Climate Change > Milankovitch Cycles driving Glacial changes?

 

I put this link out for those interested in this subject, but have to confess that I have not read the material, so have no confidence in its validity. If you have the time to study this, I would love to hear your thoughts about it.

Earth’s orbit and tilt drive glacial-

interglacial changes

 Download This Resource

The glacial-interglacial cycles are controlled by changes in the Earth’s tilt and the shape of its orbit that occur in predictable cycles. The eccentricity of the Earth’s elliptical orbit (i.e., how far the shape of the orbit differs from a perfect circle) varies in 100,000-year cycles. The tilt or obliquity of the Earth’s axis varies in 41,000-year cycles. The Earth also wobbles on a 26,000-year cycle that causes a phenomenon known as the “precession of the equinoxes”. Collectively, these three cycles, which were originally discovered by a self-taught university janitor named James Croll, are now known as the Milankovich cycles. These long-term astronomical changes indicate that changes in CO2 concentration cannot have been the chief reason for warming and cooling in geological time.

Source(s): Milankovitch cycles - Universe Today

Source(s): NASA: Milankovitch (Orbital) Cycles and Their Role in Earth's Climate,

===========================================================================

Climate Change - One of the Problems with EVs, They Don't Like the Cold

..

Electric vehicles lose up to 30% range when temperatures dip

below freezing, study finds

Sudbury, Ont., EV driver says preheating a car while it's plugged in will improve winter range

CBC News · 

Posted: Feb 07, 2023 4:00 AM PST | 

General Motors tests its new and upcoming electric vehicles, like the Hummer EV, at its proving grounds

in Kapuskasing, Ont. They see how vehicles perform in extreme cold weather and how they can improve them.

(Submitted by General Motors)

Electric vehicles (EVs) can lose up to 30 per cent of their range in freezing temperatures, according to a U.S. firm that tested range loss in 7,000 cars.

Seattle-based Recurrent measured range loss in 7,000 EVs at temperatures between –7 C and –1 C.

At the low end, the Jaguar I-Pace had an estimated range loss of three per cent, while the Volkswagen ID.4 had a 30 per cent range loss at those temperatures.

Liz Najman, a researcher with Recurrent, said EVs lose range during the winter because of the energy it takes to heat the cabin so it's comfortable for the driver and passengers.

Because electric motors are more efficient than gas engines, they can't draw on wasted heat to warm up the inside of the vehicle. 

"If you've ever touched the hood of a gas car, you know it's really hot after it's been driving," Najman said.

"And that's because gasoline engines are super inefficient, and so they create all of this waste heat. And when you turn the car on in a gas car, you just funnel all of that heat from the engine to the cabin."

Importance of charging infrastructure

EVs have to generate heat in other ways, which means using more energy from the battery that won't go toward range. Some vehicles, however, use more efficient heat pumps to get the cabin warm, which means there's more energy left over from the battery to propel the vehicle forward. 

Seattle-based Recurrent measured range loss in 7,000 EVs at temperatures between -7 C and -1 C.

(Submitted by Recurrent)

Steve Holmik of Sudbury, Ont., drives a Tesla Model Y and said he can lose up to 50 per cent of his range if outside temperatures are very cold.

"Around town, the range impact is negligible," Holmik said. "It's nice and warm when you get inside. It's no different to essentially driving a gas vehicle."

Holmik said the winter range loss could be an issue for people who drive long distances in the winter, especially if they travel in areas further north, where charging infrastructure is lacking.

"Especially once you get north of Sudbury, the infrastructure just isn't there," he said. "Like if you go to Timmins, you'd be lucky to find a Level 2 charger."

But Holmik said he can greatly improve his winter range by preheating his car while it's still plugged in at his house or using a fast charger. He said he can improve range loss by up to 20 per cent by doing that.

So, that would mean he still only gets 30% less range in very cold weather. It's a pity they didn't measure range loss at -25C. That would be really interesting, especially for Canadians who get stuck in snowstorms or avalanches for 24 hours or more.

Some vehicles, like Teslas, also have a feature called battery preconditioning, where the car will warm up the battery before reaching a charger, which speeds up charging times.

CBCs bias

Notice in the chart above that the VW ID4 wasn't the only car that lost 30% of its range in cold weather. The Ford Mustang Mach-E also lost 30%, and the Chevy Bolt lost 32%. Why CBC completely ignored these two American-made vehicles speaks volumes about CBCs built-in bias.

At least, Jaguar has shown that it is possible to minimize the loss of range to a negligible amount if the will is there.

Climate Change > Von Der Leyen's absurd prediction; Rush to EVs may be big mistake

..

European Commission president says it will slash greenhouse gases

by 55% in next 8 years

She said while her home country, Germany, is scrambling to replace windmills with dirty coal mines.

By Clyde Hughes

   

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks during the 2022 United Nations Climate Change 

Conference (COP27), in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, on Tuesday. Photo by Khaled Elfiqi/EPA-EFE

Nov. 8 (UPI) -- European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the COP 27 summit in Egypt on Tuesday called for member nations to jointly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by the end of the decade to avoid climate change's "highway to hell."

In an effort to quicken the rollout renewals, which she called REPowerEU, she said the effort would not only cut its reliance of Russian fossil fuels but can take advantage of already available resources.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the day earlier that the world was "on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator."

"Let us not take the highway to hell; let us earn the clean ticket to heaven," Leyen said. "The European Union's additional renewable capacity is set to more than double this year, up to 50 gigawatts.

"And if we accelerate and if we scale up -- and that is our plan -- we can, in the next year, meet a new all-time record of over 100 gigawatts of additional renewable capacity. Because we know that every kilowatt-hour of electricity that we generate from renewable sources -- like solar and wind, and green hydrogen -- is not only good for our climate but also good for our independence and our security of supply."

Maria Niera, the World Health Organization's director of public health and environment said the connection between climate change and health is already noticeable.

"The price of not taking decisions to fight climate change is paid by our lungs when you breathe polluted air, and many other organ," Niera said. "I think health will be the final motivation that has been missing from the 26 previous COPS. I don't see what else can be.

"If they take the right decisions, our health will gain. If they take the wrong decisions, our health will lose."

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame echoed the sentiments of many poor African countries on Tuesday, pointing out they contribute the least to global warming but continued to pay the high price for its results.

"The most valuable contribution that developed countries can make is to reduce their emissions faster while investing in Africa to build sustainable, green power," Kagame said. "Questioning whether Africa is ready to make use of climate finance should not be used as an excuse to justify inaction."

Rush to electric vehicles may be an expensive mistake, say climate strategists

Move to replace fossil fuel fleet with EVs is essential, but there are things to do first

Don Pittis · CBC News · 

Posted: Dec 12, 2022 1:30 AM ET | 

An electric Canoo LV (Lifestyle Vehicle) at a factory in Livonia, Mich., last month. Quirky new designs can make EVs

attractive items of conspicuous consumption for those who can afford them. (Rebecca Cook/Reuters)

With their futuristic designs and new technology, electric vehicles are the seductive consumer-friendly face of the energy transition.

As first incarnated by Tesla, the EV is increasingly seen as sleeker, slicker, faster and more stylish than traditional internal combustion engine cars and trucks that burn those dirty fossil fuels blamed for disrupting weather patterns and killing off species. 

For people with money and a conscience, EVs are doubly satisfying. They allow the affluent to indulge in the time-honoured pleasures of conspicuous consumption while at the same time saving the planet.

Not so fast

But for those who have looked more deeply at how the world can escape its dependence on oil and gas, the rush to replace existing gas guzzlers with a new fleet of clean, silent battery-powered personal transport leaves them uneasy.

Many, including John Lorinc, last month's winner of the 2022 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy for his book Dream States, worry that the dash to go electric has not been well thought out. 

The potential result? Unsustainable costs and unnecessary damage to the environment.

"It's a really important evolution of technology to get away from internal combustion engines, so that part is necessary," said Lorinc in a recent phone interview. But he said the change comes with many caveats, including the fact that a lot of the world's electricity is still made using fossil fuels. 

Even though they are electric, larger trucks and SUVs like this Rivian R1T mean they are not environmentally

friendly to manufacture, and their large batteries make them heavier and harder on roads, say urban planners.

(Nathan Frandino/Reuters)

"Electric vehicles are large engineered objects that require a lot of metal, they require a lot of components that are shipped all over the place," he said. "There's a lot of mining and processing of minerals required to make the components, so it's not an environmental panacea by any stretch of the imagination."

Ottawa's critical mineral strategy calls for faster project approvals

People who study what they call the energy transition — the move away from releasing hundreds of millions of years worth of carbon trapped deep underground into the atmosphere and, instead, move toward renewable energy sources — insist it must be done strategically. Like Lorinc, they say that while getting all fossil fuel vehicles off the road is essential, it is far from the first step to saving the planet.

Lorinc's new book, a study of the complexity of attempts to building green "smart cities," is stuffed with information and written in an accessible, sometimes humorous style — "What city wouldn't want to be 'smart'?" —  and delves into the thorny problem of urban transportation.

'Horrendously inefficient'

Illustrated with real examples, the chapter "The Quagmire of Mobility Tech," relates how cities have struggled with uncontrolled market forces competing for limited urban space and limited funding. 

Lorinc describes how innovations such as early, inexpensive ride-hailing apps like Uber drove people away from public transit, helping to plug up downtown streets. In one case, he describes how Innisfil, Ont., a small town north of Toronto, experimented with switching away from costly bus services to ride-hailing apps — and how the idea became so popular it blew the municipal budget.

And there's research on how electric self-driving cars could one day transform cities, Lorinc writes, but in a way that just might be flawed. 

"EVs are here to save the car industry, not the planet, that is crystal clear," said outspoken urban planning advocate Jason Slaughter in a recent email conversation. "Electric cars use batteries instead of gasoline, but they are still a horrendously inefficient way to move people around, especially in crowded cities."

Canada’s first full-scale auto plant for electric vehicles has gone into production, bringing promise of new jobs to an industry that’s slipped in dominance in recent years.

A strong advocate of public transportation on his YouTube channel Not Just Bikes, Slaughter insists that in order to make cities people-friendly instead of being dominated by cars, public transportation has to be both comfortable and easy to use.

Slaughter's adopted home, the Netherlands, is one of the most advanced in making its cities walkable and bikeable, thus discouraging the domination of cars. Lorinc, too, describes Dutch urban centres as among those closest to becoming true smart cities.

And there are signs the trend toward fewer urban cars is growing. Last week San Jose, Calif., became the largest U.S. city to abandon parking minimums — the traditional requirement that urban development had to have a certain number of parking spaces. Also last week Paris announced it was paying car drivers to switch to electric bikes.

Outside of financial incentives, there are other ways to entice people to get out from behind the wheel — make the alternatives the easiest option. 

One person and a yogurt

"Using a vehicle to move a person and a quart of yogurt is energy inefficient," said Kate Daley, a climate and energy specialist who works in Waterloo region, referring to the drive many suburban Canadians must make just to pick up an essential ingredient from the nearest shop.

Her community's climate strategy has been to make walking, biking and public transit convenient enough that residents don't have to drive, whether in a fossil fuel burner or an EV. She notes that the move toward large SUVs has already been hard on road surfaces, and the additional load caused by batteries makes the damage worse.

But most important, said Daley, is that a successful energy transition must be done strategically. As those working on fuel switching for heating Canadian homes have noted in the past, one of the advantages of fossil fuels and why we remain addicted to them is that they remain an incredible bargain.

Switching from gas to electric for high-use vehicles including taxis, delivery trucks and car-share vehicles

would have a bigger impact on the climate than trading in a car that is seldom used. (Don Pittis/CBC News)

"The reason we want to use less energy first is because if we don't reduce our energy use, [fossil fuel energy is] really expensive to replace," said Daley.

As a Vancouver green building planner has told me in the past, insulating and sealing up homes can cut energy use by 90 per cent, meaning the cost of alternative energy sources becomes less important. 

Daley said the three stages of energy transition, which applies equally to EVs is that "we need to use less energy, we need to use clean energy and we need to generate local clean energy."

Who goes first?
Recently, Canada celebrated the opening of a General Motors factory in Ingersoll, Ont., to build electric delivery vehicles, and according to Colleen Kaiser, low carbon transportation expert with the Ottawa-based Smart Prosperity Institute, they may be on the right track.

"We really want the oldest [fossil fuel] cars off the road ... and we want the ones that drive the most," said Kaiser. "So we can think about taxi kind of vehicles, whether it's an Uber or a traditional taxi, any kind of fleet vehicles."

Effectively, she said, any car or truck that is on the road many hours a day, including buses, delivery vehicles, travelling sales reps, long-distance commuters, car shares such as Communauto or Zipcars, should be the ones to electrify first. 

She agrees that changing the "built urban form of our communities" may be the most important way to reduce total car use, but she said that takes a long time. "That is why we have to start now."

Electric rickshaws are a constant on the streets of New Delhi, often fighting for space outside busy areas, 

but they are a vast improvement on the previous generation of motors that created choking fumes.

(Salimah Shivji/CBC)

"We definitely don't want to replace all the gasoline cars one-for-one with electric vehicles," said Kaiser. "We have an opportunity with the transition to not just repeat the same patterns of the past with a different energy source." 

Kaiser said she thinks that may come with a generational change. Already, young people are more likely to live downtown, take transit more often and are less likely to drive a car. But for the many Canadians who live in rural or suburban areas that may not be possible.

"We're going to have to have electric vehicles because not everyone is going to use some alternative mode of transport," she said.

As Lorinc has noted, the consumer-friendly side of buying and driving a flashy electric car needs to be backed up by many more expensive steps. Those included developing green power sources, transforming our ability to get electricity to where it is needed with "smart grids," building systems for storage and the business of finding, extracting and processing essential battery minerals. That's a lot less sexy and a lot more complicated than picking out a new car.

But as Lorinc observes in Dream States, "Anyone who fails to acknowledge that everything is complicated, simply isn't paying attention."

=============================================================================================

Climate Change > Biden in full-reverse - Trudeau full speed ahead; Germany to trade wind farm for dirty coal mine

..

Green Biden scrambles to boost American oil production after OPEC cuts

OCT 7, 2022 11:00 AM 

BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

Jihad Watch

Yet another blow to America: OPEC is cutting oil production by two million barrels per day, leaving White House with little option but to walk back its green agenda, following swift denunciations of OPEC for being “shortsighted,” making “a mistake,” supporting Russia, and being self-serving (as if the Biden administration isn’t).

In pursuit of the green agenda, the wrecking-ball Biden administration cancelled the Keystone Pipeline; suspended any new oil and gas leasing and drilling permits for federal land and water; was notoriously anti-fracking; and now, in the face of the OPEC announcement, Biden is running the other way. In sheer desperation, the Biden administration is now “exploring avenues through Congress to respond to the production cut while working to further boost domestic production”; yet again exposing the administration’s inherent shortsightedness. Germany isn’t far behind, now finding itself in such a deep hole that it is turning to the dirtiest option for energy to offset its energy crisis: coal. How much more can it possibly take for populations to wake up and see the globalist agenda for what it is?

White House blasts Opec saying it is ‘aligning with Russia’

after oil production cut announcement

by Joe Bowen, 

Independent, October 5, 2022:

“Opec’s decision to cut productions quotas is short-sighted, while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” said Ms Jeane-Pierre.

“It’s clear that Opec+ is aligning with Russia with today’s announcement,” she added to reporters.

Ms Jean-Pierre did not go as far as to call it a “hostile act” following a question from a reporter, but reiterated that it was a mistake and on its face made in Opec’s own self-interest.

Isn't that what OPEC is for?

The White House also announced in a separate, longer statement released to journalists that it would be exploring avenues through Congress to respond to the production cut while working to further boost domestic production.

“The President is also calling on U.S. energy companies to keep bringing pump prices down by closing the historically large gap between wholesale and retail gas prices — so that American consumers are paying less at the pump,” read that statement from economic adviser Brian Deese and national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

And, why would they do that? When was the last time you heard the phrase - Good Corporate Citizen?

“In light of today’s action, the Biden Administration will also consult with Congress on additional tools and authorities to reduce Opec’s control over energy prices,” they continued.

Of course, the best tool for keeping OPEC prices down was Russia. But America and Europe have nullified that effect through their own stupidity of being propagandized by NATO.

Trudeau had the opportunity to provide Germany with relatively clean natural gas but declined for the sake of global warming. It's not that Trudeau is not a hypocrite; it's that he is just that stupid. Germany will now use coal this winter and probably next, resulting in enormous contributions to the CO2 levels in the global atmosphere. Meanwhile, Canada sinks deeper and deeper into debt while much of our oil and gas remain in the ground.

==================================================================

Germany, as part of NATO, is helping to drag out the war in Ukraine. The longer the war, the more money goes into the pockets of weapons manufacturers of NATO countries. This appears to be far more important than saving the planet from global warming.

Energy Company Begins Demolishing Wind Farm, Makes Room for Coal Mine

 By George Upper, Western Journal

 November 3, 2022 at 6:06am

A German company is mothballing eight wind turbines, which will make room for expanding a nearby lignite coal mining operation.

RWE is also re-activating three coal-fueled power plants, one of which had been scheduled to be permanently shut down last month, according to the company and government sources.

The German Bundeskabinett, or Federal Cabinet, authorized energy company RWE to re-open the coal plants to help offset lowered energy imports caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Fox News.

“We realize this comes across as paradoxical,” RWE spokesperson Guido Steffen told The Guardian. “But that is as matters stand.”

After complaints from climate activists, some German government officials protested the dismantling of the wind farm.

“In the current situation, all potential for the use of renewable energy should be exhausted as much as possible and existing turbines should be in operation for as long as possible,” a spokesperson for North-Rhine Westphalia’s ministry for economic and energy affairs said. “We don’t currently see any necessity to dismantle the wind power plant by the L12 [road] near the Garzweiler surface mine.”

The windmills, however, have been slated to be removed beginning this year since they were first constructed in 2001.

Does that mean the lifespan of a windmill is just over 20 years?

“One of the turbines was dismantled last week to make way for the mine’s expansion, with two others to be taken down in the first and last quarter of next year, said a spokesperson for WPD, which manages a portion of the wind park,” The Guardian reported. “A spokesperson for Energiekontor, which built and runs the rest of the windfarm, said a time limit to its operational permit meant it expected to have to dismantle the five remaining turbines by the end of 2023.”

According to the report, each of the 20-year-old windmills generates only about 1 megawatt of electricity hourly, about one-sixth of the electricity produced by more modern wind turbines.

 

In contrast, the lignite-fueled power plants will generate about 300 megawatts each, the company said. Lignite coal, it should be noted, isn’t even very efficient source of energy, as far as fossil fuels go.

Environmental activists consider lignite, sometimes called brown coal, to be the “most polluting and health-harming form of coal,” according to a 2018 “HEAL Briefing” from the Health and Environmental Alliance, which describes itself as “the leading European not-for-profit organisation addressing how the natural and built environments affect health in the European Union (EU) and beyond.”

This is in part because lignite’s low carbon content and higher water content requires more of it to be burned to obtain the same amount of energy than would be produced by burning a smaller amount of higher-quality “hard coal.”

Dirty coal can be mined through strip mining as seen in the image at the top of this story. Hard coal, which is much cleaner and more efficient, has to be dug out from deep inside mountains. It is, therefore, more expensive and time-consuming.

“Originally, it was planned that the three reserve power plant units affected would be permanently shut down on September 30, 2022, and September 30, 2023, respectively,” RWE said in September.

“With their deployment, they contribute to strengthening the security of supply in Germany during the energy crisis and to saving natural gas in electricity generation,” the company added.

Reducing natural gas consumption is key to avoiding a “gas emergency,” Klaus Mueller, head of Germany’s national energy network regulator, said last month.

“We will hardly be able to avoid a gas emergency in winter without at least 20% savings in the private, commercial and industrial sectors,” Mueller said, according to The Associated Press. “The situation can become very serious if we do not significantly reduce our gas consumption.”

Germany has also elected to keep open three nuclear power plants through at least mid-April, another move by German leaders that has angered Green Party politicians, according to the BBC.

Climate Change > Nottinghamshire to get World's First Commercial Fusion Generator

..

U.K. selects site for world's first fusion power plant

Fusion is touted as a near-limitless source of energy.

By Daniel J. Graeber

   

Nuclear plants such as the Grohnde Nuclear Power Plant in northern Germany could yield

substantial forms of new energy should research on fusion yield positive results.

File Photo by Focke Strangmann/EPA-EFE

Oct. 4 (UPI) -- The British government said it selected the location for what could become the world's first commercial-scale prototype for a nuclear reactor run by fusion, a near-limitless source of energy.

The government on Monday selected the West Burton A plant in Nottinghamshire, southeast of Leeds, as the site for its prototype fusion energy plant, which could be completed by 2040.

Fission, which is used in standard nuclear-power reactors, works by breaking atoms apart. Fusion is a type of nuclear energy derived from the collision of atoms. It is considered a near-limitless and clean source of energy, but it's only been tested so far in non-commercial experiments.

"Fusion power creates nearly 4 million times more energy for every kilogram of fuel than burning coal, oil or gas," the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority explained.

Ben Bradley, a council leader in Nottinghamshire County, welcomed the decision to eventually power the country from his constituency.

"It's new technology, we've proven that it works and north Nottinghamshire is going to be the hub of research, innovation, commercializing that and selling it to the world," he told the BBC.

EUROfusion scientists and engineers at the Joint European Torus facility in Oxford set a record for fusion energy early this year with the generation of 59 megajoules of sustained energy. 

Dr Robert Sansom, a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s Energy Policy Panel, said:

“It’s an important step but the energy output specified is confusing. The 59 MJ is described as sustained but it was over 5 seconds with an average output of 11MW.  If this energy could be captured and used to power a steam turbine, then the power station output would be about 4MW, which is not much.

In other words, it would cost a genuine fortune!

“I would describe it as a proof of concept, but there is a lot further to go. The next stage would be to demonstrate that the energy can be captured and used to drive a generator. From this, we would be able to assess its potential for a reliable source of baseload power and its associated costs and other factors, including environmental impact. It’s a step forward but there are many more steps to overcome before this technology can be commercialised in time to have much impact on net zero. The best we can hope for is that this technology offers a viable low carbon energy source for the second half of this century and an alternative to nuclear fission.”

Researchers said the results more than double the old energy record of 21.7 megajoules set in 1997 at the same facility.

Not extremely impressive after 25 years of research. They will have to do exponentially better in the next 25 years if it's to be worthwhile.

The concept design for the facility in Nottinghamshire is expected a good two decades before the planned start of the prototype and will draw on at least $245 million in initial government funding.

Climate Change > Sacrificing health and wealth for immeasurably little difference in Climate Change - Haarlem Ad Ban, EV cars

..

For an agricultural country, this is equivalent to Canada refusing to export its oil and gas - Spectacular stupidity!

Dutch city 1st in world to ban meat advertisements

as climate change measure

By Clyde Hughes

   

The ban, which is believed to be a first for any city, was driven by studies that say meat production and consumption

are a significant contributor to climate change. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 6 (UPI) -- A Dutch city has become the first in the world to ban advertisements for meat as part of a plan to reduce greenhouse gases and fight climate change.

The city, Haarlem, banned the advertisements in public spaces in an effort to drive down meat consumption, and thereby reduce carbon emissions.

The Amsterdam suburb, which has a population of 160,000 people, said the ban will start in 2024.

The move is a response to recent studies that suggest global food production and consumption, particularly meat, accounts for about one-third of climate-warming greenhouse gases.

"We are not about what people are baking and roasting in their own kitchen; if people wanted to continue eating meat, fine," Ziggy Klazes, a councilor of the Groen Links Party and author of the legislation, said according to The Guardian.

"We can't tell people there's a climate crisis and encourage them to buy products that are part of the cause. Of course, there are a lot of people who find the decision outrageous and patronizing, but there are also a lot of people who think it's fine."

Klazes said she would love to see similar bans across the Netherlands, including possibly a national prohibition on the advertisements.

The ban was supported by the Christian Democrats Party, despite party leader Wopke Hoekstra's siding with some farmers who are against the measure.

The legislation could face immediate legal challenges. Herman Broring, a Dutch law professor, said the ban could infringe on free speech laws.

Of course, this will make virtually no difference in the global temperature. It is liable to lower the quality of protein ingested by Haarlemites, and affect the agricultural industry in the Netherlands.

Haarlem, NL

“We constantly hear that electric cars are the future—cleaner, cheaper and better.

But if they’re so good, why does California need to ban gasoline-powered cars?

Why does the world spend $30 billion a year subsidizing electric ones?

In reality, electric cars are only sometimes and somewhat better than the alternatives, they’re often much costlier, and they aren’t necessarily all that much cleaner. Over its lifetime, an electric car does emit less CO2 than a gasoline car, but the difference can range considerably depending on how the electricity is generated. Making batteries for electric cars also requires a massive amount of energy, mostly from burning coal in China. Add it all up and the International Energy Agency estimates that an electric car emits a little less than half as much CO2 as a gasoline-powered one.

EV fleet - still functional vehicles except the batteries are dead and are not worth replacing.

The climate effect of our electric-car efforts in the 2020s will be trivial. If every country achieved its stated ambitious electric-vehicle targets by 2030, the world would save 231 million tons of CO2 emissions. Plugging these savings into the standard United Nations Climate Panel model, that comes to a reduction of 0.0002 degree Fahrenheit by the end of the century.

Electric cars’ impact on air pollution isn’t as straightforward as you might think. The vehicles themselves pollute only slightly less than a gasoline car because their massive batteries and consequent weight leads to more particulate pollution from greater wear on brakes, tires and roads. On top of that, the additional electricity they require can throw up large amounts of air pollution depending on how it’s generated. One recent study found that electric cars put out more of the most dangerous particulate air pollution than gasoline-powered cars in 70% of U.S. states. An American Economic Association study found that rather than lowering air pollution, on average each additional electric car in the U.S. causes additional air-pollution damage worth $1,100 over its lifetime.

The minerals required for those batteries also present an ethical problem, as many are mined in areas with dismal human-rights records. Most cobalt, for instance, is dug out in Congo, where child labor is not uncommon, specifically in mining. There are security risks too, given that mineral processing is concentrated in China.

Increased demand for already-prized minerals is likely to drive up the price of electric cars significantly. The International Energy Agency projects that if electric cars became as prevalent as they would have to be for the world to reach net zero by 2050, the annual total demand for lithium for automobile batteries alone that year would be almost 28 times as much as current annual global lithium production. The material prices for batteries this year are more than three times what they were in 2021, and electricity isn’t getting cheaper either.

Even if rising costs weren’t an issue, electric cars wouldn’t be much of a bargain. Proponents argue that though they’re more expensive to purchase, electric cars are cheaper to drive. But a new report from a U.S. Energy Department laboratory found that even in 2025 the agency’s default electric car’s total lifetime cost will be 9% higher than a gasoline car’s, and the study relied on the very generous assumption that electric cars are driven as much as regular ones. In reality, electric cars are driven less than half as much, which means they’re much costlier per mile.

In part, this is because electric cars are often a luxury item. Two-thirds of the households in the U.S. that own one have incomes exceeding $100,000 a year. For 9 in 10 of electric-vehicle-owning households, it’s only a second car. They also have a gasoline-powered car—usually a bigger one, such as an SUV, pickup truck or minivan—that they use for long trips, given its longer range. And it takes additional costs to make electric cars convenient—such as installing a charger in your garage. Those who can’t afford it, or who don’t have a garage, will have to spend a lot more time at commercial chargers than it takes to fill up a car with gasoline.

This is all why electric cars still require such massive subsidies to sell. Norway is the only country where most new cars are electric, and that took wiping the sales and registration tax on these vehicles—worth $25,160 a car—on top of other tax breaks such as reduced tolls. Even so, only 12.6% of all Norwegian cars on the road are electric. The country has the wealth to pay for them partly because of its oil revenue, and the trade is dubious: To cut one ton of CO2 emissions through the subsidization of electric cars, Norway has to sell 100 barrels of oil, which emit 40 tons of CO2.

Needless to say, other countries’ car stocks aren’t likely to be anywhere close to 100% electric anytime soon. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that barring new legislation only about 17% of all new U.S. cars will be electric by 2050, which translates to 13% of the total American car stock. As consumers continue to vote with their wallets against electric cars, it is hard to imagine places like California continuing to demand that they can purchase only electric ones.

Electric vehicles will take over the market only if innovation makes them actually better and cheaper than gasoline-powered cars. Politicians are spending hundreds of billions of dollars and keeping consumers from the cars they want for virtually no climate benefit.” 

—Bjorn Lomborg

—Mr. Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus, a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and author of “False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet.”

==========================================================================================

Climate Change > The Private Jet Hypocrisy - Pelosi & Kerry; The insanity of electrifying Ottawa's transportation

..

Nancy Pelosi has spent nearly $500,000 on PRIVATE JETS

since 2020 despite claiming climate change is an

'existential threat' we have a 'moral obligation to protect

By KATELYN CARALLE, U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM 

PUBLISHED:  13:33 EST, 7 February 2022

Nancy Pelosi spent nearly $500,000 on private jet travel since 2020 despite its notoriously bad environmental impact and her insistence that the U.S. has a 'moral' obligation to address climate change.

Campaign filings with the Federal Election Commission show Pelosi's campaign paid the Virginia-based Advanced Aviation Team $423,707 between October 2020 and December 2021. Her campaign paid another $65,457 to California-based private jet provider Clay Lacy Aviation in January 2021.

The House Speaker has described climate change as an 'existential' threat and has even suggested, to the criticism of others, that the issue is more important than China's human rights abuses.

'Climate is an overriding issue, and China is a leading emitter in the world,' Pelosi said in September.

The Democratic National Committee has also voiced commitment to addressing climate change while spending hundreds of thousands to Advanced Aviation Team in recent years.

Pelosi led a 21-member congressional delegation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland in November where she said her commitment to addressing climate change comes down to her beliefs as a devout Catholic.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's campaign spent $489,164 on private jets from October 2020-December 2021

despite claiming climate change is an 'existential' threat and jet use being notoriously bad for the environment

'For me, it's a religious thing,' the California Democrat said just three months after spending $67,604.93 on private air travel.

'I believe this is God's creation, and we have a moral obligation to be good stewards,' she told the crowd at the conference.

Private jets produce a significantly higher amount of emissions per passenger than commercial flights, leading environmentalists to criticize its continued use.

Pelosi is also facing controversy for opposing rules that prevent lawmakers and their families from trading in the stock market after it was revealed her husband, Paul, traded millions just days after her comments.

Biden's climate czar John Kerry has also come under fire for his use of private air travel after the administration vowed to make climate change a key priority.

She has also been called out of touch after flaunting her freezer full of high-end ice cream during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when families were relying on government relief checks amid lockdowns and layoffs. 

Kerry ironically took a private jet to Iceland in 2019 to receive the Arctic Circle award for climate leadership.

He said in an interview at the time that his mode of transportation is 'the only choice for somebody like me who is traveling the world to win this battle.'

Fox News calculated in August 2021 that Kerry's family jet emitted around 30 times more carbon in seven months than the average vehicle does in a full year.

Biden's 2020 presidential campaign spent more than $15 million on private air travel. 

The feeling of power and privilege that comes from flying in your own jet, whether owned or rented, must be overwhelming for the ego. 

==========================================================================================

A Canadian city’s economic suicide to (not) avoid climate change

By Tom Harris, Dr. Jay Lehr |

February 14th, 2022|

The Rideau Canal, Ottawa

When we began this series of articles about the insanity of the Ottawa government’s efforts to attempt to save the world from global warming, many of our readers might have had difficulty locating Canada’s capital city on a map. Now everybody knows a lot about Ottawa as its tyrannical government lead by the ultimate Marxist Justin Trudeau has been in your daily news as a result of thousands of courageous truckers demonstrating over their loss of many of their freedoms. Hopefully, these demonstrations will set back the government in their plan to destroy their city’s economy on the way to replacing all the use of fossil fuels with hundreds of wind turbines throughout this relatively small area city of one million residents.

As you read more about the city government’s plan described in part below you will wonder, as we have, how politicians can be so idiotically harmful to the people they represent.

Electrifying Transportation

A major part of the City of Ottawa’s net-zero by 2050 plans involves electrifying its entire transportation system, both public and private.

On the public side, the City will spend $1 billion to roll out 450 new 40-foot battery-powered buses over 5 years (by 2027) and transition to a “fully zero emission bus fleet by 2036.” This will present huge problems for riders. Electric buses, which cost twice as much as diesel-powered buses, have a record of higher breakdowns and reduced range in winter weather. Therefore, the City would have to establish recharging depots throughout Ottawa, at great cost.

Most electric buses are powered by a lithium-ion battery. In addition to the large production and transport costs for the batteries is a sensitivity to temperature that makes using electric buses in cold weather challenging. For example, a change from about 10 degrees Celsius to about minus 6 degrees Celsius decreases electric bus range up to 38%. During this past winter, in Berlin, Germany, 23 electric buses broke down in the cold due to the batteries giving out. They had to be quickly replaced with other buses, often internal combustion engine-driven buses. At –10 degrees Celsius, Berlin’s electric buses were supposed to have a range of 130 km, but the batteries ran out halfway through their journeys. And Ottawa is much colder than Berlin.

Consequently, our (our senior author is a resident of Ottawa) transition to electric buses will jeopardize reliability, stranding commuters in our coldest weather. Moreover, bus batteries take two and a half to six hours to fully charge, with each charge only taking the bus about 200 km under optimal conditions. Steep hills, heavy loads and rough surfaces make them even more inefficient. On December 3, 2021, the City of Ottawa’s Auditor General committed to conducting an audit of the electric bus plans to be reported on in 2022. She has plenty to consider.

The City also intends to oversee complete electrification of personal vehicles in the City. Electric vehicles represent only about 1% of the vehicle stock in Ottawa today. There are good reasons for this.

The most obvious is that they are far less convenient and less useful than cars powered by internal combustion engines. ICSC-Canada board member New Zealand-based consulting engineer Bryan Leyland explained why:

“When the Model T came out, it was a dramatic improvement on the horse and carriage. The electric car is a step backwards into the equivalence of an ordinary car with a tiny petrol tank that takes half an hour to fill. It offers nothing in convenience.“

Leyland also describes why installing electric car charging stations in the city is impractical:

“If you’ve got cars coming into a petrol station, they would stay for an average of five minutes. If you’ve got cars coming into an electric charging station, they would be at least 30 minutes, possibly an hour, but let’s say its 30 minutes. So that’s six times the surface area to park the cars while they’re being charged. So, multiply every petrol station in a city by six. Where are you going to find the place to put them?”

Like the buses, electric cars are also costly. On April 13, 2021, the Canadian House of Commons environment committee published “The Road Ahead: Encouraging The Production And Purchase Of Zero Emission Vehicles In Canada,” a report in which they concluded that replacing gas vehicles with electric cars would be too expensive for most Canadians. “Higher battery costs were the main cause of the higher price for consumers” the committee said.

And besides the fact that electric cars have poor low temperature performance, there are also serious safety issues. The Bolt, an electric vehicle sold in North America by General Motors, has been tied to at least nine fires since early 2020, and Hyundai’s electric vehicles have been tied to at least 15 fires. We are also starting to occasionally see Teslas burst into flames, one as recent as November 2021 when the fire spread to the nearby garage of the owner’s home.

The cause of the electric vehicle fires is their lithium-ion batteries. These batteries burn fiercely, and in addition to the fire and heat danger, are extreme toxic fluoride gas emissions. These fumes are especially dangerous in confined environments. Since lithium-ion fires are a chemical reaction, they can only be cooled rather than extinguished and can end up burning for several days.

According to the Austin, Texas Fire Department Division Chief Thayer Smith, it takes 200 to 1,000 gallons of water to put out a typical gasoline fire while this can increase to 30,000 – 40,000 gallons of water for an EV fire. After severe damage to a parking structure in Germany, all lithium-ion and nickel-metal hydride battery based electric vehicles have been banned from parking underground. Will the City of Ottawa have to close all underground parking garages if they go to all electric vehicles?

Concerns are also being raised around the world that widespread use of EVs will result in serious electricity shortages in the rest of society. Put simply, the grid and infrastructure just aren’t there to support the electrification of the private car fleet. For example, Toyota president Akio Toyoda warned on December 16th that Japan would run out of electricity in the summer if all cars were running on electric power. Robert Wimmer, Toyota’s head of energy and environmental research testified before the U.S. Senate in March 2021 and said, “If we are to make dramatic progress in electrification, it will require overcoming tremendous challenges, including refueling infrastructure, battery availability, consumer acceptance, and affordability.”

Of course, the reason the City wants to electrify its transportation system is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and protect the environment. But California engineer Ron Stein, co-author of the newly released book, Clean Energy Exploitations – Helping citizens understand the environmental and humanity abuses that support ‘clean’ energy, explains that, when one counts the emissions produced when generating the electricity to power the vehicles as well as the mining, material processing, manufacturing and transportation involved in making the vehicles, especially their very energy intensive batteries, there really is no significant emissions saving.

Stein and co-author Todd Royal also explain that lithium-based electric vehicle batteries rely on a mix of rare earth metals and cobalt, manganese, nickel and graphite that require massive amounts of energy to mine, transport, process and refine, far greater than the extraction and transport of oil and natural gas. Mining and mineral processing also require large volumes of water and can pose contamination risks from mine drainage and wastewater discharge.

When mining rare earth metals, about 90% of what is pulled up from the ground contains uranium, thorium and other radioactive nuclides. This radioactive waste can pose serious risks if it is not properly disposed of. In China, for example, champion of rare metals, in Heilongjiang province, a carpet of toxic dust covers agricultural regions. And, of course, China controls most of the lithium and cobalt, which are often produced with child labor and near-slave labor, with practically no health, safety or environmental safeguards. Even the CBC reports that “there have been mass fish kills related to lithium mining in Tibet.”

ICSC-Canada Economics/Policy Advisor Robert Lyman explained:

“A recent United Nations report warned that the raw materials used in EV batteries are highly concentrated in a small number of countries where environmental, labor and safety regulations are weak or non-existent. ‘Artisanal’ cobalt production [cobalt is crucially important for solar panels, wind turbines and batteries] in the Democratic Republic of the Congo now supplies two-thirds of the global output of the mineral. Many of the mines employ child labor in extremely dangerous tasks. Up to 40,000 children [some as young as 4-years old] are estimated to be working in extremely dangerous conditions, with inadequate safety equipment, for very little money in the mines in Southern Katanga. The children are exposed to multiple physical risks and psychological violations and abuse, only to earn a meager income to support their families.”

Why would Canada’s national capital or any other city want to deploy a transportation system that is costly, unreliable and based on minerals and metals which are mostly limited to environmentally negligent human rights abusers such as China, Russia, the Congo and the lithium triangle in South America?

No other word but INSANITY can describe this plan for we fear will be a once great city brought to its knees by Marxist ideologues with no idea of the fraud they are supporting that carbon dioxide emissions are of any danger to society.

Authors

Tom Harris is executive director of the International Climate Science Coalition

Dr. Jay Lehr

CFACT Senior Science Analyst Jay Lehr has authored more than 1,000 magazine and journal articles and 36 books. Jay’s new book A Hitchhikers Journey Through Climate Change written with Teri Ciccone is now available on Kindle and Amazon.

Climate Change > Toyota - America not ready to go full-on EV; 2021 - 5th Hottest Year; Sun-dimming cautioned by scientists

..

Toyota Warns We’re Nowhere Near Ready To Jettison

Gas-Powered Vehicles

It is one of the world’s two largest auto and truck manufacturers

— twice the size of General Motors (GM), our biggest.

Climate Change Dispatch

Toyota warns the world is far from ready to jettison gasoline and diesel engines and require batteries to run our replacements.

For Toyota, it is not just about finding enough critical battery material such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. It is about having enough electricity in our power grid to recharge them.

Specifically, Toyota not only worries about our grid capacity today but in the future, when at least 30 times more electricity-powered cars and trucks are projected to be on the road.

Robert Wimmer, Toyota’s head of energy and environmental research, testified last spring before the U.S. Senate warning of electricity supply problems.

“If we are to make dramatic progress in electrification, it will require overcoming tremendous challenges, including refueling infrastructure, battery availability, consumer acceptance, and affordability,” PJMedia.com’s Bryan Preston reported.

Wimmer’s remarks came on the heels of GM’s announcement that it will phase out all gas internal combustion engines by 2035. Other manufacturers, including Mini, have followed suit with similar announcements.

Based on a 2017 U.S. government study, Toyota calculates electricity supply and infrastructure are woefully inadequate. It found the need for 8,500 strategically-placed charging stations to support a fleet of seven million electric cars (EVs).

That’s about six times the current number of electric cars. But no one is talking about supporting just seven million cars, Wimmer added. “We should be talking about powering about 300 million within the next 20 years.”

Toyota isn’t alone in serving up the reality check. Tesla’s Elon Musk, who built his empire on EVs, agrees.

In December, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee released his latest climate proposal calling for a carbon-neutral electrical grid by 2030 and one to be powered by 100 percent clean electricity by 2045.

It augments his building codes, which include a phase-out of natural gas for space and water heating by forbidding the use of fossil fuels for heating and hot water in new buildings by 2030.

The codes add pressure on the electric grid to replace natural gas.

Rep. Mary Dye (R-Pomeroy) adds Inslee’s natural gas ban is significant:

“It’s a big industry because it provides warmth for about 1.2 million residences, there’s 107,000 commercial buildings and 3,500 industrial buildings that are working under clean, efficient, reliable natural gas. Plus, it fires about 11 percent of our electricity grid.”

Washington may be in a better position than most places to increase electricity supplies because of our plentiful hydropower system, which provides two-thirds of our electricity.

Today, our state has an adequate electricity supply, but if proposals banning natural gas in new homes and buildings and demands for EV recharging skyrocket, our state could face the same brownouts as California and China.

China currently has the most EVs on the road while California leads the U.S. China and California, which have large wind and solar farms, have grid overload and increasingly, people are losing electricity. It is likely to be far worse in the future.

China, by far the largest greenhouse gas emitter, claims it will be at least 2060 before it may be carbon neutral. Meanwhile, rather than replacing fossil fuel electrical generation, it is adding grid capacity to meet the projected load.

They have even opened several new coal mines last month to support the post-covid growth.

Toyota’s alarm is a good thing. Addressing the electricity shortfalls now, before our backs are against the wall, is even better.

Read more at Seattle Weekly

=========================================================================================

2021 was Earth's 5th-hottest year on record,

according to European Union scientists

As greenhouse gas emissions change the planet's climate,

the long-term warming trend has continued

Thomson Reuters · 

Posted: Jan 10, 2022 12:04 PM ET 

The European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a report Monday that the last seven years were the world's warmest 'by a clear margin,' and the average global temperature in 2021 was 1.1-1.2 C above 1850–1900 levels. (Shutterstock/Edmund O'Connor)

Last year was the world's fifth hottest on record, while levels of planet-warming carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere hit new highs in 2021, European Union scientists said.

The EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a report on Monday that the last seven years were the world's warmest "by a clear margin" in records dating back to 1850, and the average global temperature in 2021 was 1.1-1.2 C above 1850-1900 levels.

The hottest years on record were 2020 and 2016.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries committed to try to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 C, the level scientists say would avoid the worst impacts of climate change. That would require emissions to roughly halve by 2030, but so far they have charged higher.

There are many assumptions in this statement, none of which have been proven. There is little doubt that humans contribute to global warming, but to blame it all on anthropogenic causes is absurd. Global warming is extremely complex and there are many other things at play than human factors. There is a lot politics behind the global warming hysteria, more politics than science.

As greenhouse gas emissions change the planet's climate, the long-term warming trend has continued. Climate change exacerbated many of the extreme weather events sweeping the world in 2021, from floods in Europe, China and South Sudan, to wildfires in Siberia and the United States.

"These events are a stark reminder of the need to change our ways, take decisive and effective steps toward a sustainable society and work toward reducing net carbon emissions," C3S director Carlo Buontempo said.

Global levels of CO2 and methane, the main greenhouse gases, continued to climb, and both hit record highs in 2021. Levels of CO2 in the atmosphere reached 414.3 parts per million (ppm) in 2021, up by around 2.4 ppm from 2020, the scientists said.

C3S said levels of methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, have jumped in the last two years, but the reasons why are not fully understood. Emissions of methane range from oil and gas production and farming, to natural sources like wetlands.

After a temporary dip in 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, provisional data suggest global CO2 emissions rebounded by 4.9 per cent in 2021.

This is hard to understand considering the dramatic reduction in travel - by air, sea, and land. One would expect a significant reduction.

Records and disasters

Last summer was Europe's hottest on record, CS3 said, following a warm March and unusually cold April that had decimated fruit crops in countries including France and Hungary.

In July and August, a Mediterranean heat wave stoked intense wildfires in countries including Turkey and Greece. Sicily set a new European temperature high of 48.8 C, a record awaiting official confirmation.

In July, more than 200 people died when torrential rain triggered deadly flooding in western Europe. Scientists concluded that climate change had made the floods at least 20 per cent more likely.

Also that month, floods in China's Henan province killed more than 300 people. In California, a record-smashing heat wave was followed by the second-biggest wildfire in the state's history, decimating land and belching out air pollution.

In Canada, the town of Lytton, B.C., was wiped out that month after a wildfire engulfed it. Parts of the province also shattered heat records last summer during an intense and persistent heat wave.

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will release their climate findings on Wednesday.

========================================================================================

Scientists want global ban on ‘sun-dimming’

Researchers rally against solar geoengineering as a method of fighting climate change

© Ricardo Esquivel/Pexels

An international group of scientists and experts wants all nations to sign a pact banning public funding and deployment of solar geoengineering, as well as outdoor experiments revolving around ways to ‘dim the sun.’ 

“Solar geoengineering at planetary scale is not governable in a globally inclusive and just manner within the current international political system,” the researchers wrote in an open letter published in the Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change journal this week. 

The concept of solar geoengineering aims to lower temperatures on Earth by using modern technology to reduce the incoming sunlight. The proposals include the spraying of aerosols into the stratosphere to stop (reduce) the spread of solar energy. Some see this as a potential response to global warming. 

But the authors of the letter warned about “uncertainties” surrounding the effects of such technologies on weather, agriculture, and the supply of food and water. 

We should be concerned anytime we attempt to improve upon God.

The letter argued that the world’s poorest nations will be left highly vulnerable unless powerful countries place the technology of such planetary scale under international control. 

Is this another movement toward One World Government?

The current world order seems unfit to reach such far-reaching agreements on fair and effective political control over solar geoengineering deployment.

Proposals to study solar geoengineering were most recently floated by the media amid COP26, a major UN climate change summit in Scotland in November of last year.

In March, the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a report recommending an investment of $100-$200 million in solar geoengineering research over five years as part of crafting “a robust portfolio of climate mitigation and adaptation policies.” NASEM argued that outdoor experiments that involve releasing substances into the atmosphere must be limited and subjected to strict regulation. 

NASEM emphasized that solar geoengineering should not be a substitute for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

=========================================================================================