Will Climate Hysteria Cost U.S. Democrats The Next Elections?
In this newsletter:
1) After Election Drubbing, Massive Opposition To Coal Exit In Ruling CDU Party
Die Tagesschau, 31 May 2019
2) Cold Feet: Germany’s ‘Climate Cabinet’ Delays Action Again
Deutsche Welle, 30 May 2019
3) After Election Defeat, Queensland’s Labor Government Paves Way For Huge New Coal Mine
Australian Associated Press, 31 May 2019
4) Green Dole: Renewable Energy Jobs Plunge By A Third
The Guardian, 30 May 2019
5) Climate Activists Threaten Holiday Chaos As They Vow To Shut Down Heathrow Airport
Daily Mail, 31 May 2019
6) Scotland Yard To Charge 1,100 Climate Rebels For London Shut-Down
Evening Standard, 25 May 2019
7) Will Climate Hysteria Cost U.S. Democrats The Next Elections?
David Harsanyi, The Federalist, 30 May 2019
8) And Finally: What if Green Energy Isn’t the Future?
Mark P Mills, The Wall Street Journal, 20 May 2019
Full details:
1) After Election Drubbing, Massive Opposition To Coal Exit In Ruling CDU Party
Die Tagesschau, 31 May 2019
There is growing opposition in the ruling Christian Democratic Party about plans for phasing out coal power in Germany.
There is massive resistance within the Christian Democrats’ parliamentary party against the planned coal exit by 2038 which is to be achieved with billions of structural aid to Germany’s coal regions.
The CDU MP Axel E. Fischer told the news agency dpa in Berlin: “The recommendations of the coal commission are not legally binding as such, they point in the wrong direction, destroy future prospects and harm the environment.”
Fischer belongs to a sizable group of members of CDU MPs who refuse to accept the government’s plans.
CDU finance politician Olav Gutting MP said: “The distribution of billions of dollars in tax money to the affected regions will not create thriving landscapes there, and it is our damn duty to handle citizens’ well-earned money with care and thought.” Gutting and Fischer are both members of the executive committee of the parliamentary CDU party.
Warning about rising electricity prices
In addition to Fischer and Gutting conservative MPs Andreas Mattfeldt (CDU / Lower Saxony), Klaus-Peter Willsch (CDU /Hesse) and Alois Rainer (CSU/Bavaria) also criticised the planned coal exit by 2038. They warned of rising electricity prices, a threat to security of supply and relocation of industry abroad.
One week ago, the Federal Cabinet approved key points for billions of aid for the coal-mining regions. Over the next two decades, a total of up to 40 billion euros is planned to be given to federal states for structural reforms in Lusatia, central Germany and the Rhineland district.
Full story (in German)
2) Cold Feet: Germany’s ‘Climate Cabinet’ Delays Action Again
Deutsche Welle, 30 May 2019
A special meeting of Germany’s so-called climate cabinet on Wednesday produced little action on the issue of confronting climate change as members opted to delay making fundamental decisions until September.
Steffen Seibert, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, said concrete measures for lowering Germany’s CO2 emissions will be determined by the end of the year.
The group was formed in April and consists of representatives from the ministries of economic affairs, finance, transportation, construction and agriculture. Wednesday’s meeting was convened at the request of Environment Minister Svenja Schulze from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Merkel’s coalition partner.
Earlier this week, Schulze voiced her frustration about the CDU’s foot-dragging on her climate bill, saying she could not “take responsibility for further delays.”
Full story
3) After Election Defeat, Queensland’s Labor Government Paves Way For Huge New Coal Mine
Australian Associated Press, 31 May 2019
Adani is confident of getting the last state approval it needs for the construction of its Queensland coal mine, with a company chief declaring “we should be away in weeks”.
Adani won state government approval on Friday for its plan to protect the endangered black-throated finch, which lives on its central Queensland mine site.
It’s now waiting on one last approval, with the Department of Environment and Science due to decide on its groundwater management plan by June 13. […]
The approval of the finch management plan follows the premier’s intervention last week, after Labor’s shock defeat at the federal election.
Annastacia Palaszczuk said she was fed up with delays to state approvals, and conceded voters were too, after Labor was thumped in regions that want Adani’s jobs.
She ordered the coordinator-general to sit down with the company and officials from her environment department and agree on approval deadlines.
Adani has vowed to resume the mine’s construction as soon as its groundwater plan is approved.
Full post
4) Green Dole: Renewable Energy Jobs Plunge By A Third
The Guardian, 30 May 2019
The number of jobs in renewable energy in the UK has plunged by nearly a third in recent years, and the amount of new green generating capacity by a similar amount, causing havoc among companies in the sector, a new report has found.
Prospect, the union which covers much of the sector, has found a 30% drop in renewable energy jobs between 2014 and 2017, as government cuts to incentives and support schemes started to bite. It also found investment in renewables in the UK more than halved between 2015 and 2017.
The union compared the situation to the devastation caused to coalmining communities in the 1980s and demanded instead a “just transition” to clean energy.
Full story
5) Climate Activists Threaten Holiday Chaos As They Vow To Shut Down Heathrow Airport
Daily Mail, 31 May 2019
Climate change protestors Extinction Rebellion threaten holiday chaos as they vow to shut down Heathrow airport for 10 days with drones during peak of the getaway season.
Climate change activists Extinction Rebellion are threatening to ground thousands of holiday flights at Heathrow Airport by flying drones in the area forcing its closure.
The group, which brought Central London to a standstill in April plans a day of action in June followed by a two-week closure in July.
The proposed action has been condemned by Heathrow Airport who claim flying drones near the runway could jeopardise aircraft safety.
In a statement, the group claimed:
‘On June 18, we plan to carry out nonviolent direct action to ensure Heathrow Authorities close the airport for the day, to create a “pause” in recognition of the genocidal impact of high carbon activities, such as flying, upon the natural world.” ….
In an internal proposal written by volunteers and seen by Reuters, activists suggested using drones to force authorities to ground flights at Heathrow Airport while other protesters held picnics. The activists said they would avoid any risk to aircraft by informing the authorities of their plans in advance.
If the government does not cede to their demands after disruption on June 18, the activists proposed shutting the airport for the first two weeks in July.
Full story
6) Scotland Yard To Charge 1,100 Climate Rebels For London Shut-Down
Evening Standard, 25 May 2019
Scotland Yard wants to charge more than 1,100 people who were arrested during last month’s Extinction Rebellion protests, a senior office has said.
More than 70 activists have so far been charged in connection with the demonstrations that brought parts of London to a standstill for 10 days.
The group’s tactics involved volunteers deliberately getting themselves arrest to cause maximum disruption at roadblocks on Waterloo Bridge, Oxford Circus and Marble Arch, while others glued themselves to trains and buildings.
Some 1,130 people were arrested during the protests and 10,000 police officers were deployed over the two weeks.
At a briefing on Friday, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor said the Metropolitan Police will be pushing for the prosecution of every one of them to deter similar tactics being used in the future.
He said:
“We have charged over 70. All the others are currently under investigation and we have got a dedicated unit of around 30 officers who are investigating those offences. It is our anticipation that we are putting all of those to the CPS for decisions.”
His comments came as thousands of schoolchildren took to the streets across the country on Friday to demand action on climate change in a protest.
More environmental actions are expected in the coming months with US President Donald Trump’s visit in June and the ongoing Brexit debate likely to further stretch the police resources.
Mr Taylor insisted the Met is equipped to deal with any upcoming actions and said officers from other forces will be called into action if needed.
He called for a stronger punishment of those who break the law, with summary only charges for offences, including breaching conditions imposed under the Public Order Act, obstruction of a highway and obstruction of police, leaving magistrates with limited sentencing powers.
“I’m not saying going to jail, but we would like to see consequences for any activity at these events that is unlawful,” Mr Taylor said. “Protest is not illegal. There is nothing unlawful about protest. The activity of some individuals at a protest can be unlawful.
“What we are saying is at the moment there doesn’t seem to be much of a criminal deterrent for doing that and therefore, it doesn’t legitimise it but it does make it easy for that unlawful activity to take place. And what we would like to see is consequence, where the law is clearly broken and it goes beyond what is reasonable and a legitimate aim for a protest, for that to be recognised and for appropriate sanctions.”
Full story
7) Will Climate Hysteria Cost U.S. Democrats The Next Elections?
David Harsanyi, The Federalist, 30 May 2019
Despite Democrats’ cataclysmal framing of every weather event, Americans are safer than ever. They will never surrender the wealth and safety that technology has afforded and continues to afford them.
Climate isn’t the same as weather—unless, of course, weather happens to be politically useful. In that case, weather portends climate apocalypse.
So warns Elizabeth Warren as she surveyed Iowan rainstorms, which she claims, like tornadoes and floods, are more frequent and severe. “Different parts of the country deal with different climate issues,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–Malthusia) cautioned as she too warned of extreme tornadoes. “But ALL of these threats will be increasing in intensity as climate crisis grows and we fail to act appropriately.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D–Ore.) recently sent a fundraising email warning Democrats that climate change was causing “growing mega-fires, extremely destructive hurricanes, and horrific flooding” in which “American lives are at stake.”
Even if we pretend that passing a bazillion-dollar authoritarian Green New Deal would do anything to change the climate, there is no real-world evidence that today’s weather is increasingly threatening to human lives. By every quantifiable measure, in fact, we’re much safer despite the cataclysmal framing of every weather-related event.
How many of those taken in by alarmism realize that deaths from extreme weather have dropped somewhere around 99.9 percent since the 1920s? Heat and cold can still be killers, but thanks to increasingly reliable and affordable heating and cooling systems, and other luxuries of the age, the vast majority of Americans will never have to fear the climate in any genuine way.
Since 1980, death caused by all natural disasters and heat and cold is somewhere under 0.5 percent.
It’s true that 2019 has seen a spike in tornadoes, but mostly because 2018 was the first year recorded without a single violent tornado in the United States.
Tornadoes killed 10 Americans in 2018, the fewest since we started keeping track of these things in 1875, only four years after the nefarious combustion engine was invented.
There has also been a long-term decline in the cost of tornado damage. In 2018, we experienced near-lows in this regard. The only better years were 2017, 2016, and 2015.
After a few devastating hurricanes around a decade ago, we were similarly warned that it was a prelude to endless storms and ecological disaster. This was followed by nine years without a single major hurricane in the United States. Or, in other words, six fewer hurricanes than we experienced in 1908 alone.
According to the U.S. Natural Hazard Statistics, in fact, 2018 saw below the 30-year average in deaths not only by tornadoes and hurricanes (way under average) but also from heat, flooding, and lighting. We did experience a slight rise in deaths due to cold.
Pointing out these sort of things usually elicits the same reaction: Why do you knuckle-dragging troglodytes hate science? Well, because science’s predictive abilities on most things, but especially climate, have been atrocious. But mostly because science is being used as a cudgel to push leftist policy prescriptions without considering economic tradeoffs, societal reality, or morality.
There are two things in this debate that we can predict with near certitude: First, that modern technology will continue to allow human beings to adapt to organic and anthropogenic changes in the environment. Second, that human beings will never surrender the wealth and safety that technology has afforded and continues to afford them.
Full post
see also Why Climate Alarm Is A Vote Loser
8) And Finally: What if Green Energy Isn’t the Future?
Mark P Mills, The Wall Street Journal, 20 May 2019
There’s a reason Warren Buffett decided to bet $10 billion on the future of oil and natural gas.
What’s Warren Buffett doing with a $10 billion bet on the future of oil and gas, helping old-school Occidental Petroleum buy Anadarko, a U.S. shale leader? For pundits promoting the all-green future, this looks like betting on horse farms circa 1919.
Meanwhile, broad market sentiment is decidedly bearish on hydrocarbons. The oil and gas share of the S&P 500 is at a 40-year low, and the first quarter of 2019 saw the Nasdaq Clean Edge Green Energy Index and “clean tech” exchange-traded funds outperform the S&P.
A week doesn’t pass without a mayor, governor or policy maker joining the headlong rush to pledge or demand a green energy future. Some 100 U.S. cities have made such promises. Hydrocarbons may be the source of 80% of America’s and the world’s energy, but to say they are currently out of favor is a dramatic understatement.
Yet it’s both reasonable and, for contrarian investors, potentially lucrative to ask: What happens if renewables fail to deliver?
The prevailing wisdom has wind and solar, paired with batteries, adding 250% more energy to the world over the next two decades than American shale has added over the past 15 years. Is that realistic? The shale revolution has been the single biggest addition to the world energy supply in the past century. And even bullish green scenarios still see global demand for oil and gas rising, if more slowly.
If the favored alternatives fall short of delivering what growing economies need, will markets tolerate energy starvation? Not likely. Nations everywhere will necessarily turn to hydrocarbons. And just how big could the call on oil and natural gas—and coal, for that matter—become if, say, only half as much green-tech energy gets produced as is now forecast? Keep in mind that a 50% “haircut” would still mean unprecedented growth in green-tech.
If the three hydrocarbons were each to supply one-third of such a posited green shortfall, global petroleum output would have to increase by an amount equal to doubling the production of the Permian shale field (Anadarko’s home). And the world supply of liquid natural gas would need to increase by an amount equal to twice Qatar’s current exports, plus coal would have to almost double what the top global exporter, Australia, now ships.
Green forecasters are likely out over their skis. All the predictions assume that emerging economies—the least wealthy nations—will account for more nearly three-fourths of total new spending on renewables. That won’t happen unless the promised radical cost reductions occur.
For a bellwether reality-check, note that none of the wealthy nations that are parties to the Paris Accord—or any of the poor ones, for that matter—have come close to meeting the green pledges called for. In fact, let’s quote the International Energy Agency on what has actually happened: “Energy demand worldwide [in 2018] grew by . . . its fastest pace this decade . . . driven by a robust global economy . . . with fossil fuels meeting nearly 70% of the growth for the second year running.”
The reason? Using wind, solar and batteries as the primary sources of a nation’s energy supply remains far too expensive. You don’t need science or economics to know that. Simply propose taking away subsidies or mandates, and you’ll unleash the full fury of the green lobby.
Meanwhile, there are already signs that the green vision is losing luster. Sweden’s big shift to wind power has not only created alarm over inadequate electricity supplies; it’s depressing economic growth and may imperil that nation’s bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics. China, although adept at green virtue-signaling, has quietly restarted massive domestic coal-power construction and is building hundreds of coal plants for emerging economies around the world.
In the U.S., utilities, furiously but without fanfare, have been adding billions of dollars of massive oil- and natural-gas-burning diesel engines to the grid. Over the past two decades, three times as much grid-class reciprocating engine capacity has been added to the U.S. grid as in the entire half-century before. It’s the only practical way to produce grid-scale electricity fast enough when the wind dies off. Sweden will doubtless be forced to do the same.
A common response to all of the above: Make more electric cars. But mere arithmetic reveals that even the optimists’ 100-fold growth in electric vehicles wouldn’t displace more than 5% of global oil demand in two decades. Tepid growth in gasoline demand would be more than offset by growing economies’ appetites for air travel and manufactured goods. Goodness knows what would happen if Trump-like economic growth were to take hold in the rest of the developed world.
As Mr. Buffett knows, the IEA foresees the U.S. supplying nearly three-fourths of the world’s net new demand for oil and gas.
Green advocates can hope to persuade governments—and thus taxpayers—to deploy a huge tax on hydrocarbons to ensure more green construction. But there’s no chance that wealthy nations will agree to subsidize expensive green tech for the rest of the world. And we know where the Oracle of Omaha has placed a bet.
Mr. Mills is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a partner in Cottonwood Venture Partners, an energy-tech venture fund, and author of the recent report, “The ‘New Energy Economy’: An Exercise in Magical Thinking.”
The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.
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