Supreme Court’s WOTUS ruling will shake things up across the board

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D. June 23rd, 2023 44 Comments @ CFACT

Last month’s landmark Supreme Court ruling in Sackett v. EPA not only narrowed the scope of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate wetlands, but it will also have reverberations far beyond the Clean Water Act (CWA).

What began as an effort by Michael and Chantell Sackett to build their dream home on their 0.63-acre lot near Priest Lake in northern Idaho morphed into a 16-year legal battle that ended in a victory for the couple and a defeat for EPA when the High Court ruled that their property was not a wetland and thus not subject to EPA regulation under the 1972 CWA. But in decreeing that the only wetlands EPA could regulate were those with a “continuous surface flow” to a navigable water, such as a lake or river, the court rendered a judgment that will affect other federal environmental statutes as well.

Removing the need for many projects to obtain permits under Section 404 of the CWA, which governs dredge-and-fill discharges, will erase important triggers for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Endangered Species Act (ESA) reviews, according to George Glicksman, a law professor at George Washington University.

Effects on NEPA and the ESA

“The programs are intertwined in ways that aren’t immediately obvious,” he told Greenwire (June 15). As Greenwire explained:

“Both NEPA and the ESA require federal action to trigger a review, which in turn forces developers to consider their project’s effect on the environment and vulnerable species. Otherwise, a Section 404 forms this federal connection. But without a Clean Water Act permit, that federal nexus – in some cases – disappears.

Depending on the complexity of the project, NEPA, for example, can require either an environmental assessment or a much more comprehensive environmental impact statement (EIS). It can take years for federal officials to complete an EIS, prompting some developers to walk away from a proposed project out of sheer frustration. Before the Supreme Court’s May 25 ruling, an EIS, which included a project’s effect on a wetland with no continuous surface connection to a navigable body of water, prolonged the permitting process. With wetlands lacking that continuous surface connection no longer subject to CWA Section 404 permits, some environmental reviews will be shorter.

As it happens, the court’s ruling coincided with the enactment of a debt-ceiling agreement, which put time limits on the issuance of some federal permits. The result of both developments is less red tape.

Similarly, determining what constitutes a threatened or endangered plant or animal’s “critical habitat” under the ESA will become simpler in some cases because the types of wetlands subject to federal authority have been reduced.

By declaring the Sacketts’ bone-dry property a wetland, and then putting the couple through 16 years of litigation hell, EPA ultimately wound up diminishing its own authority under the CWA. As Professor Glicksman points out, the Supreme Court’s decision also affected two other environmental statutes. For decades, provisions of the CWA, NEPA, and ESA were skillfully used by regulators and special interest groups as a form of federal zoning to snuff out development not to their liking.

To be sure, the ESA is still a hopelessly cumbersome law with a terrible record of recovering vulnerable species. And NEPA still makes it difficult for the United States to carry out much-needed infrastructure projects. But the administrative regulatory state has been dealt a setback, and the country has moved a few steps closer to restoring the Constitution’s separation of powers.

Author

• Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

  Bonner R. Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with CFACT, where he focuses on natural resources, energy, property rights, and geopolitical developments. Articles by Dr. Cohen have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Busines Daily, The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Hill, The Epoch Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Miami Herald, and dozens of other newspapers around the country. He has been interviewed on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, NBC News, NPR, BBC, BBC Worldwide Television, N24 (German-language news network), and scores of radio stations in the U.S. and Canada. He has testified before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. Dr. Cohen has addressed conferences in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Bangladesh. He has a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a Ph. D. – summa cum laude – from the University of Munich.

DNA researchers uncover secrets of Greenland’s ancient climate

By Bonner Cohen,  December 16th, 2022 Climate 41 Comments @ CFACT

We have long known that Norsemen settled Greenland just over a millennium ago, where for the next several hundred years they survived primarily by fishing and hunting in a much warmer climate than Greenland has today.

They called their new home Greenland because this giant island in the North Atlantic was, in fact, green. The warmer temperatures in Medieval times even enabled a form of subsistence agriculture to take root at much higher latitudes than would be possible today, and generations of hardy Norsemen in Greenland assumed things would stay that way. Alas, they were forced to abandon Greenland in the late 15^th century as a result of plummeting temperatures.

The Little Ice Age had come calling.

Today, Greenland’s over 833,000 square miles are home to slightly more than 56,000 people, who are heavily concentrated along the country’s southwestern coast. The northernmost tip of Greenland is an Arctic desert, where lichens and moss are about the only forms of life one will encounter. But it wasn’t always that way.

A Much Warmer World

In a study published Nov. 7 in Nature, researchers genetically mapped 2-million-year-old DNA from Arctic sediments. They discovered that today’s Arctic desert — where it’s so dry there isn’t enough moisture to create snow — was once home to over 100 plant genera, nine animal taxa, including the extinct elephant-like mastodon, and even marine life within the same region. All this was made possible by an ancient ecosystem that was 18 to 31 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than modern-day Greenland.

It took an international team of researchers 16 years to disentangle what is now the oldest DNA to be identified. As criminal investigators know, DNA doesn’t lie. “A team effort painstakingly matched every fragment with extensive libraries of DNA collected from present-day plants, animals, and organisms,” the Washington Post (Nov. 9) reported.

“Soon, a picture of the ancient forests, bays, flora, and fauna came into focus,” the Post continued. “Yet the results were also puzzling – many of the uncovered animals and plants didn’t seem to make ecological sense. Plants and animals that are typically found in the Arctic were in the same ecosystem as those found in the boreal forests farther south. One abundant plant genus was dryas, which is typically found in the Arctic. Yet the team also found poplars, deciduous trees usually found in boreal forests.”

“No one would have predicted this ecosystem in northern Greenland at this point in time,” said Eske Willerslev, a palaogeneticist at the University of Copenhagen, who led the study.

Additionally, the team of researchers found evidence of hares, rodents, geese, and lemmings – species that are almost completely absent from northernmost Greenland today. Pointing to the diverse community of species that were sharing a common area of northern Greenland 2 million years ago, Mathew Barnes, an ecologist at Texas Tech University, who did not participate in the research, told the Post in an email: “It’s a mishmash of species that ‘do’ and ‘don’t’ belong together based on our understanding of modern ecology.”

His comments show that Barnes understands that “our understanding of modern ecology” may have to undergo a reassessment. Things that we think are a given in the modern natural world were not so in ancient times. Species have a remarkable ability to adapt to their surrounding – far greater than much fashionable ecological dogma is willing to admit.

Furthermore, the warmer temperatures the researchers were able to confirm were quickly (in geological terms) followed by a succession of Ice Ages that came and went, greatly altering the face of the Earth. Today, we’re living in an interglacial period, which means we’re between the last Ice Age, which ended about 11,000 years ago, and the next one.

The next time you read or hear that we’re experiencing “unprecedented climate change,” have a good chuckle. These people don’t know what they’re talking about and probably never will.

Author

• Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

  Bonner R. Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with CFACT, where he focuses on natural resources, energy, property rights, and geopolitical developments. Articles by Dr. Cohen have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Busines Daily, The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Hill, The Epoch Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Miami Herald, and dozens of other newspapers around the country. He has been interviewed on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, NBC News, NPR, BBC, BBC Worldwide Television, N24 (German-language news network), and scores of radio stations in the U.S. and Canada. He has testified before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. Dr. Cohen has addressed conferences in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Bangladesh. He has a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a Ph. D. – summa cum laude – from the University of Munich.

 

A History Lesson Ahead of Biden’s Green New Tax

“The thing I’m proudest of that we were able to get done in the first term was the Recovery Act. It had $90 billion in clean-energy programs.” -Vice President Joe Biden, May 9, 2013. 

August 13th, 2022

By Larry Behrens @ CFACT  115 Comments 

The start of a new week brought a renewed sense of momentum for President Joe Biden’s administration and his allies in Congress. At long last, the months-long gridlock, caused by their own party, finally broke and another gusher of tax dollars appears ready to flood our country. Economic realities and those pesky inflation reports be damned.

Proponents have dubbed the bill the “Inflation Reduction Act” because they know it sounds better than the truth: “Biden’s Green New Tax.” History will be the judge about the wisdom of pouring trillions of dollars on an economy struggling with excessive spending. No matter how you slice it, with $369 billion dollars devoted to climate and energy programs, it’s clear there’s a lot on the line for the American taxpayer. If we want to know how the Biden Administration will dole out our dollars, we need look no further than the last time Biden got billions to go green.

As part of the so-called “Recovery Act” passed during the first term of President Obama, there was $90 billion set aside for the very same climate and energy reasoning. President Obama turned to his trusty Vice President to help administer those funds. The results were disastrous.

First, the well-known failure of Solyndra was pinned on Obama, but it was Biden who led the charge in losing $535 million in the fiasco.  Solyndra became the poster child of green failure, but it was far from alone.

Then there was $20.5 billion in federal loans distributed from that 2009 stimulus. One examination found that a whopping 80 percent of that money when to “10 members of former President Barack Obama’s finance committee, and more than 12 of his bundlers.”

Note: This number is shockingly close to the current $20 billion Joe Biden wants to send to “green banks” so it can, once again, be distributed to people and organizations that may have ties to supporting Biden’s campaigns.

Two years before Joe Biden called his work on the recovery funds the “proudest” part of his first term as vice president, the Government Accountability Office raised concerns about how those funds we handled. The federal loan program “lacked appropriate tools for assessing progress,” showed favoritism to some applicants and found “reporting and quality issues” when it came to figuring out just how many “green” jobs were created. Keep in mind, this was Joe Biden’s “proudest” accomplishment.

Fast forward to 2022 and President Biden is again proud to have four times more money than he had in 2009.  Included in his Green New Tax is the extension of a massive giveaway to those who buy electric vehicles. Studies have shown that those looking to buy an EV make at least $150,000 in annual income, but apparently Joe Biden feels they need a tax break.

Past tends to be prologue for a reason. What we are witnessing with Biden’s Green New Tax is a repeat of 2009. A bill packed with billions of pork that will mostly benefit the rich and those who support President Biden’s failed energy agenda. Joe Biden may be proud of what he did in 2009, but history shows us his pride comes with a huge tag.

Larry Behrens is the Communications Director for Power The Future, a non-profit that advocates for America’s energy workers. You can find him on Twitter @larrybehrens or you can email him: larry@powerthefuture.com

This article originally appeared at Real Clear Energy

 

The Scientific Evil and Good We Do Lives On

By Dr. Jay Lehr August 8th, 2022 Science 186 Comments @ CFACT

Shakespeare said it in the play, Julius Cesar. We are surely witnessing this today as evil men and women will pass off our planet, leaving behind hundreds of millions of the Earth’s population in Energy Poverty. The essential value of energy is to allow humans to flourish (1) and enrich their quality of life by multiplying what their limited human abilities can perform independently. However, in this early period of the 21st century, our “designated experts” seized control of the reigns of progress for marching humanity back into the dark ages, ages of dogma, ages of short life expectancy, and grueling manual work needed to feed their families.

Why and who are these purveyors of darkness? I will name, but a few, and you can add to my short list of these human juggernauts which the poor across the world can only call evil. These experts of the day routinely call for fossil fuel elimination while ignoring the many undeniable benefits for humanity. This is an egregious, irrational, and ennoble evaluation.

In my life time, the prime scientist abuser of mankind was and still is Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford-trained award-winning ecologist spending his career teaching that man is a cancer on the planet. His close associate John Holdren had for us the displeasure of serving as Obama’s science director to ensure that no good science would be carried out in his administration,

James Hansen of NASA ultimately caused near bankruptcy of many nations when he stood before the US Congress in 1988 and professed to be 99 percent certain than humanity was heating our planet to a degree we may not survive.

None is more famous than Al Gore, whose book An Inconvenient Truth established his evil leadership that made the former vice-president a very rich man.

Bill McKibben led the public march to ignorance with his book The End of Nature which was able to bring corporate America closer to economic suicide.

Michael Mann, an academic climate scientist who led the worst people, suing everyone who stood in his way.

And then there is Amory Lovins, who led the charge against fossil fuel, to be replaced by undependable wind and solar power for over 40 years. There is money and power in the positions these people hold without a care for the negative impact on the human conditions.

The strong correlations we see between energy, quality of life and life expectancy have brought India and China a dramatic increase in their standards of living. Not only in China and India but hundreds of millions of people in developing industrial countries are enjoying their first light bulb, refrigerator, clean drinking water and a full stomach. Yet almost every elected official in Washington appears to believe what the press has said over and over for almost half a century. Our government school system failed to teach our children serious science and critical thinking. There is a saying that if you tell a person a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.

Billions of people are suffering, and millions are dying due to lack of cost-effective energy while today’s leaders build a dogmatic system calling for fossil fuel elimination. Instead of acknowledging the unique cost-effectiveness of fossil fuels today, these cruel leaders, like the mainstream media, deny the realities of alternatives today claiming petroleum is running out and that China has made a successful conversion away from fossil fuels. All lies. Insisting fossil fuels can easily be replaced by their green energy. Yet the reality is that less than 3% of world’s energy use comes from wind and solar.

Their malevolence worsens when we recognize that their opposition to carbon dioxide emissions does not bring them to support emission-free nuclear power. They imposed onerous regulations, project delays, and lawsuits to cripple further expansion of nuclear power in the US.

There is more large-scale hydroelectric power that could not be greener and more renewable. But again, they stop further development for fear a fish habitat might be affected somehow, someday. How can we not question their evil intent?

Yet they are not effectively building the mining sites and transmission lines for wind, were a conversion actually to take place. They don’t care, they want to bring the nations citizenry to its knees, begging for what little energy is left.

People who ignore the many benefits of cost-effective energy to the point that it they can always find a reason to oppose it and ignore energy expertise are dangerous for the terrible decisions that result.

Alex Epstein said it best in his new book Fossil Future:

“Once we see that the knowledge system telling us this conclusion also supports energy elimination polices not just for fossil fuels but also for non CO2-emitting nuclear and hydro-while being indifferent to the “green tyranny” to its supposedly beloved solar and wind, and with no concern for the billions who lack cost effective energy and the billions who could lose it? It is clear that what we are told is not just wrong. It is in fact EVIL. So, join our cause, learn the facts, gain the knowledge, and lose the fear.”

Note 1- Human Flourishing is defined as an effort to achieve self-actualization and fulfillment within the context of a larger community of individuals, each with the right to pursue his or her such efforts.

Note 2: Portions of this article were excerpted from the book FOSSIL FUTURE: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas-Not Less, with permission of the author Alex Epstein and the publisher Portfolio/Penquin. I strongly recommend this book to everyone fighting for the preservation of life in America which has been made possible by our abundance of fossil fuels before the leftist, liberal, progressives and yes communists have attempted to limit the well being of human-kind.

Author

• Dr. Jay Lehr

  CFACT Senior Science Analyst Jay Lehr has authored more than 1,000 magazine and journal articles and 36 books. Jay’s new book A Hitchhikers Journey Through Climate Change written with Teri Ciccone is now available on Kindle and Amazon.

 

The Black Hole of Environmental Impact Assessment

David Wojick August 6th, 2022 Environment, Regulation 88 Comments

Despite lots of talk about streamlining NEPA, this cannot actually be done. Environmental impact assessment (EIA) of large projects takes a long time for two inescapable reasons. First, nature is a complex system. Second, science takes time.

The result is what I call the Black Hole of environmental impact assessment because once you get in, you cannot get out. There is simply no end to the unanswered questions. Research is often like that with every answer raising more questions.

To begin with, in principle you have to identify every living thing that might be affected by the project, as well as all the important physical features. For the myriad animals and plants this is especially important if any are classified as threatened or endangered under the various protection laws.

You cannot just list all these things, oh no. You have to say where they are and in many cases what they are doing. Also how they interact, such that affecting one kind might affect others. There is the food web for example. Plus things like nesting, denning, hiding, travel, and so forth. All of this is potentially incredibly complex if an Agency or Court decides it is important.

Then, given all these living things, and what they are doing, and their physical world, comes the even more complex issue of impact. It is more complex because you are entering the world of possibility. Possibilities can be truly endless.

This is the impact part of the assessment, which only comes after a great deal of research on the actual environment is done. But considering possible adverse impacts can easily lead to new questions about the existing environment, calling for even more research.

Then after some of the more serious possible impacts become clear, we get into the issue called “mitigation”. This can mean one of two things. One is to figure out ways to change the project so as to reduce or eliminate the adverse impact. One nasty possibility is simply not to do the project. Or mitigation can mean doing things to offset the adverse impact. Improving things someplace else for example.

I have personally been down this long EIS road, trapped in the Black Hole (if black holes can have roads). In fact I took one of the first hits from NEPA. As a junior engineer I was helping design large dams for the US flood control program. One of my dams became one of the first test cases for what Environmental Impact Assessment meant in actual practice.

There being no benchmark EIA to follow, we just sent in a few pages from the planning report. We were promptly sued for failure to comply with NEPA. Serious environmental questions were raised and the research began. I eventually left the program for a faculty position at Carnegie Mellon. Some years later I lost track of the case when the EIA was well over a foot thick and had just been bounced again because the aesthetics section was deemed inadequate.

The dam was never built. In fact the entire flood control program came to a grinding halt. This was the clear intent of NEPA at the time and it was unhappily effective. I still feel bad when floods ravaged communities knowing we could have prevented it.

I was getting a Ph.D. in philosophy of science at the time so paid close attention to the central role that scientific research played in bogging us down. The term “environment” sounds deceptively simple but the physical environment is wondrously complex. I doubt Congress realized this at the time, or even today.

The NEPA mandate basically says this: “First understand everything that is going on, that might be adversely affected by your project, then figure out how to minimize or make up for these adverse effects. This kind of understanding cannot be streamlined. If the mandate is pushed hard enough it is actually impossible to achieve.

As a closing aside I want to mention the huge offshore wind projects presently proposed to line the East Coast. As my regular readers know, I have been looking into the potential EIA issues with these projects, especially off Virginia. See my articles to date listed at the end.

These EIA issues are massive for all offshore wind projects, not just Virginia’s. To begin with there is no precedent, just like with my dam many years ago. We have never built this sort of thing, which is really big, in this environment. What is the proper scope of the research?

Then too there is at least one severely endangered critter, the North Atlantic Right Whale, which lives along the entire Coast. There may well be others, migratory birds for example. Even worse, a lot of the environment is practically inaccessible for research purposes. It is under the water.

A lawsuit challenging the superficial EIA for a relatively small offshore wind project in New England has already been filed. If this sort of challenge becomes widespread along the Coast it is likely that nothing will be built for many years. It may never be built, just like our flood control dams.

Mind you I think these huge offshore wind projects are a very bad idea so would not mourn their demise. I fact I welcome it. The Black Hole can have them.

In closing here are my offshore wind EIA articles:

https://www.cfact.org/2022/07/13/virginias-offshore-wind-proposal-threatens-endangered-whales/

https://www.cfact.org/2022/07/22/are-the-feds-hiding-the-virginia-endangered-whales/

https://www.cfact.org/2022/07/26/threat-to-endangered-whales-gets-louder/

Author

• David Wojick

  David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. For origins see http://www.stemed.info/engineer_tackles_confusion.html For over 100 prior articles for CFACT see http://www.cfact.org/author/david-wojick-ph-d/ Available for confidential research and consulting.

 

 

Biden’s electric caravan to Green utopia runs out of gas

By Larry Bell | June 28th, 2022| Energy| 54 Comments @ CFACT

The woke Biden administration is receiving loud wake up calls from appropriately alarmed constituents as their poll numbers tank.

The message is that a vast majority of the country isn’t feverish enough about global warming Armageddon hyped by a powerful coalition of globalist non-governmental organizations (NGO’s), investment corporations, well-funded environmental activist, green subsidy lobbies, far left government special interest groups—and politicos—to warrant sacrificing reliable, affordable fossil-fueled energy sufficiency essential to individual life quality and national economic prosperity.

The rude awakening is warranted.

Throughout our history, America’s rich abundance of oil, natural gas and coal has afforded US citizens the world’s highest living standards. And until very recently—just before Joe Biden took office—our nation was not only energy independent, but also a leading global oil and gas exporter.

Witness the current paradox, a presidential promise to kill the hydrocarbon industry, followed up by implementing every conceivable regulatory measure to do precisely that.

And then the hubris to demand that this same “big oil” pump more of their evil product as they simultaneously plead with Saudi Arabia, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Venezuela, and Iran to do the same.

The consequences should hardly be surprising—record gasoline and diesel prices that are rippling through every corner of business and driving up food and commodity costs with a devastating 8.6% four-decade high inflation.

Perhaps even far left liberals are beginning to realize that the idea of replacing the more than 80% of reliable energy we get from hydrocarbons by growing the less than 4% provided by intermittent wind and solar combined— plus then also try to add millions of electric vehicles to already overstressed power grids that require big batteries that depend upon rare earth minerals where 80% come from China—may not be a feasible, winning strategy after all.

Nevertheless, that’s exactly what Joe and his core White House and congressional supporters have attempted to push and sell to the public when, as a presidential candidate, he promised: “I guarantee you we’re going to end fossil fuels.”

On his first day in office, President Biden canceled the Keystone XL pipeline and halted new leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

A week later, he banned new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters, and in June he shut down exploration on existing leases in ANWR.

In October, he increased the regulatory burdens on building pipelines and other infrastructure, and last February, he limited leasing in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve (NPR-A).

Then, in April, almost a year after a federal judge enjoined the White House from implementing its pause on leases in federal lands and waters, the Biden administration finally offered 144,400 acres for exploration—only 20% of the acreage originally slated for this tranche of leases—an area less than half the size of Phoenix.

By comparison, bear in mind here that the Federal Government owns and manages 640 million acres, 28% of all US land, totaling about six times the size of California.

The feds also raised the federal royalty rate for new leases 50% from 12.5% to 18.77%, the first increase since they were first imposed in the 1920’s.

On top of that, the Biden White House intently nominated vehemently anti-fossil energy officials to shepherd draconian regulatory policies including climate impact disclosures to dry up industry investment capital in favor of preferred “clean” alternatives.

Enter the administration’s Department of Energy Secretary, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who supported every failed government subsidized green boondoggle the Obama-Biden administration threw in her lap.

The Mackinac Center, a Michigan think tank, reported that only 2.3% of Granholm’s hundreds of millions of handouts for favored start-ups in her state during her governorship from 2003 to 2011 met their advertised job creation promises.

Appearing recently on CNN’s “State of the Union,” ahead of President Biden’s plan to meet with the Saudi’s once again seeking relief from his self-inflicted policies, Granholm said, “we need to have increased production, so that everyday citizens in America will not be feeling this pain that they’re feeling right now.”

This national indignity, after the Saudi crown prince previously refused to take our president’s call, followed Biden’s letter to seven major oil producers and refiners in June, demanding them to take “immediate action” to increase the supply of gasoline, and blasting them for record prices at the gas pump—which he also conveniently blamed on Vladimir Putin.

After all, it was Biden’s war on America’s hydrocarbons, not Putin’s war on Ukraine, that reduced supplies and drove up prices.

In January of 2021, the average price of regular gasoline was $2.33 a gallon.

By February of this year, it was up to $3.52.

Since as of May, the average price was $4.44, 56% of that rise predated the invasion.

Rapidly approaching midterm elections leave Democrats little time to relieve inflationary pump pains. Other than return to Trump-era policies—which his party’s far left wing won’t possibly allow, Joe Biden’s only remaining options are short-term gimmicks intended to appear show he’s doing something helpful.

A total public feel-good deception was to have his EPA increase the maximum allowable amount of ethanol additive in petroleum from 10% (E10) currently, to 15% (E15) over summer driving months between June 1 and Sept. 15.

The ethanol strategy is a sham “fix” which will only add to inflationary food costs by consuming more of our nation’s corn supply, provides about 40% less energy than petroleum (reducing milage efficiency); and offers no environmental advantages or CO2 emission reduction benefits whatsoever.

The White House is also pushing for Congress to suspend the 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal gas tax for three months, primarily a public relations play that could save about $3 on the $75 it costs to fill up an average 15-gallon gas tank at $4.98 per gallon.

New York’s June 1st suspension of its 16-cent gas tax—out of roughly 46 cents a gallon between state and local taxeshas had notably little consumer benefit, leaving the $4.98 a gallon pump price nearly unchanged.

In the end, President Biden and his progressive playbook have successfully accomplished what they set out to do—to make fossil energy prohibitively expensive so that we use less of it.

Their major failure in the process was attempting to replace those marvelously abundant and efficient hydrocarbons with magical green alternatives before their empty promises ran out of gas, their midterm polls tanked, and their roadmap to Utopia led the country to nowhere any of us should ever wish to be.

This article originally appeared at NewsMax

Author

•   Larry Bell

  CFACT Advisor Larry Bell heads the graduate program in space architecture at the University of Houston. He founded and directs the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture. He is also the author of "Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax."

View Larger Image Tortoise thought to be extinct found on Galapagos Island

 By CFACT | November 6th, 2020| Environment |12 Comments @ CFACT

An expedition to the island of Fernandina of the Galapagos Islands has found a female of the species Chelonoidis phantasticus, or the Fernandina giant tortoise. The tortoise was orginally thought to be extinct, as a member of the species had not been seen since 1906.  In even better news, the team that found the Fernandina giant tortoise believes there are more alive on the island, based off of droppings and tracks.

TheScientist reports:

“‘The photos from the team clearly show a moderately saddle-backed, old female about half to two-thirds the size of the known male. Pending genetic confirmation, this is almost undoubtedly the lost Fernandina Giant Tortoise,’ says Anders Rhodin from the Turtle Conservancy and International Union for Conservation of Nature, in the statement.

“The team members suspect more tortoises may live on Fernandina because of scat and tracks they observed there. The expedition included members from the Galapagos National Park, the Galapagos Conservancy, and Animal Planet, which funded the search and will feature it on an episode of the show ‘Extinct or Alive.’”

The end goal is to of course breed more of the species, if their suspicions that additional tortoises are alive proves true. Females can store sperm for a long period of time, according to Duke University professor of conservation ecology Stuart Pimm.  This gives hope for the species, and biodiversity of the Galapagos!

To read the story in TheScientist, click here.

Unanimous Supremes limit Endangered Species Act in Dusky Gopher Frog decision

By CFACT Ed November 4th, 202 0| Environment, Regulation |0 Comments @CFACT 

The Supreme Court ruled 8-0 that the Endangered Species Act cannot be used to control land in Louisiana to protect the Dusty Gopher Frog, which currently only lives in Mississippi.

Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the court held that, “according to the ordinary understanding of how adjectives work, ‘critical habitat’ must also be ‘habitat… Only the ‘habitat’ of the endangered species is eligible for designation as critical habitat.”

This is a significant reform.  The ESA has become the favorite vehicle of activists seeking to control people’s use of their private land.  That the endangered species should actually be present on the land in question might seem a no-brainer, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t get it.  Today’s Supreme Court Decision reverses the Fifth Circuit.

Is the ESA no longer a blank check for eco-gadflies?

Read the full Supreme Court decision Weyerhaeuser Company v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service at CFACT.org.

 

We must stop suffering fools

Modern society cannot afford the costs of giving them the power and prestige they demand

 

James E. Smith, Ph.D. @ CFACT, Canada Free Press

An old adage says we should “gladly suffer fools.” The opposing view is that we should “stop doing stupid.” Either way, the key concern is the direct impact that not confronting stupid or shortsighted actions has on morale and the long-term effectiveness of any decision-making/leadership process.

Whether it is managing people, business processes, visionary leadership or important innovation efforts, the need to mitigate stupid, wasteful directives, interjections and interruptions has become an essential requirement if we are to grow socially and economically.

A primary reason we as a species have been so successful is our ability to take advantage of acquired knowledge in making decisions and solving problems. These abilities also allow us to aggressively protect ourselves from the varied and changing environments we choose to live in, amidst the diverse personalities that we are expected to live and work with.

In other words, we have the ability to successfully teach, mentor, lead and manage as required to precipitate the next great something. This becomes a clear necessity in staying ahead of the problems that prior generations created in solving even earlier problems. It also seems to be a primary characteristic for any advancing technological society, where the notion of simply stepping off the progress merry-go-round in favor of “an earlier, simpler time” will lead only to frustration and a train to Emerald City.

And yet many seem to have an apparently endless willingness to allow, or at least tolerate, acts of stupidity. This is certainly not a new problem. Each generation has had to deal with the few, but noisy and persistent, actors who make life and progress just a little harder to navigate. But unlike in the past, when we may have had the luxury to argue trivial points ad nauseam with little consequence, the accelerating rate of our social and technological development means we can no longer tolerate these delays.

Consider how our society often indulges foolishness by individuals or groups acting out of ignorance or petulance. These people expect to continue getting away with their interference, obstruction, stupidity and obnoxious behavior because they think they are entitled, above reproach or simply smarter than the rest of society, or they have ensconced themselves high up in the hierarchical or governmental pecking order.

Many people who fit this description actually begin as foolish, but appeal to the mercy of their associates or subordinates, learn what is needed, and use the group’s combined skill set to move the process forward. This preferred path eventually removes the party from the “stupid group.” (Your own past experiences can judge what percentage of the population chooses this option.)

Others, however, ignore reality and micro-manage whatever capabilities, skill sets and authorities they have been given or assigned – and often request more time and resources to advance their beliefs, agendas and ignorance. Ultimately, if they fail to accomplish their goals, they find ways to blame everything and everyone around them for their failure. If they plead their case well enough, they may even be rewarded with a promotion and even greater responsibilities that they can’t or won’t handle in the future.

This latter situation is clearly too prevalent in our society at all levels of corporate America, and, of course, within the government: local, state and federal. It is also prevalent in our social programs and the very activities we subject ourselves and our children to. In many of these cases, people get fed up and walk out, while others feel compelled by societal, employment and governance rules and expectations to put up with it all.

It is clear to a growing number of us that we as a society have sat too long letting people who have perfected the art of stupid continue to add ever increasing levels of nonsense to our already busy lives, through accident, oversight, ignorance, laziness, personal gain, or just plain self-entitlement.

Letting “stupid” continue, with no relief or recourse, is affecting our home, social and work environment, our creative and innovative talents, and the governance we expect and subject ourselves to.

We shouldn’t have a problem with ignorant people who are willing to learn and to do the best they can. The problem is with those who are unwilling to learn, or to develop new skill sets but still expect to be allowed by silent assent to do as they please. Even worse are the growing numbers of people who expect to succeed by virtue of their imperious demands and loud, obnoxious, even threatening behavior.

Non-reaction on our part has perpetuated growing levels of such behavior on their part, and an increasing degree of hopelessness and complacency on the part of decent, reasonable people. That has an additional downside.

Failure to respond and act in response to stupid or bad behavior breeds greater incompetence, as equally or more incompetent people are recruited at all management and leadership levels, to ensure that “stupid” isn’t exposed or jeopardized. More importantly, we also get a lowered performance bar, reducing or even removing challenges and the need for excellence. This result makes us all stupid.

Clearly, stupid has been around since little Jimmy decided to poke the sleeping bear with a stick.

I do believe, though, that we as a population have increasingly (and incorrectly) decided that it is just plain easier to let things continue as they are. We have become a nation of people who are too busy to get involved; too indoctrinated into believing the current state of affairs was mandated on high; or too intimidated by loud, menacing street mobs to question their wisdom or asserted “will of the people.”

These will eventually become more opportunities for well-deserved Darwin Awards to weed out the worst practitioners of stupid (or worse) behavior.

I don’t believe today’s “middle America” had any real input into the present situation, though it may be complicit through its silence. But I get an uneasy feeling that what is being pontificated, decided and decreed is being listened to and accepted by too many people who are either clueless, apathetic or feeling obligated by self-imposed, job-related or socially pressured expectations to just sit there and take it.

I also believe a growing percentage of those same folks simply don’t notice or acknowledge what they read or hear about, or even witness with their own eyes. So why do we continue down this path?

I don’t have an answer. Maybe we just need a few people with the courage and presence of mind to speak out, step forward and refuse to take it anymore. It may require a groundswell from the general population to get noticed. But that is unlikely to happen without a few brave people taking a stand.

All I know is, a lot of individuals in this world are still plugged-in and aware enough to know things are not right, or not right enough.

We all see and call things wrong at times, or frequently. However, if we haven’t made a few mistakes, we probably haven’t done anything good either, or we are still in bed with the covers pulled over our heads.

Making well-reasoned decisions – and standing up to bullies, oppression and intolerance – are hallmarks of our nation’s success story. Our continued success, and even survival, depends on this continuing. It seems to me it’s time for each one of us to identify and challenge a small piece of the human foolishness around us, and work to improve the situation, by demanding that the perpetrators “Stop Doing Stupid!”

James E. Smith is a retired university professor of engineering and current Member Manager for Plasma Igniter, LLC. 

Green paganism

By Mark Hendrickson |August 15th, 2020 | Environment|9 Comments @ CFACT

 Many zealous greens are strongly imbued with pagan values. Paganism is generally defined as polytheism mixed in with nature worship. Primitive pagans frequently cowered before the forces of nature, fatalistically resigned to being at nature’s mercy, believing that progress was not only impossible, but a criminal offense against nature. So complete was their submission to nature, and so foreign to them was the idea that individual lives have value, that pagan societies often practiced human sacrifice to appease the gods of nature, particularly the sun god (e.g., the Aztecs).

 Let’s forget about polytheism for now. What’s more important are the attitudes toward nature and human life. In the modern scientific era, many people – whether prompted by theistic or humanistic beliefs and values – reject the pagan beliefs that humankind should submit to nature and that individual human lives deserves protection. However, many other people, particularly hardcore greens, reject those principles and replicate primitive paganism by exalting nature and devaluing human life.

Pagan greens insist that we cling to dependence on natural, “clean, renewable” sources of energy, namely, from the wind and sun. Try as they might, though, they can’t coax consistency and reliability out of those fickle natural sources. Nor are wind and solar energy really clean or renewable, since they depend on massive consumption of many “nonrenewable” resources, some of them highly polluting. (They also kill more wildlife than fossil fuels do, but that’s another story.)

Of particular concern are the sometimes rabidly anti-human beliefs of green pagans. They have variously labelled the human race “a virus,” “a disease” “vermin,” “a cancer.” The hatred for humanity is palpable. Here is more: “The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing”; “Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs”; “Man is no more important than any other species.”

Like some primitive pagan societies, groveling in fear before the forces of nature, pagan greens believe that some individuals need to be sacrificed for life to go on. Thus, the founder of the Environmental Defense Fund, favored banning DDT because the ban would, “get rid of some of them” (in Ebenezer Scrooge’s words, “decrease the surplus population”) via insect-borne malaria and insect-caused crop destruction. Indeed, the human death toll from banning rather than moderating the use of DDT has exceeded the death toll from communism, making environmentalism the most lethal leftist ideology in history. That shouldn’t be surprising, for communists at least paid lip service (however dishonestly) to “the good of the people,” while pagan greens regard human life as no better than a pestilential germ.

The anti-human animus of pagan greens even gave rise to a pejorative term: “speciesism” – i.e., the belief that humans are superior to other species. Well, in pagan green cosmology, humans may not be superior to other species, but in the real world, we are. Forget about us being at the top of the food chain. Think moon-landings, movie magic, Mozart and McCartney. Humans are unique. Every other species pursues its self-interest without a thought for the long-term survival of other species. Only humans have enough foresight to take deliberate steps to try to conserve other species. Only humans could feel regret and grieve if a beloved species goes extinct. Only humans are clever enough to discover or invent 57 different genders. Sorry, animal kingdom, but it’s no contest – humans are superior.

The contrary belief to speciesism is that all species are equal. That belief can be harmful to humans. About 30 years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency blocked the cleanup of sewage in the Tijuana River Basin on the grounds that the cleanup would endanger the survival of the life forms that dwelled in that toxic (to humans) brew. Yes, federal bureaucrats placed the survival of various bacteria above the health of human beings. That’s pagan!

Another manifestation of anti-human green paganism is their preference for anti-growth agendas. The deadliest environment for a human being is poverty, yet greens work to thwart economic development in developing countries by trying to deny them access to the very fossil fuels that enabled the people in developed countries to climb out of poverty and live thriving, healthy lives. You can read details of these tragic and genocidal policies in Paul Driessen’s superb book, Eco-Imperialism. We need an environmentalism as if people mattered. (As a counterpoise to Friends of the Earth, we could use an environmental advocacy group called “Friends of people who live on Earth.)

Green icon Paul Ehrlich once asserted, “Economic growth is not the solution it’s the problem.” He is 180 degrees off-target. Growth is the solution. If it were true that the more economic development there is, the more polluted our environment would be, then our goose would be cooked. We could conceivably get so prosperous that we’d pollute ourselves to death. But the world doesn’t work that way.

Instead, there is a well-known pattern known as the Kuznets curve (named after the late economist Simon Kuznets who explained the pattern). What happens is that when societies begin to develop and climb out of poverty, pollution rises. But once development gets to the point where basic needs are met and discretionary income rises, people are willing and able to spend money on both pollution remediation and pollution prevention. Consequently, affluent (developed) societies are less polluted than developing societies.

Contemporary green paganism is an atavistic, anti-life fetish. Cloaked in mystical ignorance and wildly misanthropic, contemporary green pagans are as much of a threat to their fellow humans as their primitive forbears ever were.

Author

• Mark Hendrickson
  Mark Hendrickson, Ph.D., is an economist who has analyzed the global warming story for 30 years.

Alarmist queen Hayhoe takedown by Friends of Science

David Wojick |June 1st, 2020| Climate| 25 Comments  @ CFACT

If Greta Thunberg is an alarmist princess then Katherine Hayhoe is the queen of climate alarmism, at least in the U.S. and Canada. She was the de facto spokesperson for the atrocious third National Climate Assessment. After that she started doing bogus “Here’s what is going to happen to you” climate studies for various states and cities. Making big bucks scaring people.

Last year Hayhoe delivered a doomsday forecast to the Province of Alberta, Canada, and here our story begins. Alberta is home to the Friends of Science Society (FOSS), one of Canada’s top skeptical organizations. FOSS has now produced a 77 page takedown report, shredding Hayhoe’s so-called study in detail. It is an elegant critical work, with implications far beyond Canada.

The topic is technical but it is written for policy makers. The plain English table of contents gives the flavor and shows the scope, with 37 succinct chapters. There are even chapters titled “What is “Climate Change”?” and “What is a Climate Model?” In the same vein Hayhoe’s report is arrogantly titled “Alberta’s Climate Future” so the FOSS takedown is “Facts versus Fortune Telling”.
There are lots of data issues, especially since the Hayhoe report uses truncated trends. The FOSS rebuttal does a lot of longer term analysis.

Another big issue is that the Hayhoe report is based on so-called “downscaling” of hot climate models. This means taking huge crude regional results and interpolating questionable local details. Hayhoe bills herself as an “atmospheric scientist” but her Ph.D. work was on downscaling, which is just computer science. It is fitting that she is now in a university Political Science department, as her work is certainly political.

What Hayhoe ignores is the fact that different global climate models give wildly different regional projections. I recall when the first U.S. National Climate Assessment came out; it used two major models, the Canadian and the British Hadley. For the North Central region one projected a 160% increase in rainfall, while the other gave a 60% decrease. Swamp or desert! Obviously this junk is no good for policy making.

Here is the Friends of Science condensed summary:

“This review shows how Hayhoe & Stoner misinform, how they did not use all available information, how they cultivate alarm regarding Black Swan events, while ignoring counter trends and evidence of cycles. Their report style demonstrates a false, absolute certainty, of knowledge, where due qualification of assumptions and other influences can alter results as reported. Facts and evidence, not fortune-telling, should guide public policy on climate and energy.”

Here are some more specific and telling FOSS findings:

“Hayhoe & Stoner’s “Alberta’s Climate Future” report fails in a number of ways. The report ignores climate cycles and instead forecasts continuing linear temperature increases based on global climate models, even when local trends may be quite different. The report only addresses trends from 1950, ignoring much warmer conditions in the past in the Province.”

“More concerning, “Alberta’s Climate Future” is based on the use of unreasonably unlikely scenarios, such as Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5. This computer simulation is a very extreme projection of the future where the world goes back to using more than five times the coal than is used today. Most mainstream scientists believe the RCP8.5 scenario to be a critically flawed benchmark for forecasting future climate.”

“Hayhoe & Stoner make bold and unverified statements such as: “extreme high and low temperatures are projected to increase exponentially” without justification. The report creates alarm with discredited references to natural “Black Swan” events, ascribing human caused climate change as the driver of floods and fires.”

There is a great deal more criticism, which is worth looking at. FOSS really does a job on Queen Hayhoe’s so-called research.

The Friends of Science takedown is a model for critical analysis of alarmist pseudoscientific hype. The deeply flawed Hayhoe report is not unusual. On the contrary it is typical of climate alarmism — computer based, on selected data, presenting speculative scary conclusions as facts.

Author

David Wojick

David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. For origins see http://www.stemed.info/engineer_tackles_confusion.html For over 100 prior articles for CFACT see http://www.cfact.org/author/david-wojick-ph-d/ Available for confidential research and consulting.

 

Mann, Hayhoe try to erase the Medieval warm period

By James Taylor | October 1st, 2019 | Climate | 360 Comments

 

Climate alarmists Michael Mann and Katharine Hayhoe have been caught using dubious, revisionist temperature data in their attempt, as one Climategate email author put it,  to “deal a mortal blow” to the extensively documented Medieval Warm Period.

Before climate change became a political issue, it was scientifically well-established that a significant global warming event occurred between approximately 900 AD and 1200 AD. For example, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) First Assessment Report presented a temperature history and visual graph documenting that the Medieval Warm Period existed and that it brought temperatures at least as warm as today (at pg. 7). Multiple peer-reviewed studies provided additional confirmation of the Medieval Warm Period.

The warming climate of the Medieval Warm Period spurred abundant crop production, fewer extreme droughts and floods, growing human population, and improving living standards. The Little Ice Age terminated the Medieval Warm Period and brought devastating weather extremes, widespread crop failures, famines, plagues like the Black Death, and a contracting human population. (For a good summary of the extensive benefits of the Medieval Warm Period and the devastating harms of the Little Ice Age, see the excellent book, “In the Wake of the Plage: The Black Death and the World It Created.”).........To Read More....

Georgetown Radicals Shout Down CFACT Forum

By Craig Rucker

Last night (9/19/19) a mob of protestors tried to shut down CFACT’s climate rebuttal event at Georgetown University.   They shouted, blew horns, pounded on windows, and chanted over CFACT’s Marc Morano and Paul Driessen and others as they attempted to give their presentations to the packed room. Campus police were required to come in to escort the disruptors out.   I wrote you yesterday about the UN’s climate roadshow starting at Georgetown University and then coming to a crescendo in New York City this weekend and all next week. Last night’s shameless display was just the beginning of the hypocrisy and radicalism that will be on display for the world to see.   The Georgetown event was hosted by the College Republicans, who wanted to work with CFACT to offer a  fact-based rebuttal to the 2-day MSNBC climate forum on campus featuring several Democratic candidates for president. The rebuttal event ran for 2 hours in between MSNBC’s coverage.  CFACT's forum was featured in Newsweek.    The alarmists had two days to make wild claims.  Those of us countering them with facts had two hours. That was more free speech than the Left could tolerate.   When campus police arrived the protesters obstructing the event refused to leave, saying “this is a public forum” and “we were invited to come here.”     For the radical Greens, it’s free speech for me, but not for thee.   The police tried to reason with the protesters.   In response, the disruptors chanted: “What do we want? Climate Justice! When do we want it? Now!” Apparently, these students don’t care about justice for those in the developing world who have been denied access to the electricity, clean water, and medicines that come from a modern society flourishing from fossil fuels.   Had the protesters actually listened to Paul Driessen’s or Dr. Caleb Rossiter’s talks, they would have learned about that.   The intolerant Left cannot stand any opposition.  When their assertions are countered with facts they collapse. CFACT won't sit idly by as our freedoms are stripped away in the name of climate craziness. For nature and people too,   Craig Rucker President   P.S. The climate radical roadshow moves from Georgetown to New York City this weekend and next week.  CFACT is headed there now to counter the dogma emanating from the UN and their army of radical protesters at every step. Without support from our friends CFACT's work stops.  Can we count on you to give whatever amount you can to help us take the field?

Is the “climate crisis” a cruel hoax or tragic blunder?

By David Wojick | September 18th, 2019 |Climate| 195 Comments

Back when the climate “crisis – emergency – catastrophe – existential threat” stuff emerged, the October 2018 IPCC report was routinely cited as the source, although that seems to have faded. But the standard milestones, like net zero by 2050 and 12 years for decisive action (to 2030), are from that report. The problem is that there is no support in that report for the crisis narrative, none at all. The so-called crisis is a gross misinterpretation.

The reality is that the IPCC was tasked with saying what difference the two Paris Accord targets make, which are 2.0 degrees versus 1.5 degrees of total warming. Predictably (because all warming is bad to these people) they found more damage at 2.0 degrees, but arguably not a lot more. (There is also damage at 1.5 degrees, just as there is today at 1.0 degrees.)

The IPCC also pointed out, correctly, that according to the models it would be a Herculean task to hold to 1.5 degrees. This is where the extreme policy measures are found. The IPCC said that extreme measures would be required to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, if that were desired. They did not say it was desirable to do this........To Read More....

House of Representatives working to bring back energy dependence

By Craig Rucker | September 13th, 2019 |Energy| 16 Comments @CFACT

 

The House of Representatives is advancing a series of bills designed to permanently block access to huge portions of America’s vast oil reserves.

Dr. Jay Lehr reports at CFACT.org that the House wants endless moratoriums (depending on the bill) on pumping oil in the Atlantic and Pacific outer continental shelf, the Gulf of Mexico, along the Florida coast, the entire Arctic National Wildlife refuge (ANWR) and others.

The 1973 Arab oil embargo proved just how dangerous dependence on foreign oil can be.  Many of us still remember skyrocketing prices, long lines at the pump, out of control inflation and throbbing economic pain.

Foreign oil dependence is not only dangerous for the American economy, it places our national defense, and with it the security of the world, in real jeopardy.

For decades politicians promised energy independence, but accomplished little.  The private sector stepped up.  The shale energy revolution and discovery of tremendous oil reserves in the U.S. and Canada brought what was once an unrealistic goal into solid being.

Today the United States is at or near the top of world energy production.  Green zealots and their political allies want to shut America’s energy wonder down to the delight of OPEC and Russia.
It takes a special kind of stupid to think that dependence on foreign oil and higher fuel and electricity prices would be good for America or the world.