DiCaprio Flies Commercial to D.C. Climate March, Rides in Tesla

Leonardo DiCaprio protests at the People’s Climate March in Washington on April. 29, 2017 (Chaz Niell/Sipa via AP Images)

WASHINGTON – After drawing criticism last year for taking a private jet to accept an environmental award, Academy Award-winning actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio took a commercial flight to and from last weekend’s People’s Climate March in Washington, according to a source close to the actor.

DiCaprio was also driven around locally in a Tesla electric car.

In May 2016, DiCaprio flew to New York from France on a private jet to accept an award at the Riverkeeper Fishermen’s Ball. He reportedly flew back to Cannes after the ball.

PJM learned that the actor traveled from New York to Washington and back on a commercial flight for the march, at which he did not deliver any speech.

Dem Congressional Candidate Says Climate Skeptics Should Commit Suicide Via Car Exhaust

By Onan Coca and Jeff Dunetz

 

Rob Quist is the Democratic Party candidate for Montana’s at-large seat in Congress left vacant by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke… Quist, who among his other talent is a folk singer popular at nudist resorts in the great state of Montana has an interesting way of trying to win over voters… he suggests that if they aren’t sure about climate change they should try… killing themselves yep he  believes they should lock themselves in their garage with their cars on and see what happens.

Now the Democratic candidate promises  on campaign website that he will bring the “values of rural Montana” with him to Congress if elected. What is not certain is he talking about nudist camps being the values of rural Montana or is he talking about suicide.

On a televised debate, Quist was given the last chance to comment on climate change when he made his strange recommendation.

“This is something that the entire world needs to address,” Quist said. “If any those of you that feel like this is not a problem, I challenge you to go into your car in your garage, start your car, and see what happens there.”

Quist doesn’t seem to understand the difference between carbon monoxide (which is the chemical emission from your car) and carbon dioxide (which is the supposed problem gas in the climate change fear mongering scenario). Perhaps his brain is fried from looking at all of those nudist senior citizens.  However, what makes this even worse is that carbon dioxide is essential to life on earth. In fact, the more carbon dioxide, the healthier our planet becomes and while yes, it could technically warm the earth… that warming could actually solve more problems for our planet than it creates

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Related:

Watch: Schwarzenegger again threatens climate skeptics: ‘I would like to strap their mouth to the exhaust pipe of a truck — turn on the engine’ – Terminator wants to Terminate skeptics: 

Arnold Schwarzenegger again threatens skeptics: ‘I would like to strap their mouth to the exhaust pipe of a truck, turn on the engine and let’s see how long it would take them to tap out.’
Schwarzenegger also threatened death to skeptics in 2013: Flashback 2013: Arnold Schwarzenegger on global warming ‘deniers’: ‘Strap some conservative-thinking people to a tailpipe for an hour and then they will agree it’s a pollutant!”

‘Can California Cars Save the Climate?’ ‘There’s not a single automaker that makes money on an electric car’

Via: http://capitalandmain.com/can-california-cars-save-the-climate-0420

Co-published by Fast Company

Eric Noble works in the automobile industry, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t worry about climate change. When he and his two sons, 11 and 15 years old, travel south to surf on Baja’s Pacific Coast a few times a year, they can detect the impact greenhouse gases are having on the earth. “We can see the sea level rising,” he says. “Little coastal roads we used to be able to drive on are inundated now. This is happening.” He understands that transportation is responsible for more than a quarter of the greenhouse gases that linger in our atmosphere, and light-duty vehicles—passenger cars, mostly—emit close to two-thirds of that pollution.

And so Noble, who is president of the Orange County, California-based automotive consulting firm CarLab, also worries whether California’s strict zero-emissions vehicle strategy, which forces automakers to market exhaust-free hydrogen-fueled and battery-powered vehicles in the state, is really the most consumer-friendly, egalitarian way to go. Not just in California and the nine states that have followed its lead on emissions standards, but throughout the nation.

California is moving rapidly toward low-carbon electricity generation. But even with a cleaner grid, or solar charging stations in home garages, it’s not enough for car makers to sell a handful of clean cars to do-gooder early adopters. People have to buy them in sufficient numbers to make a difference. Even with substantial perks for drivers—a $7,500 federal tax credit for a pure electric vehicle, carpool lane privileges, the quiet power of an electric motor—manufacturers still lease their cars cheap, and at a loss.

“There’s not a single automaker that makes money on an electric car,” Noble says. Tesla, with its rising stock shares and fame, turned a slim profit in the third quarter of 2016, but likely because of $139 million in ZEV credits it sold to less-green manufacturers. General Motors expects to lose money on every unit it sells of its new Chevrolet Bolt, the all-electric car pitched as an answer to “range anxiety,” because, if you’re careful not to drive it too hard, it can last for 238 miles on a charge.

Bloomberg News: Obama ‘stashed’ $77 billion in ‘climate money’ across agencies to elude budget cuts

Key excerpts: At the National Science Foundation, the geosciences program almost doubled to $1.3 billion.

The budget for NASA’s Earth Science program increased 50 percent, to $1.8 billion.

Feds awarded $1 billion through its Community Development Block Grant program to projects protecting against climate change-related natural disasters.
In 2012, the Federal Highway Administration made climate-adaptation projects eligible for federal aid.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs created the Tribal Climate Resilience Program.

The range of climate programs is vast, stretching across the entire government.

The Congressional Research Service estimated total federal spending on climate was in 2013. It concluded 18 agencies have climate-related activities, and calculated $77 billion in spending from fiscal 2008 through 2013 alone. But that figure could well be too low.

Obama Administration goal was to make ‘programs hard to disentangle’

Obama ‘integrated climate programs into everything the federal government did’

Obama sought to integrate climate programs into everything the federal government did.

Via:

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-15/cutting-climate-spending-made-harder-by-obama-s-budget-tactics

To Cut Climate Money, First GOP Must Find Where Obama Stashed It

  • Obama aides spread money across the government to elude cuts
  • Most recent estimate puts tab at $77 billion from 2008-2013

President Donald Trump will find the job of reining in spending on climate initiatives made harder by an Obama-era policy of dispersing billions of dollars in programs across dozens of agencies — in part so they couldn’t easily be cut.

There is no single list of those programs or their cost, because President Barack Obama sought to integrate climate programs into everything the federal government did. The goal was to get all agencies to take climate into account, and also make those programs hard to disentangle, according to former members of the administration. In some cases, the idea was to make climate programs hard for Republicans in Congress to even find.

“Much of the effort in the Obama administration was to mainstream climate change,” said Jesse Keenan, who worked on climate issues with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and now teaches at Harvard University. He said all federal agencies were required to incorporate climate-change plans into both their operations.

The Obama administration’s approach will be tested by Trump’s first budget request to Congress, an outline of which is due to be released Thursday. Trump has called climate change a hoax; last November he promised to save $100 billion

China’s Electric Cars Sales Plunge After Subsidy Cuts

China’s Electric Cars Sales Plunge After Subsidy Cuts

http://www.thegwpf.com/chinas-electric-cars-sales-plunge-after-subsidy-cuts/

Electric vehicle sales in China plunged 75% in January after the government cut subsidies by more than a fifth starting this year, raising the question of whether the country can sustain demand for green cars without generous grants. China is considering dialing back or delaying proposed measures aimed at pushing automakers to produce more electric vehicles, after industry feedback that the targets are overly ambitious. Under draft rules released in September for public consultation, automakers will be required to obtain a new-energy vehicle credit score of 8 percent next year, derived from different weightings assigned to various types of zero- and low-emission vehicles. Companies that fail to meet the requirement face fines or have to buy credits from those that exceeded the minimum. Average production of new-energy vehicles last year may have contributed only about 3 percent of the score required, 5 percentage points short of the proposed 2018 target, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel told German media in November that he expressed the view to his Chinese counterpart that the 2018 targets were not attainable. Miao Wei, China’s minister of industry and information technology, told Bloomberg News in an interview in Beijing on Sunday that his ministry is considering either lowering the credit requirement in percentage terms or delaying the implementation date. “We are still working on the regulation,” Miao said on the sidelines of the opening of the annual session of the National People’s Congress. “It may be finalized around May or June.” Government Subsidies Electric vehicle sales plunged in China in January after the government cut subsidies by more than a fifth starting this year, raising the question of whether the country can sustain demand for green cars without generous grants. Sales of new-energy vehicles, the term China uses to refer to battery-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell cars, dropped 74 percent in January from a year earlier to 5,682 units, according to data released by the auto association. Full story

— gReader Pro…

Trump Preparing To Reverse Obama’s EPA Fuel Economy Mandate

 

By MICHAEL BASTASCH – The Daily Caller

The Trump administration is preparing to reverse a last-minute Obama administration decision to keep in place regulations to increase fuel economy for new cars to the equivalent of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

A source told InsideEPA “action on the mid-term review” is expected for “next week, essentially to put the EPA back on the original schedule.”

The decision will reopen a mid-term review of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Transportation Department (DOT) fuel economy standards meant to tackle global warming.

The Obama administration released its determination to keep the fuel economy mandate ahead of schedule, surprising the auto industry and sparking criticism from the right. EPA issued its decision on Jan. 13, days before the Senate held a confirmation hearing for Elaine Chao, the future transportation secretary.

 …

Automakers petitioned President Donald Trump to reverse the fuel mandate. A high mandate would “threaten future production levels, putting hundreds of thousands and perhaps as many as a million jobs at risk” auto executives wrote in a letter sent to Trump in January.

In 2012, EPA and DOT pushed a fuel economy regulation requiring cars built in 2025 get 54.5 miles per gallon. The Obama administration said the rule would cut American fuel costs and global warming emissions.

Fuel economy, or CAFE, standards were put in place by Congress in 1975 to increase fuel efficiency, but former President Barack Obama unilaterally increased the mandate to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Obama previously set a standard of 35 miles per gallon for cars built between 2012 and 2016.

The draft mid-term review released by EPA and DOT in July found cars would likely fall short of Obama’s 54.5 miles per gallon mandate. The Obama administration responded by saying 54.5 miles per gallon was a goal, not a requirement.

Climate scientists have pointed out the fuel economy standards will do little for global warming — one of the stated goals of the program. Cato Institute climate scientists estimated — using EPA models — fuel efficiency standards would avert 0.016 degrees Celsius of projected warming.

Automakers say the accelerated fuel economy mandates add $3,000 to the price of a new car, outweighing projected fuel savings. The conservative Heritage Foundation found fuel economy mandates have added $6,200 to the price of a new car.

In total, EPA and DOT fuel standards for light-duty vehicles

Green Group Flew 50 Kids To D.C. To Brainstorm How To Reduce CO2 Emissions

By ANDREW FOLLETT – Energy and Science Reporter

The sponsors of an environmental conference flew roughly 50 college students to Washington, D.C., Tuesday to discuss ways to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to prevent global warming.

Several students who spoke to The Daily Caller News Foundation said conference sponsors paid to fly them to D.C. from across the country, including Maine, Texas, Arizona, Missouri and Ohio. Bloomberg Government and the environmental group Defend Our Future hosted “The Next Generation of Climate Conversations: A Town Hall Discussion” conference Tuesday.

Most of the college students at the conference flew in and the rest arrived by train. Bringing the students to D.C. was the equivalent of cutting down about 620 trees in terms of CO2 emissions, base on TheDCNF’s calculations.

A round-trip flight from Houston to D.C., for example, generates 0.66 tonnes of CO2 emissions, according to a flight CO2 calculator. Flying a single college kid to the conference is the equivalent of chopping down 15.5 trees, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) official calculator. Roughly 80 percent of the students TheDCNF talked to flew to the conference.…

Correction: Climate activist Leo DiCaprio Did NOT Fly eyebrow artist 7,500 miles to do his brows for the Oscars

By Paul Homewood h/t Joe Public http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/leonardo-dicaprio-eyebrow-artist-oscars-tobey-maguire-flight-la-a7601731.html Even the failed Independent sees the hypocrisy! How much effort do you put into the appearance of your eyebrows?

Source: Leo flew eyebrow artist 7,500 miles to do his brows for the Oscars

Update: The UK Independent has officially retracted their report: See: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/leonardo-dicaprio-eyebrow-artist-oscars-tobey-maguire-flight-la-a7601731.html

Excerpt: “We previously reported that Leonardo DiCaprio was one member of the Hollywood elite who flew Hamilton the 7,500 across the Pacific Ocean, but we have since learnt that this was incorrect.”…