In the last few weeks various media have reported that Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR), the world's largest coral reef system, is experiencing a "sixth mass bleaching" that threatens lasting devastation. NPR, CNN, and The Guardian, with many others, all told essentially the same story. But actual experts on the GBR challenge the narrative. In Quadrant Online marine biologist and reef specialist Leonard Starck writes: Contrary to the incessant bleating of office-based Great Barrier … [Read more...]
America’s Natural Gas Juggernaut
America can fuel the world’s needs for clean-burning natural gas for many decades and have plenty left over for our own domestic requirements. The vast majority of our nation’s undeveloped gas supply is found in the Appalachian Basin of the eastern United States. The size of the resource is stunning and largely unknown outside of the teams of geologists and engineers that are responsible for its discovery and ongoing development. Gas fields with more than 3 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of … [Read more...]
Electric Cars Are Not Ready for Showtime
It seems that no one can ever do quite enough to satisfy the demands of professional complainers. Not even Elon Musk, a world-famous promoter of electric vehicles. He was met rudely by protesters at the grand opening of his Tesla assembly plant, just outside Berlin, during recent ceremonies: "...it [the plant] has faced opposition and some environmental activists blocked the factory’s entrance while displaying banners flagging its high water use…” All said and done, it should … [Read more...]
New Federal Fuel Economy Standards Wrongly Calculated, Says Petition
Based on a recent court ruling and the law, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) says updated nationwide corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards imposed by U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in December 2021 relied on an invalidated metric. Because of this the CEI filed a formal request in February with Michael Regan, EPA administrator, to place the new standards on hold and reconsider them. The new CAFE standards, which apply to vehicles from model years 2023 … [Read more...]
The Battle for 1.5 Degrees of Warming Is Already Lost, So What’s Plan B?
Climate activists’ current stated goal is to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. To achieve this goal, according to the latest IPCC report, atmospheric CO2 levels must peak by 2025. But this battle is already lost, so what is their Plan B? The above statement is not a critique of the desirability of the 1.5-degree goal, which I am not competent to evaluate. The unhappy truth, though, is that not all good goals are achievable. Not even … [Read more...]
How The World Got Rich
One day a socialist is supposed to have come into the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie’s office at the height of his wealth in the 1890s and demanded that the rich should distribute their wealth to the poor of the earth. Carnegie, so the story goes, asked his assistant to estimate his current wealth and then divide it by the number of people in this world. The assistant returned shortly thereafter with the figures and Carnegie told him: “Give this gentleman sixteen cents. That’s his share of the … [Read more...]
Biden’s Crude Oil Policies May Be The Cause of Shortages and Inflation
A year before being inaugurated President in 2021, Biden professed that “we are going to get rid of fossil fuels.” Before the recent inauguration, America, for the first time since Harry Truman was president about 70 years ago, had finally become crude oil independent and no longer relied on unstable Petro-powers and foreign crude oil supplies. The unintended consequences of attempting to rid America and the world of crude oil usage are being realized in supply shortages and soaring prices … [Read more...]
A ‘Plan B’ for addressing climate change and the energy transition
I have a new article published in the latest issue of International Affairs Forum. The topic of this issue is Climate Change and Energy. Mine is one of twenty papers. A range of topics are covered. My article is the least alarmed among them. You may recognize several of the authors, which include Don Wuebbles and Bill McKibben. Here is the text of my article: Climate change is increasingly being referred to as a crisis, emergency, existential threat, and most recently as ‘code red.’ … [Read more...]
Playing Telephone with a Climate Report: Politicians Obscure Science, Media Fall in Line
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just released its latest big report, this one titled Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change (a mere 2,913 pages). Practically nobody will ever read it. (I confess haven't.) Its Technical Summary is just 142 pages. (No, haven't read that yet, either.) Its Summary for Policymakers is a mere 64 pages. (Still nope---though this one I might actually try to read in the next week or so.) Why would I write about a report … [Read more...]
Global Temperature Has Not Been Rising Steadily
The new Pause has lengthened by another month. On the UAH satellite monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature dataset, seven and a half years have passed since there was any trend in global warming at all. As always, if anyone has seen this surely not uninteresting fact mentioned in the mainstream news media, let us know in the comments. One of the best-kept secrets in what passes for “journalism” these days is that global temperature has not been rising steadily (or, since October 2014, … [Read more...]
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