climatechangedispatch--2020-05-20--Top 14 Examples Of Liberal Media Celebrating Pandemic’s ‘Bright Spots’

Written by Geoffrey Dickens on .
Posted in Latest news , Videos Lives have been lost , businesses have been shuttered for good , schools have been closed and millions are stressed out by the effects of coronavirus , but lefty journalists managed to find the “ silver lining ” to the pandemic — a cure for climate change !
From March through May , journalists have been cooing over animals running wild in city streets and previously smog-filled vistas being cleared .
And while everyone likes animals and clean air , the insensitivity shown by environmental activists masked as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of work or dying was staggering .
The following are the Top 14 worst examples of liberal media types discovering the “ bright spot ” of the coronavirus crisis : “ Let ’ s talk to you about Italy .
Obviously that country , its people have been devastated by the coronavirus .
But there is a little bit of a silver lining in some of its historic cities .
This is Venice…You can never see the waters because they ’ re so murky from all the boats .
“ This time , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Venice canals .
You can see fish swimming around in the canals… “ This is a map , a satellite map showing you the level of pollution that has gone away the past three months because of the reduction of emissions across northern Italy .
So , there is a bit of a silver lining.
” 13 .
Grateful to the Pandemic for Offering “ Peek ” of How Things Can Be “ As the world takes a pause during the coronavirus pandemic , one thing hasn ’ t stopped : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There is less pollution , improved air quality , and more animal sightings .
Which means the COVID-19 crisis is serving as a peek at how things can be if we tackle the climate change crisis now.
” — April 30 post by Univision anchor Jorge Ramos on his official Real America with Jorge Ramos Facebook page .
12 .
See What We Can Do When We Shut Down All Manufacturing “ So if there is a silver lining to this crisis , it ’ s visible in the skies above China .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ has caused a reduction in carbon emissions.
” 11 .
Time to Thank the Virus For Buying Us “ Some Time ” “ There seems to be this perception that maybe the virus has helped humanity buy some time when it comes to global warming.
” 10 .
Look At All the “ Improvements ” the Pandemic Brought Us !
Co-host Anthony Mason : “ Ahead on this Earth Day , we ’ ll show you the rapid and amazing environmental improvements taking place during the pandemic .
What it tells us about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jamie Yuccas : “ From a shockingly smog-free New Delhi in India to unusually clear waters in the canals of Venice , the world is suddenly learning what can happen if humans stop polluting the environment.
” … Co-host Gayle King : “ Something to think about there .
Many people see this as a major reset for humanity and the planet .
I hope we ’ re all listening and get the lesson .
We ’ ll see.
” 9 .
“ Finally , ” the “ Bright Spot ” of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are getting a fresh , if distant , look at what has been shrouded by pollution for decades… the towering Himalayan Mountains… “ The country has been under lockdown for more than two weeks , and that has dramatically improved the air quality and visibility… “ There has been a trend of cities worldwide reporting cleaner air since the lockdowns were put into place… Finally , you know , this is a bright spot in this era of pandemic.
” 8 .
Humans Were Always the Real Virus “ Here in New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world , even underneath the mask , if you take a deep breath , you can tell the air is cleaner and clearer .
One of the unintended consequences of the shutdown… .
“ With fewer cars , planes , and factories , the change is stunning .
The murky waters of Venice ’ s famous canals now clear .
In Wuhan , China , according to NASA , air quality improved 30 percent almost 50 percent in Milan , Italy .
Skies clearer in L.A. , the Himalayas finally visible.
” Correspondent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the lockdown has been on all of us , there ’ s one silver lining no one can deny : staying at home has been largely good for the environment .
And here in Venice , this lagoon city has returned to its pre-industrial tranquility .
“ Venice , perhaps more than any other city under lockdown , has gone from one extreme to the other .
The Rialto Bridge , the Grand Canal , even St. Mark ’ s square deserted .
Streets and canals usually awash with tourists now so still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Co-host Anthony Mason : “ Such a beautiful city .
And it ’ s lovely to see it empty , Gayle , but it — as Chris said , it can ’ t survive that way.
” Co-host Gayle King : “ Yeah .
Look at the human beings mucking everything up.
” 6 .
Coronavirus Is the Cure for Climate Change “ If there is a silver lining in coronavirus news , it is this : The economic shutdown is causing at least temporary relief from air and water pollution… Could this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Or could economic and political pressure turn the clock back again on climate regulation ?
… “ We ’ ve got many people who are activists and scientists on this who just hope this is going to be a turning point….airliners haven ’ t been flying in the way that they normally do…That ’ s great news for the planet , great news for us , but , again , is it sustainable ?
” 5 .
Time to Celebrate !
Earth Can “ Get Along Fine ” Without Humans Anchor Norah @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day .
There were supposed to be big celebrations around the world , but instead , people are celebrating inside and they ’ re celebrating cleaner air and cleaner water.
” … Correspondent John Blackstone : “ From goats in a deserted town in Wales , to lions lounging on a road in South Africa ; nature seems to be saying , ‘ We can get along fine without you.
’ ” 4 .
Hopefully Pandemic Taught Us All a Lesson About Big Business Host Christiane @ @ @ @ @ @ @ COVID is going to , I don ’ t know , is it going to work out — could it have a silver lining in terms of how we figure out our place — we humans in the natural world — what we ’ ve done to potentially disrupt the natural world ?
Where do you think this could lead ?
” … Primatologist Jane Goodall : “ We brought this on ourselves .
A pandemic like this has been predicted .
We ’ ve had epidemics galore , and it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world and the animals who live there .
“ And we cut down forests…then we ’ ve got our factory farms… So we have brought this on ourselves , and people have known about it and been telling us about it , but we prefer to go on with business , as usual , to make money and attain power in the short term and not worry about future generations or the health of the planet.
” “ This [ pandemic ] is like a coming attraction trailer given to us from Mother @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by this…we don ’ t really know what nature is going to do to us…Nature has given us this warning…and we should be using this time to think about how , when we come out of this , how we ’ re going to treat this planet.
” — Film director Michael Moore on CBS ’ s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert , April 21 .
“ Looking back , Mother Earth was starting to clear her throat and make herself heard .
Australian bushfires were ravaging the continent .
Earth had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Now that the planet has essentially hissed , ‘ I will not be ignored , ’ how do we confront the climate emergency ?
… From Shanghai to Secaucus , by circumstance and not design , a glimpse of life with fewer fossil fuels .
And already the clean and quiet surroundings have found favor with wildlife.
” 1 .
I ’ m Sorry Son , We Screwed It All Up for You “ My dearest River , Against all odds you were conceived in a lighthouse , born during a pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as We Knew It to resent us when it ’ s gone .
I ’ m sorry .
I ’ m sorry we broke your sea and your sky and shortened the wings of the nightingale .
“ I ’ m sorry that the Great Barrier Reef is no longer great , that we value Amazon™ more than the Amazon and that the waterfront neighborhood where you burble in my arms could be condemned by rising seas before you ’ re old enough for a mortgage….As you get older , this will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under the spell of Genesis 1:28 : to take dominion over every living thing .
We had the strange urge to carve straight lines out of nature ’ s curves and were under the spell of a uniquely human force called ‘ profit motive.
’ ” — CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir in a letter to his newborn son as posted on CNN.com , April 25 .

Written by Geoffrey Dickens on May 20, 2020 . Posted in Latest news, Videos
Lives have been lost, businesses have been shuttered for good, schools have been closed and millions are stressed out by the effects of coronavirus, but lefty journalists managed to find the “silver lining” to the pandemic — a cure for climate change!
From March through May, journalists have been cooing over animals running wild in city streets and previously smog-filled vistas being cleared.
And while everyone likes animals and clean air, the insensitivity shown by environmental activists masked as journalists to those who were thrown out of work or dying was staggering.
The following are the Top 14 worst examples of liberal media types discovering the “bright spot” of the coronavirus crisis:
14. Finding the “Silver Lining” of Pandemic
“Let’s talk to you about Italy. Obviously that country, its people have been devastated by the coronavirus. But there is a little bit of a silver lining in some of its historic cities. This is Venice…You can never see the waters because they’re so murky from all the boats.
“This time, now you can see the crystal-clear waters of the Venice canals. You can see fish swimming around in the canals…
“This is a map, a satellite map showing you the level of pollution that has gone away the past three months because of the reduction of emissions across northern Italy. So, there is a bit of a silver lining.”
— Correspondent Vladimir Duthiers on CBS This Morning, March 19.
13. Grateful to the Pandemic for Offering “Peek” of How Things Can Be
“As the world takes a pause during the coronavirus pandemic, one thing hasn’t stopped: mother nature in all its glory. There is less pollution, improved air quality, and more animal sightings. Which means the COVID-19 crisis is serving as a peek at how things can be if we tackle the climate change crisis now.”
— April 30 post by Univision anchor Jorge Ramos on his official Real America with Jorge Ramos Facebook page.
12. See What We Can Do When We Shut Down All Manufacturing
“So if there is a silver lining to this crisis, it’s visible in the skies above China. The dramatic slowdown in manufacturing and driving has caused a reduction in carbon emissions.”
— Host Christiane Amanpour on PBS’s Amanpour & Co. March 9.
11. Time to Thank the Virus For Buying Us “Some Time”
“There seems to be this perception that maybe the virus has helped humanity buy some time when it comes to global warming.”
— CNN climate correspondent Bill Weir on CNN’s New Day, April 23.
10. Look At All the “Improvements” the Pandemic Brought Us!
Co-host Anthony Mason: “Ahead on this Earth Day, we’ll show you the rapid and amazing environmental improvements taking place during the pandemic. What it tells us about creating a healthier planet.”…
Correspondent Jamie Yuccas: “From a shockingly smog-free New Delhi in India to unusually clear waters in the canals of Venice, the world is suddenly learning what can happen if humans stop polluting the environment.”…
Co-host Gayle King: “Something to think about there. Many people see this as a major reset for humanity and the planet. I hope we’re all listening and get the lesson. We’ll see.”
— CBS This Morning, April 22.
9. “Finally,” the “Bright Spot” of the Pandemic!
“People in northern India are getting a fresh, if distant, look at what has been shrouded by pollution for decades… the towering Himalayan Mountains…
“The country has been under lockdown for more than two weeks, and that has dramatically improved the air quality and visibility…
“There has been a trend of cities worldwide reporting cleaner air since the lockdowns were put into place… Finally, you know, this is a bright spot in this era of pandemic.”
— Host Natalie Allen on CNN Newsroom, April 11.
8. Humans Were Always the Real Virus
“Here in New York and in many other cities around the world, even underneath the mask, if you take a deep breath, you can tell the air is cleaner and clearer. One of the unintended consequences of the shutdown….
“With fewer cars, planes, and factories, the change is stunning. The murky waters of Venice’s famous canals now clear. In Wuhan, China, according to NASA, air quality improved 30 percent almost 50 percent in Milan, Italy. Skies clearer in L.A., the Himalayas finally visible.”
— Chief Environmental Affairs correspondent Anne Thompson on NBC’s Today, April 18.
7. All Those Hard-Working Venetians “Mucking Up” Nature’s “Tranquility”
Correspondent Chris Livesay: “As hard as the lockdown has been on all of us, there’s one silver lining no one can deny: staying at home has been largely good for the environment. And here in Venice, this lagoon city has returned to its pre-industrial tranquility.
“Venice, perhaps more than any other city under lockdown, has gone from one extreme to the other. The Rialto Bridge, the Grand Canal, even St. Mark’s square deserted. Streets and canals usually awash with tourists now so still nature is filling the void.”…
Co-host Anthony Mason: “Such a beautiful city. And it’s lovely to see it empty, Gayle, but it — as Chris said, it can’t survive that way.”
Co-host Gayle King: “Yeah. Look at the human beings mucking everything up.”
— CBS This Morning, May 13.
6. Coronavirus Is the Cure for Climate Change
“If there is a silver lining in coronavirus news, it is this: The economic shutdown is causing at least temporary relief from air and water pollution… Could this be a harbinger of a low-carbon future? Or could economic and political pressure turn the clock back again on climate regulation?…
“We’ve got many people who are activists and scientists on this who just hope this is going to be a turning point….airliners haven’t been flying in the way that they normally do…That’s great news for the planet, great news for us, but, again, is it sustainable?”
— Host Christiane Amanpour on PBS’s Amanpour & Co., April 16.
5. Time to Celebrate! Earth Can “Get Along Fine” Without Humans
Anchor Norah O’Donnell: “Tonight, we mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. There were supposed to be big celebrations around the world, but instead, people are celebrating inside and they’re celebrating cleaner air and cleaner water.”…
Correspondent John Blackstone: “From goats in a deserted town in Wales, to lions lounging on a road in South Africa; nature seems to be saying, ‘We can get along fine without you.’”
— CBS Evening News, April 22.
4. Hopefully Pandemic Taught Us All a Lesson About Big Business
Host Christiane Amanpour: “Tell me about how COVID is going to, I don’t know, is it going to work out — could it have a silver lining in terms of how we figure out our place — we humans in the natural world — what we’ve done to potentially disrupt the natural world? Where do you think this could lead?”…
Primatologist Jane Goodall: “We brought this on ourselves. A pandemic like this has been predicted. We’ve had epidemics galore, and it’s because we’ve disrespected the natural world and the animals who live there.
“And we cut down forests…then we’ve got our factory farms… So we have brought this on ourselves, and people have known about it and been telling us about it, but we prefer to go on with business, as usual, to make money and attain power in the short term and not worry about future generations or the health of the planet.”
— PBS’s Amanpour & Co., May 8.
3. Pandemic Is Mother Nature’s Revenge for Climate Change Deniers
“This [pandemic] is like a coming attraction trailer given to us from Mother Nature. That if we were shocked by this…we don’t really know what nature is going to do to us…Nature has given us this warning…and we should be using this time to think about how, when we come out of this, how we’re going to treat this planet.”
— Film director Michael Moore on CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, April 21.
2. Mother Nature “Hissed” At Us
“Looking back, Mother Earth was starting to clear her throat and make herself heard. Australian bushfires were ravaging the continent. Earth had registered its highest temperatures since records began…
“Now that the planet has essentially hissed, ‘I will not be ignored,’ how do we confront the climate emergency?… From Shanghai to Secaucus, by circumstance and not design, a glimpse of life with fewer fossil fuels. And already the clean and quiet surroundings have found favor with wildlife.”
— Correspondent Jon Wertheim on CBS’s 60 Minutes, May 17.
1. I’m Sorry Son, We Screwed It All Up for You
“My dearest River, Against all odds you were conceived in a lighthouse, born during a pandemic and will taste just enough of Life as We Knew It to resent us when it’s gone. I’m sorry. I’m sorry we broke your sea and your sky and shortened the wings of the nightingale.
“I’m sorry that the Great Barrier Reef is no longer great, that we value Amazon™ more than the Amazon and that the waterfront neighborhood where you burble in my arms could be condemned by rising seas before you’re old enough for a mortgage….As you get older, this will be hard to understand. But we were under the spell of Genesis 1:28: to take dominion over every living thing. We had the strange urge to carve straight lines out of nature’s curves and were under the spell of a uniquely human force called ‘profit motive.’”
— CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir in a letter to his newborn son as posted on CNN.com, April 25.
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climatechangedispatch--2020-05-20--Greenies Try To Axe Australia’s Beleaguered Logging Industry

Written by Mark Poynter on .
Posted in Latest news Last week , front-page headlines in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald announced : “ Logging likely had significant effect on summer fires : scientists.
” The story , also covered by the Guardian Australia and the ABC , reported on a research paper claiming to provide “ compelling evidence ” that timber production had a “ significant effect ” on last summer ’ s Victorian and NSW bushfires .
The media coverage , included extensive quoting of the paper ’ s lead author , ANU Professor David Lindenmayer , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , UQ ’ s Professor James Watson , effectively urging state government ’ s to close what is left of Australia ’ s timber industries to reduce the frequency and severity of future fires .
However , the quoted research paper was a mere two-page ‘ comment ’ published in the journal , Nature Ecology and Evolution .
This ‘ comment ’ included 2 maps , 4 small photos , cited 21 references , and described itself as a “ summary of recent scientific evidence of the impacts of forestry on these fires.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of “ strategies to limit future catastrophic conflagrations ” ( 1 ) .
That what is essentially just a very small literature review , with no new analysis , was able to generate a front-page headline in major daily newspapers and a 15-minute ABC radio interview of one of its co-authors ( Watson ) , arguably speaks volumes for university public relations units and the determination of some conservation scientists to drive public opinion and reshape government forest policy .
This should be of some concern to the broader scientific community given the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ into something far more significant than what it actually is .
In particular , strategically timing its promotion to coincide with notable events – in this case , the start of state and federal bushfire inquiries and announcements of limited salvage timber harvesting in some burnt forests – may well generate the best media coverage , but can also create the perception of an inappropriate academic agenda that may ultimately damage , rather than enhance , a university ’ s brand .
More important than this is the potential for unwarranted media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flimsy grounds that ignore common sense and the far greater knowledge of forest scientists and field forestry practitioners .
Collectively the ‘ comment ’ and associated media promotion by two of its authors provides a mix of questionable assertions , exaggerations , and falsehoods , including : # That logging has had ‘ severe impacts ’ on 181 forest-dependent threatened species , and has profound effects on fire severity and frequency ; # That post-fire salvage logging ‘ can impair recovery and make regenerating forests more prone to further fires ’ ; # @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now calling for increased logging ’ within both burnt and unburnt forests ; # Logging increases subsequent wildfire severity by leaving ‘ large amounts of debris ( up to 450 tonnes per hectare ) ’ on the forest floor ; # Logging increases fire risk by opening up the forest to wind and sunlight thereby making it ‘ far drier ’ ; # Prescribed ( fuel reduction ) burning is ‘ only effective when done within kilometers of dwellings and very regularly ( repeated ) , around every three years ’ ; # @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gippsland forests are burning more frequently than their natural fire interval , which is implied to be from 50 – 150 years .
The first two points don ’ t withstand scrutiny when viewed in a landscape context .
It is simply common sense that while a very small-scale , scattered , and renewable activity , such as harvesting and regrowing patches of forest , may have some minor localized impacts , it can not have ‘ severe impacts ’ on landscape-scale parameters such as biodiversity conservation and fire spread , severity , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for post-fire salvage harvesting , which typically occurs in substantially less than one percent of burnt forests ( 3 ) .
Claiming that elements of the forest industry are calling for an expansion of logging is also highly questionable , given that the cited Australian Forest Products Association document is actually advocating better fire prevention through increased fuel reduction by burning and mechanical means in close proximity to towns and alongside major roads .
Mechanical fuel reduction may produce some usable logs but is a far cry from an expansion of logging , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be substantially diminished by the loss of designated harvestable forests in the summer ’ s bushfires .
Claiming that logging increases subsequent wildfire severity by leaving up to 450 tonnes of debris on the forest floor is just totally disingenuous , especially given the background of three of the ‘ comment ’ s ’ authors ( 4 ) .
Notwithstanding that the average amount of logging debris is hundreds of tonnes per hectare less than this , these three authors would be well aware that this debris is typically removed by post-harvest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Indeed , during Victoria ’ s 2009 ‘ Black Saturday ’ bushfires , regenerating logging coupes of up to seven years old were mostly left unscathed due to a lack of ground fuels ( 5 ) .
The notion that logging makes Australian forests ‘ far drier ’ by opening them up to sunlight and wind was first articulated in 2009 by ANU conservation scientists on the basis of a small literature review largely focussed on overseas rainforests with closed crown canopies ( 6 ) .
While suddenly opening a closed canopy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s eucalypt forests have open canopies and the effects of logging are therefore far less pronounced .
Asserting that fuel-reduction burning is virtually ineffective in most circumstances simply exemplifies a lack of practical experience of either the burning itself or of fighting wildfires where the benefits of previous fuel reduction are obvious .
Unfortunately , similarly ill-conceived public comments from arms-length conservation scientists dismissing fuel-reduction burning have been a regular feature of the aftermath of the recent bushfires and constitute a significant threat to future fire management and , indeed , to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that East Gippsland ’ s forests naturally burn at greater than 50-year intervals was staggering to most forest scientists and practitioners who have spent time working in an area that is part of one of the three most fire-prone regions in the world .
While the region includes some high elevation , wet forest types that would have naturally long fire intervals , the majority of the region ’ s forests are in drier foothill and coastal areas that would naturally have burnt far more frequently , especially given the propensity for dry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ summer .
Highly questionable assertions and findings are not uncommon in any body of scientific literature .
In the past , they would have been quietly considered in the background as part of an evolving scientific consensus which , if appropriate , would eventually inform bureaucratic policy and practice .
Nowadays , the publication of research papers about trendy causes , such as “ saving ” forests from logging , is more often a public spectacle , promoted by its authors and eagerly appropriated by lobby groups to push their agendas via a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have conceptual flaws and/or factual errors , they are simply overlooked in the rush to publicize and shape their findings into a politically-attractive message .
By the time these errors are unearthed , the attitudes of the interested public and politicians have already been influenced .
The nation ’ s forest industry sector has endured over a decade of ‘ hostile science ’ publicizing its supposed dire impacts on bushfire frequency and severity , climate change and biodiversity conservation ; despite the proportionally very small scale of native forest logging making such impacts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has grown into a body of scientific literature that typically ignores wider context ( such as scale and proportional extent ) to enable exaggerated findings , and is founded on often inappropriate assumptions , problematic evidence , and factual errors that are cumulatively compounding in successive papers ( 7 ) .
These flaws are in-part due to the reluctance or refusal of conservation scientists to engage with forest scientists and forestry practitioners who could better inform their understanding of management concepts and practices .
This is suggestive of an intellectual arrogance amongst academic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about managing forests than those who actually carry that responsibility on a daily basis , and who , in most cases , are themselves university science graduates who have spent their careers applying their learnings to real-life land management challenges .
We have long since reached the point where those employed within the forestry sector routinely question whether the primary motivation of the conservation scientists producing these papers is to create a platform for media headlines specifically designed to push a politicized conservation agenda .
This latest episode certainly feeds that perception .

Written by Mark Poynter on May 20, 2020 . Posted in Latest news
Last week, front-page headlines in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald announced: “Logging likely had significant effect on summer fires: scientists.”
The story, also covered by the Guardian Australia and the ABC, reported on a research paper claiming to provide “compelling evidence” that timber production had a “significant effect” on last summer’s Victorian and NSW bushfires.
The media coverage, included extensive quoting of the paper’s lead author, ANU Professor David Lindenmayer, and one of the other four co-authors, UQ’s Professor James Watson, effectively urging state government’s to close what is left of Australia’s timber industries to reduce the frequency and severity of future fires.
However, the quoted research paper was a mere two-page ‘comment’ published in the journal, Nature Ecology and Evolution. This ‘comment’ included 2 maps, 4 small photos, cited 21 references, and described itself as a “summary of recent scientific evidence of the impacts of forestry on these fires.”
It concluded with a 400-word discussion of “strategies to limit future catastrophic conflagrations”(1).
That what is essentially just a very small literature review, with no new analysis, was able to generate a front-page headline in major daily newspapers and a 15-minute ABC radio interview of one of its co-authors (Watson), arguably speaks volumes for university public relations units and the determination of some conservation scientists to drive public opinion and reshape government forest policy.
This should be of some concern to the broader scientific community given the sensationalizing of an inconsequential scientific ‘comment’ into something far more significant than what it actually is.
In particular, strategically timing its promotion to coincide with notable events – in this case, the start of state and federal bushfire inquiries and announcements of limited salvage timber harvesting in some burnt forests – may well generate the best media coverage, but can also create the perception of an inappropriate academic agenda that may ultimately damage, rather than enhance, a university’s brand.
More important than this is the potential for unwarranted media hype to pervert public policy based on flimsy grounds that ignore common sense and the far greater knowledge of forest scientists and field forestry practitioners.
Collectively the ‘comment’ and associated media promotion by two of its authors provides a mix of questionable assertions, exaggerations, and falsehoods, including:
# That logging has had ‘severe impacts’ on 181 forest-dependent threatened species, and has profound effects on fire severity and frequency;
# That post-fire salvage logging ‘can impair recovery and make regenerating forests more prone to further fires’;
# Parts of the forest industry are ‘now calling for increased logging’ within both burnt and unburnt forests;
# Logging increases subsequent wildfire severity by leaving ‘large amounts of debris (up to 450 tonnes per hectare)’ on the forest floor;
# Logging increases fire risk by opening up the forest to wind and sunlight thereby making it ‘far drier’;
# Prescribed (fuel reduction) burning is ‘only effective when done within kilometers of dwellings and very regularly (repeated), around every three years’;
# That due to past logging, East Gippsland forests are burning more frequently than their natural fire interval, which is implied to be from 50 – 150 years.
The first two points don’t withstand scrutiny when viewed in a landscape context.
It is simply common sense that while a very small-scale, scattered, and renewable activity, such as harvesting and regrowing patches of forest, may have some minor localized impacts, it cannot have ‘severe impacts’ on landscape-scale parameters such as biodiversity conservation and fire spread, severity, and frequency (2).
Ditto for post-fire salvage harvesting, which typically occurs in substantially less than one percent of burnt forests (3).
Claiming that elements of the forest industry are calling for an expansion of logging is also highly questionable, given that the cited Australian Forest Products Association document is actually advocating better fire prevention through increased fuel reduction by burning and mechanical means in close proximity to towns and alongside major roads.
Mechanical fuel reduction may produce some usable logs but is a far cry from an expansion of logging, especially given that the timber industry stands to be substantially diminished by the loss of designated harvestable forests in the summer’s bushfires.
Claiming that logging increases subsequent wildfire severity by leaving up to 450 tonnes of debris on the forest floor is just totally disingenuous, especially given the background of three of the ‘comment’s’ authors (4).
Notwithstanding that the average amount of logging debris is hundreds of tonnes per hectare less than this, these three authors would be well aware that this debris is typically removed by post-harvest burning in the process of site regeneration.
Indeed, during Victoria’s 2009 ‘Black Saturday’ bushfires, regenerating logging coupes of up to seven years old were mostly left unscathed due to a lack of ground fuels (5).
The notion that logging makes Australian forests ‘far drier’ by opening them up to sunlight and wind was first articulated in 2009 by ANU conservation scientists on the basis of a small literature review largely focussed on overseas rainforests with closed crown canopies (6).
While suddenly opening a closed canopy can have dramatic drying effects, Australia’s eucalypt forests have open canopies and the effects of logging are therefore far less pronounced.
Asserting that fuel-reduction burning is virtually ineffective in most circumstances simply exemplifies a lack of practical experience of either the burning itself or of fighting wildfires where the benefits of previous fuel reduction are obvious.
Unfortunately, similarly ill-conceived public comments from arms-length conservation scientists dismissing fuel-reduction burning have been a regular feature of the aftermath of the recent bushfires and constitute a significant threat to future fire management and, indeed, to the forests themselves.
The implied assertion that East Gippsland’s forests naturally burn at greater than 50-year intervals was staggering to most forest scientists and practitioners who have spent time working in an area that is part of one of the three most fire-prone regions in the world.
While the region includes some high elevation, wet forest types that would have naturally long fire intervals, the majority of the region’s forests are in drier foothill and coastal areas that would naturally have burnt far more frequently, especially given the propensity for dry lightning storms to ignite many fires each summer.
Highly questionable assertions and findings are not uncommon in any body of scientific literature.
In the past, they would have been quietly considered in the background as part of an evolving scientific consensus which, if appropriate, would eventually inform bureaucratic policy and practice.
Nowadays, the publication of research papers about trendy causes, such as “saving” forests from logging, is more often a public spectacle, promoted by its authors and eagerly appropriated by lobby groups to push their agendas via a generally uncritical media.
If such papers have conceptual flaws and/or factual errors, they are simply overlooked in the rush to publicize and shape their findings into a politically-attractive message.
By the time these errors are unearthed, the attitudes of the interested public and politicians have already been influenced.
The nation’s forest industry sector has endured over a decade of ‘hostile science’ publicizing its supposed dire impacts on bushfire frequency and severity, climate change and biodiversity conservation; despite the proportionally very small scale of native forest logging making such impacts either implausible or greatly exaggerated.
This has grown into a body of scientific literature that typically ignores wider context (such as scale and proportional extent) to enable exaggerated findings, and is founded on often inappropriate assumptions, problematic evidence, and factual errors that are cumulatively compounding in successive papers (7).
These flaws are in-part due to the reluctance or refusal of conservation scientists to engage with forest scientists and forestry practitioners who could better inform their understanding of management concepts and practices.
This is suggestive of an intellectual arrogance amongst academic conservation scientists effectively claiming to know more about managing forests than those who actually carry that responsibility on a daily basis, and who, in most cases, are themselves university science graduates who have spent their careers applying their learnings to real-life land management challenges.
We have long since reached the point where those employed within the forestry sector routinely question whether the primary motivation of the conservation scientists producing these papers is to create a platform for media headlines specifically designed to push a politicized conservation agenda.
This latest episode certainly feeds that perception.
Read more at Quadrant Online
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climatechangedispatch--2020-05-20--EU Demands Climate Compliance To Get Recovery Cash

Written by Breitbart London on .
Posted in Latest news The European Union signaled Wednesday that it will not punish member countries for breaking the bloc´s deficit rules to tackle the coronavirus but that it could condition their access to sorely-needed recovery funds on them following its advice on how to manage their budgets .
The 27-nation bloc is forecast to enter “ a recession of historic proportions this year ” as the coronavirus ravages its economies , with an average drop in output of 7.5 % .
Virtually every country has broken the deficit limit of 3 % of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ care systems , businesses , and jobs alive .
“ In all cases , apart ( from ) Bulgaria , we concluded that the deficit criteria of the treaty is not complied with .
In normal times , this would lead to the opening of an excessive deficit procedure .
But these are exceptional times , ” European Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said .
Dombrovskis´ remarks came as he unveiled advice from the EU´s executive arm , the European Commission , on how countries could weather the economic storm while continuing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fight climate change and ease the transition to computer-based economies .
While the euro single currency rule book may be allowed to gather dust , for now , Dombrovskis warned that it “ is not suspended ” and that countries will have to return to some budgetary rectitude in the medium term .
The commission´s “ country-specific recommendations ” released Wednesday are part of a system under which the executive arm monitors national budgetary plans and gives policy advice .
Countries give the advice lip-service but are routinely slow to respond to it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said that the recommendations will be “ linked ” to a massive recovery fund the commission is due to unveil on May 27 , and which is expected to be part of the EU´s new long-term budget , totaling well over a trillion euros .
He did not provide details about how the recommendations would be linked to the recovery funds .
The pandemic has hurt consumer spending , industrial output , investment , trade , capital flows , and supply chains .
It has also hit jobs .
The unemployment rate across @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from 6.7 % in 2019 to 9 % in 2020 but then fall to around 8 % in 2021 .
While the virus has hit every member country , the extent of the damage it ultimately inflicts will depend on the evolution of the disease in each of them , the resilience of their economies , and what policies they put in place to respond .
Hard-hit countries like Italy and Spain will probably be banking on the recovery fund to survive .

Written by Breitbart London on May 20, 2020 . Posted in Latest news
The European Union signaled Wednesday that it will not punish member countries for breaking the bloc´s deficit rules to tackle the coronavirus but that it could condition their access to sorely-needed recovery funds on them following its advice on how to manage their budgets.
The 27-nation bloc is forecast to enter “a recession of historic proportions this year” as the coronavirus ravages its economies, with an average drop in output of 7.5%.
Virtually every country has broken the deficit limit of 3% of GDP as they´ve spent to keep health care systems, businesses, and jobs alive.
“In all cases, apart (from) Bulgaria, we concluded that the deficit criteria of the treaty is not complied with. In normal times, this would lead to the opening of an excessive deficit procedure. But these are exceptional times,” European Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said.
Dombrovskis´ remarks came as he unveiled advice from the EU´s executive arm, the European Commission, on how countries could weather the economic storm while continuing to promote growth and invest in policies that fight climate change and ease the transition to computer-based economies.
While the euro single currency rule book may be allowed to gather dust, for now, Dombrovskis warned that it “is not suspended” and that countries will have to return to some budgetary rectitude in the medium term.
The commission´s “country-specific recommendations” released Wednesday are part of a system under which the executive arm monitors national budgetary plans and gives policy advice.
Countries give the advice lip-service but are routinely slow to respond to it.
This time, however, Dombrovskis said that the recommendations will be “linked” to a massive recovery fund the commission is due to unveil on May 27, and which is expected to be part of the EU´s new long-term budget, totaling well over a trillion euros.
He did not provide details about how the recommendations would be linked to the recovery funds.
The pandemic has hurt consumer spending, industrial output, investment, trade, capital flows, and supply chains. It has also hit jobs.
The unemployment rate across the 27-nation EU is forecast to rise from 6.7% in 2019 to 9% in 2020 but then fall to around 8% in 2021.
While the virus has hit every member country, the extent of the damage it ultimately inflicts will depend on the evolution of the disease in each of them, the resilience of their economies, and what policies they put in place to respond.
Hard-hit countries like Italy and Spain will probably be banking on the recovery fund to survive.
Read more at Breitbart
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climatechangedispatch--2020-05-20--Analysis: Biden Plan To Scrap Keystone XL Would Kill Thousands Of Jobs

Written by Charles Fain Lehman on .
Posted in Latest news Joe Biden will kill the Keystone XL pipeline project if elected , his campaign said Monday , a move that would likely cost thousands of jobs and millions in local tax revenue .
That termination would cost tens of thousands of jobs , which would result in billions of dollars in lost wages , according to estimates published last year by the State Department .
Those reductions would in turn cost state and local governments millions in tax revenue , up to 10 percent of annual property tax revenues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden ’ s announcement is just his latest move to shore up credibility among the Democratic party ’ s environmentalist base , which has vocally opposed the pipeline since the project was first started in 2010 .
Doing so , however , will likely further alienate the top Democrat from voters in oil-rich swing states like Pennsylvania—while , one expert told the Washington Free Beacon , likely having a little actual impact on fossil fuel consumption .
“ Biden promising to revoke Keystone ’ s approval is a pander , ” Josiah Neeley @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the R Street Institute , told the Washington Free Beacon , “ but unless oil prices recover it ’ s a meaningless pander , as the tar sands won ’ t be profitable anyway.
” Neeley estimated that production of a barrel of oil from the Alberta , Canada , tar sands where the Keystone XL originates costs roughly $ 60 a barrel .
With the global demand collapsed due to the coronavirus pandemic , however , crude oil is currently trading around $ 30 to $ 35 a barrel , meaning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actually dredge crude out of the ground to send down the pipeline .
While closing down the Keystone XL is unlikely to have a major impact on fossil fuels , it will cut off the money needed to fund the pipeline ’ s construction—and with it , thousands of jobs .
The State Department estimated that two years of constructing the pipeline would produce 42,100 jobs , including 16,100 directly working on the pipeline , and another 26,000 created through indirect spending driven by the project .
Portions of the pipeline have already @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those figures represent an upper bound on remaining employment .
But the wage effects of both past and future employment facilitated by the Keystone XL are substantial : $ 2.05 billion in employee earnings , according to the State Department , 80 percent of which would spread throughout the country in indirect spending .
The crackdown on the project would come as the economy struggles to recover from the coronavirus-induced recession .
Over 20 million people went unemployed in April , and Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell indicated in a Sunday interview that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since the Great Depression .
Even with some recovery , joblessness is still likely to be elevated by next year—the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects 10 percent unemployment through 2021 .
Lost economic activity has tax implications , too .
The State Department estimated that the project would generate $ 55.6 million in tax revenue across three states and 27 counties .
Seventeen of those counties would see a more-than-10 percent bump in their annual revenues , a substantial boon .
Biden ’ s campaign told Politico that the presumptive Democratic nominee would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s permit , effectively terminating construction of the 1,200-mile pipeline .
Biden ’ s opposition to the pipeline , his campaign noted , follows from his agitation against it while serving in the Obama White House .
The Obama administration denied construction of the pipeline—which required federal approval because it crosses the Canadian-American border—in 2015 , after five years of regulatory dispute .
Just four days after taking office , President Donald Trump invited the project ’ s owners to reapply , approving the project three months later .
Biden ’ s promise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidate ’ s hostility to fossil fuels .
In a March primary debate , Biden said he would end fracking in the United States as well as all drilling , “ period.
” His campaign later clarified that he intended to ban drilling on public lands and at sea and backed off a total ban on fracking .
Such policies would likely have a substantial economic impact , notably in swing states .
The energy industry employs 106,000 people in must-win Pennsylvania alone , most provided by the state ’ s rich oil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ credited with facilitating America ’ s transition to becoming a net petroleum exporter , which substantially reduces U.S. dependence on oil-rich foreign states like Iran and Russia .

Written by Charles Fain Lehman on May 20, 2020 . Posted in Latest news
Joe Biden will kill the Keystone XL pipeline project if elected, his campaign said Monday, a move that would likely cost thousands of jobs and millions in local tax revenue.
That termination would cost tens of thousands of jobs, which would result in billions of dollars in lost wages, according to estimates published last year by the State Department.
Those reductions would in turn cost state and local governments millions in tax revenue, up to 10 percent of annual property tax revenues in 17 counties across three states.
Biden’s announcement is just his latest move to shore up credibility among the Democratic party’s environmentalist base, which has vocally opposed the pipeline since the project was first started in 2010.
Doing so, however, will likely further alienate the top Democrat from voters in oil-rich swing states like Pennsylvania—while, one expert told the Washington Free Beacon, likely having a little actual impact on fossil fuel consumption.
“Biden promising to revoke Keystone’s approval is a pander,” Josiah Neeley, a senior fellow in energy policy at the R Street Institute, told the Washington Free Beacon, “but unless oil prices recover it’s a meaningless pander, as the tar sands won’t be profitable anyway.”
Neeley estimated that production of a barrel of oil from the Alberta, Canada, tar sands where the Keystone XL originates costs roughly $60 a barrel.
With the global demand collapsed due to the coronavirus pandemic, however, crude oil is currently trading around $30 to $35 a barrel, meaning there’s little economic incentive to actually dredge crude out of the ground to send down the pipeline.
While closing down the Keystone XL is unlikely to have a major impact on fossil fuels, it will cut off the money needed to fund the pipeline’s construction—and with it, thousands of jobs.
The State Department estimated that two years of constructing the pipeline would produce 42,100 jobs, including 16,100 directly working on the pipeline, and another 26,000 created through indirect spending driven by the project.
Portions of the pipeline have already been constructed, Neeley noted, so those figures represent an upper bound on remaining employment.
But the wage effects of both past and future employment facilitated by the Keystone XL are substantial: $2.05 billion in employee earnings, according to the State Department, 80 percent of which would spread throughout the country in indirect spending.
The crackdown on the project would come as the economy struggles to recover from the coronavirus-induced recession.
Over 20 million people went unemployed in April, and Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell indicated in a Sunday interview that unemployment could reach 25 percent—rates not seen since the Great Depression.
Even with some recovery, joblessness is still likely to be elevated by next year—the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects 10 percent unemployment through 2021.
Lost economic activity has tax implications, too. The State Department estimated that the project would generate $55.6 million in tax revenue across three states and 27 counties.
Seventeen of those counties would see a more-than-10 percent bump in their annual revenues, a substantial boon.
Biden’s campaign told Politico that the presumptive Democratic nominee would “proudly” rescind Keystone XL’s permit, effectively terminating construction of the 1,200-mile pipeline.
Biden’s opposition to the pipeline, his campaign noted, follows from his agitation against it while serving in the Obama White House.
The Obama administration denied construction of the pipeline—which required federal approval because it crosses the Canadian-American border—in 2015, after five years of regulatory dispute.
Just four days after taking office, President Donald Trump invited the project’s owners to reapply, approving the project three months later.
Biden’s promise is just the latest instance demonstrating the candidate’s hostility to fossil fuels. In a March primary debate, Biden said he would end fracking in the United States as well as all drilling, “period.”
His campaign later clarified that he intended to ban drilling on public lands and at sea and backed off a total ban on fracking.
Such policies would likely have a substantial economic impact, notably in swing states. The energy industry employs 106,000 people in must-win Pennsylvania alone, most provided by the state’s rich oil shale reserves.
Fracking is also widely credited with facilitating America’s transition to becoming a net petroleum exporter, which substantially reduces U.S. dependence on oil-rich foreign states like Iran and Russia.
Read more at Free Beacon
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climatechangedispatch--2020-05-20--So-Called ‘Green’ Energy Via Legislative Diktat

Written by Charles H. Battig on .
Posted in Latest news For those enamored by the clean electric-car , smoke-and-mirrors “ emission elsewhere scheme ” comes the recently enacted “ Virginia Clean Economy Act ” , which includes one of the largest energy storage targets in the country at 2.4 GW by 2035 , and prompts state regulators to craft a carbon dioxide cap and trade program that meets the objectives of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative ( RGGI ) .
The act , which requires Virginia ’ s electric utilities and competitive suppliers to generate electricity from 100 % @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same day that Dominion Energy , the state ’ s largest utility , announced its goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 .
Carbon dioxide has been deemed a pollutant via legislative diktat .
Accordingly , embedded in this legislation is the language that prevents the Virginia State Corporation Commission from approving “ any investor-owned utility to own , operate , or construct any electric generating unit that emits carbon as a byproduct of combusting fuel to generate electricity ” until the state legislature has had a chance to review a report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Also embedded are escape clauses allowing fossil-fuel energy just in case the 100 percent carbon-free dream mandate fails in the real world .
In keeping with current virtuous political correctness and emotional zeitgeist , the bill also requires utilities and the commission to consider the social cost of carbon when reviewing the need for a new generation facility .
However , Dominion Virginia Power now says it may need to import energy from pollution-intensive sources out of state , even though nuclear power is part of the permitted energy mix .
The price @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politically virtuous green posturing , environmental sloganeering , and pandering to climate activists now comes to light .
Get ready for acres of environmentally destructive solar panel installations which will fail to meet energy demand in the midst of winter , while decimating native habitat and leaching toxic chemicals into the soil .
Look to the new Warren Buffet solar project in Arizona as the template for yet another taxpayer-funded billion-dollar boondoggle promising pollution-free energy ( when the sun shines ) , and reliance on giga-battery installations when it does not .
Trust @ @ @ @ @ @ @ summer lull in ocean breezes when those European-built , experimental offshore wind turbines produce little electricity .
Trust that the Atlantic hurricane season does not cause them to shut down in a self-preservation safety mode just when you need electric power .
Trust that servicing those giga-windmills in a most hostile saltwater corrosive environment does not take them off-line too often .
Trust that those envisioned giga-battery storage complexes for when the sun doesn ’ t shine , and the wind doesn ’ t blow can actually be built .
Trust that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such batteries can be sourced and that such battery installations do not become ticking fire and explosion environmental disaster bombs .
In England , that risk to a small town has been compared to a small nuclear bomb .
Safe disposal of the toxic-laden , worn-out solar panels is largely ignored .
Whatever these outcomes , Dominion can pass on these costs to their captive consumers .
The State Corporation Commission has estimated ratepayers could see “ at least a $ 23 per month ” increase on their bills by 2027-2030… stress on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be vying with California for the title of creator of the most destructive and unreliable energy policy at the highest cost to its citizens and industry by embracing radical environmentalism and rejecting objective science .
However , the realities of a coronavirus economy have finally put the brakes on California ’ s green dreams .
California Gov .
Gavin Newsom has proposed budget cuts include canceling billions of dollars in climate change spending .
Meanwhile , Virginia ’ s green plans appear unchanged .
“ Out of sight , out of mind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the land , and “ just-like-that ” ( thank you Forrest Gump ) by legislative fiat , we Virginians are all carbon-free at the expense of pollution elsewhere .
Never mind that there will be no measurable effect on the climate .
As is usual , there is no definition of how climate change will be measured ; it usually falls back to changes in atmospheric temperature .
Even the details of how , where , and when such temperature measurements will be made are open-ended .
With the recent film “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ filmmaker Michael Moore upset the green lobby with such comments as : “ most energy consumers don ’ t realize the complex ways that so-called renewable energy has been developed with a co-dependency on non-renewables , ” and “ The only reason we had been force-fed the story ‘ climate change plus renewables equals we ’ re saved ’ is because billionaires , bankers , and corporations profit from it.
” Warren Buffet said it about wind power in 2014 : “ For example , on wind energy , we get a tax @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wind farms .
That ’ s the only reason to build them .
They don ’ t make sense without the tax credit.
” His aforementioned Arizona solar project would seem to fall into that category , as does Virginia ’ s new legislation with handouts galore .
Lost in this green crusade is the fact that carbon dioxide is an essential trace gas upon which plants depend for life .
Each one of us exhales carbon dioxide at an approximate four percent concentration with each breath , as we are carbon-based life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by asking how much the climate will be saved by this “ Clean Economy Act , ” however it might be measured against an atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration of 400ppm .
Get ready for needlessly increased energy costs for local governments and the public in this era of the coronavirus .
Natural gas and petroleum are at record low prices , yet Virginia ’ s new energy plan has promised increased energy costs .
For local governments , no problem — just increase property taxes and property assessments .
Those out of work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the target date of 2045 , the authors of this legislation ( including the Virginia governor and legislators who foisted this on the public ) will probably ( hopefully ? )
be out of office and forgotten and have no fear of facing recriminations .
Not so lucky will be the children and grandchildren of the future-facing an uncertain , but expensive , Virginia energy environment .

Written by Charles H. Battig on May 20, 2020 . Posted in Latest news
For those enamored by the clean electric-car, smoke-and-mirrors “emission elsewhere scheme” comes the recently enacted “Virginia Clean Economy Act”, which includes one of the largest energy storage targets in the country at 2.4 GW by 2035, and prompts state regulators to craft a carbon dioxide cap and trade program that meets the objectives of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).
The act, which requires Virginia’s electric utilities and competitive suppliers to generate electricity from 100% renewable energy by 2050, passed on the same day that Dominion Energy, the state’s largest utility, announced its goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Carbon dioxide has been deemed a pollutant via legislative diktat. Accordingly, embedded in this legislation is the language that prevents the Virginia State Corporation Commission from approving “any investor-owned utility to own, operate, or construct any electric generating unit that emits carbon as a byproduct of combusting fuel to generate electricity” until the state legislature has had a chance to review a report from the Air Pollution Control Board.
Also embedded are escape clauses allowing fossil-fuel energy just in case the 100 percent carbon-free dream mandate fails in the real world.
In keeping with current virtuous political correctness and emotional zeitgeist, the bill also requires utilities and the commission to consider the social cost of carbon when reviewing the need for a new generation facility.
However, Dominion Virginia Power now says it may need to import energy from pollution-intensive sources out of state, even though nuclear power is part of the permitted energy mix.
The price tag for this legislated decree wrought via politically virtuous green posturing, environmental sloganeering, and pandering to climate activists now comes to light.
Get ready for acres of environmentally destructive solar panel installations which will fail to meet energy demand in the midst of winter, while decimating native habitat and leaching toxic chemicals into the soil.
Look to the new Warren Buffet solar project in Arizona as the template for yet another taxpayer-funded billion-dollar boondoggle promising pollution-free energy (when the sun shines), and reliance on giga-battery installations when it does not.
Trust that the air-conditioner comes on during a summer lull in ocean breezes when those European-built, experimental offshore wind turbines produce little electricity.
Trust that the Atlantic hurricane season does not cause them to shut down in a self-preservation safety mode just when you need electric power.
Trust that servicing those giga-windmills in a most hostile saltwater corrosive environment does not take them off-line too often.
Trust that those envisioned giga-battery storage complexes for when the sun doesn’t shine, and the wind doesn’t blow can actually be built.
Trust that the tons of rare-earth minerals needed to build such batteries can be sourced and that such battery installations do not become ticking fire and explosion environmental disaster bombs.
In England, that risk to a small town has been compared to a small nuclear bomb. Safe disposal of the toxic-laden, worn-out solar panels is largely ignored.
Whatever these outcomes, Dominion can pass on these costs to their captive consumers. The State Corporation Commission has estimated ratepayers could see “at least a $23 per month” increase on their bills by 2027-2030… stress on the “at least.”
Virginia seems to be vying with California for the title of creator of the most destructive and unreliable energy policy at the highest cost to its citizens and industry by embracing radical environmentalism and rejecting objective science.
However, the realities of a coronavirus economy have finally put the brakes on California’s green dreams.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed budget cuts include canceling billions of dollars in climate change spending. Meanwhile, Virginia’s green plans appear unchanged.
“Out of sight, out of mind,” pollution is now the law of the land, and “just-like-that” (thank you Forrest Gump) by legislative fiat, we Virginians are all carbon-free at the expense of pollution elsewhere.
Never mind that there will be no measurable effect on the climate. As is usual, there is no definition of how climate change will be measured; it usually falls back to changes in atmospheric temperature.
Even the details of how, where, and when such temperature measurements will be made are open-ended.
With the recent film “Planet of the Humans,” liberal filmmaker Michael Moore upset the green lobby with such comments as: “most energy consumers don’t realize the complex ways that so-called renewable energy has been developed with a co-dependency on non-renewables,” and “The only reason we had been force-fed the story ‘climate change plus renewables equals we’re saved’ is because billionaires, bankers, and corporations profit from it.”
Warren Buffet said it about wind power in 2014: “For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
His aforementioned Arizona solar project would seem to fall into that category, as does Virginia’s new legislation with handouts galore.
Lost in this green crusade is the fact that carbon dioxide is an essential trace gas upon which plants depend for life. Each one of us exhales carbon dioxide at an approximate four percent concentration with each breath, as we are carbon-based life forms.
Do not embarrass these legislators by asking how much the climate will be saved by this “Clean Economy Act,” however it might be measured against an atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration of 400ppm.
Get ready for needlessly increased energy costs for local governments and the public in this era of the coronavirus.
Natural gas and petroleum are at record low prices, yet Virginia’s new energy plan has promised increased energy costs.
For local governments, no problem — just increase property taxes and property assessments. Those out of work are just out of luck.
By the target date of 2045, the authors of this legislation (including the Virginia governor and legislators who foisted this on the public) will probably (hopefully?) be out of office and forgotten and have no fear of facing recriminations.
Not so lucky will be the children and grandchildren of the future-facing an uncertain, but expensive, Virginia energy environment.
Read more at American Thinker
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climatechangedispatch--2020-05-20--Big Wind Kills Another Bald Eagle, Gets More Federal Subsidies

Written by Robert Bryce on .
Posted in Latest news On May 1 , the Toledo Blade reported that a wind turbine in Bowling Green , Ohio had killed an adult bald eagle .
Six days later , the Treasury Department announced that it would provide another extension of the production tax credit , the lucrative subsidy that the wind industry has relied on for decades .
The death of the eagle provides a stark reminder of the deadly toll that the wind industry is having on some of America ’ s most iconic wildlife and how that toll will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all-renewable-energy system get their wish .
And the extension of the PTC provides a stark reminder of how an influential industry can manipulate the Washington favor factory and in doing so , turn what were supposed to be temporary subsidies into permanent ones worth billions of dollars per year – and even more remarkably , get those subsidies extended without ever getting the money appropriated by Congress .
The eagle was killed at the Wood County Landfill in January .
Matt Markey of the Toledo Blade broke the story .
Markey reports that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turbine hit the eagle .
Upon hearing the noise , they turned to “ witness a large bird tumbling to the frozen ground .
What they soon learned was the severed wing of the bird floated in its slower descent and landed about 50 feet away.
” The employees reported the eagle death to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources , which collected the animal and contacted the US Fish and Wildlife Service .
( The four-turbine wind project responsible for the bald eagle ’ s death is 50-percent owned by the city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1.5 percent of the city ’ s electricity . )
Thirty years ago when a dead bald eagle was found in an uncovered oil waste pit in southern Oklahoma , law enforcement officials launched a multi-state , multi-jurisdiction crackdown on the malefactors .
Back then , as I reported for the Christian Science Monitor , biologists estimated that about 600,000 migratory birds per year were dying every year in the waste pits .
Nearly every one of those birds was protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act , one of America ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protection laws .
Special agents with the Division of Law Enforcement at the US Fish and Wildlife Serve went on to bring dozens of cases against oil and gas companies for their sloppy operations and as part of their settlement agreements , the companies were forced to close , or put nets over , their waste pits .
Alas , there ’ s little reason to expect that the Fish and Wildlife Service will enforce the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act or the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in the Ohio case .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
Indeed , under the Trump administration — and under the Obama administration before it – the wind industry has lobbied to gut enforcement of the MBTA , which protects 1,093 species of birds .
In 2017 , the Department of Interior ’ s Solicitor General issued an opinion that said it would no longer enforce the MBTA in cases of incidental bird deaths , saying that doing so “ raises serious due process concerns and is contrary to the fundamental principle that ambiguity in criminal statutes must be resolved in favor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tina Shaw , a public affairs specialist at the Bloomington , Minnesota office of the Fish and Wildlife Service , told me that the “ case is currently ongoing ” and that it involves “ a mature bald eagle.
” She said her agency was working with Ohio officials , and that the Fish and Wildlife Service could not share any photos of the dead eagle .
“ At this point in the open investigation , this is all the information we are able to share , ” she said .
Mike Parr @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Conservancy , says his group is not anti-wind and that it is seeking a “ middle-ground ” on regulations .
But he also said that “ The wind industry could prevent a lot of these bird kills , but they don ’ t…The regulations have all been undone in their favor and against protection.
” In December , Parr ’ s group filed suit in federal court against the Department of Energy and the US Army Corps of Engineers , claiming that the federal government failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ evaluation of the Icebreaker Wind project , which proposes to put wind turbines in Lake Erie .
The Conservancy contends that the wind project would “ pose substantial collision risks to the enormous numbers of birds that use the area throughout the year , including large concentrations of migrating songbirds ” and waterfowl .
How many eagles and other birds are being killed by wind turbines ?
The short answer is we don ’ t really know .
Getting an accurate count of the number of birds killed by turbines is notoriously difficult @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bird kills to be a trade secret and it has even sued to prevent government agencies from releasing data on bird kills .
In 2016 , Iberdrola , a Spanish company that is trying to expand its wind projects in the US , sued to prevent the state of Ohio from releasing bird mortality data from its Blue Creek wind project , claiming that the information is “ confidential trade secret-protected information.
” Despite the industry ’ s attempts to keep bird-kill data from the public , it ’ s clear that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wind turbines today is greater than the 600,000 migratory birds per year that were being killed by oil pits back in the late 1980s and early 1990s .
Wind turbines are also killing large numbers of bats .
The best-known studies of wind-related wildlife kills have been done by biologist K. Shawn Smallwood .
In 2013 , he published a study in the Wildlife Society Bulletin which estimated that in 2012 wind turbines killed about 888,000 bats and 573,000 birds , including 83,000 raptors .
( A 2014 study published by the wind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ birds per year . )
In 2012 , the US had about 60,000 megawatts of wind capacity .
Today , the industry has about 107,000 megawatts .
Therefore if Smallwood ’ s numbers are correct and bird kills are occurring at the same rate today as they were in 2012 , then Big Wind may now be killing about one million birds per year , including roughly 150,000 raptors .
On March 12 , Smallwood updated his bat mortality estimates in a paper published in the journal Diversity .
Using a new methodology @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have caused “ 2.22 million bat fatalities across the USA in 2014.
” He went on to point out that the US now has more than 100,000 megawatts of wind capacity “ and bat fatalities likely increased proportionally with this increase in capacity , so long as the pool of vulnerable bats has not diminished .
The decline of hoary bats in the Pacific Northwest suggests that the pool of vulnerable bats might be diminishing .
It is imperative , therefore , that methods of fatality monitoring improve to more accurately estimate bat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the alarm about wind turbines and bats .
In 2016 , two scientists from the US Geological Survey , Thomas J. O ’ Shea and Paul M. Cryan published a paper that said that wind turbines are the largest cause of mass bat mortality , and exceed the toll taken by white-nose syndrome , a fungal disease that afflicts bats .
In a discussion of the paper , Cryan said that the wind industry ’ s toll on bat populations could have long-term negative effects .
“ Bats are long-lived and very slow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Their populations rely on very high adult survival rates .
That means their populations recover from big losses very slowly.
” On its website , the American Wind Energy Association ( which operates on an annual budget of about $ 22 million ) points out that cats are responsible for lots of bird kills .
That is no doubt true , but Sylvester the Cat isn ’ t killing any eagles .
Wind turbines are .
The association also says “ the vast majority of wind facilities ( more than 90 percent ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at all.
” Again , that may be true , but the Fish and Wildlife Service has documented major increases in eagle kills by wind turbines .
In a 2013 study , agency biologists found that the number of eagles killed by wind turbines increased to 24 in 2011 from two in 2007 .
During the study period , the agency documented 85 eagles that had been killed by wind turbines and Joel Pagel , the study ’ s lead author , told me that the figure was “ an absolute minimum.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Given a large number of birds and bats already being killed by wind turbines , it is abundantly obvious that any major expansion of wind energy will result in even more destruction of America ’ s wildlife .
An all-renewable plan being promoted by Stanford professor Mark Jacobson — whose work has repeatedly been touted by climate activists Josh Fox and Bill McKibben — would require installing nearly 25 times as much wind capacity as now exists in the US , with the majority of that capacity on land .
Any such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doubles or triples existing wind capacity — will have devastating effects on America ’ s bird and bat populations .
A study published last October in Science found a drastic decline in North American avifauna over the past few decades .
Led by Kenneth Rosenberg of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology , the study evaluated 529 species of birds in the continental US and Canada .
It found a “ net loss approaching 3 billion birds or 29 % of 1970 abundance.
” It concluded with this warning : Despite the enormous toll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to collect billions of dollars in federal subsidies .
Sen. Charles Grassley , the Iowa Republican and the wind industry ’ s go-to supporter in the Senate , has said : “ As the father of the first wind-energy tax credit in 1992 , I can say that the tax credit was never meant to be permanent.
” But the wind industry has done all it can to make it permanent because the PTC is a critical part of their business .
Wind developers rely on “ tax equity ” to finance their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the wind project ’ s predicted cash flow and expected federal tax benefits .
In 2017 , Keith Martin , a lawyer at the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright , explained that tax equity “ accounts currently for 50 % to 60 % of the capital cost of a typical wind farm and 40 % to 50 % of the capital cost of a typical solar installation.
” Under a deal struck in 2015 , the wind industry agreed to phase out the PTC at the end of 2019 .
But at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the deal and got an extension of the subsidy .
Earlier this month , the Treasury Department agreed to yet another extension .
Those extensions are costing taxpayers billions of dollars .
According to an April report by the Texas Public Policy Foundation , between 2010 and 2019 , the wind industry received about $ 36.8 billion in federal subsidies .
( Solar got $ 34.4 billion ; nuclear got $ 15.4 billion . )
Between 2020 and 2029 , according to projections from the Treasury Department , thanks to the PTC , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 33.7 billion .
The subsidies being given to the wind industry are larger than any other energy-related tax treatment .
John Hageman is a retired biologist and avid outdoorsman who lives in Weston , Ohio .
In March , he observed an active bald eagle nest near the edge of the Wood County Landfill and reported it to state wildlife officials .
In a phone interview , he told me that the nest is within 500 meters of the closest turbine and he is concerned that another bald eagle , either a “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ killed ” by one of the turbines at the landfill .
Hageman , who serves on the conservation committee of the Black Swamp Bird Observatory in Oak Harbor , Ohio , said the recovery of the bald eagle from the brink of extinction a few decades ago has been a “ great success.
” But now , he said , they are becoming “ collateral damage , ” in the push for renewables .
“ People are willing to accept the death of eagles for the green energy movement.
” The bottom line @ @ @ @ @ @ @ isn ’ t free .
It depends on multi-billion-dollar infusions from the federal treasury .
The wind industry has been given a license to kill America ’ s wildlife and taxpayers are subsidizing the slaughter .

Written by Robert Bryce on May 20, 2020 . Posted in Latest news
On May 1, the Toledo Blade reported that a wind turbine in Bowling Green, Ohio had killed an adult bald eagle.
Six days later, the Treasury Department announced that it would provide another extension of the production tax credit, the lucrative subsidy that the wind industry has relied on for decades.
The death of the eagle provides a stark reminder of the deadly toll that the wind industry is having on some of America’s most iconic wildlife and how that toll will skyrocket if the many proponents of an all-renewable-energy system get their wish.
And the extension of the PTC provides a stark reminder of how an influential industry can manipulate the Washington favor factory and in doing so, turn what were supposed to be temporary subsidies into permanent ones worth billions of dollars per year – and even more remarkably, get those subsidies extended without ever getting the money appropriated by Congress.
The eagle was killed at the Wood County Landfill in January. Matt Markey of the Toledo Blade broke the story. Markey reports that two employees of the landfill heard the turbine hit the eagle.
Upon hearing the noise, they turned to “witness a large bird tumbling to the frozen ground. What they soon learned was the severed wing of the bird floated in its slower descent and landed about 50 feet away.”
The employees reported the eagle death to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which collected the animal and contacted the US Fish and Wildlife Service. (The four-turbine wind project responsible for the bald eagle’s death is 50-percent owned by the city of Bowling Green. The project provides 1.5 percent of the city’s electricity.)
Thirty years ago when a dead bald eagle was found in an uncovered oil waste pit in southern Oklahoma, law enforcement officials launched a multi-state, multi-jurisdiction crackdown on the malefactors.
Back then, as I reported for the Christian Science Monitor, biologists estimated that about 600,000 migratory birds per year were dying every year in the waste pits.
Nearly every one of those birds was protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, one of America’s oldest — and most important — wildlife protection laws.
Special agents with the Division of Law Enforcement at the US Fish and Wildlife Serve went on to bring dozens of cases against oil and gas companies for their sloppy operations and as part of their settlement agreements, the companies were forced to close, or put nets over, their waste pits.
Alas, there’s little reason to expect that the Fish and Wildlife Service will enforce the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act or the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in the Ohio case. (Eagles are protected under both laws.)
Indeed, under the Trump administration — and under the Obama administration before it – the wind industry has lobbied to gut enforcement of the MBTA, which protects 1,093 species of birds.
In 2017, the Department of Interior’s Solicitor General issued an opinion that said it would no longer enforce the MBTA in cases of incidental bird deaths, saying that doing so “raises serious due process concerns and is contrary to the fundamental principle that ambiguity in criminal statutes must be resolved in favor of defendants.”
In an email, Tina Shaw, a public affairs specialist at the Bloomington, Minnesota office of the Fish and Wildlife Service, told me that the “case is currently ongoing” and that it involves “a mature bald eagle.”
She said her agency was working with Ohio officials, and that the Fish and Wildlife Service could not share any photos of the dead eagle. “At this point in the open investigation, this is all the information we are able to share,” she said.
Mike Parr, the president of the American Bird Conservancy, says his group is not anti-wind and that it is seeking a “middle-ground” on regulations.
But he also said that “The wind industry could prevent a lot of these bird kills, but they don’t…The regulations have all been undone in their favor and against protection.”
In December, Parr’s group filed suit in federal court against the Department of Energy and the US Army Corps of Engineers, claiming that the federal government failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and Clean Water Act in their evaluation of the Icebreaker Wind project, which proposes to put wind turbines in Lake Erie.
The Conservancy contends that the wind project would “pose substantial collision risks to the enormous numbers of birds that use the area throughout the year, including large concentrations of migrating songbirds” and waterfowl.
How many eagles and other birds are being killed by wind turbines? The short answer is we don’t really know. Getting an accurate count of the number of birds killed by turbines is notoriously difficult.
Furthermore, the wind industry considers bird kills to be a trade secret and it has even sued to prevent government agencies from releasing data on bird kills.
In 2016, Iberdrola, a Spanish company that is trying to expand its wind projects in the US, sued to prevent the state of Ohio from releasing bird mortality data from its Blue Creek wind project, claiming that the information is “confidential trade secret-protected information.”
Despite the industry’s attempts to keep bird-kill data from the public, it’s clear that the magnitude of bird deaths being killed by wind turbines today is greater than the 600,000 migratory birds per year that were being killed by oil pits back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Wind turbines are also killing large numbers of bats.
The best-known studies of wind-related wildlife kills have been done by biologist K. Shawn Smallwood.
In 2013, he published a study in the Wildlife Society Bulletin which estimated that in 2012 wind turbines killed about 888,000 bats and 573,000 birds, including 83,000 raptors. (A 2014 study published by the wind industry claimed turbines were killing about 368,000 birds per year.)
In 2012, the US had about 60,000 megawatts of wind capacity. Today, the industry has about 107,000 megawatts.
Therefore if Smallwood’s numbers are correct and bird kills are occurring at the same rate today as they were in 2012, then Big Wind may now be killing about one million birds per year, including roughly 150,000 raptors.
On March 12, Smallwood updated his bat mortality estimates in a paper published in the journal Diversity. Using a new methodology, Smallwood found that wind turbines may have caused “2.22 million bat fatalities across the USA in 2014.”
He went on to point out that the US now has more than 100,000 megawatts of wind capacity “and bat fatalities likely increased proportionally with this increase in capacity, so long as the pool of vulnerable bats has not diminished.
The decline of hoary bats in the Pacific Northwest suggests that the pool of vulnerable bats might be diminishing. It is imperative, therefore, that methods of fatality monitoring improve to more accurately estimate bat fatalities.”
Other scientists are also sounding the alarm about wind turbines and bats. In 2016, two scientists from the US Geological Survey, Thomas J. O’Shea and Paul M. Cryan published a paper that said that wind turbines are the largest cause of mass bat mortality, and exceed the toll taken by white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that afflicts bats.
In a discussion of the paper, Cryan said that the wind industry’s toll on bat populations could have long-term negative effects.
“Bats are long-lived and very slow reproducers,” he said. “Their populations rely on very high adult survival rates. That means their populations recover from big losses very slowly.”
On its website, the American Wind Energy Association (which operates on an annual budget of about $22 million) points out that cats are responsible for lots of bird kills.
That is no doubt true, but Sylvester the Cat isn’t killing any eagles. Wind turbines are. The association also says “the vast majority of wind facilities (more than 90 percent) do not observe any golden eagle mortalities at all.”
Again, that may be true, but the Fish and Wildlife Service has documented major increases in eagle kills by wind turbines.
In a 2013 study, agency biologists found that the number of eagles killed by wind turbines increased to 24 in 2011 from two in 2007.
During the study period, the agency documented 85 eagles that had been killed by wind turbines and Joel Pagel, the study’s lead author, told me that the figure was “an absolute minimum.” Among the carcasses: six bald eagles.
Given a large number of birds and bats already being killed by wind turbines, it is abundantly obvious that any major expansion of wind energy will result in even more destruction of America’s wildlife.
An all-renewable plan being promoted by Stanford professor Mark Jacobson — whose work has repeatedly been touted by climate activists Josh Fox and Bill McKibben — would require installing nearly 25 times as much wind capacity as now exists in the US, with the majority of that capacity on land.
Any such expansion — or even an expansion that doubles or triples existing wind capacity — will have devastating effects on America’s bird and bat populations.
A study published last October in Science found a drastic decline in North American avifauna over the past few decades.
Led by Kenneth Rosenberg of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the study evaluated 529 species of birds in the continental US and Canada.
It found a “net loss approaching 3 billion birds or 29% of 1970 abundance.” It concluded with this warning:
“Our results signal an urgent need to address the ongoing threats of habitat loss, agricultural intensification, coastal disturbance, and direct anthropogenic mortality, (emphasis added) all exacerbated by climate change, to avert continued biodiversity loss and potential collapse of the continental avifauna.”
Despite the enormous toll on wildlife, the wind industry continues to collect billions of dollars in federal subsidies.
Sen. Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican and the wind industry’s go-to supporter in the Senate, has said: “As the father of the first wind-energy tax credit in 1992, I can say that the tax credit was never meant to be permanent.”
But the wind industry has done all it can to make it permanent because the PTC is a critical part of their business.
Wind developers rely on “tax equity” to finance their projects. Tax equity is based on the wind project’s predicted cash flow and expected federal tax benefits.
In 2017, Keith Martin, a lawyer at the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, explained that tax equity “accounts currently for 50% to 60% of the capital cost of a typical wind farm and 40% to 50% of the capital cost of a typical solar installation.”
Under a deal struck in 2015, the wind industry agreed to phase out the PTC at the end of 2019. But at the end of 2019, it reneged on the deal and got an extension of the subsidy.
Earlier this month, the Treasury Department agreed to yet another extension. Those extensions are costing taxpayers billions of dollars.
According to an April report by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, between 2010 and 2019, the wind industry received about $36.8 billion in federal subsidies. (Solar got $34.4 billion; nuclear got $15.4 billion.)
Between 2020 and 2029, according to projections from the Treasury Department, thanks to the PTC, the wind industry will collect another $33.7 billion. The subsidies being given to the wind industry are larger than any other energy-related tax treatment.
John Hageman is a retired biologist and avid outdoorsman who lives in Weston, Ohio. In March, he observed an active bald eagle nest near the edge of the Wood County Landfill and reported it to state wildlife officials.
In a phone interview, he told me that the nest is within 500 meters of the closest turbine and he is concerned that another bald eagle, either a “fledgling or the parent bird will be killed” by one of the turbines at the landfill.
Hageman, who serves on the conservation committee of the Black Swamp Bird Observatory in Oak Harbor, Ohio, said the recovery of the bald eagle from the brink of extinction a few decades ago has been a “great success.”
But now, he said, they are becoming “collateral damage,” in the push for renewables. “People are willing to accept the death of eagles for the green energy movement.”
The bottom line here is that “green energy” isn’t free. It depends on multi-billion-dollar infusions from the federal treasury. The wind industry has been given a license to kill America’s wildlife and taxpayers are subsidizing the slaughter.
Read more at Forbes
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climatechangedispatch--2020-05-21--Canada Worsening Its Economy With Lonely Climate Change Battle

Written by Joe Oliver on .
Posted in Latest news Canada has an urgent fiscal problem our government seems determined to worsen by continuing to wage its increasingly lonely battle against climate change .
In the 78 years from Confederation to the end of the Second World War federal debt reached $ 258 billion , adjusted for inflation .
During the past 10 weeks the federal government has effectively pledged to match that this fiscal year , with more coming .
According to a C.D .
Howe study , “ Ottawa ’ s net debt is headed for the previously @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” which is $ 105,000 for a family of four .
That crushing burden means years of higher taxes , reduced social spending , and less help for the provinces , which are on the front lines of our health-care system .
Now is the time to focus like a laser on growth and fiscal prudence and to avoid like the plague ( pun intended ) costly gestures that will retard recovery and achieve nothing substantive for the environment .
What we should not do is widen an already yawning gap between Canada @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and those of the rest of the world .
We have much more to lose than countries not blessed with our vast proven oil and gas resources .
Moreover , at 1.6 percent of global GHG emissions , we can have no measurable impact on global temperatures , no matter how heroically we pursue a green transition .
And yet Finance Minister Bill Morneau has said his 2020 budget will focus on the environment , while the feds recently raised the carbon tax by 50 percent .
Every year from now until 2040 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dioxide equivalent emissions by substituting natural gas for coal in Asian power plants .
Over the 20 years , that is the equivalent of four Canadian LNG export facilities .
But that would require pipelines to tidewater , which — perversely — environmentalists oppose .
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May ’ s resistance to gas pipelines and opposition to nuclear power belie her fervent claim to want to save the world from climate Armageddon .
The UN forecasts the pandemic could cut global economic growth to minus one percent from a previously forecast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ roughly $ 3 trillion in lost production .
At the moment , developed countries are scrambling to cope with their devastated economies .
Nor is climate change top-of-mind in the non-Western world , which is now responsible for three-quarters of global emissions .
International pressure to give up on the calamitous fantasy of net zero emissions by 2050 will be intense , although it remains a throne speech commitment for the government .
China ’ s GHG emissions , representing 28 percent of global emissions , will grow at least until 2030 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coal production .
Although the U.S. , at 14 percent , has withdrawn from the Paris accord , it actually leads the world in greenhouse gas reductions because of its shift from coal to natural gas .
India , currently at seven percent of world emissions , will increase its share as it works to alleviate the poverty of 276 million people living on less than $ 1.25 a day .
As for Germany , its transition to green energy has been called “ an impending disaster.
” Chancellor Angela Merkel recently caved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after her MPs rebelled against it .
One country that can afford to play-act is Norway , whose total financial assets exceed its debt only because of North Sea oil .
Its $ 1.1-trillion sovereign-wealth fund just blacklisted four of Canada ’ s largest oil producers , citing concern over high carbon emissions .
If we could stomach the hypocrisy , following Norway ’ s example would provide a double benefit : moral superiority and oodles of cash .
So far , Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is content with virtue-signaling on Canadians ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , thank you very much .
There is also a geopolitical development to consider .
Deepening tension with China , in part because of its deadly coverup of the COVID-19 virus , will weaken an already unraveling international consensus on climate change .
Allies can not afford to dissipate their competitiveness during a Cold War .
Canada has the dubious distinction of being the only country rich in energy resources whose government ’ s policy is to keep most of its wealth buried forever in order to address a global problem that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could solve it won ’ t .
This is self-harm on a massive scale for no reason other than virtue-signaling in what is now increasingly an echo chamber .
Could there be a less appropriate time for indulgent vanity than during the devastation of a global pandemic ?
Read more at Financial Post

Written by Joe Oliver on May 21, 2020 . Posted in Latest news
Canada has an urgent fiscal problem our government seems determined to worsen by continuing to wage its increasingly lonely battle against climate change.
In the 78 years from Confederation to the end of the Second World War federal debt reached $258 billion, adjusted for inflation.
During the past 10 weeks the federal government has effectively pledged to match that this fiscal year, with more coming.
According to a C.D. Howe study, “Ottawa’s net debt is headed for the previously inconceivable level of $1 trillion,” which is $105,000 for a family of four.
That crushing burden means years of higher taxes, reduced social spending, and less help for the provinces, which are on the front lines of our health-care system.
Now is the time to focus like a laser on growth and fiscal prudence and to avoid like the plague (pun intended) costly gestures that will retard recovery and achieve nothing substantive for the environment.
What we should not do is widen an already yawning gap between Canada’s costly and uncompetitive climate policies and those of the rest of the world.
We have much more to lose than countries not blessed with our vast proven oil and gas resources.
Moreover, at 1.6 percent of global GHG emissions, we can have no measurable impact on global temperatures, no matter how heroically we pursue a green transition.
And yet Finance Minister Bill Morneau has said his 2020 budget will focus on the environment, while the feds recently raised the carbon tax by 50 percent.
Every year from now until 2040 Canada could eliminate 1,500 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by substituting natural gas for coal in Asian power plants.
Over the 20 years, that is the equivalent of four Canadian LNG export facilities. But that would require pipelines to tidewater, which — perversely — environmentalists oppose.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May’s resistance to gas pipelines and opposition to nuclear power belie her fervent claim to want to save the world from climate Armageddon.
The UN forecasts the pandemic could cut global economic growth to minus one percent from a previously forecast increase of 2.5 percent. That represents roughly $3 trillion in lost production.
At the moment, developed countries are scrambling to cope with their devastated economies. Nor is climate change top-of-mind in the non-Western world, which is now responsible for three-quarters of global emissions.
International pressure to give up on the calamitous fantasy of net zero emissions by 2050 will be intense, although it remains a throne speech commitment for the government.
China’s GHG emissions, representing 28 percent of global emissions, will grow at least until 2030, given the country’s massively increased coal production.
Although the U.S., at 14 percent, has withdrawn from the Paris accord, it actually leads the world in greenhouse gas reductions because of its shift from coal to natural gas.
India, currently at seven percent of world emissions, will increase its share as it works to alleviate the poverty of 276 million people living on less than $1.25 a day.
As for Germany, its transition to green energy has been called “an impending disaster.” Chancellor Angela Merkel recently caved on support for a green energy plan after her MPs rebelled against it.
One country that can afford to play-act is Norway, whose total financial assets exceed its debt only because of North Sea oil. Its $1.1-trillion sovereign-wealth fund just blacklisted four of Canada’s largest oil producers, citing concern over high carbon emissions.
If we could stomach the hypocrisy, following Norway’s example would provide a double benefit: moral superiority and oodles of cash.
So far, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is content with virtue-signaling on Canadians’ behalf, although he is fine personally, thank you very much.
There is also a geopolitical development to consider. Deepening tension with China, in part because of its deadly coverup of the COVID-19 virus, will weaken an already unraveling international consensus on climate change. Allies cannot afford to dissipate their competitiveness during a Cold War.
Canada has the dubious distinction of being the only country rich in energy resources whose government’s policy is to keep most of its wealth buried forever in order to address a global problem that it cannot solve but which countries that could solve it won’t.
This is self-harm on a massive scale for no reason other than virtue-signaling in what is now increasingly an echo chamber. Could there be a less appropriate time for indulgent vanity than during the devastation of a global pandemic?
Read more at Financial Post
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