned about the environment. It was the Democrats, after all, who have been pushing The Green New Deal, a major element of the disastrous legislation known as “Build Back Better.”

However, as we shall see, hypocrisy is never difficult to find.

Before America is pushed off the proverbial cliff by the lunacy of Build Back Better, I propose that an all-inclusive environmental impact study be conducted first to explore the intended and unintended consequences of this bill.

The “pro-environment” Democrats should be delighted to have an independent study done to make certain that we safeguard the environment that they claim to be ever so concerned about!

In 1973 the Endangered Species Act was enacted to protect endangered species of flora and fauna from extinction.

Frequently major construction projects require that environmental impact studies be conducted before work can begin, to safeguard the environment.

Having brought up the Endangered Species Act it is worth noting that on August 31, 2021 the Center for Biological Diversity issued a press release, Historic Accomplishment: Snail Darter Recovered Fish Made Famous in Tellico Dam Controversy No Longer Endangered that began with the following excerpt:

WASHINGTON— The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed today to remove the snail darter from the endangered species list due to recovery. Thanks to government and collaborative efforts, the little fish is no longer in danger of extinction.

The 3-inch-long fish — named after its primary food source, small riverine mollusks — gained fame in the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case Tennessee Valley Authority vs. Hill. The court upheld the newly passed Endangered Species Act at the request of conservationists and others who sought to protect the fish and its last free-flowing habitat in the Little Tennessee River, along with 300 family farms and countless Cherokee ancestral sites, from the construction of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s highly controversial Tellico Dam.

The press release went on to note:

“Thanks to the persistence of many people, the extinction of the snail darter was ultimately avoided, and today we can celebrate its recovery,” said Zygmunt Plater, the attorney who wrote the citizens’ petition to save the darter in 1975 and represented the fish and the farmers in the Supreme Court victory. “But the uneconomical Tellico project was a boondoggle from the start. The snail darter, like many other endangered species, signaled that human values are also endangered when their survival is threatened. The destruction of the Little Tennessee River shows that bad ecology is usually bad economics and it’s safer to save an animal’s natural habitat in the first place.

Today America’s middle class should be placed at the top of that Endangered Species List and should be given as much concern as the snail darter was accorded in 1975.

This past June I wrote an article about the disastrous impact that Biden’s immigration policies are having on the environment, Biden Administration Advances Environmentally-Unsustainable Immigration Policies.

The amnesty provision contained within Build Back Better would also potentially lead to the influx of tens of millions of immigrants as I outlined in my article, Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ is Bunk: Dems’ plans to import tens of millions of immigrant children prove it.

Each person who is present in the United States needs much more than a pillow on which to lay his/her head at night.

Each person present in the United States creates a significant ecological footprint.

Each person needs food, water, electricity, sewerage, clothing, housing, transportation, health care and, in the case of minors, eduction. Food required acreage of land be set aside to grow food for each person.

While Build Back Better promises to provide clean water, water shortages are becoming more pronounced, especially in the American West.

Consider this worrying report from CBS News’ 60 Minutes, Southwest states facing tough choices about water as Colorado River diminishes.

Water is not just used for drinking but to prepare food and grow crops and sustain farm animals. Water is also essential for sanitary purposes.

While the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that 6.5 million illegal aliens would benefit from the amnesty provided in Build Back Better, the realty is that there is no way to really know what number of illegal aliens would participate. The requirement that these aliens had to have entered the United States prior to 2011 is utterly meaningless. Because the numbers of aliens are so huge there will be no interviews and no field investigations. Additionally, speaking from direct experience, I spent one year as an adjudications officer during my 30 year career with the former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) it is far easier and quicker for an adjudicator to approve an application for an immigration benefit than to deny it.

An application can be approved in less than 30 minutes while denials could take days or longer.

Denials are likely to be followed up by appeals by the aliens. No one appeals an approval!

Furthermore, no record of entry is created aliens who enter the United States without inspection. Many aliens use multiple false identities and so there would be no way to reliably determine whether an alien entered the United States ten years ago or ten days ago.

Considering the checkered background of Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Alejandro “Get to Yes” Mayorkas, adjudicators will likely be pressured to approve all of the applications they are assigned and it is also likely that there will be no efforts to verify the familial relationships between the legalized aliens and their supposed children and spouses for whom the newly legalized aliens will most likely have the authority to file petitions to grant them immigrant visas. The outrageous claim that “only” 6.5 million illegal aliens would be granted lawful status could easily explode into tens of millions of lawful immigrants.

Each person has an economic footprint as well. Flooding America with millions of aliens would have an adverse impact on inflation, the national debt, education, unemployment, jobs and wages.

Meanwhile, flooding America with millions of immigrants would lead to more inflation as they require food, clothing and shelter. The cost of housing will rise dramatically while the value of labor would plummet, leading to more homelessness.

Our roads and our cities would suffer from far more congestion which would lead to more pollution.

The inability to properly vet millions if aliens would irrevocably undermine national security and public safety and send that very dangerous message to aspiring illegal aliens from around the world that in the United States violations of laws will not just be tolerated but rewarded, essentially firing the starter’s pistol for this race to the borders of the United States.

It is important to be clear that the United States has the most generous immigration policies of any other country on this planet. Indeed, generally the United States admits more than one million lawful immigrants each year. They are provided with “Green Cards” and are immediately placed on the path to United States citizenship.

This is more than all of the other countries from the rest of the world combined.

Additionally the United States admits tens of millions of aliens on various temporary (non-immigrant) visas- again, more than the rest of the world combined.

However, I fear that the lunacy of Build Back Better would discourage highly qualified immigrants to seek to enter our country as the situation spirals out of control even as America’s adversaries lick their chops in anticipation of the self-destruction of our nation at the hands of those We The People elected to protect the Constitution, our nation and our fellow Americans.

There is nothing “Anti-Immigrant” about securing our borders from the un-inspected entry of aliens who may pose a threat to national security, public safety, public health and the jobs and wages of Americans. Indeed, the entry of such aliens poses a threat to Americans and lawful immigrants alike.

As the title of one of my previous articles noted, Biden’s Immigration Bill Would Be an Act of National Suicide: Figures don’t lie – but liars can figure.

Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions Newsletter: We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.

December 6, 2021/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By John Droz, Jr.

Welcome! We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.

Note 1: Here is the link for this issue, so please share it on social media.

We hope that the Newsletter format makes it easy to scan and read.

Note 2: Please see our major new website (C19Science.info) which has dozens of quality, science-based COVID-19 reports.

— This Newsletter’s Articles, by Topic —

COVID-19 — Repeated Important Information:

My webpage (C19Science.info) with dozens of Science-based COVID-19 reports

US Election:

Election-Integrity.info (10 major election reports by our team of experts, plus much more!)

Election Reform Is a Winning Issue for Republicans

Lindell Punts on Supreme Court Filing

Attorneys Reveal, Explain and Discuss The U.S. Supreme Court Complaint

Harvard’s ‘Lawfare’ Programs Are an Omen of Elections Decided in Court

US Election — State Issues:

Virginia’s Election Integrity Laws Are The Best Tools To Protect Voting Rights

Georgia Governor’s Election Audit Report Admits Massive Fulton Errors

North Carolina: A True Tale of Absentee Vote Fraud

NC General Assembly recently passed two pieces of election integrity legislation

US Politics and Socialism:

How Democrats are using multiculturalism and immigration to destroy America

Biden’s failures continue to mount as Americans suffer. What a missed opportunity.

The Frogs Have Begun Fleeing The Government’s Boiling Pot

Start Paying Attention! It’s Long Over Due!!!!

Short video: Everything You’ve Ever Seen About Cuba is a Lie

The Communist Plan To Overthrow America From Within

Religion Related:

COVID trauma seems not to have shaken American Christians’ faith

The Supreme Court will probably uphold the Mississippi law limiting abortion after 15 weeks

Education Related:

Matt Walsh Wants To Beat The Left At Their Own Game

Alumni Withhold Donations, Demand Colleges Enforce Free Speech

If at any time you’d like to be added to (or taken off) the distribution of our popular, free Media Balance Newsletter, simply send me an email saying that.

Note 1: We recommend reading the Newsletter on your computer, not your phone, as some documents (e.g. PDFs) are much easier to read on a large computer screen… We’ve tried to use common fonts, etc. to minimize display issues.

Note 2: For recent past Newsletter issues see 2020 Archives & 2021 Archives. To accommodate numerous requests received about prior articles over the twelve plus years of the Newsletter, we’ve put together archives since the beginning of the Newsletter — where you can search by year. For a detailed background about the Newsletter, please read this.

Note 3: See this extensive list of reasonable books on climate change. As a parallel effort, we have also put together a list of some good books related to industrial wind energy. Both topics are also extensively covered on my website: WiseEnergy.org.

Note 4: I am not an attorney or a physician, so no material appearing in any of the Newsletters (or the WiseEnergy.org website) should be construed as giving legal or medical advice. My recommendation has always been: consult a competent, licensed attorney when you are involved with legal issues, and consult a competent physician regarding medical matters.

VIDEO: FEMA Whistleblower Exposes Globalists’ War Against The Sun.

December 4, 2021/in DrRichSwier.com, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By Jamie Glazov

In a March 25th, 2021 New York Times article titled “Should We Block the Sun? Scientists Say the Time Has Come to Study It” Christopher Flavelle wrote:

WASHINGTON — The idea of artificially cooling the planet to blunt climate change — in effect, blocking sunlight before it can warm the atmosphere — got a boost on Thursday when an influential scientific body urged the United States government to spend at least $100 million to research the technology.

That technology, often called solar geoengineering, entails reflecting more of the sun’s energy back into space through techniques that include injecting aerosols into the atmosphere. In a new report, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine said that governments urgently need to know whether solar geoengineering could work and what the side effects might be.

“Solar geoengineering is not a substitute for decarbonizing,” said Chris Field, director of the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University and head of the committee that produced the report, referring to the need to emit less carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Still, he said, technology to reflect sunlight “deserves substantial funding, and it should be researched as rapidly and effectively as possible.”

Read the full article.

This new Glazov Gang episode features Celeste Solum, a former FEMA operative. Visit her site at ShepherdsHeart.Life.

Celeste exposes Globalists’ War on the Sun, revealing how and why the Deep State is working on “restructured” light[a.k.a. geoengineering].

RELATED VIDEO: Blocking Out the Sun to Fight Climate Change

RELATED ARTICLES:

A Bill Gates Venture Aims To Spray Dust Into The Atmosphere To Block The Sun. What Could Go Wrong?

Harvard Scientists Begin Experiment To Block Out The Sun

Biden’s Climate Power Grab Via Trillions of Dollars in Annual Federal Procurement

December 3, 2021/in Economy, Email, Environment, Featured, Liberty, ThePricklyPear.org /by ThePricklyPear.org

By David Wojick

Spending by federal agencies is governed by the extensive Federal Acquisition Regulations or FAR for short. In response to a Biden executive order, the FAR Council is conducting a silly public inquiry as to how climate change should be factored into federal spending. The Federal Government spends over $6 trillion a year so this is a very big deal.

The concept is ridiculous and some of the ideas are illegal but this foolish agency action deserves serious attention. The FAR Council has issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rule Making (ANPRM) titled “Federal Acquisition Regulation: Minimizing the Risk of Climate Change in Federal Acquisitions“. Comments are due by December 15. I urge people to comment.

See https://www.regulations.gov/document/FAR-2021-0016-0001

Advanced Notices like this are asking for ideas prior to proposing regulations, including that the whole idea is nuts. One of the worst things mentioned is that in competitive procurements agencies should give preference to bidders who are cutting their emissions. I cannot believe this is legal but there it is.

The ANPRM includes this list of leading questions:

(a)How can greenhouse gas emissions, including the social cost of greenhouse gases, best be qualitatively and quantitatively considered in Federal procurement decisions, both domestic and overseas? How might this vary across different sectors?

(b) What are usable and respected methodologies for measuring the greenhouse gases emissions over the lifecycle of the products procured or leased, or of the services performed?

(c) How can procurement and program officials of major Federal agency procurements better incorporate and mitigate climate-related financial risk? How else might the Federal Government consider and minimize climate-related financial risks through procurement decisions, both domestic and overseas?

(d) How would (or how does) your organization provide greenhouse gas emission data for proposals and/or contract performance?

(e) How might the Federal Government best standardize greenhouse gas emission reporting methods? How might the Government verify greenhouse gas emissions reporting?

(f) How might the Federal Government give preference to bids and proposals from suppliers, both domestic and overseas, to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions or reduce the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions most effectively?

(g) How might the Government consider commitments by suppliers to reduce or mitigate greenhouse gas emissions?

(h) What impact would consideration of the social cost of greenhouse gases in procurement decisions have on small businesses, including small disadvantaged businesses, women-owned small businesses, service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, and Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) small businesses? How should the FAR Council best align this objective with efforts to ensure opportunity for small businesses?

The questions imply proposals that clearly make federal spending an instrument of alarmist policy. Suppliers are required to report their greenhouse emissions and to take steps to reduce them. The result can only be to drive up the cost of goods and services, which taxpayers pay for.

I see no statutory authority for this nonsense. Surely only Congress can make rules like this. Agencies cannot just decide what to buy based on Biden’s climate power agenda.

Some of this is truly far out, like asking procurement officials to measure the life cycle emissions of products and services. Complex products up to and including warships can have components, sub-components, etc., from all over the world, and lead long complex lives. In fact, the Defense Department is a lead agency in this ANPRM, as is NASA.

Imagine trying to measure the life cycle emissions for $6 trillion a year’s worth of products and services, and then basing procurement decisions on these measures. This is truly absurd.

There is also this vaguest of concepts: the “climate-related financial risks” to the Federal Government, which are supposed to be both mitigated and minimized. The real risk here is doing silly stuff in the name of climate alarmism.

And of course, there is the nutty “social cost of greenhouse gases”. This goofy number is claimed to measure to the dollar the damage done over the next 300 years by a ton of today’s emissions. I am not making this up!

The Biden Administration is trying to grab power it does not have, using regulations that have no statutory authority. I urge people to comment, especially saying how stupid and dangerous this proposed rule-making really is.

*****

This article was published on November 26, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from CFACT, The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow.

15 States Threaten To Pull $600 Billion From Banks That Won’t Give Equal Service To Energy Industry

December 2, 2021/in Economy, Email, Environment, Featured, Liberty, National Security, Politics, ThePricklyPear.org /by ThePricklyPear.org

By Tristan Justice

Fifteen state financial officers sent a letter to U.S. banks last week noting $600 billion in assets they pledge to take elsewhere if the financial institutions embrace corporate wokeism and prohibit financing to the fossil fuel industry.

Led by West Virginia Republican Treasurer Riley Moore, the group promised “collective action” in the form of an “economic boycott.”

“Just as each state represented in this letter is unique in its governing laws and economy, our actions will take different forms,” they wrote in the letter obtained by The Federalist. “However, the overarching objective of our actions will be the same – to protect our states’ economies, jobs, and energy independence from these unwarranted attacks on our critical industries.”

Signatories to the letter putting banks on notice include chief financial officers from Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming, Alabama, Texas, and Kentucky, in addition to West Virginia.

“How can we as states get dollars from severance taxes and then park it in banks that are at the same time trying to diminish those dollars by trying to boycott our industries?” Moore said in an interview with The Federalist. “This is just more of the same from these woke capitalists, globalist interests out there when it’s them trying to dictate to us the way we need to live our lives.”

Asked why more states haven’t joined the letter, considering at least 22 state financial offices are run by Republicans, Moore said it was a consequence of standard hesitancy.

“I do believe there are going to be more states that are going to join this coalition effort. I think they want to see a little bit of how this plays out,” Moore said. “How long are we just going to take it in the face and not do anything?”

President Joe Biden has been aggressive in quickly curtailing oil and gas development as promised on the campaign trail. Beyond the illegal suspension of new leases on federal land, the prohibition of new drilling sites on major untapped reserves, and higher fees in the pipeline for new energy exploration permits, however, it’s the administration’s pressure on Wall Street to refuse investment in the capital-intense industry that’s dealt the biggest blow to producers, spiking prices at the pump in the process.

“We can’t get capital because they’re putting so much pressure on banks not to lend to us in the name of climate change,” explained Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Denver-based industry trade group Western Energy Alliance.

Biden’s nominee for an important regulatory role at the Treasury Department however, shows no sign of an administration easing up on Wall Street. Cornell Law Professor Saule Omarova, who was tapped to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, has said she wants fossil fuel industries to “go bankrupt.”

If confirmed, Omarova would lead an agency tasked with “ensur[ing] banks and federal savings associations operate in a safe and sound manner, provide fair access to financial services, treat customers fairly, and comply with applicable laws and regulations.”

Considering the administration’s crusade against fossil fuels, it’s conceivable Omarova would weaponize the department to deter investment in an industry vilified by Democrats as single-handedly destructive to the planet.

In 2017, Omarova already urged Congress to delegate a “golden share” responsibility to federal agencies, which she defined as “a wide range of legal arrangements giving the government special, exclusive, and nontransferable corporate-governance rights in privately owned enterprises.”

State financial officers who are engaged in the tug-of-war with the Biden administration wrote in their letter last week their taxpayers would not tolerate public funds being managed by institutions that destroy economies and Americans’ health in the name of climate change.

“We have a compelling government interest when acting as participants in the financial services market on behalf of our respective states, to select financial institutions that are not engaged in tactics to harm the very people whose money they are handling,” they wrote. “Any financial institution that has adopted policies aimed at diminishing a large portion of our states’ revenue has a major conflict of interest against holding, maintaining, or managing those funds.”

*****

This article was published on November 30, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from The Federalist.

The Countries With the Cleanest Environments in the World Are Also the Most Economically Free, Research Shows

November 29, 2021/in DrRichSwier.com, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Research shows that countries with the highest levels of economic freedom also have the highest environmental performance.

One of the most frequently raised arguments against capitalism is that it is the primary driver of environmental pollution and climate change. But if we compare Yale University’s ranking of countries with the highest environmental performance with the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, a very different correlation emerges.

For more than 20 years, Yale University has been publishing the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) and ranking countries according to their environmental health and ecosystem vitality. The EPI uses 32 performance indicators across eleven issue categories:

Air Quality
Sanitation & Drinking Water
Heavy Metals
Waste Management
Biodiversity & Habitat
Ecosystem Services
Fisheries
Climate Change
Pollution Emissions
Water Resources
Agriculture

According to Yale University’s analyses, Denmark, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and France are the highest ranked countries, followed by Austria, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Germany. The report states, “One of the consistent lessons of the EPI is that achieving sustainability requires sufficient economic prosperity to fund public health and environmental infrastructure.” The researchers find that there is a clear positive correlation between environmental performance and country wealth, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.

An interesting comparison can be made between the EPI and the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, which has been measuring economic freedom around the globe since 1995. The index, which is also referred to as the capitalism index by the sociologist Erich Weede, was most recently published in spring 2021 and analyzes the level of economic freedom in 178 countries. The Heritage Foundation index applies twelve criteria, all of which are weighted equally:

Property Rights
Judicial Effectiveness
Government Integrity
Tax Burden
Government Spending
Fiscal Health
Business Freedom
Labour Freedom
Monetary Freedom
Trade Freedom
Investment Freedom
Financial Freedom

The ten most economically free countries in the world in the 2021 index are:

Singapore
New Zealand
Australia
Switzerland
Ireland
Taiwan
United Kingdom
Estonia
Canada
Denmark

The countries with the lowest levels of economic freedom were North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe. The 178 countries are all grouped in five categories: Free, Mostly Free, Moderately Free, Mostly Unfree and Repressed. The Heritage Foundation’s researchers compared the two indices – Yale University’s Environmental Performance Index and their own Index of Economic Freedom – for the year 2020 and found that the countries with the highest levels of economic freedom also had the highest EPI scores, averaging 76.1, while the “Mostly Free” countries averaged 70.2. There is then a big gap to the “Moderately Free” countries, which were rated much lower (59.6 points) for their environmental performance. The “Mostly Unfree” and “Repressed” countries registered by far the worst environmental performance (46.7 and 50.3 points in the EPI, respectively).

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE 2021 ECONOMIC FREEDOM AND ENVIROMENTAL PERFORMANCE CHART

Image Credit: 2021 Index of Economic Freedom (page 26), Heritage Foundation

To smooth out the dynamic developments in the Index of Economic Freedom, it makes sense to take each country’s average score over 15 years from 2006 to 2020. This compensates for the kind of one-off effects that can result from short-term policy measures. These averages can then be compared with the Environmental Performance Index’s scores from 2020. The data reveal a clear positive correlation (the correlation coefficient is 67%). A regression analysis also confirms that for every one-point increase in the Economic Freedom Index there is a 1.06 point increase in the Environmental Performance Index. Such a high coefficient, combined with the very strong correlation between the indices, suggests a clear statistical relationship. This correlation can be explained by the causality between increased capitalism and greater technological progress and prosperity.

The economist Daniel Fernández Méndez addressed the potential objection that countries with greater economic freedom “are ‘exporting’ their polluting industries to the less free third world, while keeping non-polluting industries in their country.” However, this is clearly not the case. His analysis of the investments made by countries with high environmental standards reveals that only 0.1% of their foreign investments flow to countries with low environmental standards. The conclusions from these calculations are clear: “With the data analyzed, we can see that capitalism suits the environment. The greater the economic freedom, the better the environmental quality indexes. The ‘cleaner’ countries do not export their pollution by relocating companies.” Clearly, the environment is no different to so many other areas of life: Capitalism is not the problem, it is the solution.

COLUMN BY

Dr Rainer Zitelmann

Dr. Rainer Zitelmann is a historian and sociologist. He is also a world-renowned author, successful businessman, and real estate investor.

Zitelmann has written more than 20 books. His books are successful all around the world, especially in China, India, and South Korea. His most recent books are The Rich in Public Opinion which was published in May 2020, and The Power of Capitalism which was published in 2019.

Medicare Ads And Other Inane Policies

November 28, 2021/in Economy, Environment, Featured, Liberty, Politics, ThePricklyPear.org /by ThePricklyPear.org

By Thomas C. Patterson

We’ve all seen them, the Medicare TV ads exhorting seniors to apply for enhanced benefits. The government appears to be coaxing often reluctant retirees into greater dependence.

But this is a colossally bad idea, even for those of us who support helping citizens in their sunset years. It stimulates greed (it’s freeeee!) and entitlement in the demographic which government programs have already made into the most wealthy. It expands the reach of government into our lives.

But it’s worse than that. The ads are pitching benefits in a program already teetering on bankruptcy. Americans were told that their mandatory payroll contributions were put in a fund to finance payouts in retirement, but that was a lie. Politicians raided the trust long ago and today’s retirees are dependent on the (inadequate) contributions of today’s payers – yes, like any other welfare program.

The rational response would be reforms that include reducing expenses where possible. Instead, we spend untold millions to pump up program outlays. Not smart. Consequences to follow.

But screeching Medicare ads aren’t the only government initiative which, partisan disagreements aside, simply don’t make sense. Take electric cars. They’re touted as a big key to a carbon-free future. We’re pouring public funds into subsidies, charging stations and other enticements for owners.

We may disagree over the feasibility of carbon reduction strategies to ultimately reduce climate change, but it doesn’t matter. Electric cars aren’t the answer. They still require energy that must be produced somehow.

The pollutants may come from an electricity generating plant instead of a car’s exhaust, but the damage done isn’t greatly different. The environmental costs of battery production and disposal as well as the extra power sources needed to service a national fleet of autos make EVs an environmental loser.

But politicians use them anyway to bolster green credentials. Buyers like the subsidies, the perks, and driving a cool car. Manufacturers are joining the ranks of the uber-rich. So the beat goes on.

EVs could have some environmental benefit if nuclear generation sourced their electricity. Once again, stupidity intervenes.

The environmental Left decreed long ago that nuclear was off-limits. Nuclear power plants would henceforth be discouraged by excessive regulation and harassment. The strategy has basically worked, but it’s a shame.

It’s still true that nuclear is by far the most environmentally friendly, non-emitting energy source available. Nuclear-producing France pays 50% less for energy with 10% the amount of pollution experienced by Germany, which sanctimoniously exited the nuclear market years ago.

Here’s more lunacy. A year ago, America had finally achieved energy independence, after decades of kowtowing to Arab sheiks and oil-rich autocrats. Within days, the Biden administration returned us to supplicant status. Pipeline permits were canceled, offshore drilling cut back and even the remote ANWR oil deposits were shut down.

Meanwhile, with our consent, Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline was approved, which will dominate Western Europe’s natural gas supplies. Biden unsuccessfully begged OPEC to increase oil production, so US gas prices have predictably skyrocketed and a cold winter looms.

Again, the environmental benefits of our foolishness are nil. Pipelines are the most environmentally safe way of transporting natural gas. The fuels from Russia and the Middle East are no cleaner than ours.

We have more inane policies. Children too young to vote, drink, smoke, or drive are now permitted to change their socially constructed gender by irreversibly altering their bodies-without parental consent.

$450,000 payouts are seriously proposed for illegal immigrants who were separated from their children in a humane effort to avoid mixing children with adults during detention. In spite of causing no known harm, GMO bans limit the amount of food available to starving Africans.

The driving force for these nutty, harmful policies is the relentless pursuit of electoral success by pandering to special interest groups. We’ve come a long way from Thomas Jefferson’s vision of a “wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another…“.

Listen to political analysts uncritically predicting the fate of multi-trillion-dollar spending bills based solely on how the vote would affect legislators’ prospects for remaining in office another term.

It’s disgraceful, but we expect no more, so that’s what we get.

****

Thomas C. Patterson, MD is a retired Emergency Medicine physician, Arizona state Senator and Arizona Senate Majority Leader in the ’90s. He is a former Chairman, Goldwater Institute

California Effectively Ends Fracking, Cites ‘Urgent Climate Effects’

November 26, 2021/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics, Science /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Daily Caller

California has gradually weaned itself off fossil fuel fracking well ahead of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2024 ban of the oil and gas extraction method.

The California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM), the agency that oversees new permits, has denied 109 new permits from fossil fuel firms this year, according to Department of Conservation data. State regulators have approved just 12 permits in 2021, the most recent of which came in February.

Uduak-Joe Ntuk, the state’s oil and gas supervisor, said he couldn’t approve new fracking grants “in good conscience” in a September letter to the energy firm Aera Energy, The Associated Press reported. Ntuk cited the “increasingly urgent climate effects of fossil-fuel production” and “the continuing impacts of climate change and hydraulic fracturing on public health and natural resources.”

“Unfortunately, the State of California continues to take arbitrary actions that deliver little positive benefits for our fight against climate change but imposes big impacts on Californians – to our finances, to our freedoms, essentially to how we live and work every day,” Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) President and CEO Catherine Reheis-Boyd said in a statement last month.

“Real solutions do not come through arbitrary bans, mandates, and the whim of elected leaders,” she said.

On Oct. 8, the WSPA sued the Newsom administration over the mass denial of fracking permits. One month earlier, the Kern County Board of Supervisors also filed suit, challenging the state’s authority to ban access to oil and gas resources, according to The Bakersfield Californian.

“The decisions (Newsom) has made to unilaterally come after the oil and gas industry in violation of standing rules and standing law, that’s been established by the state Legislature, has been a gross overreach of his power,” Board Chairman Phillip Peters said after the suit was filed in September.

In April, Newsom ordered CalGEM to end new fracking permits by January 2024. He also asked the California Air Resources Board to conduct an analysis of how the state could completely wean off fossil fuel extraction by 2045.

The governor said the state “needs to move beyond oil.”

“In California, this is an industry that is used to getting its way,” Hollin Kretzmann, a senior attorney at environmental group the Center for Biological Diversity, told The San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday. “It is a sign that the tide is starting to turn, and the state is starting to prioritize public health and the environment over the profits of the oil industry.”

While California’s crude oil consumption has stayed level over the last several decades, it has become more reliant on foreign producers, state data showed. More than half of the state’s oil over the last ten years was imported.

Meanwhile, gasoline prices, which are tied to the cost of oil, have surged nationwide to multi-year highs, according to the Energy Information Administration. California has experienced the largest increase with prices hitting $4.79 per gallon on average.

COLUMN BY

THOMAS CATENACCI

Energy and environmental reporter. Follow Thomas on Twitter

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Oil Reserves Released By Biden Expected to Primarily Go To China, India

November 25, 2021/in DrRichSwier.com, Economy, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics /by DrRichSwier.com

By Dr. Rich Swier

Gas prices for Americans are at an all time high. There are no words.

Oil reserves released by Biden expected to primarily go to China, India

U.S. taps 50 million barrels of oil from reserves in an attempt to tamper spiking costs at the gas pump

By Caitlin McFall FOX Business, November 24, 2021:

President Biden’s move to tap the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is expected to supply Chinese and Indian oil needs as gas demands have led to global shortages, reports said Tuesday.

placeholder

The White House said the Department of Energy will release 50 million barrels of oil held in U.S. reserves — 18 million of which have already been congressionally approved for sale.

TOP REPUBLICAN ON ENERGY COMMITTEE SAYS TOO LITTLE TOO LATE AFTER BIDEN TAPS OIL RESERVE

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks on the economy during an event at the South Court Auditorium at Eisenhower Executive Office Building on November 23, 2021 in Washington, DC. President Biden announced the release of 50 million barrels of oil from the S (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images / Getty Images)

China and India have been actively purchasing U.S. sour crude oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico, first reported Bloomberg.

Sour crude oil contains high levels of sulfur, which reportedly makes it more expensive to process and traditionally turns buyers away.

But U.S.-produced sour crude oil appeals to foreign buyers because of its relatively affordable price tag, the publication said.

The White House’s Tuesday announcement means the U.S. will seek to accelerate sales abroad in an attempt to counter spiking prices at the gas pump.

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks on the economy during an event at the South Court Auditorium at Eisenhower Executive Office Building on November 23, 2021 in Washington, DC. President Biden announced the release of 50 million barrels of oil from the S (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images / Getty Images)

The additional 32 million barrels will be intended for U.S. consumers to alleviate increased demand.

Earlier this month OPEC+, led by nations like Saudi Arabia and Russia, refused to increase production to meet rising demands.

Gas shortages have led to rising inflation and gas prices at the pump not seen in seven years.

“The President has been working with countries across the world to address the lack of supply as the world exits the pandemic,” the White House said in a statement.

In a globally coordinated effort China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom will also tap their reserves to try and bring down gas prices.

“The president stands ready to take additional action, if needed, and is prepared to use his full authorities working in coordination with the rest of the world to maintain adequate supply as we exit the pandemic,” the administration added.

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Biden’s Comptroller Pick Would Bankrupt Energy Companies & Nationalize Banking

November 23, 2021/in DrRichSwier.com, Energy, Environment /by DrRichSwier.com

By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

President Biden should withdraw his nomination of Saule Omarova to be Comptroller of the Currency — or the Senate should reject her.

Omarova, a professor at Cornell Law, said this concerning energy companies: “we want them to go bankrupt if we want to tackle climate change.” She would apply that same destructive, heavy hand of government throughout our financial system.

Omarova advocates a radical transformation of banking that is tantamount to nationalization and would leave your relationship with your bank unrecognizable.

Some, such as Senator John Kennedy, have focused on Omarova’s education in the Soviet Union. This included membership in “The Young Communists” and a college thesis entitled “Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in Das Kapital” which she has refused to share with the Senate. Omarova told Senators at her confirmation hearing, “I am not a Communist.”

CFACT does not hold growing up behind the Iron Curtain against people. In fact, it is usually an asset. We often look to those who grew up without freedom and its prosperity to share their hard-earned life lessons with those of us fortunate enough to have been born free.

However, the Left is trying to defend Omarova as the victim of a new McCarthyism (as if they didn’t spend the last five years shouting Russia, Russia, Russia! at people who had nothing to do with Russia).

The disqualifying problems with Omarova’s philosophy stem not from from the Socialist indoctrination she received back in the U.S.S.R., but from her immersion in the unmoored leftism flowing through American academia.

Last year Omarova laid out her philosophy of financial regulation in a law review article entitled The People’s Ledger: How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy. This article is directly on point to the role of the Comptroller and disqualifies Omarova to hold the office.

Omarova advocates for nothing less than the de facto nationalization of the American banking and finance system.

In the financial world Omarova envisions private banks would no longer offer deposit accounts. We would all have a government bank account instead which the government would easily use to deposit, subtract and redistribute funds. The feds would be able to observe your smallest transaction. When the government determines it is time to stimulate the economy, funds could be “helicopter” dropped directly into those accounts deemed worthy. Omarova describes this as “QE (quantitative easing) for the people.”

Like all bad generals, Omarova is focused on fighting the last wars, the financial crisis of 2008 and the contraction of the economy due to COVID-19 shutdowns. She is all about pumping money into the economy with an unhealthy dose of left-wing redistribution along the way. Omarova needs to wake up. Deflation is no longer the threat, inflation is.

The debate should not be between pumping money into the economy via quantitative easing vs. throwing it out of “helicopters,” but rather how to restrain the growth of the money supply, as we did in the Reagan era, and get inflation back under control.

The Left’s radical plans for banking mirror their government takeover attempts on healthcare. Omarova’s anti-banking philosophy consists of incremental steps on the road to what might be termed “single banker,” analogous to the Left’s relentless push for “single payer,” socialized medicine.

At a time when the beast of inflation has been released to ravage American savings, the President should nominate and the Senate confirm only reliable central bankers focused on forcing the inflationary beast back into its cage to safeguard our system of economic freedom.

Saule Omarova should not be allowed to serve as Comptroller of our currency.

With Oil Prices Up More than 60% in a Year Beijing Biden Sells U.S. Oil Reserves Overseas to Asia

November 21, 2021/in DrRichSwier.com, Economy, Elections, Energy, Environment, Politics /by DrRichSwier.com

By Pamela Geller

Joe Hoft over at Gateway is reporting that terrible Joe is selling America’s reserves of oil to Asia after shutting down oil production in the U.S. This is the act of an enemy. There is no pushback from quisling GOP ‘leadership.’

With Oil Prices Up More than 60% in a Year Biden Decides to Sell US Oil Reserves Overseas to Asia

By Joe Hoft November 18, 2021 at 5:20pm

Education Views reports:

Practically overnight, America went from oil independence and being a net oil [exporter], to suffering shortages and, as noted, rising prices. When asked about the problem, Biden risibly blamed OPEC and Russia. Meanwhile, Jennifer Granholm, the energy secretary, simply cackled maniacally and claimed the administration was helpless

Biden is now under pressure to tap the SPR to relieve some of the pressure on fuel prices. (Again, remember that Biden birthed this problem by squashing American fuel production, thereby creating the shortage. There’s also the little matter of his administration working with Congress to print money like rolls of toilet paper—except that toilet paper is more useful than inflationary dollars.) Even Chuckie Schumer wants to lower prices by chipping away at our SPR emergency supply, despite our having vast, untapped resources beneath American land.

It turns out, though, that Biden is already tapping into the SPR; he’s just not doing it to help Americans. A report in investment circles is finally trickling down into the mainstream news: Biden is selling massive amounts of SPR oil…to Asia!

This is based on a Bloomberg report:

About 1.6 million barrels of crude from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve — a monthly record — was shipped out in October, according to data from market intelligence firm Kpler. Three cargoes were loaded onto a supertanker in the U.S. Gulf Coast and are headed to Asia.

“Given the ongoing pace of the current SPR release — 12 million barrels in the last two months and the biggest weekly release so far last week at 3.1 million barrels — it’s fair to assume more SPR barrels are going to leave U.S. shores in the weeks ahead,” said Matt Smith, an oil analyst at Kpler.

Biden gave Taliban terrorists $84 billion in arms and gear and planes and choppers. Biden opened the Southern Border and more than a million illegal immigrants have crossed into the US. Now Biden sells the US oil reserves to Asia after changing America from being an oil exporter to dependent on Russia and the Middle East.

Is it time to impeach and remove Biden yet? If not when will it be enough?

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Link 1: Carbon Dioxide

Link 2: Fertilizer Plants

Link 3: Natural Gas

Link 4: Natural Gas Storage

Innumerable Antecedents

Addendum: Addressing the Problem

— This Newsletter’s Articles, by Topic —

COVID-19 — Repeated Important Information:

COVID-19 — Therapies:

COVID-19 — Injections:

COVID-19 — Some Side Effects of Injections:

COVID-19 — Injection Mandates:

COVID-19 — Some Lawsuits Against Injection Mandates:

COVID-19 — Omicron:

COVID-19 — Models and Data:

COVID-19 — Fauci, et al:

COVID-19 — Misc:

Wind & Solar Energy:

Nuclear Energy:

Fossil Fuel Energy:

Misc Energy:

Manmade Global Warming — Some Deceptions:

Manmade Global Warming — Misc:

US Election:

US Election — State Issues:

US Politics and Socialism:

Religion Related:

Education Related:

STAY INFORMED