A first term president who wants to run for a second term has some incentives in their first term not to pursue extremely damaging policies. If they send the economy into a recession they risk not getting re-elected. Both Trump and Biden are pursuing second terms. If elected, what would prevent either of them from trying to do damaging things?
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill… All these dangers are caused by human intervention… The real enemy then, is humanity itself.” (Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, 1991)
A Climate Emergency would be a blatant power grab, as was Covid, but I don't see much in the way of resistance arising from the masses. During Covid I did not lock down, surely did not vaccinate, and only rarely wore a mask if some store insisted. I never used hand sanitizer and never once stood on one of those damned 6-feet stickers. I did not like the attention my behavior brought my way, but so be it, as a free human being my mask (when forced to wear it -slit horizontally so I could breathe) said it all: SHEEP. We are not free unless we claim our freedom by our behavior.
An urgency supposed to last until the end of the century, or longer, cannot be considered an urgency.
Once a state of urgency is declared, it takes great efforts to repel it if its duration is not bound by a time limit in the country's constitution. Those who gained special powers under this situation are more than unwilling to give them up.
In my country (Switzerland), a few towns have declared a state of climate urgency. This has no practical effect other than to allow individuals or NGOs to sue the authorities for lack of action, since it will never be possible to do enough to change climate change.
What's more, who truly knows what is good for controlling the climate, what the objective should be, what means to be used?
We are collectively in a state of trials end errors, nothing to justify a state of urgency other than a power game.
Is it possible that the administration is looking to coerce the fossil fuel industry to better support the President lest he makes that emergency declaration under the guise of the climate?
A much more compelling question to ask is: "Does Atmospheric CO2 gas significantly cause the heating of planet Earth as levels of the gas rise?" The answer is a resounding, NO, as a 100% increase of CO2 (doubling) only reduces radiation to space by 1%. The reason is clear. The warming effect of each molecule of CO2 declines as its concentration increases in a logarithmic relationship. https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Diminishing-Returns.jpg . The IPCC, based on flawed science, says that the temperature will rise by 3 to 5 degrees C. by doubling the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
How do we know that a little warming will be bad, let alone noticed? There is no climate emergency and there are no functional, or affordable, alternatives to fossil fuels if we want to avoid poverty and control over our lives by sociopaths. If, and only if, man made climate change (global warming) is real then it would be better to spend on limiting damage and making sure even the poorest amongst us can live decent lives. A lot cheaper too!
Roger, I just got a piece from Kenneth Green of the Fraser Institute. He must be reading your essays here on The Honest Broker because he is of the opinion that the present state of extreme weather data does not justify the use of the term "climate crisis". www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/extreme-weather-and-climate-change.pdf.
The only emergency is the internal Democratic outlook for their success in the coming presidential election. At this point Biden and his team will do whatever they think will buy them votes, no matter whether it is good for the country or not! What a sad development for the country.
This is all about supporting the narrative, allowing all sorts of ridiculous ideas to proceed because once you have an 'emergency" you must be evil to oppose any action.
As with everything else, this declaration will encourage and assist passage of terrible, counter-productive policy where all the wrong people are getting rich and real problems are ignored and should therefore be opposed strenuously.
And there is no need to "rapidly decarbonize" anything.
In the Declaration of Independence Jefferson railed against the merciless Indian Savages and the despotism of the King of Great Britain.
The constitution created a president much more powerful than King George whose only substantial role in the war was to forbid any settlement west of the Appalachians (to protect the natives) which infuriated wealthy colonists.
Emergency powers were generally invoked in times of war but climate appears to be a very special emergency which supersedes all human activity.
Just heard on the news that the Biden administration is about to announce the cancellation of the National Petroleum Reserve and a critical road to a large copper deposit, both in Alaska. If true, it would seem the policy incoherence is nearly complete. How is the deep decarbonization via electrification of everything to be accomplished, if copper production cannnot be increased? The National Petroleum Reserve was established 100 years ago specifically to serve the nation's need for crude oil. That need still exists since fossil fuels presently furnish something like 85% of the nation's energy needs. This appears to be a policy guaranteed to reduce the nation's energy supply, increase inflation, decrease strategic options on the world stage and put top-spin on the nation's decline.
Someone should show Biden today's article by Ruy Teixeira in the Liberal Patriot. He argues that Democrats must become energy realists because it is in their best political interests. So no need for a declaration of emergency. Phew!!!
I was a little disappointed in your belief "that pragmatic policies supporting accelerated accelerated decarbonization make excellent sense." (I'm assuming the double "accelerated" is your mind stuttering.) If we're going to do it, then let's have a solid plan. California certainly thinks it has accelerated decarbonization, but it's been at the cost of ever-more-frequent brownouts (and if Diablo Canyon actually closes in 2030, I predict blackouts).
The problem is two-fold - skyrocketing demand, and the problems with increasing capacity.
• Demand. Over the last 50 years, California's demand for electricity has increased almost linearly. However, mandates forcing the electrification of transportation and the blooming of data centers across the state and country make it easy to project a spike in demand (perhaps doubling) in the next decade. At the same time, fossil plants (natural gas currently provides about a third of CA's electricity) are being forced to retire. San Onofre nuclear station was closed in 2013; at the time it provided about 1/6 of CA's electric needs. CA's high electric rates also partially reflect the state's need to purchase power on spot markets - about 25% of its electricity is imported (mostly from the Pacific NW, but some from Mexico). Diablo Canyon provides about 10% of CA's electricity, but is now scheduled to close in 2030.
• Increasing capacity. There are really only two options – more renewables (the favored choice of the enviro cult) or more nuclear. CA's brownouts has brought attention to an interesting problem with renewables. In olden times (around Y2K) if you had enough power to cover peak demand (around 3-5 pm), you had enough power to cover the entire day. Starting in 2020, the increase in renewables and the overall increase in demand meant the system operators had enough power to cover peak demand, but if the weather didn't cooperate then there wasn't enough electricity to meet the demand of people coming home, plugging in their cars, turning on their ACs, after the peak. Hence the brownouts that started in 2020 and have occurred sporadically since.
If we increase the fraction of renewables we just increase the system's vulnerability to hot, cloudy, windless days. Further, few people seem to be concerned about the land needed for renewables. Diablo Canyon's power production site takes up about 0.01 sq mi. Using the best estimates I can find, that translates into about 28 sq mi for a solar replacement; and, of course, this doesn't take into account solar's intermittency. It would take about 4X that much to actually match Diablo Canyon's (or that of a fossil fuel plant) output. And then we would need batteries to store the solar-generated power.
Batteries have their own problems. They're expensive - really expensive: the 680 MW Nova Power Bank will cost over $1 B, and it would take at least three of these for our notional renewable replacement for Diablo Canyon. And it will only provide that power for a period of four hours - if you need more, forget it.
In principle, nuclear is the answer. No CO2, and a minuscule amount of waste. However, as I know all too well from the $9 B fiasco with the failed Sumner plant expansion here in SC, these projects are fiscally and legally vulnerable. I love the concept of the small nukes, but they won't be around until the '30's.
So. I'm left with my original question to add to your three: What do you mean by "acceleration?"
Compared to what? On what timetable? With what money?
A first term president who wants to run for a second term has some incentives in their first term not to pursue extremely damaging policies. If they send the economy into a recession they risk not getting re-elected. Both Trump and Biden are pursuing second terms. If elected, what would prevent either of them from trying to do damaging things?
I don’t understand your reasoning for stating that GW Bush declared more emergencies than Clinton per year in office.
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill… All these dangers are caused by human intervention… The real enemy then, is humanity itself.” (Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, 1991)
A Climate Emergency would be a blatant power grab, as was Covid, but I don't see much in the way of resistance arising from the masses. During Covid I did not lock down, surely did not vaccinate, and only rarely wore a mask if some store insisted. I never used hand sanitizer and never once stood on one of those damned 6-feet stickers. I did not like the attention my behavior brought my way, but so be it, as a free human being my mask (when forced to wear it -slit horizontally so I could breathe) said it all: SHEEP. We are not free unless we claim our freedom by our behavior.
And today the green chicken weighs in with a piece about the lack of any climate emergency: https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/climate-the-article/comments
An urgency supposed to last until the end of the century, or longer, cannot be considered an urgency.
Once a state of urgency is declared, it takes great efforts to repel it if its duration is not bound by a time limit in the country's constitution. Those who gained special powers under this situation are more than unwilling to give them up.
In my country (Switzerland), a few towns have declared a state of climate urgency. This has no practical effect other than to allow individuals or NGOs to sue the authorities for lack of action, since it will never be possible to do enough to change climate change.
What's more, who truly knows what is good for controlling the climate, what the objective should be, what means to be used?
We are collectively in a state of trials end errors, nothing to justify a state of urgency other than a power game.
Is it possible that the administration is looking to coerce the fossil fuel industry to better support the President lest he makes that emergency declaration under the guise of the climate?
A much more compelling question to ask is: "Does Atmospheric CO2 gas significantly cause the heating of planet Earth as levels of the gas rise?" The answer is a resounding, NO, as a 100% increase of CO2 (doubling) only reduces radiation to space by 1%. The reason is clear. The warming effect of each molecule of CO2 declines as its concentration increases in a logarithmic relationship. https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Diminishing-Returns.jpg . The IPCC, based on flawed science, says that the temperature will rise by 3 to 5 degrees C. by doubling the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
Those more enlightened on radiative forcing theory may take an interest in Van-wijngaarden and Happer's radiative transfer paper for five greenhouse gases https://co2coalition.org/publications/van-wijngaarden-and-happer-radiative-transfer-paper-for-five-greenhouse-gases-explained/.
Also, we nearly got wiped out by a dearth of CO2 in the last glacial maximum as is illustrated graphically as follows: https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/CO2_5.jpg
How do we know that a little warming will be bad, let alone noticed? There is no climate emergency and there are no functional, or affordable, alternatives to fossil fuels if we want to avoid poverty and control over our lives by sociopaths. If, and only if, man made climate change (global warming) is real then it would be better to spend on limiting damage and making sure even the poorest amongst us can live decent lives. A lot cheaper too!
Roger, I just got a piece from Kenneth Green of the Fraser Institute. He must be reading your essays here on The Honest Broker because he is of the opinion that the present state of extreme weather data does not justify the use of the term "climate crisis". www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/extreme-weather-and-climate-change.pdf.
The only emergency is the internal Democratic outlook for their success in the coming presidential election. At this point Biden and his team will do whatever they think will buy them votes, no matter whether it is good for the country or not! What a sad development for the country.
This is all about supporting the narrative, allowing all sorts of ridiculous ideas to proceed because once you have an 'emergency" you must be evil to oppose any action.
As with everything else, this declaration will encourage and assist passage of terrible, counter-productive policy where all the wrong people are getting rich and real problems are ignored and should therefore be opposed strenuously.
And there is no need to "rapidly decarbonize" anything.
In the Declaration of Independence Jefferson railed against the merciless Indian Savages and the despotism of the King of Great Britain.
The constitution created a president much more powerful than King George whose only substantial role in the war was to forbid any settlement west of the Appalachians (to protect the natives) which infuriated wealthy colonists.
Emergency powers were generally invoked in times of war but climate appears to be a very special emergency which supersedes all human activity.
Just heard on the news that the Biden administration is about to announce the cancellation of the National Petroleum Reserve and a critical road to a large copper deposit, both in Alaska. If true, it would seem the policy incoherence is nearly complete. How is the deep decarbonization via electrification of everything to be accomplished, if copper production cannnot be increased? The National Petroleum Reserve was established 100 years ago specifically to serve the nation's need for crude oil. That need still exists since fossil fuels presently furnish something like 85% of the nation's energy needs. This appears to be a policy guaranteed to reduce the nation's energy supply, increase inflation, decrease strategic options on the world stage and put top-spin on the nation's decline.
Thankfully you vote no on the three questions.
Someone should show Biden today's article by Ruy Teixeira in the Liberal Patriot. He argues that Democrats must become energy realists because it is in their best political interests. So no need for a declaration of emergency. Phew!!!
Well done!
I was a little disappointed in your belief "that pragmatic policies supporting accelerated accelerated decarbonization make excellent sense." (I'm assuming the double "accelerated" is your mind stuttering.) If we're going to do it, then let's have a solid plan. California certainly thinks it has accelerated decarbonization, but it's been at the cost of ever-more-frequent brownouts (and if Diablo Canyon actually closes in 2030, I predict blackouts).
The problem is two-fold - skyrocketing demand, and the problems with increasing capacity.
• Demand. Over the last 50 years, California's demand for electricity has increased almost linearly. However, mandates forcing the electrification of transportation and the blooming of data centers across the state and country make it easy to project a spike in demand (perhaps doubling) in the next decade. At the same time, fossil plants (natural gas currently provides about a third of CA's electricity) are being forced to retire. San Onofre nuclear station was closed in 2013; at the time it provided about 1/6 of CA's electric needs. CA's high electric rates also partially reflect the state's need to purchase power on spot markets - about 25% of its electricity is imported (mostly from the Pacific NW, but some from Mexico). Diablo Canyon provides about 10% of CA's electricity, but is now scheduled to close in 2030.
• Increasing capacity. There are really only two options – more renewables (the favored choice of the enviro cult) or more nuclear. CA's brownouts has brought attention to an interesting problem with renewables. In olden times (around Y2K) if you had enough power to cover peak demand (around 3-5 pm), you had enough power to cover the entire day. Starting in 2020, the increase in renewables and the overall increase in demand meant the system operators had enough power to cover peak demand, but if the weather didn't cooperate then there wasn't enough electricity to meet the demand of people coming home, plugging in their cars, turning on their ACs, after the peak. Hence the brownouts that started in 2020 and have occurred sporadically since.
If we increase the fraction of renewables we just increase the system's vulnerability to hot, cloudy, windless days. Further, few people seem to be concerned about the land needed for renewables. Diablo Canyon's power production site takes up about 0.01 sq mi. Using the best estimates I can find, that translates into about 28 sq mi for a solar replacement; and, of course, this doesn't take into account solar's intermittency. It would take about 4X that much to actually match Diablo Canyon's (or that of a fossil fuel plant) output. And then we would need batteries to store the solar-generated power.
Batteries have their own problems. They're expensive - really expensive: the 680 MW Nova Power Bank will cost over $1 B, and it would take at least three of these for our notional renewable replacement for Diablo Canyon. And it will only provide that power for a period of four hours - if you need more, forget it.
In principle, nuclear is the answer. No CO2, and a minuscule amount of waste. However, as I know all too well from the $9 B fiasco with the failed Sumner plant expansion here in SC, these projects are fiscally and legally vulnerable. I love the concept of the small nukes, but they won't be around until the '30's.
So. I'm left with my original question to add to your three: What do you mean by "acceleration?"
Compared to what? On what timetable? With what money?