CO2 Emissions

In Monday’s Wall Street Journal Letters section concerning net-zero and carbon emissions, a writer asks

When can we have an honest discussion of a plan to reduce carbon emissions?

We cannot until we have an honest discussion of the context of carbon emissions and why we should care about them. That context includes all the epochs of higher planetary temperatures and lush life, epochs of higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations and lush life, and those separate sets of epochs’ lack of correlation with each other.

The Greenies’ Desired Outcome

As even the wokest of the woke “Green” energy aficionados know, oil is at the heart of a modern economy, both for energy and for other products.

  • resin sheet makers that in turn get raw materials from big chemical companies—which get their chemicals from hydrocarbons: oil and natural gas
  • fertilizer typically includes ammonia or other nitrogen compounds that are made in a process starting with natural gas—that’s all of our food, from the grains we eat to the grains we feed meat animals

Also negatively impacted by the Greens’ attack on hydrocarbons:

Just a Thought

Much is made of our current hydrocarbon-based energy and industry economy and the resulting pumping of carbon dioxide—CO2—into the atmosphere, with the supposedly bad planetary warming associated with that pumping.

Hydrogen production is being seriously looked at as a substitute source of energy, along with solar and wind energy production (although the extreme costs and environmental pollutions of the latter two are being ignored). Hydrogen, though, is supposed to be utterly clean: its only product from use, after all, is water.

Air Liquide, one of the three truly major producers of hydrogen for energy production use, for instance, believes that hydrogen will be

Energy Independence

Let’s say, arguendo, that the Biden-Harris administration is sincere in its desire to switch America over, entirely, to renewable energy sources. Let’s say, also arguendo, that that’s even a good idea. Former Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke had some thoughts that bear on the execution of these premises:

The first two years of the Trump administration, we went from 8.3 million barrels a day [and] declining in just two years to 12.5 million barrels a day, the world’s largest exporter of energy. And it just wasn’t fossil fuels, it was across the board. So fast-forward now; we have Russia and we should immediately ban Russian oil [the Biden-Harris administration finally got around to doing this last Tuesday, albeit with an unspecified effective as of date].

A Window on Biden-Harris Priorities

Not so much from President Joe Biden’s (D) words or his Vice President and co-President Kamala Harris’ (D) careful silence, as much as what’s left in and left out of the current iteration of his reconciliation bill.

What’s still in after its seeming paring from $3.5 trillion to $1.75 trillion (don’t believe those numbers or that any numbers are anywhere near close to finality or even accuracy, but take them at value for now): climate change initiatives.

What’s out (so far):

  • paid family leave and Medicare expansion
  • drug pricing, paid leave, Medicare expansion on dental and vision

Lies of Progressive-Democrats—More

Senator Tom Carper (D, DE) is on the hot seat (pun intended) this time. Despite current rising inflation and resulting higher prices for everything energy-related (like transportation fuel, home and office heating and cooling, food), he’s demanding continued and increased Federal spending, in particular, the Progressive-Democrats’ spend-a-thon reconciliation bill—inflation be damned. Because climate.

Our planet is on fire….

On fire. If we’re on fire today, what was the state of our planet in past ages when it was so much warmer than it is today, and life was lush?

The Green-Eyed Monster of Hypocrisy

Like the man said, you can’t make this stuff up.

Donald Clark (no flags, no hashtags)
@DonaldClark
COP [UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26)] coming to Glasgow. Leaders staying at Gleneagles Hotel & 20Tesla cars (£100K each) bought to ferry them 75km back & forth. Gleneagles has 1 Tesla charging station, so Malcolm Plant Hire contracted to supply Diesel Generators to recharge Tesla’s overnight. Couldn’t make it up.

Wow.

Intrusive Government

President Joe Biden (D) wants to make climate change a matter of government regulation in our nation’s financial sector.

Calling climate change a systemic risk to the financial system, the White House will release a report Friday outlining its strategy for new rules that could affect investment disclosures, insurance policies and home loans.

And

[T]he US needs “a road map for measuring, disclosing, managing, and mitigating climate-related financial risk across the economy.”

John Kerry Fails Again

[L]ife is always full of tough choices and the relationship between nations. That was John Kerry answering David Westin, a Bloomberg Television anchor, who asked Kerry, “What is the process by which one trades off climate against human rights?” Kerry actually said that in all seriousness regarding the Biden-Harris administration’s prioritizing global warming over the People’s Republic of China’s genocide against Uyghurs.

Never mind that the Uyghurs are being murdered today, and even if Climatistas are right, nobody dies for generations under the warming.

But Kerry wasn’t done.

“Remove CO2 from Atmosphere”

That’s John Kerry’s claim and goal as he stated at the recent, pretentiously styled, Leaders Summit on Climate.

Net zero is not enough. We need to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

There are two interpretations for Kerry’s claim.

One is that he meant complete removal, which would have the effect of starving to extinction all plant life, and from that all life on Earth.

The other interpretation is that he meant removal of “excess” CO2 from the atmosphere. He—and climatistas everywhere—decline to define “excess” in any concrete, measurable terms.