Climate news

EPA can  no longer regulate CO2 emissions from power generation plants

This is, in my view, huge! Supreme Court ruling : EPA doesn’t have power to regulate carbon dioxide. In reading the summary of the ruling, we find Chief Justice Roberts’ words …

“But the only interpretive question before us, and the only one we answer, is more narrow: whether the “best system of emission reduction” identified by EPA in the Clean Power Plan was within the authority granted to the Agency in Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act. For the reasons given, the answer is no.”

It appears that EPA is a usurpatory agency – I made that word up. It also appears that Congress did not do its job, as it is the body that must do the regulation if regulation need be done. Instead it shifted that responsibility to EPA, and the final nine say that is a no-no.

In a perfect world someone would say “Show me the science” behind CO2 being a pollutant. It’s not there. But in the world of climate alarmism, science takes a back seat to propaganda and hasty generalizations. The driving forces behind climate alarmism are two, at least:

1. The news media is under control, wall-to-wall, so that no evidence contrary to the assertions of alarmists get through; and
2. Brute force is asserted against any who dissent from the alarmists’ statements.

Those, of course, are not hallmarks of science. But it is how propaganda is done.

I wish we had a better ruling on this matter, even as it is somewhat satisfying to see EPA scolded. I wish someone would rule that there be no further regulation or shutting down of industries and power plants until science is settled around the matter of CO2 being a danger to us and a pollutant. For now, electrical generating plants don’t have to worry about CO2 emissions. That’ll have to do.

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Man with very long title has very little scientific knowledge

The above graph was once upon a time pretty much a reflection of accepted knowledge, that the 1930s were the hottest decade on record. We have plenty of anecdotal and historical evidence to that effect, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) is charged with protecting temperature records. Climate change alarmists, you see, want to alter the past, and if given access to temperature records, will change them.

Andrew Dessler, Professor, (Official Title: Director, Texas Center for Climate Studies; Reta A. Haynes Chair in Geosciences, Climate change, remote sensing, climate change policy) says that graph, which is historically accurate, “just doesn’t look right,” That’s about as much science as alarmists are capable of delivering.

Nobody knows, by the way, why the 1930s were so hot. That’s where we are at in terms of understanding climate. We know nothing of the future, and little of the past. Weather forecasts are accurate to maybe ten days out now, but look below at the work of the climate modelers who work for and around the IPCC.

Each wavy upward trending line is a climate model. The black dotted line would be the average of all of them. The green dotted line is HADCRUT4, or Hadley Centre/Climatic Research Unit Temperature.

Temperature data is collected monthly from surface boxes all over the globe and assembled by Dr. Roy Spencer at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. As you can see, the HADCRUT4 temperatures are much lower than anything in thee IPCC climate models.

Spencer, of course, is a controversial figure, as he is not participating in the propaganda and hype of the climate alarmism movement. Google has demonetized his blogs.  That’s what I meant above when I said that brute force is asserted against anyone who disagrees with the alarmists.

Google is part of the propaganda system. So are most search engines, which are heavily censored, you know, just like in China.

The blue dotted line is a measurement of lower troposphere temperatures, also collected at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, though the “M” might well stand for Montgomery. That data is taken from polar orbiting satellites.  The troposphere begins at the Earth’s surface and extends as high as 12 miles at the equator, 4 miles at the poles. As you can see, that line is as flat the HADCRUT4.

Policy decisions by world governments are based, nonsensically, on climate models and not on the actual temperature data compiled by HADCRUT4 and UAM Lower Troposphere data. This is because climate change alarmism is a propaganda movement. Since it has control of all media outlets, it is the only way for ordinary people to collect information.

Even so, it seems most people are capable of sticking their heads out of their car windows and seeing that the climate is stable, affected by very slight warming as has been going on since the trough of the Little Ice Age, 1680 or so, and of course, climate variability, which alarmists always attribute to global warming. Climate change ranks very low on the list of concerns among polled Americans.

It’s a sad state of affairs, major decisions affecting all of us made by people who don’t do honest science and engage in a whole lot of lying. Stick that in your windmill and spin it.

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Steve Kelly: A man who understands government agencies

And finally, this one is right up Steve Kelly’s alley. Below is a comment Steve left on another post.

State and federal agencies are funded extravagantly by state legislators and Congress to 1) put out wildfires, and 2) to ignite wildfires (“backfires,” “prescribed ” fires to improve “forest health,” burn slash piles left by timber companies, and fires lit to kill sage and juniper so privately-owned cows might have more public grass to eat). That’s one hell of a business model if you ask me.

Let me introduce you to the New Mexico Hermit’s Peak fire, labeled by Cliff Mass (The Cliff Mass Weather Blog) as “an unnecessary tragedy. “This Hermit’s Peak fire began about 30 miles east of Santa Fe and 15 miles northwest of Las Vegas, NM.  Joining another escaped fire two weeks later (the Calf Canyon Fire), the Hermit’s Peak fire has now burned 342,000  acres and destroyed over 900 structures.”

The Hermit’s Peak fire was caused by a US Forest Service controlled burn that got away from them. Climate change had nothing to do with it, but the guilty culprits who made this major boondoggle are of course blaming CC.  Due to an unusually wet summer last year, grasses grew well beyond normal, and when they dried out, created surface fuel far beyond normal. The Forest Service decided to do a controlled burn to rein in this dangerous situation.

The Forest Service report states that the key reason why the fire got away from Forest Service personnel was “variable and shifting winds.”    The truth is that such winds were clearly forecast well before the prescribed burns were initiated during the late morning of April 6. (Cliff Mass emphasis.)

Incredibly, they did not check the forecast. The incompetence is mind-boggling.

Better to blame climate change than to look in a mirror.