At The Heartland Climate Conference: "What Is The Proof?", Extreme Weather Events Edition

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At The Heartland Climate Conference: "What Is The Proof?", Extreme Weather Events Edition

  • I spent the past couple of days attending the International Conference on Climate Change, put on by the Heartland Institute in Washington. There was a good deal of material that will be of interest to readers.

  • A major issue addressed by multiple presenters goes under the heading “What is the proof?”, and in particular what is the proof that there is some kind of climate “crisis” coming our way. You will not be surprised to learn that for most every claim of the climate cabal, the proof is lacking.

  • The most interesting presentation on this subject came from John Clauser.

  • Clauser titled his talk “Global warming, climate change, and scientific consensus have not been proven. There is no proven climate crisis.”

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New York's Climate Activists Not Backing Off

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New York's Climate Activists Not Backing Off

  • In New York State, the annual budget is due by April 1. Here we are on April 7, and no budget has yet emerged.

  • Word is that the Governor and legislative leaders are hidden away behind closed doors hammering out the details. Word also is that somewhere in this “budget” process, the seemingly unrelated matter of the deadlines of the Climate Act (for starters, 70% of electricity from “renewables” by 2030) are about to get extended.

  • When the Climate Act (officially “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act,” or CLCPA) was enacted back in 2019, the deadlines, beginning in 2030, seemed so very far away. The legislation was almost entirely activist-driven, with a willing audience of gullible and innumerate “progressive” useful idiots controlling the Legislature.

  • Normal people generally paid no attention and had little idea what was about to hit them. However, as the deadlines have gotten a little closer, and as the costs of renewable generation have begun show up in utility bills, finally some of those are starting to wake up.

  • Meanwhile, what is happening over on the activist side?

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Is China's Economy Growing Or Shrinking?

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The Iran War Reveals Who Is Living In A Fantasy World

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  • Whether you like it or hate it, the war in Iran has definitely had the effect of exposing some of the ridiculous fantasies in the world to a serious dose of reality.

  • Consider the UK. After implementing an expansive welfare state in the latter 20th century (e.g., free health care for all!), the UK since 2000 has gone all-in on the idea of an energy system free of hydrocarbon fuels. The 2008 Climate Change Act — passed with an overwhelming majority including support from all major political parties — committed the UK to 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.

  • That mandate was then amended in 2019 to make the legally-binding target for 2050 what is known as “net zero” carbon emissions. That change got passed essentially unanimously in Parliament, without even a recorded vote.

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Why Ukraine Wants So Badly To Be Independent Of Russia

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Why Ukraine Wants So Badly To Be Independent Of Russia

  • When Vladimir Putin has been asked to justify his war for control over Ukraine, his answer is typically that Ukraine and Russia have always been one country.

  • And there is some truth to that. The Russian state traces its roots back to something called the Kievan Rus in the 9th century, with its capital at Kyiv. In the period prior to the 20th century, there were times when parts of today’s Ukraine were controlled by other states (like Poland or Lithuania), but never a time when Ukraine was a fully independent country separate from Russia.

  • And yet somehow a tremendous desire for independence from Russia seems to have arisen among the Ukrainians.

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Yet Another Reason Why Wind And Solar Electricity Generation Will Never Work To Run An Economy

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  • If you don’t like fossil fuels — and who does? — our betters in academia and environmental NGOs have the perfect answer: we can just get our energy in the form of electricity from the wind and sun. The fuel is abundant and free for the taking. The New York Times has reported that the cost of electricity generated from wind and sun is now lower than the cost of generation from fossil fuel sources. And even as we save money on electricity, we’ll be saving the planet!

  • All the sociology and gender studies majors agree that we have a moral duty to switch our energy system away from fossil fuels to “clean and green” wind and solar electricity. Who could possibly be such a monster as to stand in the way?

  • At this website, I have devoted considerable attention to documenting major flaws in this narrative. In particular, I have written dozens of posts on the subject of the intermittency problem of wind and solar generation, which leads to a need for either full back-up at all times from another generation source, or alternatively for massive capacity of energy storage, in order to make a fully-functioning electricity system to power a grid without regular blackouts. As demonstrated in my Energy Storage Report of December 2022, providing sufficient energy storage in the form of batteries could multiply the cost of electricity from wind and sun by a factor of ten or more.

  • And it turns out that the intermittency problem is just one of the major issues with wind and solar generation that make those sources completely impractical and unaffordable to run an electrical grid. Another huge problem, which I have previously barely touched on here, is the problem of synchronization and inertia.

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