regulation – Page 3 – Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment.

A Climate Realist’s (not so) short Answers to Hard Questions About Climate Change. Question 13 (of 16) Is there any reason for hope?

JUSTIN GILLIS NOV. 28, 2015 gave his answers to 16 questions in the N.Y. Times regarding Climate Change. This Climate realist added his answer.

Answers to Question 1: How much is the planet heating up?

Answers to Question 2. How much trouble are we in?

Answers to Question 3. Is there anything I can do?

Answers to Question 4. What’s the optimistic scenario?

Answers to Question 5. Will reducing meat in my diet help the climate?

Answers to Question 6. What’s the worst-case scenario?

Answers to Question 7. Will a tech breakthrough help us?

Answers to Question 8. How much will the seas rise?

Answers to Question 9. Are the predictions reliable?

Answers to Question 10. Why do people question climate change?

Answers to Question 11. Is crazy weather tied to climate change?

Answers to Question 12. Will anyone benefit from global warming?

Justin Gillis answers to Question 13. Is there any reason for hope?

If you share this with 50 friends, maybe

Scientists have been warning since the 1980s that strong policies were needed to limit emissions. Those warnings were ignored, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have since built up to potentially dangerous levels. So the hour is late.

But after 20 years of largely fruitless diplomacy, the governments of the world are finally starting to take the problem seriously. A deal reached in Paris in December commits nearly every country to some kind of action.

Religious leaders like Pope Francis are speaking out. Low-emission technologies, such as electric cars, are improving. Leading corporations are making bold promises to switch to renewable power and stop forest destruction. Around the world, many states and cities are pledging to go far beyond the goals set by their national governments.

What is still largely missing in all this are the voices of ordinary citizens.

Because politicians have a hard time thinking beyond the next election, they tend to tackle hard problems only when the public rises up and demands it.

My answer to Question 13. Is there any reason for hope?

Yes there is. Thanks to the last election the Paris agreement will not be enforced. It is a horrible agreement anyhow, reducing our CO2 emissions immediately and allowing China to keep increasing until 2030, by which time their emissions will be six times as big as ours. Already China is burning 47% of the coal burned in the world, and poor countries still need to get electrified. India is also exempt, and their needs are even bigger than China’s. With the Paris agreement the poorest countries would still use dried cow dung as cooking fuel.

We now have a great opportunity to turn from going after CO2 and address real pollution and environmental degradation. We have immense environmental problems. The water in the American South-West is spoken for, the prairie aquifers are being depleted, water and soil pollution lurks everywhere. We are over-fertilizing our lawns and agricultural fields, not managing wildfires properly, adding red tape to red tape. All environmental action should be regional, such as the Chesapeake Bay Watershed program. Thanks to persuading even the Amish to use proper fertilizing methods, such as not putting out manure just before a thunderstorm, put up manure barriers next to streams and so on, Chesapeake Bay might yet be saved.

It makes no sense to make electric cars as long as the bulk of electricity comes from fossil fuels. Fossil fuels should be reserved for airplane transportation since they have no good alternative.

We need to have a crash program in Thorium based nuclear electricity production, and when enough production capacity is established, then is the time to produce electrical cars.

We need to leave this world a cleaner and better place than when we entered it, and the best way to have a chance to leave more production resources for our grand-children is to switch most of our electricity production to Thorium as a feedstock. There is a million years supply of Thorium in the world, all other material are more limited. Wind and solar will not do it, it takes more power than that to solve our needs.

Answers to Question 14. How does agriculture affect climate change?

Answers to Question 15. Will the seas rise evenly across the planet?

Answers to Question 16. Is it really all about carbon?

The spillway at the Oroville Dam fails. Blame Climate Change, not the politicians. A Limerick.

The spillway at Oroville Dam:

The “permanent drought” was a scam.

“No more need for repairs,

if it fails, no one cares.”

“It’s Climate Change. Blame Uncle Sam.”

In May of 2016 California Gov. Jerry Brown made some of the state’s temporary water restrictions permanent. The executive order, in response to the state’s drought, permanently bans wasteful practices like hosing sidewalks and washing cars with hoses that don’t have shut-off nozzles.

“Californians stepped up during this drought and saved more water than ever before,” Brown said in a statement. “But now we know that drought is becoming a regular occurrence and water conservation must be a part of our everyday life.”

Meanwhile, the concerns for the existing dams faded. They would never be filled to capacity again, so why worry about emergency spillways? Regular maintenance and repair work, not of an emergency nature was delayed yet another year, and resources were diverted to other priority items, such as a Satellite program to monitor Climate change if disaster should strike and Donald Trump, perish the thought, would be elected.

This was in the middle of the last El Niño, and temperatures had only one way to go, up, and with that increasing capacity to hold water vapor. Now the El Niño has been replaced by a La Niña, the temperature are getting back to normal, the 19 year pause is back, and now the excessive humidity is raining out over the Pacific West.

This should not have come as a surprise. The Great flood of 1862 was worse. The Oroville Dam spillwater empties out in what is Sacramento river, and flood control by building dams has been successful to avert major flooding like that. Politicians have short memories and even less sense of history. The climate changes all the time. We are now raining out from a very temporary temperature rise, and we know that eventually our descendants will have to face another ice age. More CO2 may delay that inevitability by a few hundred years, but the long term trend is down. 2016 was still on of the 1000 coldest in the last 10000 years.

President Trump’s executive order on immigration updated, a Limerick.

Executive orders last week:

Just one was in need of a tweak.

Made the green cards exempt,

no more held in contempt;

now humming along, so to speak.

President Trump last week issued an executive order that has created considerable stir. It read: “I hereby proclaim that the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12), would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order.” And it targets Syrians specifically. “I hereby proclaim that the entry of nationals of Syria as refugees is detrimental to the interests of the United States and thus suspend any such entry until such time as I have determined that sufficient changes have been made to the USRAP to ensure that admission of Syrian refugees is consistent with the national interest.”

Searching through INA 8 the countries of concern are defined “The order bars all people hailing from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.”

The restrictions used to be for only four of the seven countries, but the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 added Libya, Somalia, and Yemen as three countries of concern,

Trump didn’t select seven “Muslim-majority” countries. US President Barack Obama’s administration selected these seven Muslim-majority countries.

The word Muslim is never mentioned in the order, nor is Muslim Majority countries.

The total population in the seven countries mentioned is: Iraq, 31 million, Iran 75, Libya 6, Somalia 9, Sudan 39 , Syria 21 and Yemen about 24 million, for a total of 205 million out of a total Muslim population of 1.7 billion in the world. That means that 88% of all Muslims are not affected by this 90 day review, only Syrian refugees are mentioned, and only that the review will take more than 90 days and require further executive and legislative action.

The executive order was written in haste, and it became obvious it would have been better if the words “excluding green card holding aliens” had been added to “suspend entry”.

Realizing the mistake, President Trump wasted no time to clarify and amend the executive order exempting green card holders.

People, especially Democrats tend to forget that green card holders, resident aliens are still aliens.

Earth day 2016. Sign the Paris agreement!

Obama is signing in Paris

a document meant to ensnare us.

Constitution? Who cares?

He wants One World affairs

With doomsday predictions to scare us.

It is typical that Obama didn’t sign the agreement himself, but did send John Kerry instead. After all, it had to be done on Lenin’s birthday, also known as Earth day, and Obama was engaged in a self invited private luncheon with Queen Elizabeth and meddling in the political affairs of the United Kingdom.

Obama claims he has the authority to give away the sovereignty of the United States, putting it under U.N. regulations without the approval of Congress.

Maybe so, since this world changing document has no vehicle for enforcement. But if that is the case, why even bother?

The U.S. Army though has as its highest priority pledged to honor “Earth Day” by “reasserting its pledge to address the implications of climate change and assess associated risks to national security.”

Way to go.

Verse 77 of the Obama Impeachment song. Obama wept.

by SARAH PALIN 5 Jan 2016

Obama wept.

America is forced to weep over Obama’s releasing violent criminals into our communities – like the 121 illegal aliens who committed murders after they were released from custody by the Obama administration instead of being deported. And that doesn’t take into account the others we don’t know about.

The whole world weeps waiting for American leadership in these troubled times as Islamic savages commit genocide against the Christians of the Middle East and terrorize innocent people in cities across the globe.

Meanwhile, Obama wept as he blamed law-abiding patriots for the nation’s insecurity and sought to strip them of the Constitutional rights that generations of Americans shed blood to protect.

Obama wept, while we all continue to weep for our country and the civilized world. (Breitbart)

This brings us to verse 77 of the Obama Impeachment song (as if sung by President Barack Hussein Obama to the tune of “Please release me, let me go”)

Gun control: It’s true, I wept.

I proved myself to be inept.

Not a promise that I kept.

In crises I golfed or overslept!

Here is the complete impeachment song: https://lenbilen.com/2015/02/25/the-complete-obama-impeachment-song/

Mark Steyn testimony before the Senate, Dec. 8. A Limerick.

On Dec 8 Mark Steyn testified before the U.S. Senate sub-committee on space, science and competitiveness, led by Sen. Ted Cruz.

Mark Steyn on the Climate of Change

in Congress where things are so strange.

Michael Mann with his shtick,

Sheldon Whitehouse’s clique,

heard truth from a Steyn at close range.

The clip is one of the best arguments for sanitation of the climate debate.

Humorous? Yes, Entertaining? Yes, a well delivered rebuke. Listen:

A complete transcript of his initial testimony can be found at:

Mark Steyn’s illuminating and entertaining testimony to the Cruz hearing on climate today

Verse 65 of the Obama Impeachment song. Banning the Box.

News item: In an announcement on Monday Nov. 2, President Obama announced that he was “Banning the Box,” removing the checkbox on federal employment applications in which people are required to disclose their criminal backgrounds. The order known as “ban the box” which describes the actual checkbox on applications that inquires if applicant have ever been convicted of a crime, is intended to help former convicts successfully re-enter into society.
Which leads to verse 65 of the Obama Impeachment song (as if sung by Obama to the tune of “Please release me, let me go”)

Excons, I have banned the box

I need you here to clean their clocks.

My Chicago way still rocks.

Come join me, or I’ll be put in stocks.

Here is the complete impeachment song: https://lenbilen.com/2015/02/25/the-complete-obama-impeachment-song/

Obama rejects the Keystone XL pipeline. A most deplorable decision for the economy and the environment, but good for Warren Buffett,

The President has decided to deny the permission to build the Keystone XL pipeline, thus satisfying the environmentalists that want to wean us off our dependency on carbon based products, such as fuel, food and fertilizer. The arguments for denying the decision are nearly exclusively political, while the arguments to build the pipeline are concerns for our national security and economy.

Here is the deal:

Canada has the tar-sands and is extracting the oil. This was not our decision. If we don’t buy the oil, China will.

We are importing crude oil from the Middle East (Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, etc.), Nigeria, Venezuela and other volatile places, leaving us exposed to supply and price disruptions.

We export refined products to the Caribbean islands, which by the way have a larger carbon footprint per person than the U.S. This is good business, since the islands are too small for a refinery.

It takes more energy to run a refinery up north in a cold climate than in hot, humid Baytown, Texas.

The last time a major oil refinery was built in the U.S was 1976. A small refinery was built in 1993, in Valdez, Alaska. The US. regulatory climate is hostile to refineries. Colombia, O.K, U.S. No.

Warren Buffett’s bought Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad in February 2010 and paid 44 Billion dollars for it. The railroad paid Berkshire Hathaway 2.25 Billion in dividends during the first 13 months. Warren Buffet bought the railroad after Obama took office.

Right now the crude oil is transported from the Athabasca tar sands to Houston mostly by Warren Buffet’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC railroad. It is among U.S. and Canadian railroads that stand to benefit from the Obama administration’s decision to reject TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL oil pipeline permit.
With modest expansion, railroads can handle all new oil produced in western Canada through 2030, according to an analysis of the Keystone proposal by the U.S. State Department.
https://lenbilen.com/2012/01/25/warren-buffet-profiting-from-working-on-the-railroad/
The cost of transporting the oil is about #14 dollars per barrel, much of it the cost of energy (CO2). The pipe-line can do the job for about seven dollars per barrel, much of it capital costs.
We can see what happens when transporting crude oil: https://lenbilen.com/2013/07/07/ttain-derailment-in-quebec-and-keystone-xl-pipeline-a-limerick/

Warren Buffet is a major player in the Obama Administration; he has frequent access to the White House and is a major contributor to Obama and the Democrats’ campaign.

Sarah Palin succinctly coined the phrase: “This is Crony Capitalism.”

By not importing oil from Canada the total carbon footprint will increase. We lose, and Canada loses. (I am not concerned that the CO2 is increasing, but that a valuable natural resource is excessively depleted.) Now it turns out that Canada has left the Kyoto Protocol, thereby being free to burn as much of its carbon as they want. Was that really what the environmentalists wanted?

So why did Obama deny the permit? Here are five possibilities:

1. Obama is a true believer that ”this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”. As a true environmentalist his role can not be overestimated .

2. Obama is deliberately wrecking our economy, refuses to have an energy policy that will create jobs, but will support protest movements and foment unrest.

3. Obama is acting on orders from Global Governance people that do want U.S. to be totally dependent on international law and U.N. mandates.

4. Obama wants to show leadership in advance of the Paris Climate Conference 2015, and its associated treaty.

5. Obama wants to show leadership on something, and touts the “breakthrough” agreement with China, where he will allow China to emit six times as much CO2 by the year 2030 as the U.S.

6. https://lenbilen.com/2014/02/14/the-real-reason-obama-wont-approve-the-keystone-xl-pipeline/

7. Obama promised to be Brazil’s best customer from their deep sea oil drilling success, paid for by U.S. loan guarantees. He must be true to his promises.

8. Obama is half insane and surrounded by bad advisers.

This is the best I can do to explain the reasons for this decision.

Obama on leadership, COP21, the pause, warmest year on record, the facts.

Asking Obama about his comments a year ago that America is the indispensable nation and that America leads, CBS 60 minutes interviewer Steve Kroft commented that Vladimir Putin “seems to be challenging that leadership” with his actions in Syria.

Obama’s response was revealing about how he sees the role of the United States as a global leader. “If you think that running your economy into the ground and having to send troops in in order to prop up your only ally is leadership, then we’ve got a different definition of leadership,” Obama replied. “My definition of leadership would be leading on climate change, an international accord that potentially we’ll get in Paris. My definition of leadership is mobilizing the entire world community to make sure that Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon. And with respect to the Middle East, we’ve got a 60-country coalition that isn’t suddenly lining up around Russia’s strategy.”

Leadership? Obama seems to have an unique angle on leadership. He claimed in his April 18 weekly address to the nation, : “2014 was the planet’s warmest year on record.”

This will be one of his main arguments going into the Climate Conference COP21 in Paris in December.

How accurate is this statement?

Besides from the fact that we are not even close to the Minoan warming period 3000 years ago, or the Roman warming period 2000 years ago, not even the Medieval warming period 1000 years ago it is way off the mark on other facts as well. The figure below is from the Greenland Ice Core probings and is one of the best gauges for temperature records the last 10000 years. 2014 was still one of the 1000 coldest. Note also that the inter-glacial maximum temperature was around 6000 years ago and we are well into the bog-building face where normally Carbon would be deposited in the bogs and trigger the next ice-age. Burning Coal slows down the cool-down.

We are now experiencing an 18 year 8 month pause in the warming occurring since the little ice age. This is an undisputed fact if one looks at the satellite data.

However, if one looks at the data generated by the surface stations it looks quite different. There has been a substantial rise in global temperatures since measurements began, and indeed, this century is so far the warmest on record.

So, who is right? The official satellite measurements or the official surface temperature measurements?

The satellite measurements are done without any corrections, but the instruments are frequently calibrated to ensure no temperature drifts occur over time.

On the other hand, the United states Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) is the custodian of temperature data from the 48 contiguous states. As temperature stations are dropped and others are added they try to do a homogenization step to present the most probable past temperatures for the 48 states. This leads to temperature adjustments to past readings. They sincerely try to do the best job possible to ensure the adjustments are without bias of any kind. If we look at the next picture they did a near perfect temperature adjustment of past temperatures as a linear function of CO2 concentration.

(Credit to Tom Heller who did the analysis). This means that all homogenization was performed assuming the temperature adjustments had to conform to the IPCC model.

In other words, by assuming the model is right you adjust the data until they fit the model. Using the adjusted data you then claim this proves the model is right.

Climate science?

CO2 reductions to solve Climate change? Wrong solution for the world. A Limerick.

Renewable energy: – Clean.

The world is so dirty and mean.

Never mind the expense

and it doesn’t make sense.

CO2 is what makes the world green.

The White House Aug 3 announced a target of 32% reduction in CO2 emission from U.S. power plants by 2030. This is a target that no existing Coal fired power plant can meet, only natural gas fired power plants. He also proposed a 70% reduction in emissions other than CO2, which has its merits.

Obama may yet succeed in his campaign promise: “Under my plan the electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket.”

https://youtu.be/HlTxGHn4sH4

Obama wants us to have as expensive electricity as Denmark and Germany, the two countries with the most wind and solar power per capita.

The chart tells it all. Thirty Cent/ kWh in Denmark.

Us is (was?) an outlier with cheap and abundant fossil fuel and low fuel taxes.

Australia is an outlier, They are paying for implementing a carbon tax.

The President said in his announcement that last year was the warmest on record and that fourteen of the fifteen warmest years occurred in this century.

Another way of looking at the temperature record is: Last year was still one of the 700 coldest in the last 10000 years. See fig: We have now had over ten years since the last major hurricane hit the U.S. mainland. A new record.

The rise of the oceans is partly because we are still recovering from the last Ice age. One point in Northern Sweden is rising as much as three feet per century. This and normal continental drift explains why many coastlines such as the Eastern Seaboard are sinking.