Back in 1970, Congress passed the Clean Air Act (CAA), and for the next two decades or more actions taken under it significantly improved the quality of America’s air. In 1990 it passed significant amendments to it, and some of these also had salutary effects.But, combined with an increasing tendency to allow administrative agencies, especially the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to impose regulations without a clear statutory basis, and a tendency of courts to defer to agencies’ “expert … [Read more...]
Germany’s Green Energy Fixation Should Teach US a Lesson
Germany’s new Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government vice chancellor and economic minister Robert Habeck, a leading member of his country’s Green Party, has experienced a rude lesson regarding the disastrous consequences of his years of naïve opposition to fossil fuels.After tasking his top officials to assess the energy security implications of Germany’s dependence on Russian supplies in the event of a then-looming Ukraine invasion, their conclusions were desperately dispiriting.Habeck reportedly … [Read more...]
Must Fossil Fuel Extraction Be Stopped to Limit Global Warming?
“Fossil Fuel Extraction Must Be Stopped to Limit Global Warming.” That’s the headline of an article at Earth.com, an environmental activist website. It purports to convey the message of a study published May 17, 2022, in Environmental Research Letters, “Existing fossil fuel extraction would warm the world beyond 1.5°C,” though the study makes no such claim.According to the study, the world is already committed, through its 25,000 oil and gas fields and 3,000 coal mines, to … [Read more...]
CO2 Enrichment Improves Plant Water Use Efficiency
This article is the third in a series. You can read the first post here. and the second one here.“Gratefully, nature does not have to wait another century or so for the air’s CO2 concentration to double before reaping benefits from enhanced water use efficiency. It has already begun to profit in this regard from the approximate 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution began.”In my last article I wrote about increased plant productivity … [Read more...]
Real Threats to Biodiversity and Humanity
References to climate change almost guarantee funding, even for research topics of little interest beyond academia and eco-activists. Polls reveal that most people worry most about energy and food prices, crime, living standards, Putin’s war on Ukraine, and increasing efforts to control their lives. A recent study by Rutgers University scientists sought to determine how much diversity is required among bee species to sustain wild plant populations. They concluded that ecosystems rely … [Read more...]
Teaching Science Students to Think Critically About EVs and to Peek Behind the Curtain
“The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.” – Proverbs 14:15 ESV“Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.” – Proverbs 31:8-9 ESVIn one of the laboratory classes I teach, students learn techniques to separate heterogeneous mixtures of solids. One procedure involves the separation of sodium chloride from beach sand by mixing the solid mixture in water, … [Read more...]
Cancel Mom’s Grocery Bag Misinformation
I don’t deliberately avoid organic foods or markets, but I don’t seek them out either. Claims that organic food tastes better or is more nutritious are not supported by evidence and certainly don’t justify the far higher prices. Mostly, I’m put off by assertions that organic food is pesticide-free, safer, and more planet-friendly. Those assertions are simply false advertising; deliberate misinformation.Mom’s Organic Market shopping bags provide an excellent example. They’re emblazoned with six … [Read more...]
The Nature of Things: Trees Shed Leaves, Coral Bleaches
Contrary to the incessant bleating of office-based Great Barrier Reef “experts” (who visit the Reef a couple of weeks in a year), the reported incidents of coral bleaching are nothing new, unusual or threatening. They are common natural events no more threatening than trees shedding their leaves with the changing seasons, or occasionally in response to a dry spell.Some readily verifiable relevant facts:1/ Tropical ocean waters are generally nutrient-poor and the symbiotic algal cells which … [Read more...]
The climate scaremongers: An open letter to the Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph regularly publishes articles by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, its International Business Editor, which eulogise renewable energy and claim that fossil fuels will soon be a thing of the past. But they never seem to tell the other side of the story. Here is that other side.***Fossil Fuels v Renewable Energy?Let me start by stating that I am not pro or anti anything. In a free market, the best technologies, solutions and products automatically come to the fore without the … [Read more...]
African Research on Solar Cycles: Science vs. Net Zero
“Climate change is no hoax, because the climate always changes. Modest global warming might be beneficial for the globe. But not all climate change is beneficial. Cooling would be disastrous.”“The American Geophysical Union … displays a diminishing interest in science, that is, in the disinterested pursuit of knowledge. Instead, it revels in an escalating interest in politics, including much talk about nebulous ideas like ‘environmental justice’ and mobilizing scientists to be ‘change … [Read more...]
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