With history as a guide and two months to prepare for the announcement, there was relatively little wailing and gnashing of teeth when President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement (for the second time; the lamentations were much greater in 2017) on his first day back in office. Despite efforts by politicos and influentials within the United States and internationally to encourage Trump to stay in the Paris agreement, the writing was on the wall.Trump has … [Read more...]
How to Drive a Silver Stake Through the Heart of the Paris Climate Accord
President Trump should present the Paris Climate Accord to the Senate as a treaty---where it would crash and burn, never to suck the blood out of Americans again.Illustration by OpenAI/ChatGPT.Fragile, but off to a good start.That’s my assessment of President Donald J. Trump’s initial actions regarding environment, climate change, and energy.On the first day of his return to the White House, President Trump signed nine executive orders related to the environment, climate change, and energy.He … [Read more...]
The Dangers of the “One Health Joint Plan of Action”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a page on its website titled “One Health Basics.” There it defines “One Health” as “a collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach—working at the local, regional, national, and global levels—with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing”—and here’s the crux—“the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment.”On that page the CDC writes about the risk of disease transfer … [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.’ Climate change … [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 of … [Read more...]
Did Anything Good Come from Glasgow?
Did anything good come from Glasgow?Well, that depends on how far back you go.Go back 245 years and you get Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in 1776. That was most definitely good, the University of Glasgow professor of moral philosophy solidifying the growing case for free-market economies, arguably indispensable to the Industrial Revolution’s lifting more and more of humanity out of extreme poverty.Go back another 8 years and you get Rev. John … [Read more...]
COP 26: The UN climate conference in Glasgow was everything we expected: Bountiful laughter
The COP26 climate conference has ended in Glasgow, and most of the western countries’ political leaders have returned home after paying due homage to the thesis that we must all stop using oil, gas and coal to avoid a climate “catastrophe”. The world’s bankers continued on longer seeking commitments to withdraw critically-needed financing from those who seek to develop more hydrocarbon supplies. People who are well-informed about global energy supply, demand and emissions trends are left … [Read more...]
India’s COP-26 promise of Net Zero by 2070 overshadowed by coal use
On COP26’s first day, India’s Prime Minister Modi announced that the world’s second largest coal consumer would become Net Zero by 2070 — a commitment that means almost nothing given realities of the subcontinent’s dependence on fossil fuels to meet the energy needs of 1.3 billion people.Though Modi’s efforts were praised by British PM Boris Johnson, the target of 2070 only reveals the country’s unwillingness to embrace any meaningful emission-reduction policy. Contrary to media reports, … [Read more...]
Climate Change: Ebb and Flow of the Tide
Emotional, agenda-driven politics confronts sound, evidence-based scienceThe topic of global warming and climate change is far more scientifically complex than the public is led to believe.Myriads of newspaper, magazine and TV items over decades have tended to simplify the science to the point at which the general public believes that it is all so simple that any fool can see what is happening. Public groups often accuse world leaders and scientists of being fools, if they do not instantly act … [Read more...]
The Last COP-Out
For 26 futile years, the net-zero maniacs have wasted fuel, energy and taxpayer’s money to bite the hands that provide their food, energy, welfare and public sector jobs.Led by EU and AUKUS dreamers, they destroy reliable energy from coal, oil, nuclear, gas and hydro while forcing us to subsidise net-negative dreams like solar, wind, wave-power, CCUS, hot rocks, pumped hydro and hydrogen. All such speculative ventures should be funded by speculators, not taxpayers.COP-Out-26 illustrates to the … [Read more...]
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