Suffering is the Beginning of Wisdom: Part II, Did America Really Vote For This?

By Rich Kozlovich

 

I think this cartoon epitomizes the constant drum beat we're hearing from the media and politicians all over the nation, on both sides of the aisle.  If this cartoon is true, then we're really expected to believe this Red Wave failure was America's rebuke of Donald Trump and an embrace of unending inflation, high crime rates, massive spending, massive taxation, sexual grooming of America's children by the public education system, an out of control administrative state, expensive energy and energy shortages, racial disharmony, uncontrolled crime, unconstitutional mandates for false pandemics, and in short:  We're expected to believe Americans supports destroying America.  

Are we really expected to believe that? 

Well, if that's true then why aren't we seeing that being played out in the real world?   

If this election is a reflection of what America believes, then why is it we're seeing corporations that went all Woke, like Disney, are doing so badly?

Their stock is crashing, there are travel restrictions for company business, a hiring freeze and layoffs in the planning, and the nitwits running Disney claim they've been around for a long time and they will weather this storm.  The only problem for Disney is there isn't a Walt Disney in charge.  There are leftist nitwits who caved in to pressure from a small group of radicalized employees, and picked a fight with DeSantis, and lost.  Their share value has dropped 62%.  

If this election is a reflection of what America really believes then why are all these

If this election is a reflection of what America believes, then why is it all over the nation parents are challenging the dictates of out of control tyrannical school boards who are mandating sexual grooming of America's children, pandemic mandates on masks and vaccination and CRT, and replacing these petty tyrants with conservatives who understand they work for the parents, not the other way around. 

Election night did not deliver the overwhelming victory Republicans had hoped for on a national level, but on a local level — in school board races — conservatives picked up a wave of wins across the country. This week, conservatives flipped at least nine school boards in at least six states — Michigan, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, and Florida — giving them conservative majorities, according to two parental rights groups who endorsed many of the victorious candidates.

If that's true, and it is, then why would we believe these same parents voted for candidates who oppose them on every issue involving education, protection of America's children, and societal stability, even targeting them as domestic terrorists?

In the media the far left wing misfits like CNN's Don Lemon are being demoted because their viewership is dying, and I don't think CNN will survive, even under the new ownership.   So, are we expected to believe Americans who are fleeing these left wing news sources are voting for the very things they're refusing to watch?   

 

Are we really expected to believe that?  

 

Crime is exploding all over the nation.  And it's being caused by Democrat leadership and their failure to prosecute criminals properly and often not at all.   The streets of Philadelphia sre so bad Mexico is using footrage of them in ads to scare young people away from drugs. 

 

Defund the police and release violent criminals into the public is an unending theme among Democrat politicians.  Politicians who have absolutely insane views and yet were elected, like John Fetterman.  Are we expected to believe Americans really want to defund their police forces all over the nation, have uncontrolled illegal immigration, create sanctuary cities to prevent their deportation? A constant theme among these leftist politicians.  It's clear these leftist elitists don't care people are being killed on the streets, in stores, and worrying about paying their rent. Daniel Greenfield asks:  “How Could Anyone Possibly Vote for These Freakshows?”

 

In New York City a man was beaten to death with wooden board by a mob.  Was this an anomaly?  No, in point of fact this Democrat-controlled city is facing a major increase in major crimes:

 

".......increasing by 29.1 percent since this time last year, according to NYPD crime statistics. Felony assault is up by 13.9 percent, burglary is up by 28.4 percent, and robbery is up by 31.5 percent.  Furthermore, in the North Queens Patrol borough — where Sunday’s homicide occurred — crime has risen higher than the city rate at 45.9 percent since last year. Felony assault is up by 24.2 percent, rape is up by 26.6 percent, and robberies within the area have risen by 58.3 percent."

 

Are we expected to believe that's what America likes, and voted accordingly?  

 

Well, if what Americans are supporting, and what Americans are rejecting in the real world is any indication, it would appear Americans don't like any of that, and yet Democrats managed to flip several state legislatures, putting those states under total Democrat control.  

 

If Americans don't support businesses, school boards and the news media that supports Democrat policies, then why in the world would America vote Democrats into offices that gives them tyrannical control over their lives?    

 

They wouldn't, so there must be another explanation, which I will address tomorrow.  

• Suffering is the Beginning of Wisdom: Part I, It's All Trump's Fault!

How The Left Views Administrative Law: A Highlight From The Federalist Society Convention

November 12, 2022/ Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

You may have seen that the Federalist Society has been holding its annual convention in Washington. I was there on Thursday and Friday. They have recorded all the presentations. If you want to watch some, go to this link and see what interests you.

There was not a lot of moaning about the election results. Rather, the focus was on high-minded issues, mostly of constitutional and administrative law.

I have selected a highlight that you may find interesting. One of the lunchtime panels on Thursday was titled “Render Law Unto Congress and Execution Unto the Executive: The Supreme Court Rebalances Constitutional Power.” Here is the description of the subject of the panel:

The Roberts Court is recasting the administrative state according to its view of the separation of powers. It is giving the President more authority to fire his subordinates and creating a hierarchical executive where the President and his principal officers have more authority over appointments and decision making. It is forcing the legislature to speak clearly when it wants to vest agencies with major powers and expressing interest in reinvigorating limits on some delegations of legislative power. It is strengthening the judiciary’s interpretative role, declining to give as much deference to regulatory interpretations by agencies. Is its view coherent and sound? Should the Court square its vision with a modern government that was formed on different principles? If so, how?

The full video of the panel, 1:23:30 in length, can be found at this link. The panel featured four speakers (Nicholas Parrillo of the Yale Law School, Aditya Bamzai of the Virginia Law School, Thomas Griffith, formerly Judge of the DC Circuit, and Sally Katzen of NYU Law School) describing and debating the merits of recent Supreme Court cases that have articulated something called the Major Questions Doctrine as a limit on administrative agency power to promulgate regulations of sweeping import without clear statutory basis. The most important of the cases under discussion was West Virginia v. EPA, the June 30 Supreme Court decision that held that EPA’s Clean Power Plan — a mechanism to shut down all generation of electricity using fossil fuels — exceeded the agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act.

As is typical on Federalist Society panels, the majority were conservative scholars or judges, who thus were generally supportive of the Court’s approach, although offering a variety of perspectives. However, the fourth panelist, in this case Ms. Katzen of NYU, was a die-hard left-winger. It fell to Ms. Katzen to defend the position that EPA was well within its powers under the CAA to promulgate a regulation that would force the closure of all coal power plants in a short period of time, followed in short order by all natural gas power plants over the next decade or so.

In her opening remarks (beginning about the 31 minute mark of the video at the link) Ms. Katzen described Congress as having become a completely dysfunctional institution that has been paralyzed by partisanship and can barely pass a spending bill to keep the government operating, let alone address any serious policy issue with major legislation. Meanwhile, she noted that since adoption of the Constitution the country had become huge, wealthy, and enormously complex. Thus Congress has seen fit to delegate the problems of dealing with the great complexities to specialists and experts in various fields. But now, said Ms. Katzen, her voice dripping with scorn, the Supreme Court has decreed that only the dysfunctional Congress can address the most critical issues facing us. She was particularly critical of the Court having struck down the Clean Power Plan, which in her view was well within the authority granted to EPA under the CAA, as well as being a subject that could only properly be dealt with by people with the necessary expertise, such as the bureaucrats at EPA.

Before reading on, you might consider whether those arguments appear persuasive to you.

After the panelists’ remarks, there was a period for questions from the audience. I managed to maneuver myself into a position to get to the microphone and ask the first question. I’m going to transcribe my question and Ms. Katzen’s response. This begins at 1:04:24 of the video:

Question: Thank you. My name is Francis Menton. My affiliation is Manhattan Contrarian. That’s my blog; many people here may read it. So out there we have the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Air Act basically gives the EPA the authority to regulate “pollutants.” And then a decade or so ago the EPA decided that carbon dioxide was a pollutant. And I guess this question is mainly for Professor Katzen. So carbon dioxide has been declared a pollutant by the EPA. They’re an “expert.” 

Does that mean, could the EPA then, on its own authority, say, well, airplanes all generate carbon dioxide, we hereby say they must be all grounded? Oh, and industry must be ended, that generates carbon dioxide. And 80% of our electricity generation is fossil fuel, generates carbon dioxide. And of course all automobiles, so you can’t drive them any more. Can the EPA do that? Or does that go beyond what they’ve been authorized to do? And if it goes beyond, what is the limiting principle? Do you have one, or are you completely fine with that if EPA does that?

Professor Katzen: I’m not sure I completely followed because there’s a lot of distracting noise out there. But the Congress clearly gave the EPA authority to specify those pollutants that are dangerous and should be regulated, and to set limits for them based on that which is necessary to protect the public health, with an adequate margin of safety and all that. There are standards to be applied. They can’t just say “no cars.” I don’t think that would survive any kind of judicial review.

Me: What’s the standard?

Professor Katzen: (Several seconds delay) The standard as set forth in the Clean Air Act is the scientific basis for levels to be set. That’s not — I’m not an environmental lawyer, and maybe there are others here who could provide the exact terminology. But the EPA is not able to and does not do whatever it has a whim to do when it wakes up in the morning. It bases it normally through rule-making through notice and comment, cost/benefit analysis, scientific determinations, that are subject to the critique and then response by the agency. 

You may not be happy with the answer any more than I was not happy when they stayed the Clean Power Plan in the first place, even though it had not yet gone through the courts. It was an extreme action taken to shut down rule-making in this area. And I thought that was unfortunate that we were never able to develop the kind of record that would enable sensible people to see if the agency was acting within its authority as granted by Congress. 

I am not saying that the organic statute or the authorizing statute is meaningless. It survives. But if it is granted authority, then the agency should be able to use it, even if the pollutant is something that they didn’t think of when they passed the statute, or weren’t aware of when they passed the statute. Any more than under the FCC Act, it was radio, that was in 1933, it was radio, but it was interpreted to mean television. It wasn’t a big step.

It’s too bad this wasn’t a cross examination, because Professor Katzen was trapped, and it would have been fun to keep pressing. The next obvious question would have been:  

“My question was, what’s the limiting principle? You haven’t answered. Please state the limiting principle. Do you have one or not?”

So Professor Katzen was completely outraged that the Supreme Court had struck down the Clean Power Plan (“it was an extreme action taken to shut down rule-making in this area”). Yet she couldn’t come up with any reason why, if EPA could force the shut down of all fossil fuel burning power plants, it could not also ban all burning of fossil fuels for airplanes, cars, industry, agriculture, home heat, etc. She flatly asserted “there are standards” without being able to specify any of them. (There are no meaningful standards in the statute that would constrain EPA in these circumstances, if the courts approved the Clean Power Plan.). 

The best she came up with was “notice and comment rule-making,” which is not a standard, but rather a procedure. It can be a time-consuming and burdensome procedure, and may generate thousands or even millions of comments, but at the end of that the EPA can just go ahead and implement the rule it started with and planned to implement all along. When Professor Katzen says that “EPA is not able to and does not do whatever it has a whim to do when it wakes up in the morning,” she is just plain wrong.

If you are wondering what the Clean Air Act may actually have to say on this subject, I would point out that the Act is lengthy and nearly incomprehensible. However, in the West Virginia litigation EPA had to come up with something in the CAA to point to as its authority for promulgating the Clean Power Plan, and the best it could do was Section 111(d) of the Act. Here is the text of that section:

(d) Standards of performance for existing sources; remaining useful life of source

(1) The Administrator shall prescribe regulations which shall establish a procedure similar to that provided by section 7410 of this title under which each State shall submit to the Administrator a plan which (A) establishes standards of performance for any existing source for any air pollutant (i) for which air quality criteria have not been issued or which is not included on a list published under section 7408(a) of this title or emitted from a source category which is regulated under section 7412 of this title but (ii) to which a standard of performance under this section would apply if such existing source were a new source, and (B) provides for the implementation and enforcement of such standards of performance. Regulations of the Administrator under this paragraph shall permit the State in applying a standard of performance to any particular source under a plan submitted under this paragraph to take into consideration, among other factors, the remaining useful life of the existing source to which such standard applies.

(2)The Administrator shall have the same authority—

(A) to prescribe a plan for a State in cases where the State fails to submit a satisfactory plan as he would have under section 7410(c) of this title in the case of failure to submit an implementation plan, and

(B) to enforce the provisions of such plan in cases where the State fails to enforce them as he would have under sections 7413 and 7414 of this title with respect to an implementation plan.

In promulgating a standard of performance under a plan prescribed under this paragraph, the Administrator shall take into consideration, among other factors, remaining useful lives of the sources in the category of sources to which such standard applies.

Make of all that mumbo jumbo what you will. What is certainly not there is any limiting principle or standard that constrains what EPA may do to effectively ban use of fossil fuel energy in all sectors, once it is accepted that EPA can regulate CO2 as a “pollutant.” Instead what is found in that section is blanket authority to EPA to set “standards of performance.” And in the Clean Power Plan EPA has set those “standards” in a way to make all use of fossil fuels in electricity generation non-compliant over time. If the courts allowed EPA to do that under this section, there would be nothing to stop it, if it wanted, from setting “standards” to make fossil fuels non-compliant in other sectors.

Here’s the bottom line: Under a statute that gives EPA general authority to set “standards of performance” with respect to “pollutants,” the progressives (including the liberal wing of the Supreme Court) are totally OK with allowing EPA to declare CO2 a “pollutant” 40 years after the statute was enacted, and then set “standards of performance” to ban CO2 and shut down the entire economy one sector at a time. Fortunately, with our current Supreme Court, we’ll get to see how this plays out in places like Germany and the UK before our federal government can impose it on all of us by executive fiat.

 

 

Escaping from the COP-27 insane asylum

Let’s hope climate talks finally come to grips with energy, scientific and economic reality

Paul Driessen 

“Show us the money!” climate activists demand, and rich countries are expected to pony up.
 
Do I hear $100 billion? Would you give $1 trillion? Now, then, would you give $2 trillion?
 
The climate reparations bidding war is on. What began at $100-billion-a-year at COP-21 in Paris rapidly ballooned to $1.3-trillion on the eve of COP-27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh-Down, Egypt and now stands at $2.4-trillion annually! And we’re nowhere near “going once, going twice, sold.”
 
Of course, it was always about the money – endless sums of cash supposedly to help developing countries (like China!) adapt to dangerous manmade climate change, cover entire regions with wind and solar, and secure “fair, just and equitable” reparations for soaring temperatures, rising seas, destructive storms, floods, droughts and famines allegedly caused by countries that have used fossil fuels since 1850.
 
Yes, China. The Middle Kingdom has long postured itself as a developing country, when it comes to when it might start building fewer coal-fired power plants and slowly shift to “renewable” energy.
 
Now China says it will pay non-cash climate reparations, if the United States pays in dollars. Of course, any US, UK, German, et cetera “fair share” would be exorbitant – and paid while they “transition” rapidly away from fossil fuels, regardless of the economic, social and ecological costs.
 
As Oliver Hardy would say, “Another fine mess you’ve gotten me into,” Joe, John and the rest of Team Biden’s climate-obsessed, fossil-fuel-eradicating, eco-justice warriors.
 
They and their activist, media and academia allies created the climate scare – the assertion that fossil fuel emissions alone are driving today’s climate and weather. Never mind that, since the last Pleistocene ice age, average global temperatures climbed significantly (Baruch Hashem); sea levels rose some 400 feet; and floods, droughts, hurricanes and other disasters ravaged planet and humanity countless times. Anything happening today, however, is due to countries that got rich using fossil fuels. Or so they insist.
 
Therefore, naturally, COP-27 organizers, activists and attendees now say the “climate crisis” requires enormous payments from rich countries to poor countries – or more accurately, from poor people in rich countries to rich kleptocrats in poor countries. That raises another inconvenient truth.
 
Not long ago, Obama “science advisor” John Holdren intoned: “Only one rational path is open to us – simultaneous de-development of the [United States and other over-developed countries] and semi-development of the under-developed countries, in order to approach a decent and ecologically sustainable standard of living for all in between.” This de-development ideology is shared by many others.
 
Well, de-development and de-industrialization are already underway in Britain, Germany and elsewhere, because wind, solar and battery (WSB) energy cannot possibly replace abundant, reliable, affordable, non-weather-dependent fossil fuel and nuclear energy. Jobs, companies and entire industries are already disappearing across Europe, as it destroys fossil fuel power plants but has nothing viable to replace them.
 
So how are all these de-developing Formerly Rich Countries (FRCs) going to deliver billions or trillions annually, to pay climate reparations and help poor countries develop? They cannot possibly do so.
 
Even worse, eco-imperialist developed countries continue demanding that poor countries develop only to the minimal extent that WSB technologies would permit. Rich countries, the World Bank and global financial institutions refuse to finance anything but pseudo-renewable energy.
 
These unconscionable policies perpetuate joblessness, poverty, disease and death – and advance the other basic goal of “climate stabilization” programs: controlling our lives and living standards. But poor nations have inalienable, God-given rights to develop, using fossil fuel, nuclear and hydroelectric power – and petroleum as feed stocks for fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, plastics and hundreds of other miraculous life-enhancing, life-saving products (developed by countries that are now expected to pay reparations).
 
Developed nations must help developing nations reach those goals. Instead, they too often block pathways to better lives. Still more outrageous, the USA and Europe have the nerve to ask African, Asian and Latin American nations to produce more oil and gas, but only for export to the USA and Europe!
 
Meanwhile, Britain is setting up “warm rooms,” where people can go for a few hours a day, instead of freezing hungry and jobless in dark apartments. It’s as though Merry Old England has suddenly been transported back to the Middle Ages, by politicians who put climate virtue signaling above their constituents’ basic needs.
 
Meanwhile, Germany is dismantling an industrial wind power installation – so that it can extract the lignite coal underneath, to run generating plants, to keep factories operating and homes warm!
 
Even crazier, these are just a few examples of the insanity gripping the world’s political classes, especially during Conferences of Parties (COPs) on climate change. Happily, escaping this insane asylum requires little more than recognizing a few simple realities.

* The vast majority of nations signed the Paris climate treaty for the money – most of which they are now beginning to realize they will never receive. Moreover, coal, oil and natural gas still provide 82% of the world’s energy; nuclear, hydroelectric and biomass (wood and dung) provide most remaining energy needs, and less than 2% comes from wind and solar.
 
* Developing countries will be using fossil fuels for decades to come – and emitting more plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide in the process – much of it to extract the raw materials and manufacture the “green tech” they will export to the US, UK, EU and other soon-to-be-FRCs. So even if developed countries totally eliminated their fossil fuel use, atmospheric greenhouse gas levels will continue to climb.
 
* But that won’t matter, because there is no evidence that we face a climate crisis, much less a manmade climate crisis, much less changes unprecedented in Earth or human history. Humans are likely affecting temperature, humidity, climate and weather to some degree, especially around large urban “heat islands.” But that is a far cry from cataclysms allegedly resulting from fossil fuels replacing the powerful natural forces that have controlled climate and weather throughout history.
 
* The 1.5 degrees C that we are supposed to avoid to avert catastrophe is arbitrary, meaningless – and tied not just to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, but to the end of the Little Ice Age. Another degree or two of warming would be mostly beneficial, whereas another little or big ice age would devastate agriculture, habitats, wildlife and humanity.
 
* The entire climate crisis agenda is based on computer models that (a) cannot possibly reflect all the forces that govern climate, and (b) consistently predict planetary warming that is two to three times greater than actually recorded by satellites, weather balloons and surface temperature monitors.
 
* Basing economy-destroying, life-altering policies on useless models is sheer insanity – especially if the replacement energy comes from WSB systems that would require mining, processing, manufacturing and installations on scales that would ravage our planet.

The only reason these realities are so little known is that climate activists, politicians, academics, and news and social media studiously demonize, harass, censor, silence, deplatform and demonetize scientists, economists and energy experts who challenge climate crisis narratives.

Thankfully, the Truth is slowly winning out. Perhaps COP-27 will bring a healthy dose of climate and energy sanity. If it doesn’t, we could end up with John Holdren’s formula for rolling back development and living standards. Just don’t expect the ruling elites and their Hollywood and Big Tech allies to lead by example.
 
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate change, environmental policy and human rights.
  

 

P&D Today

De Omnibus Dubitandum

---

By Rich Kozlovich 

 

• Suffering is the Beginning of Wisdom: Part I, It's All Trump's Fault! By Rich Kozlovich
• Biden to Meet with Xi Jinping – Punching Above His Weight Again By Dave Patterson
• OPEC Can’t Stop Humiliating Joe Bide By Andrew Moran
• Pigs Are Flying—A Famous Rock Star Denounces Che Guevara!  Humberto Fontova

Biden Consequence

• Who's Running this Ship of Fools?

Voter Fraud

• FTX + Ukraine = Money Laundering?
• Election Engineering 2.0 – A Few Details You Should Know

Insanity Squared

• DEMONIC: Montana Votes to Deny Medical Care for Born-Alive Infants And Let Them Die
• 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' actor sentenced to life in prison for killing mother
• 20-Year-Old Instagram Influencer Their Official Climate Change Advisor
• Shameless Hollywood Murderer Alec Baldwin Sues ‘Rust’ Crew to ‘Clear His Name’

 

   

 Constant as the North Star

 

Quote of the Day

Wind and sunshine are free, clean, green, renewable, and sustainable. But harnessing this diffuse, unreliable, weather-dependent energy to power civilization is not.  Paul Driessen

The Coming Green Electricity Nightmare

Paul Driessen

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) wanted regulatory reform, in part to reverse some of the Biden Administration's reversals of Trump-era reforms intended to expedite permits for fossil fuel projects. 

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) needed Manchin’s vote in the 50-50 Senate to enact his latest spending extravaganza, the Inflation Reduction Act, which was primarily a massive climate and “green” energy subsidy arrangement. It gives Schumer allies some $370 billion in wind, solar, battery, and other funding, tax credits, and subsidies. In exchange, Schumer would offer a path for Manchin’s reform bill. 

Manchin voted YEA and promptly got bushwhacked. Once he’d helped enact the IRA, he had zero leverage. Schumer, he discovered, had promised an opportunity, maybe a vote, but not actual support. House and Senate members told him, we weren’t part of your secret negotiations with Schumer; we didn’t shake hands on any deal; we don’t want easier permitting for drilling, pipelines, and LNG terminals that could help send US natural gas to Britain and Europe. 

In the end, it’s probably a good thing Manchin’s bill went nowhere.

Yes, it provided some much-needed and long overdue reforms to curb the paralysis by analysis and endless litigation that have plagued fossil fuels, highways, airports, and countless other projects for decades. 

But it also had Trojan horse provisions that would have unleashed hordes of newly subsidized wind, solar, and transmission marauders on much of the Lower 48 USA, to send pseudo-clean electricity to mostly Democrat cities and states that don’t want even “renewable” power generation in their backyards. 

As the Wall Street Journal and energy analyst Robert Bryce observed, Manchin’s “reforms” would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and other bureaucrats the power to issue permits and force multiple states to acquiesce to new transmission lines and 200-foot-tall towers across their scenic, habitat, agricultural and even residential lands – if they decide (decree) that the lines are in the "national interest.” This could easily transform into federal powers of eminent domain, to take the needed acreage. 

The feds could decree that thousands of miles of new transmission lines are in the “national interest” if, for instance, the lines “enhance the ability” of faraway wind and solar facilities to connect their intermittent, weather-dependent energy to an electric grid; or enable distant blue states to reach their renewable energy goals; or help achieve Biden Administration goals of stopping manmade climate change, “advancing environmental justice” and having “a net-zero economy” by 2050. 

Populous states like New York could also work with FERC & Co. to have offshore wind turbines installed off less populated coasts, like Maine or North Carolina – and have the electricity delivered to the Empire State. New York’s peak summertime needs alone would require 2,500 monstrous 680-foot-tall 12-MW offshore turbines, operating 24/7 – when we’d be lucky if they generated electricity 40% of the year. (Imagine how many offshore ... or 6-MW onshore ... turbines we’d need to power the entire USA.) 

Compounding the energy colonialism, the Manchin reform package would also give FERC authority to allocate and “socialize” transmission line costs, so that residents of states that don’t even get any of the electricity being sent along the newly imposed transmission lines could still have to help pay for them. 

In short, the feds would be able to ride roughshod over states, local communities, and federalism. 

Let me say it again: Wind and sunshine are free, clean, green, renewable, and sustainable. But harnessing this diffuse, unreliable, weather-dependent energy to power civilization is not. 

The Green Lobby and its legislator and regulator friends think they can just pass laws and earmark subsidies, demanding energy transformations by 2050 – and it will just happen. The raw materials will just be there, perhaps with a little MAGIC: Materials Acquisition for Global Industrial Change. That is, just assume the necessary raw materials will also just be there. 

Not one of these luminaries has given a moment’s thought, much less attempted to calculate, what this net-zero transition would require: 

How many millions of wind turbines, billions of solar panels, billions of EV and backup batteries, millions of transformers, thousands of miles of transmission lines – sprawling across how many millions of acres of wildlife habitat, scenic and agricultural lands, and people’s once-placid backyards? 

How many billions of tons of copper, steel, aluminum, nickel, cobalt, lithium, concrete, rare earth, and composite plastics? How many trillions of tons of ores and overburden? How many mines, across how many more acres – with how much fossil fuel energy to operate the enormous mining equipment, and how much toxic air and water pollution emitted in the process?  

To cite just one example, just those 2,500 wind turbines for New York electricity (30,000 megawatts) would require nearly 110,000 tons of copper – which would require mining, crushing, processing, and refining 25 million tons of copper ore ... after removing some 40 million tons of overlying rock to reach the ore bodies. Multiply that times 50 states – and the entire world – plus transmission lines. 

How many processing plants and factories would be needed? How much fossil fuel power to run those massive operations? How many thousands of square miles of toxic waste pits all over the world are under zero to minimal environmental standards, workplace safety standards, and child and slave labor rules? 

How many dead birds, bats, and endangered and other species would be killed off all across the USA and world – from mineral extraction activities, wind turbine blades, solar panels blanketing thousands of square miles of wildlife habitats, and transmission lines impacting still more land? 

Not only do the luminaries and activists ignore these issues and refuse to address them. They actively suppress, cancel, censor and de-platform the questions and discussions about them. They collude with chBig Tech companies and news agencies, which too often seem too happy to assist. 

The hard reality is, there are not, will not be, and cannot be, enough mines, metals, and minerals on the entire planet – to reach any “net-zero” US economy by 2050, much less a global “green” economy. 

Here’s another issue: electric vehicles and backup lithium-ion battery modules can erupt spontaneously into chemical-fueled infernos that cannot be extinguished by conventional fire-fighting means. That raises an important analog to rules Alec Baldwin should have kept uppermost in mind last year. Treat every firearm as if it is loaded. Never point your muzzle at anything you are not prepared to destroy. 

In the Biden-Newsom-Kerry energy arena: Treat every electric vehicle and backup battery system as if it is loaded and ready to ignite. Never park an EV, install a PowerWall or locate a backup power facility near anything you are not prepared to destroy. 

That includes in your garage; near other vehicles; in parking garages under apartment and office buildings; in residential neighborhoods and highway tunnels; or on cargo ships like the Felicity Ace. 

And yet we’re supposed to go along with Green Energy schemes – as we did with masks, school lockdowns, and vaccinations to stop Covid – because we have to destroy the planet to save it. 

Because our government, media, and “public interest” groups insist that we “follow the science,” on which there can be no doubt (certainly none permitted) that we face a “manmade climate crisis” that threatens the very existence of humanity and “the only Earth we have.” 

It’s time to short-circuit this electricity nightmare, by asking these questions, demanding answers, and ending the notion that governments can simply issue edicts and compel reality to change in response. 

Paul Driessen is a senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and the author of books and articles on energy, environmental, and human rights issues.

Why Science Journalists Rarely Get Their Stories Right

by Dr. Jay Lehr | Aug 6, 2022 | Media, Politics @ America Out Loud

As I sat down to begin this essay, I turned on the television to see the beginning of Stage 19 of this year’s Tour De France bicycle race. Before I got to the correct station, I passed a morning news program with a reporter stating that today’s headline news was “Scientists discover that humans are now causing the greatest mass species extinction in history.”

It was undoubtedly the inspiration to build on material from Alex Epstein’s new book Fossil Future to support my headline for this article. I am optimistic that most of the public is beginning to ignore these constant scary headlines, which have no basis in fact.

The problems can be placed in the order of efforts that must be applied to all research that generates a near limitless amount of specialized knowledge that only the rare scientists can know close to everything in their own fields. There is no better example than climate science, where specialists may prevail in paleoclimatology, climate physics, oceanography, climate modeling, or others.

The knowledge must be synthesized, disseminated, and evaluated to prepare the research results. This is always performed by other than the researchers. Synthesizing means organizing, refining, and condensing. Disseminators are those who broadcast the synthesized knowledge such as newspapers, radio, and television. Evaluators are those who tell us what should be done with the information, which could be making policies of all kinds.

Along the path from research to public knowledge lies a minefield of obstacles to the ultimate truth of everything. I recognized this in my early work in environmental science, so I contacted 50 different scientists working in the environment and asked if they had experienced similar distortion of their work before it reached wide recognition. One and all had witnessed the same problems and agreed to write an original paper explaining their individual issues. It allowed me to compile the articles into a new book titled Rational Readings on Environmental Concerns. It was published by the company now known as John Wiley & Sons in 1991. I was honored to learn that it played a role in Alex Epstein’s attacks on these problems that I will describe now further.

In climate science, the leading synthesizers are the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United States Government, and other organizations like the American Meteorological Society and the National Academy of Science. The synthesis can and does go badly wrong by virtue of honest mistakes but more often as a result of biases existing within the synthesizers, which are the non-stop targets of influence groups able to gain from how the research is presented.

A good example is that if you wade through thousands of pages of recent IPCC reports, you will not find a single proven statistic of increasing weather-related deaths in recent decades. Yet, the final summary states emphatically that this is the case. The opposite is absolutely the truth based on dozens of studies. 

Once the synthesizers do their jobs, however well or poorly, the essentials of their synthesis must be disseminated. There are all kinds of disseminators, certainly alternative media today. Still, the most important ones remain the mainstream media that we all know spread misinformation daily to a public not well trained to recognize its veracity.

If one has time to read the actual reports made by the synthesizers, the absurdity of conclusions comes clear. A recent IPCC report summary popularized the term ”code red for humanity” with obvious terrifying intent. Yet the report offered more opposite data on decreasing floods and droughts etc., the disseminators grabbed “code red” and ran with it.

It is difficult for any science journalist to grasp the reality of what is going on, and if they have a political bias, all is really lost.

Finally, we have the evaluators of the synthesized and disseminated information. Prominent evaluators are the editorial pages of major newspapers such as The NY Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. They are the institutions and people who help us evaluate what to do about what is disseminated and tell us what is true about the world.

One way to spot when potential bad evaluations are being made is when we are told to “listen to the scientists.” This refrain is almost always used to get us to accept a given policy evaluation without critical thinking, which is what we should never do. Very quickly, one can recognize when an evaluation system is very wrong. The first is when the evaluation has an anti-human basis, and the other is when all sides of an issue, pros and cons, are not considered. If you have long followed the evaluation by nearly all radical environmental groups, and one wonders which are not, they all focus on the terrible things humans do to nature when the reality is that it is mankind that is good and nature destructive.

The moral case for eliminating fossil fuel is a profoundly anti-human argument which Alex Epstein proves brilliantly through his 420-page magnum opus. It is my intent to help you grasp the clarity of his wisdom, allowing you to be a citizen warrior on the side of humanity with your friends, neighbors, and colleagues that one day will turn the corner on the public understanding of the lies they have been exposed to.

A clear indication of the anti-human evaluation is their insistence not just on rapidly eliminating fossil fuels but on replacing them with exclusively green unreliable energy systems. The most substantial evidence by far of their plans going catastrophically wrong is that they oppose things on the basis of side effects ignoring massive benefits. The obvious ones are:

1 – Fossil fuels are a uniquely cost-effective source of energy.

2 – Cost-effective energy is essential to human flourishing. Get used to this term as it should always guide our decisions.

3 – Billions of people remain suffering and dying for lack of cost-effective energy.

It should be obvious now to most of us that the anti-fossil fuel folks are, in fact, opposed to human beings. They actually believe humans are a cancer on the Earth. Otherwise, would they desire to force mankind to use only the intermittent, uncontrollable sources of energy from the sun and the wind that currently supply only three percent of the world’s energy and even that must have fossil fuel back up to avoid crushing destruction of electric grids that become unbalanced. The obvious answer is no!

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 such efforts.

Portions of this article were excerpted from the book, Summary of Fossil Future By Alex Epstein: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas–Not Less, with permission of the author Alex Epstein and the publisher Portfolio/Penguin.

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 communists attempted to limit humankind’s well-being.

Dr. Jay Lehr

Dr. Jay Lehr is a Senior Policy Analyst with the International Climate Science Coalition and former Science Director of The Heartland Institute. He is an internationally renowned scientist, author, and speaker who has testified before Congress on dozens of occasions on environmental issues and consulted with nearly every agency of the national government and many foreign countries. After graduating from Princeton University at the age of 20 with a degree in Geological Engineering, he received the nation’s first Ph.D. in Groundwater Hydrology from the University of Arizona. He later became executive director of the National Association of Groundwater Scientists and Engineers.

 

Someone Didn't Get the Sri Lanka Message

By Rich Kozlovich 

On September 24, 2022 this piece appeared on Malcolm Out Loud, Taking Back Control of Your Life: Week 3 The Importance of Being Organically Grown.  Let me get right to the chase: This is absolute nonsense!

The go green, back to nature, organic, all natural crowd has done more damage to humanity than even the insane communists did in the 20^th century, and they killed over 100 million innocent people, and the recent "go green" food disaster in Sri Lanka should have been the last word on that, but apparently someone didn't get the message.

At the end of WWII the world’s population was 2 billion people, and it took thousands of years to get there, yet in 75 years it soared to almost 7 billion people, and pesticides played a major role in that.  If these products were as harmful as these radical misfit nitwits claim, how did that happen?

Medicine advanced, but medicine can’t fix starvation, nor can it fix the disasters pests inflict on humanity, and malaria is one of them.  The ban on DDT  alone probably killed over 100 million people, not to mention their destructive behavior in stopping Golden Rice from being introduced for 20 years, which would have prevented 500,000 kids from going blind every year—and even dying—due to severe Vitamin A deficiency.   In 20 years that amounts to 10 million children who suffered unnecessary irreparable damage and/or died.  All that can hardly be classified as anything less than crimes against humanity.   And that's the tip of the iceberg.  When you hear these misfits claim what they do "is for the children", know that in reality what they do "is to the children". 

All their claims are speculation, junk science, mutilated science and fraudulent science filled with weasel words and phrases.   The Tulane study  regarding endocrine disruption (ED) is a perfect example.  It was clearly fraudulent but as a result of that fraudulent study the Food Quality Protection Act added an ED component to it and we lost two whole categories of pesticides and the nation became infested with bed bugs. 

 

As for Atrazine causing devastation to the frog population......FALSE!

 

The fact is we rarely hear this horsepucky any longer because we now know it’s caused by a fungus.  A dangerous infectious disease with the potential to drive species to extinction, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is also known as chytrid fungus. It has already decimated more than 200 amphibian species and rewired eco systems all over the world.   And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of fallacious claims by these misfits at the EWG and their claptrap regarding the “dirty dozen”.   

 

People are living longer, healthier better fed lives with more variety of foods available than any time in human history, and modern chemistry is directly responsible.  That's history, and that history is incontestable. 

 

The Media Balance Newsletter: 8/29/22

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What you won't find in one place anywhere

Welcome! We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections. Here is the link for this issue, so please share it on social media. Bookmark or make Favorite: 2022 Archives, 2021 Archives and 2020 Archives. Particularly note the asterisked items below… 

 

— This Newsletter's Articles, by Topic —

If You Only Have Time to Read a Few Select Articles:   ------- NEW FEATURE--------

• *** Short Video: How Much Energy Will the World Need?
• *** Green energy leads to sex trafficking, terrorism, drugs and deforestation
• *** The Completely Fraudulent "Levelized Cost Of Electricity"
• *** Will Bisphenol A be the PFOS of Wind Energy?
• *** The Koonin-Dessler Climate Change Debate
• *** Jordan Peterson Video: Back Off, Oh Masters of the Universe (with text)
• *** Inflation Reduction Act won’t reduce inflation or climate change
• *** Higher Education is Complicit in the Politicization of Science
• *** White House climate official sanctioned by key science body
• *** Transcending Fear — Surgeon General of Florida Speaks Out
• *** What Made Us So Compliant With Insane, Tyrannical COVID Policies?
• *** 1000 studies on adverse effects caused by COVID-19 Vaccination
• *** Short video: Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity

COVID-19 — Repeated Important Information:

• My webpage (C19Science.info) with dozens of Science-based COVID-19 reports
• *** World Council of Health: Early COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines
• *** COVID-19: What You Need To Know (Physicians for Informed Consent)
• *** If you have received a COVID-19 injection, here’s how to Detox
• *** Place Your US Order for Free At-Home COVID-19 Tests

COVID-19 — Therapies:

• The Global Disinformation Campaign against Ivermectin - The "Fix" at the WHO Part 1

COVID-19 — Injections:

• *** 1000 studies on adverse effects caused by COVID-19 Vaccination
• *** The Medical Community’s Failure to Weigh Costs/Benefits of COVID Vaccination
• *** Inspirational Message To The Unvaccinated
• 1.3 Million COVID Vaccine Injuries Reported to VAERS
• Dr. Wolf: Steve Kirsch Claims "Hundreds of Thousands" of mRNA-Vaccine-related Deaths, "Millions" of Injuries. Is He Right? I am inclined to say "Yes." Here is why…
• Thailand study of young adults post jab showed 30%± with cardiovascular injuries
• NIH: Fighting current and future coronaviruses with a single vaccine
• Dr. Kory: What to Know Before Deciding to take the Novavax Injection
• Informed Consent to Parents Contemplating COVID-19 Injections for their Infants and Toddlers

COVID-19 — Injection Mandates:

• *** Healthcare workers subjected to vaccine mandate will get $10M in legal settlement
• Judge Green Lights Lawsuit Challenging San Diego’s COVID Vaccine Mandate for Employees
• Short video: COVID narrative falling apart
• CDC Flip-Flop Creates Plausible Deniability For Crimes Against Humanity

COVID-19 — Masks:

• *** America’s kids unmasked two years later: Examining COVID mandate consequences as students return to class
• *** Mask Mandates Linked to Increased COVID Death Rates
• Principal Calls Cops on 4 year old for Not Wearing a Mask
• Georgetown University mandates masks for students during in-class instruction

COVID-19 — Children:

• Are COVID-19 vaccines safe and effective in children?

Monkeypox:

• *** Are you at risk of getting monkeypox? Here's everything you need to know
• Top Israeli Scientist: “Monkeypox Outbreak is Linked to mRNA Vaccines”
• CDC Recommends Wearing Masks to Avoid Monkeypox, Ignoring the Facts

COVID-19 — Misc:

• *** Transcending Fear — Surgeon General of Florida Speaks Out
• *** What Made Us So Compliant With Insane, Tyrannical COVID Policies?
• *** Tucker Carlson: This is Fauci's most notable crime
• *** Video: The Defender Show: The Origins of COVID-19 w Jeffrey Sachs
• Dr. Birx: CDC at 'inflection point,' expects real change following watershed admission
• Ideas for how to fix a broken medical system
• China's Endless COVID Hysteria is a Dark Experiment in Social Conditioning
• CDC— We've made some mistakes, but NOW you can trust us!
• Studies: COVID tied to persistent cognitive deficits in seniors

Greed Energy Economics:

• *** The Completely Fraudulent "Levelized Cost Of Electricity"
• *** Renewables subsidy chaos coming
• Corporate welfare: Federal giveaways to wind, solar sectors are about to explode
• John Kerry's climate office rife with ties to far-left green groups

Renewable Energy Health and Ecosystem Consequences:

• *** What Impact do Wind Turbines have on the Environment and our Health?
• *** Environmental Organizations Take Offshore Wind Industry Money
• Wind energy boom and golden eagles collide in the U.S. West

Wind Energy:

• *** Will Bisphenol A be the PFOS of Wind Energy?
• *** Green energy leads to sex trafficking, terrorism, drugs and deforestation
• *** Offshore wind: It’s more expensive than we thought
• Wind energy fails to produce again, and again
• How an airborne blade exposed broader problems at PGE’s flagship wind project

Solar Energy:

• *** Why Solar Power Is Failing Amid Record-Breaking Heat
• Proposed EPA Designation of PFOA and PFOS as CERCLA Hazardous Substances
• Industrial Solar: Toward A Responsible Generation Policy

Nuclear Energy:

• *** The Green War on Clean Energy
• *** Nuclear Power–Hating Left: The Vast Anti-Nuclear Conspiracy
• *** The road to zero emissions must embrace nuclear power
• *** 3 Reasons Why Nuclear is Clean and Sustainable

Fossil Fuel Energy:

• *** Short Video: How Much Energy Will the World Need?
• *** 20 myths about fossil fuels, refuted
• Biden approves largest oil, gas lease sale in US history, steamrolls eco review with inflation bill
• U.S. to Continue Record Crude Exports in 2023 as Energy Crisis Deepens
• California just hit a renewable energy record, but fossil fuels aren't fading away yet

Electric Vehicles (EVs):

• *** How electric cars fail miserably in ordinary driving situations
• Lithium production setback will hinder EV growth
• Study: 20% of electric vehicle owners couldn't charge their EVs at public charging stations
• Copper Issues Make EVs a Poor Choice!
• EV Madness Ignores Truth of Impacts on the Lives of Others

Misc Energy:

• *** The Energy of Nations
• *** Why Biden’s Attacks on Energy are Absolutely Insane
• The New World Energy Order: A Battle Of Attrition
• Energy ignorance on display in Canada and Germany
• Listening to European electricity traders is very, very scary

Manmade Global Warming — Some Deceptions:

• *** Green Fascists Are Destroying the World
• *** Net Zero Bankrupts Britain
• *** Corruption of Climate Science Supported by Flawed Models
• *** Failed Climate Predictions - Willie Soon, PhD
• Global warming is the greatest scientific fraud in history
• As the Earth Cools, the Climate Change Hoax Heats Up

Manmade Global Warming — Misc:

• *** The Koonin-Dessler Climate Change Debate
• *** There Is No Climate Emergency: So Say Us All
• *** 1,200 Scientists, Scholars: 'There is NO Climate Emergency'
• A Truth the Climateers Simply Won’t Tolerate
• Hurricane season on the verge of rarely seen August without a named storm
• NY’s Climate Act Mostly Just Appeasement of Special Interests
• New York’s Climate Virtue-Signaling Will Condemn Millions to Energy Poverty

US Election:

• Election-Integrity.info (10 major election reports by our team of experts, plus much more!)
• *** There's So Much Election Fraud Evidence It's Hard To Keep Up!
• *** Voters Moving to the Right Across Almost Every Demographic, Says Massive Survey
• True The Vote Releases Information Given To FBI Months Ago – China Has Information on 1.8 Million US Election Workers On Server In Wuhan
• How to Preserve 2020 Election Ballots

US Election — State Issues:

• *** Citizen’s Guide to Building and Election Integrity Infrastructure
• *** Become a Poll Watcher in your State
• Election audits should be required in every state after every election
• Report: Montana may show how election offices are 'addicted' to private money like Mark Zuckerberg's
• Governor DeSantis Announces the Arrest of 20 Elections Criminals
• VRF files suit in Pennsylvania to force election officials to make voter rolls transparent
• Court opens door to voiding N. Carolina Voter ID amendment
• Investigators want details of NC DMV ‘glitch’ that allowed noncitizens to vote

US Politics and Socialism:

• *** Tucker Carlson and Mar-A-Lago
• *** The American Gestapo
• *** 7 Ways Biden's Student Loan Bailout Is Immoral
• Even Washington Post Concedes Government Messed Up the Economy
• House Republicans Write Formal Warning to FBI Director, Attorney General & Biden’s Chief of Staff to Preserve All Documents
• Biden planning to 'protect' us from cash – beginning Dec. 13!
• Land of the free, home of the brave: NY Local Legislator Ginger Schroder

US Politics and the “Inflation Reduction Act”:

• *** Inflation Reduction Act won’t reduce inflation or climate change
• *** The Inflation Reduction Act Does Little to Reduce Climate Change
• Inflation Reduction Act A Bold Raid on American Taxpayers
• Kerry's office consulted left-wing environmental groups while crafting policies

US Politics and the J6 Committee:

• *** Internal Memo Reveals Capitol Police Were Warned BLM from Baltimore Was Bussing in Rioters Disguised as Trump Supporters on Jan. 6

Globalism:

• *** Jordan Peterson Video: Back Off, Oh Masters of the Universe (with text)
• Underdogs Bite Upwards

Religion Related:

• *** Resistance to Tyrants is Obedience to God
• *** Bishop: 'Dumbed down Catholicism has not helped evangelization'
• Video: Is There Life After Death?

Education Related — Biden Giveaway:

• Biden’s Student-Loan Cancellation is a Fiasco
• McConnell: Student Loan Socialism a “Slap in the Face” to Working Families

Education Related — Other:

• *** Higher Education is Complicit in the Politicization of Science
• *** Woke Activism Is Flooding American Classrooms
• *** Short video: What Are Your Kids Learning in School?
• The Truth About Student Mismatch
• Short video: The Sexualization of Children

Science and Misc Matters:

• *** White House climate official sanctioned by key science body
• *** Short video: Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity
• Study: Terrestrial Volcanic Eruptions and Possible Links with Solar Activity

Ukraine — What You Can Do:

• *** Pray for the safety of the Ukrainian people
• *** A well-rated source to make a Ukraine donation

Ukraine — What You Can Do:

• *** Pray for the safety of the Ukrainian people
• *** A well-rated source to make a Ukraine donation

---

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John Droz Jr., Physicist & Citizen’s Rights Advocate

Revision 8/28/22

Note 1: We recommend reading the Newsletter on your computer, not your phone, as some documents (e.g. PDFs) are much easier to read on a large computer screen… We’ve tried to use common fonts, etc. to minimize display issues.

Note 2: For recent past Newsletter issues see 2020 Archives & 2021 Archives & 2022 Archives. To accommodate numerous requests received about prior articles over the twelve plus years of the Newsletter, we’ve put together   since the beginning of the Newsletter — where you can search by year. For a detailed background about the Newsletter, please read this.

Note 3: See this extensive list of reasonable books on climate change. As a parallel effort, we have also put together a list of some good books related to industrial wind energy. Both topics are also extensively covered on my website: WiseEnergy.org.

Note 4: I am not an attorney or a physician, so no material appearing in any of the Newsletters (or any of my websites) should be construed as giving legal or medical advice. My recommendation has always been: consult a competent, licensed attorney when you are involved with legal issues, and consult a competent physician regarding medical matters.

Copyright © 2022; Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (see WiseEnergy.org).