Climate policy is the real existential threat

By Joe BastardiAugust 19th, 2023|109 Comments

In drip, drip, drip fashion, what I have been writing about for a year is starting to come out.   Scientists look for other factors that heat up Earth.

Here is the strategy, straight out of the Biden playbook, for deflecting from what has been going on there.

• Deny other factors at first (laptop existed).
• Claim it’s disinformation (We “crackpots” in the employ of the evil fossil fuel industry).
• Acknowledge something else might be going on to look somewhat objective (Biden never talked to anyone about his son, now we find out he did, but it was only about the weather).

By the time the real truth comes out, both with the Bidens and with what drives global warming; it’s too late. In fact, it’s too late already since an informed public may have voted another way if they knew what was going on.

And we would not be in this situation if that were the case in many, many things.

Just like an informed public, if they saw all the other aspects I have been showing you here on CFACT.org might think differently about anyone who hides these things and who is destroying our economic lifelines.

I wrote about it earlier this summer.  But it’s how they do things.  And why the media, who should be striving for competitive opinions to draw in subscribers, pushes it makes little sense unless the motive is to destroy the existing free society.

The recent decision in Montana plumbs the depths of dumb. I can word it no other way. MONTANA, DUE TO ALL THE TREES THERE, HAS A NEGATIVE CARBON FOOTPRINT!  So if it’s CO2 that is the problem, how does a judge rule that a state with a negative carbon footprint, is somehow destroying the lives of a bunch of kids whose lives are, actually, being destroyed by needless fear-mongering? It is one thing for a kid not to know the facts, but a judge that is ruling doesn’t know the state she is ruling in has a NEGATIVE carbon footprint. How is that even possible unless there is some other motivation?

But this opens the gates for us!

Every tree takes about 50 lbs of CO2 out of the air. I am going to use my home state of Pennslyvania, which is an industrial powerhouse that, in 2022, emitted 156,000,000,000 lbs of CO2. The dirty little secret is that Pennsylvania has almost 5 BILLION trees. At 50 lbs per tree, that is close to 250,000,000,000 lbs of CO2 taken out of the air. Meaning due to the trees in Pennsylvania, we are a carbon-negative state because of our forests!   Unless you want to argue that 156,000,000,000 is greater than 250,000,000,000, which in the world these people operate in, is possible.

This does not mean I am saying CO2 is the evil demon that it is portrayed to be, and we should worry about it. I have spent a year trying to show why it is likely no more than a very tiny part. But we have yet another argument to show why their policies are the biggest existential threat. THEY MAKE NO SENSE, FOR THE REASONS THEY STATE. So a logical person concludes it’s for another reason (which I suspect most of you know).

Think about it. You have a president that tolerates China doing whatever it wants in this matter. If this is the threat he says it is, then why worry about Taiwan or all the other stuff, since their actions are direct attacks upon the US and the planet?   It is classic bullying of your own people. I wrote about that here:

How do you bully your own people and then say you have their best interests at heart?

So what we need to do I advocated in another blog (which got people on my side mad as they want this beaten on the science level, the problem is it is not about science). Let’s hit them over the head with their own ideas.  Let’s look at how many trees there are and how much CO2 is emitted state by state and see exactly what this increase is. 

I would venture to say over 50% of the states are CARBON NEGATIVE. I would venture to say our country is near neutral.  THERE ARE 228 BILLION TREES IN THE US. AT 50 LBS PER TREE, THAT IS OVER  11.4  TRILLION POUNDS OF CO2 REMOVED BY TREES.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that the United States emitted 5,130 million metric tons of energy-related carbon dioxide in 2019.

THAT COMES OUT TO 11.28 TRILLION POUNDS.

Very close to what trees take out!!!!  I actually wrote about this also. If you are so fearful of CO2, plant more trees, use nuclear power, natural gas,  and point-of-combustion carbon capture.

But do you see what I am saying? We essentially already are carbon neutral. If co2 is the problem, then why are we not looking at the simple solution? I don’t believe it’s a problem, but the fear and hysteria whipped up is, and laying out facts in a methodical faction to expose what is on their climate “laptop”, and at the very least, will give people open minds and a chance to stop and look at all this.

It is no wonder they don’t want this to come out.  It blows their whole missive out of the water.

So what is the biggest existential threat to the freedom and progress of man today? A strong argument for climate change policy, based on a strawman house of cards with motives that are clearly counter to the best interest of our nation and the world.

Author

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  Joe Bastardi

  Joe Bastardi is a pioneer in extreme weather and long-range forecasting. He is the author of “The Climate Chronicles: Inconvenient Revelations You Won’t Hear From Al Gore — and Others” which you can purchase at the CFACT bookstore. His new book The Weaponization of Weather in the Phony Climate war can be found here. phonyclimatewar.com

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What's Really Killing Carbon Capture and Storage?

This appeared here. I would like to thank Paul for allowing me to republish his works.  Paul will always cut past the propaganda, misdirection and lies and state the truth carfully and factually. For more information regarding all things green please order his book, Eco-Imperialism, Green Power, Black Death. RK

By Paul Driessen

Carbon capture and storage could ensure abundant electricity from coal, while cutting the CO2 emissions “responsible for climate change.” Yet, barely two years after “a sense of determination and common cause” inspired the Obama Energy Department to launch CCS projects, industry is “pulling the plug.”

What could have gone wrong? Environmentalists had “heralded” the projects. “What’s killing carbon capture?” Bloomberg Businessweek wondered.

The economy is “weak,” its reporters suggested. US climate policy is “uncertain.” There is a “national retreat from the goal of reversing climate change,” largely because of energy industry lobbying against cap-and-trade legislation. The administration spent its political capital on Obamacare. Republicans took over the House. Utility regulators refuse to underwrite growing CCS costs with massive rate increases. A CCS storage site in Saskatchewan began bubbling up carbon dioxide.

All these factors played a role. But talk about ignoring inconvenient elephants. While his magazine staff scratched their heads, owner Michael Bloomberg was working to scuttle carbon capture and coal-fired power plants. His foundation gave Sierra Club $50 million to finance disinformation campaigns aimed at shutting down one-third of the nation’s coal-fired power plants by 2020.

That’s the same coal that generates 48-98% of the reliable, affordable electricity in 26 states. It enables US companies to compete internationally, keeps millions employed, produces billions in tax revenue, powers air conditioners that keep people comfortable and alive when outside temperatures hit 90-115, and allows even poor families to enjoy the best living standards in world history.

That’s the same billionaire Michael Bloomberg who, as mayor of New York City, wanted to install giant wind turbines on the city’s bridges and skyscrapers. This, he insisted, would get NYC off the blackout-prone Northeast power grid and reduce the threat of heat waves – like the ones back in 1976, 1954, 1936 and 1924, before climate change and heat waves stopped being natural and became “manmade.”

By financing Sierra Club’s anti-energy crusade, Hizzoner is making it infinitely harder for any company to justify investing another dime in CCS demonstration projects. The Department of Energy and Businessweek reporters may still support carbon capture. But Bloomberg, Sierra Club, NRDC and Lisa Jackson’s Environmental Protection Agency want it and coal-based electricity priced out of existence.

Frustrated that Congress refused to enact cap-tax-and-trade, President Obama unleashed EPA to promulgate thousands of pages of rules governing carbon dioxide, “toxic” pollutants that have already been reduced dramatically, “cross-state transport” of emissions, and other power plant operations. All tout health claims based on virtual reality computer models, cherry-picked research and illusory benefits. But the adverse health and economic impacts of the new regulations are significant, real … and ignored.

Management Information Services, Inc. calculates that the air toxics and cross-state rules alone will cost utilities upwards of $130 billion, to retrofit existing plants or demolish them and build replacements – plus some $30 billion a year for operations and maintenance. National Economic Research Associates says power companies will have to pay $184 billion through 2030, including $72 billion in immediate capital costs, to comply with the two regulations. The rules will send electricity prices skyrocketing 12-60% and cost six Midwestern manufacturing states a combined 3.5 million jobs and $42-82 billion in annual state GDP, says MISI.

Few companies can justify those costs for older power plants. No wonder they’ve lost interest in CCS experiments. Utilities will simply close dozens of generating units, representing tens of thousands of megawatts. Illinois alone will lose nearly 3,500 MW of reliable, affordable baseload electricity by 2014. The cross-state rule alone will prematurely shut down nearly 25% of America’s coal-based electricity generating capacity, says Texas Environmental Quality Commissioner Bryan Shaw. The United States could lose as much as 60,000 MW by 2017 – enough to power 60,000,000 homes and small businesses.

And all this is before considering the cost of removing plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide from power plant exhaust streams, under EPA “endangerment” rules. Once EPA implements those plans, utilities will have to spend billions more to design, build, install and operate CCS equipment, pipeline and storage facilities.

These “parasitic” systems produce no electricity. In the process of pulling CO2 out of the exhaust stream and sending it to underground reservoirs, they consume one-third or more of a power plant’s electricity output – at $60-85 per ton of CO2 captured – adding yet another 30-80% to family and business electricity rates. We will need far more power plants to generate the same net electricity.

If Americans need still more reasons for “retreating” on “climate change prevention,” consider this. There has been no measureable increase in average global temperatures since 1995. The Climategate emails proved that unscrupulous scientists were colluding with each other, vying to publish the most alarmist “findings,” and pressuring scientific journals not to publish articles by climate realists. IPCC headline-grabbing “climate disasters” turned out to be rank speculation, computer model hogwash or fraud.

Moreover, China, India and other countries are constantly building coal-fired power plants. Thus, even slashing US carbon dioxide emissions to zero will merely destroy American jobs, companies and living standards – making our current unemployment, debt and family misery indexes seem like paradise.

Businessweek barely touched on this. Nor did it ask Mr. Bloomberg, Sierra Club, Lisa Jackson or President Obama just how they intend to replace all this lost electricity. Their glib sound-bite answer is always “renewable energy,” especially wind. Just once, it would be nice if they offered some specifics.

* Replacing just one 600-MW coal-fired power plant with wind turbines would require a 50,000-acre wind farm, like the one at Fowler Ridge, Indiana, assuming it operates 24 hours a day, every day – which of course no wind farm ever will. And these guys are talking about replacing a lot of power plants.

* Providing “green” electricity to meet New York City’s needs would require blanketing the State of Connecticut with wind turbines, says Rochester U environmental science professor Jesse Ausubel.

* Replacing the third of US coal-fired generation that Bloomberg wants shut down would require over 50,000 monstrous offshore turbines, one every half-mile, in a five-mile-wide obstacle course along the entire Atlantic coastline, according to calculations by Power magazine editor-in-chief Robert Peltier.

All these wind turbines would need to be backed up 90-100% by (mostly) gas-fired generators that can surge almost instantaneously from “spinning reserve” to full power, whenever the turbines stop working – which they tend to do on the hottest days, when electricity demand is at its peak. That means we will need vast natural gas resources.

Fortunately, America has them, especially now that we know how to use horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to unlock our abundant conventional and shale gas deposits. Unfortunately, Bloomberg Obama & Comrades oppose onshore and offshore drilling and “fracking.” And few really suppose these energy “purists” will ever support all these land-hungry, scenery-scarring, raw material-intensive, bat and raptor-killing wind turbine installations.

Talk about cognitive dissonance. These guys need some serious psychological counseling. We seem to be governed by petulant ideologues who detest and obstruct every energy system that works – and support large-scale systems that don’t work only until someone actually proposes to install one. The problem is pervasive, growing and seemingly intractable. But the bottom line is simple.

If Bloomberg Obama & Comrades have their way, America faces a grim future: of rampant energy deprivation, unemployment, poverty, heatstroke, misery and death – at the hands of these ruling elites.


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