HomePosts tagged 'Environment'

Environment

The Supreme Court

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By Chris White – Re-Blogged From WUWT

  • President Donald Trump has an opportunity to make his environmental regulation rollbacks permanent if he places another conservative on the Supreme Court before Inauguration Day, legal experts argue. 
  • Adding another conservative justice will also greatly diminish Justice John Robert’s role as a swing member in which he occasionally sides with liberal justices, one legal expert at the University of Maryland suggested. 
  • The president can pave the road for future deregulations with one more justice, Myron Ebell, an analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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What’s Wrong with Wind and Solar?

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By Mark Mills
Are wind, solar, and batteries the magical solutions to all our energy needs? Or do they come with too high a price? Mark Mills, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, analyzes the true cost — both economic and environmental — of so-called green energy.

Please watch the VIDEO

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Revisiting EPA’s Gold King Mine blowout – Part 2

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The Navajo Nation and New Mexico vs. incompetence and bad faith in the USEPA

By Duggan Flanakin – Re-Blogged From WUWT

On August 5, five years to the day after suffering from a 3-million-gallon spill of heavy-metal-laden toxic wastewater from Colorado’s Gold King Mine, the State of Utah announced a settlement of its claims against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and several EPA contractors (who thus far have not been held responsible, accountable or liable) for their alleged negligence in allowing the spill.

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Is California Going Up in Flames?

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By John Kobylt

California used to be the Golden State. Now the Blackout State might be more accurate, as the fear of wildfires forces public utilities to periodically power down. But wildfires have always been part of California’s history, so what’s changed? Radio talk show host John Kobylt’s answer to this burning question might surprise you.

Please watch the VIDEO

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Democrats Climate Policy Follows Germany’s Failed Plan

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By Ronald Stein – Re-Blogged From WUWT

Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure, Irvine, California

Higher energy costs for Americans are eminent along with worldwide ecological degradation and human right abuses from mining for wind, solar, and EV materials

The social changes with COVID-19 may have been prelude to life with less fossil fuels. With COVID-19 we have seen extensive self-imposed social adjustments to transportation that are very similar to what will be required to live with less fossil fuels in the future, i.e., with virtually no airlines, cruise ships, or automobiles.

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Greens Promote Child Slave Labor and Ecological Destruction

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By Paul Driessen – Re-Blogged From WUWT

Why don’t African black lives and ecological values matter? or impacts in and beyond Virginia?

The US Supreme Court recently ruled 7-2 to reverse a lower court ruling that had invalidated a permit for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which will bring West Virginia natural gas to Virginia and North Carolina, for home heating, factory power, electricity generation and manufacturing petrochemical feedstocks.

Environmentalists had claimed the US Forest Service had no authority to issue the permit, because a 0.1-mile (530-foot) segment would cross 600 feet below the 2,200-mile-long Appalachian Trail, which is administered by the National Park Service. Justice Thomas’s majority opinion scuttled that assertion.

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Climate Advocates Grappling with the Gruesome Human Cost of Renewable Energy

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By Eric Worrall – Re-Blogged From WUWT

As calls for more renewables and a green Covid recovery mount, renewable energy advocates are facing uncomfortable questions about the vast quantities of raw materials required for their green revolution, and allegations of child slave labour which haunt the base of their specialty material supply chains.

Green Energy’s Dirty Side Effects

The global transition to renewables could lead to human rights abuses and risks exacerbating inequalities between the West and the developing world.

Child Cobalt Miners in Kailo, Congo - Author Julien Harneis, source Wikimedia.
Child Cobalt Miners in Kailo, Congo – Author Julien Harneis, source Wikimedia.

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Climate Litigation: Big Oil Must Fight on the Science or Die

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By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley – Re-Blogged From WUWT

  • This will be a long posting. You have been warned.

The news that the Ninth Circus in California has decided that global warming is a State rather than a federal matter highlights a costly and now potentially ruinous strategic failure on the part of big oil.

Two loony-Left cities brought a case in the District Court for Northern California alleging that the oil corporations were causing a nuisance by engaging in their trade – a lawful and necessary trade at State as well as Federal law – of extracting, processing, distributing and selling petroleum products.

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Destroying the Environment to Save It

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By Paul Driessen – Re-Blogged From WUWT

Pseudo-green energy will wreak devastation, pretending to prevent exaggerated climate harm

“We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” The infamous Vietnam era quotation may or may not have been uttered by an anonymous US Army major. It may have been misquoted, revised, apocryphal or invented. But it quickly morphed into an anti-war mantra that reflected attitudes of the time.

For Virginians and others forced to travel the path of “clean, green, renewable, sustainable” energy, it will redound in modern politics as “We had to destroy the environment in order to save it.”

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Study: Integrating satellite and socioeconomic data to improve climate change policy

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University of Illinois Re-Blogged From EurekAlert

IMAGE
IMAGE: Atul Jain led a study that used a combination of satellite and census data to identify deforestation and expanding saltwater farming as the key physical and socioeconomic drivers of climate… view more 

Credit: Photo by L. Brian Stauffer

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Michael Moore’s new film trashes ‘planet saving’ renewable energy – full movie here!

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By Michael Shellenberger– Re-Blogged From WUWT

A MUST READ! Wow, the renewable light bulb of “great idea” over Michael Moore’s head just burned out. He’s trashing renewables in this new film Planet of the Humans.

On the 50th anniversary of EarthDay, the irony meter is pegged. It’s an epic take-down of the left’s love-affair with renewables by one of the left’s most known public figures. Full video follows. h/t to Dennis Wingo.

New Michael Moore-Backed Documentary On YouTube Reveals Massive Ecological Impacts Of Renewables

Over the last 10 years, everyone from celebrity influencers including Elon Musk, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Al Gore, to major technology brands including Apple, have repeatedly claimed that renewables like solar panels and wind farms are less polluting than fossil fuels.

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How the Green New Deal’s Renewable Energy Mining Would Harm Humans and the Environment

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By Paul Driessen – Re-Blogged From Heartland Institute

As this paper shows, expanding mining on the scale needed to meet the renewable energy requirements contained in the Green New Deal and other proposed renewable energy mandates would cause unimaginable harm to the environment, wildlife, and humans.

Executive Summary

The Green New Deal (GND)—promoted by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and several other prominent elected officials—aims to replace all fossil fuels and nuclear energy with so-called “renewable” energy sources, primarily wind and solar.

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Trump Administration Approves Controversial Keystone XL Pipeline

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Associated Pres – Re-Blogged From Headline Wealth

The Trump administration on Wednesday approved a right-of-way allowing the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline to be built across U.S. land, pushing the controversial $8 billion project closer to construction though court challenges still loom.

The approval signed by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and obtained by The Associated Press covers 46 miles (74 kilometers) of the pipeline’s route across land in Montana that’s controlled by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said Casey Hammond, assistant secretary of the Interior Department.

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Over a Barrel, Canadian Documentary Preview

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[View the video for free until Oct 31st. Well worth your time. –Bob]

Re-Blogged From WUWT

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The filmmakers behind this  documentary decided to have a free preview period until October 31 to get the word out. After that, it will be paywalled ($4.99).

From IMDb:
Over a Barrel is a short political documentary about the work of Vivian Krause, and the questions she raises regarding U.S foundations funding activism against the Canadian oil and gas industry. The supposed goal of this “Tar Sands Campaign”, funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and other U.S. charitable foundations, is to fight pipeline approvals in Canada and stop Canadian oil from reaching overseas markets. We focus on the negative consequences this has had on the Alberta economy, First Nations communities and the rising threat of western separatism.

https://youtu.be/NPax7r7Kv2c

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South Florida wading birds nested like crazy in 2018, a great sign for the Everglades

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Spoonbills an indicator of health for Florida Bay

Dr. Jerry Lorenz, Audubon Florida research director, explains during a visit to South Nest Key why roseate spoonbills, along with other wading birds, are a major indicator of the health of Florida Bay. By Carl Juste
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Dr. Jerry Lorenz, Audubon Florida research director, explains during a visit to South Nest Key why roseate spoonbills, along with other wading birds, are a major indicator of the health of Florida Bay. By Carl Juste

Wading birds in the Everglades built more nests in 2018 than any other year in the last 80, a record-breaking nesting event made possible by the right balance of wet and dry conditions in the delicate ecosystem. And after heading north to nest in recent years, the birds returned to the southern Everglades, their traditional nesting grounds.

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Earth Day: Not a Single Environmental Prediction of the Last 50 Years Has Come True

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By Nicolas Loris – Re-Blogged From Bangor Daily News

This Earth Day, it almost feels like we should be carving some turkey. Why? Because we have a lot to be thankful for since the first Earth Day event occurred 49 years ago.

We should be thankful that the gloom-and-doom predictions made throughout the past several decades haven’t come true. Fear-mongering about explosive population growth, food crises and the imminent depletion of natural resources have been a staple of Earth Day events since 1970. And the common thread among them is that they’ve stirred up a lot more emotions than facts.

George Danby | BDN
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Why Renewables Can’t Save the Planet

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By Michael Shellenberger – Re-Blogged From Quillette

When I was a boy, my parents would sometimes take my sister and me camping in the desert. A lot of people think deserts are empty, but my parents taught us to see the wildlife all around us, including hawks, eagles, and tortoises.

After college, I moved to California to work on environmental campaigns. I helped save the state’s last ancient redwood forest and blocked a proposed radioactive waste repository set for the desert.

In 2002, shortly after I turned 30, I decided I wanted to dedicate myself to addressing climate change. I was worried that global warming would end up destroying many of the natural environments that people had worked so hard to protect.

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Looming US Technology-Security Minerals Crisis?

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By Paul Driessen – Re-Blogged From WUWT

Impacts from the 1973 OPEC oil embargo could pale by comparison to an embargo or other disrupted access to the exotic, critical and strategic metals and minerals that are essential for energy, computer, defense and other technologies that are the foundation for virtually every facet of US economy and security. Right now, the United States imports up to 100% of those materials – and two dozen of them come 60% to 100% from China, Russia or mines controlled by those two countries.

Ironically, we likely have all of them right under our feet. But the United States is the only nation in the world that locks them up, makes them inaccessible under almost any conditions. My article lays out some of the steps that must be taken to address this untenable, unsustainable situation … and cites a new book that provides fascinating and disturbing details about it.

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Electri-Fried Fusion

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By Renee Hannon – Re-Blogged From WUWT

My dad is an off-the-grid kind of guy and the cost of his lifestyle choice is usually secondary. He was one of the first in Delaware to install a solar hot water heater on his roof in the early 1970s. During the past decades a gorgeous oak tree grew tall and shaded his solar panels. But that’s OK because the oak tree brought birds, squirrels and other wildlife near his deck for countless hours of viewing pleasure. So, in a sunny spot he put solar panels on the garage roof plus a new free-standing solar panel by the driveway. That free-standing solar panel is big enough to park a car under and, so far, the neighbors haven’t complained. I’m not sure what those solar panels cost but his electric bill is about $5 a month. Continue reading →

We All Must Sacrifice for the Environment

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Foreword by Paul Dreissen – Re-Blogged From WUWT

Being “hoisted by his own petard” means the bomb maker gets blown up and lifted sky high by his own explosive device. Former Colorado Department of Natural Resources director Greg Walcher notes that the term applies with delicious irony to the in-your-face, holier-than-thou environmentalists who inhabit and run San Francisco.

Determined to save locally endangered salmon populations, they and the State of California have long demanded and imposed water use reductions by Central Valley farmers. But now the California Water Resources Board wants further water use reductions – and this time those reductions will also hit city residences, schools and businesses, and hit them hard: a hefty portion of 98 billion to 220 billion gallons less water per year! Imagine how many baths, showers, laundry and dishwasher loads, and other “essentials” that would mean.

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Taming the EPA Regulatory Hydra

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Foreword by Paul Dreissen – Re-Blogged From WUWT

In recent years, the US Environmental Protection Agency published over 25% of all pages of regulations issued by all federal government agencies, including 13 of the 28 most costly rules. In fact, EPA has been responsible for half of all costs imposed by federal regulations on American businesses and families – often for few or no actual environmental, health or welfare benefits.

The Trump Administration has taken important steps to rein in this Regulatory Hydra. However, another anti-business, hyper-regulatory administration could reverse those gains, especially because a single Administrator runs an agency that has shown a penchant for exaggerating risks and hiding or ignoring any scientific evidence that questions its claims and proposals.

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Environmentalist Scare Stories – Never Mind!

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By Paul Driessen – Re-Blogged From WUWT

Foreword: Environmental activists always claim they merely want better public policies, to save the Earth and its endangered species. Far too often, their real goal is acquiring more money and power – by misdiagnosing and misrepresenting, exaggerating and fabricating, ecological crises. It’s the road to the hell of badpublic policy. And it’s not always paved with good intentions.

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Making Concrete From Coal Ash

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By Anthony Watts – Re-Blogged From WUWT

WSU researchers use coal waste to create sustainable concrete

New coal concrete reduces energy demand, greenhouse emissions

PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University researchers have created a sustainable alternative to traditional concrete using coal fly ash, a waste product of coal-based electricity generation.

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Bugs Hate Light at Night More Than “Climate Change”

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By Anthony Watts – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

Light pollution a reason for insect decline

Artificial lighting at night could be a reason for declining insect populations

Climate change, pesticides and land use changes alone cannot fully explain the decline in insect populations in Germany. Scientists from the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) have now discovered that regions that have experienced a sharp decline in flying insects also have high levels of light pollution. Many studies already suggest that artificial light at night has negative impacts on insects, and scientists should pay greater attention to this factor when exploring the causes of insect population declines in the future.

Counting insects is part of the job. CREDIT Gabriel Singer/IGB

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Coal’s Unexpected Ally: Natural Gas

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By David Middleton – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

I concluded my previous coal post, The Resurgence of the American Coal Industry, with the following:

The U.S. coal industry is doing exactly what the oil & gas industry did from 2014-2016.  In the face of oversupply relative to demand and a collapsing commodity price, the industry is making itself “leaner and meaner.”  Mr. Denning referred to natural gas as the “enemy” of coal.  That’s funny, I find oil & gas for a living and have never thought of coal or nuclear power as enemies.  Fair competition is good for business… And as an electricity consumer, I don’t like paying more than 10¢ per kWh for electricity.

Natural gas prices are unlikely to remain this low for very long.  $2.50/mmbtu is uneconomic in most of the shale plays and very uneconomic in the Gulf of Mexico, except on a cost-forward basis.   When natural gas production and consumption come back into balance, it will probably be at a price of $3.50 to $5.00/mmbtu.  Coal is very competitive with natural gas above $3.50/mmbtu.

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The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

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By Andy May – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

The best-selling book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels was first published November 27, 2014 by Penguin. The author, Alex Epstein, took a BA in Philosophy from Duke University in 2002. He is the President of the Center for Industrial Progress, a former fellow of the Ayn Rand Institute and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He was also named as one of the top 10 in Rolling Stone’s 2013 “Global Warming Denier Elite.” High praise indeed! He was fourth on the list.

Epstein presents a very well written discussion of the climate change debate. He destroys the 97% consensus myth, explains that the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect decreases logarithmically with concentration and shows that the climate computer models used to compute man’s influence on climate have never successfully predicted anything. He also shows that global warming has not increased extreme weather of any kind and that the dangers from extreme weather are less today than at any time in man’s history largely due to fossil fuels. He discusses Craig Idso’s pioneering research proving that increasing carbon dioxide acts as a powerful fertilizer for many plants. But readers of this review know these facts, so we will focus on his discussion of the merits of fossil fuels. He is a good writer and has superhuman skills at laying out a compelling logical argument. He would have put Daniel Webster and Clarence Darrow to shame. I highly recommend the book.

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The EPA is Out of Control – Now They Want to Ban Hobby Race Cars

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By Anthony Watts – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

The EPA is seeking to ban the freedom of individuals within the USA to convert street cars into race cars.

WUWT reader Wolfpack987 writes:
Another example of government abuse of power, the EPA is seeking to remove more freedoms from American citizens in the name of the environment, by prohibiting the act of converting street cars into race cars.  The sheer ridiculousness of this move to can be measured by how little of an impact it will have on the environment, given how little the number of cars converted into racecars per year.

Story:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a regulation to prohibit conversion of vehicles originally designed for on-road use into racecars. The regulation would also make the sale of certain products for use on such vehicles illegal. The proposed regulation was contained within a non-related proposed regulation entitled “Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Medium- and Heavy-Duty Engines and Vehicles—Phase 2.”

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5 Reasons Why Senate Energy Modernization Bill Is Anything but Modern

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By Nicholas Loris – Re-Blogged From The Daily Signal

Several senators want to advance a massive energy bill called the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015. But there’s nothing modern about the legislation.

The bill is an extension of the same, tired “politicians know best” mentality that siphons taxpayer dollars and hands them to special interests. The policy provisions of bills like this take decisions away from households and businesses and only empower Washington, D.C.

The legislation, which totals more than 400 pages, allegedly attempts to avoid controversial provisions that would cause partisan divide. But the bill is full of provisions that should be cause for concern for American taxpayers.

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Call for Wind Energy ‘Reality Check’

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Re-Blogged From North American Platform Against Wind Power

The necessarily sprawling facilities, huge towers, and turning blades required to collect such a diffuse resource as wind degrades and fragments wildlife habitat and threatens the health and well-being of nearby residents. And the effectiveness of large-scale wind energy remains problematic.

  • Wind power’s contribution to reducing CO₂ emissions or fossil fuel use is limited, because other power plants must be kept on line — and used more often and less efficiently — to compensate for the intermittent and variable nature of electricity generated by wind turbines.
  • Increasing numbers of large wind facilities require thousands of miles of new high-voltage transmission lines and more control installations to maintain grid stability in the face of the erratic nature of wind energy. These add substantially to the already high costs of wind energy and further degrade the environment while also raising eminent domain issues.
  • Even after several decades of technical development, wind energy remains economically not viable. Wind power devours colossal amounts of public money and depends on artificial markets for its existence. Considering the minuscule benefit, our money ought to be better spent.

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Strange New Climate Change Spin: The Hottest Year Ever Inside a Global Warming ‘Pause’?

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By – Re-Blogged From The Stream

There are two stories floating around about the state of the earth’s atmosphere. Both are believed true by government-funded scientists and the environmentally minded. The situation is curious because the stories don’t mesh. Yet, as I said, both are believed. Worse, neither is true.

Story number one is that this year will be the hottest ever. And number two is that the reason it is not hot is because “natural variation” has masked or stalled man-caused global warming.

Which is it? Either it’s hotter than ever or it isn’t. If it is, then (it is implied) man-caused global warming has not “paused.” If it isn’t, if man-caused global warming has “paused,” then it is not growing hotter.

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An Open Letter To Amazon About the NC Desert Wind Project

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By John Droz – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

To: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos

Mr. Bezos:

I’m an energy expert, a longtime Amazon customer, and an ardent company supporter. As such I’ve read with great interest some breathless press releases about your recent procurement into the NC Desert Wind project.

Due to your careful management Amazon is now a large, successful company, that has made many good economic decisions. During your tenure, the company has publicly portrayed itself as not only environmentally sensitive, but also concerned for the national welfare. All this makes Amazon’s involvement with the Desert Wind project quite puzzling.

After you were approached by Iberdrola to partner with them, one would assume that you utilized a battery of lawyers on your payroll to do a thorough due-diligence on the Desert Wind project — what is apparently “Amazon’s largest renewable energy project to date.” Here are some facts that question the wisdom of Amazon’s subsequent decision to go forward:

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A Simple Tale About Switching To Renewable Power: Requirements & Consequences

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By Don Bogard – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

The tale below is fictional, but every one of its elements and issues has been or will be experienced somewhere in the process of switching electrical power production from fossil fuels to renewable wind and solar. Hopefully this tale will illustrate in a non-technical way some of these complications and potential issues that can and often will arise. My reference to “city” and “government” and “city fathers” are generic and could apply to different entities and scales.

Visualize a medium-size city with two very functional electrical power plants, each producing 500 Mega-watts of electricity, with one fueled by coal and one by natural gas. (About 2/3 of U.S. power is produced from these two sources.) The government decrees that this city must reduce its CO2 emissions. The city fathers decide to retire their coal-fired plant because it generates more CO2 and replace it with 350, General Electric (G.E.) 1.5 Mega-watt wind towers (total rated capacity 525 M-watt). The entire city celebrates over their good fortune in moving into a modern era of green energy. The mood is jovial.

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