Trump Needs Help To Stay The Course On Climate Change – Lessons from Canada

Americans should look north for an illustration of what is likely to happen if climate realists do not hold Trump’s feet to the fire.

Before first winning a minority government in 2006, former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised to get to the bottom of the climate change file. Neither he, nor most members of his Conservative Party of Canada, believed that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities were causing a climate crisis. Emission reduction regulations were clearly not necessary, they said. In a 2002 fundraising letter for the now-defunct Canadian Alliance, Harper called the U.N. climate process “a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.”

Yet despite being regarded as a genuine conservative, Harper changed sides on climate change soon after being elected. In an attempt to appease activists, he supported U.N. negotiations to ‘stop dangerous climate change.’ He made GHG reduction pledges Canada had no chance of keeping without destroying our economy, wasting billions of dollars in the process.

Party strategists decided that they had to play along with the climate scare until public opinion changed. Government cannot lead public opinion, they mistakenly assumed.

Harper could have made a major contribution to killing the climate scare in Canada, but climate realists did not pressure him to keep his pre-election promises. So he responded to those who did pressure him — climate activists.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/24/trump-needs-help-to-stay-the-course-on-climate-change/#ixzz4CXHxCcie…

Alex Epstein: ‘Defend the Right to Free Speech Against Climate Fascism’

Via Alex Epstein’s email:

Last week I wrote you about how the government’s persecution of companies and think-tanks who challenge climate catastrophism extended to me–and that I responded with a righteous three-word response to the Massachusetts Attorney General and a $100,000 challenge to the leader of the campaign, Al Gore, to debate me.

The story has gotten good coverage in PJ Media, Ricochet, The Blaze, The Daily Caller, The Washington Times, Watts Up With That, Zero Hedge, Ari Armstrong’s blog.

I have never received so much positive, encouraging feedback in my life from those of you who supported my approach–but I also got some negative feedback from people, including several in the fossil fuel industry who think it is never acceptable to be disrespectful, let alone profane, to a public official.

Obviously, I disagree–I chose to use profanity in writing for the first time for very deliberate reasons. I gave some of my reasons in an interview for this excellent Ari Armstrong article:

Persecutors get away with violating rights in large part because the victims treat them as civilized. The Massachusetts Attorney General is demanding my emails at gunpoint because I have prominently voiced opinions that are contrary to hers. She is a fascist, acting profanely. “F**k off, fascist” was therefore the response she deserved.

For the general public, who may innocently misunderstand the issues regarding ExxonMobil, I explained them fully in a Forbes article. But I’m not responding to that thug (who calls herself an Attorney General) with an article.

I think most people understood my reasons, which is why my response received thousands of positive comments and made far more of an impact than the understated articles and press releases that others have written.

But even if you still disagree with how I defend our rights, if you value this country you need to be fighting for those rights in whatever way you can. If you are more upset about me using the f-word against the fascist suppression of free speech than you are about the fascist suppression of free speech then something is very wrong.

I have a standard question I now ask to anyone who is angry at me for my approach:

Have you written the AG yourself and criticized her for her suppression of free speech and attempt to destroy the fossil fuel

UN boss: Brexit may mean rewriting Paris Agreement on climate change

A vote for Brexit in tomorrow’s UK referendum on EU membership (23 June) would mean that the COP21 agreement would have to be rewritten, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change said today (22 June) in Brussels.

Christiana Figueres, one of the architects of the historic deal struck last December to limit warming to no more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels, said the international pact, “would require recalibration”.  It is currently in the process of ratification.

“From the point of view of the Paris Agreement, the UK is part of the EU and has put in its effort as part of the EU so anything that would change that would require a recalibration,” she said at a press conference.

“In principle, it is actually, historically, we say, as humankind, we are moving towards larger and larger tents of collaboration […] rather than in the opposite way.”…

‘At war with itself’: Obama Dept of Energy says Obama EPA climate rule to cost 400,000 jobs

Testifying before Congress, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy says that the Obama Department of Energy is wrong with its analysis that the Agency’s Clean Power Plan will “reduce economic growth, increase electricity costs, and result in almost 400,000 jobs lost over the next 15 years”. McCarthy: “That is exactly opposite of what we believe will happen based on our independent analysis.”

CONGRESSMAN LAMAR SMITH: “The non-partisan Energy Information Administration at the Department of Energy has found that the Clean Power Plan will reduce economic growth, increase electricity costs, and result in almost 400,000 jobs lost over the next 15 years; and all this is with very little impact on climate change itself. So why has the Obama Administration imposed this regulation on the American people?”

[…]

CONGRESSMAN SMITH: “Have you read their report on the Clean Power Plan?”

ADMINISTRATOR GINA MCCARTHY: “In the past.”

CONGRESSMAN SMITH: “And, you disagree with that?”

ADMINISTRATOR MCCARTHY: “I don’t know what just you read, sir. I don’t know which one it is. So, I’m happy to take a look.”

CONGRESSMAN SMITH: “Well, again, reduce economic growth, increase electricity cost and cost 400,000 jobs over the next 15 years.”

ADMINISTRATOR GINA MCCARTHY: “That is exactly opposite of what we believe will happen based on our independent analysis.”

CONGRESSMAN SMITH: “It’s nice to have the Administration at war with itself.”

Hearing: Ensuring Sound Science at EPA
House Science Committee
June 22, 2016…

Lies, Damned Lies, And The EPA’s ‘Clean Power Plan’

President Obama’s “Clean Power Plan” is on pause, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling in March after more than two dozen states filed suit to stop it. A new report shows why the plan should be scrapped entirely, and the EPA sued for fraud.

By its own admission, the EPA says Clean Power Plan is one of the most sweeping regulations ever enacted. It would require electric companies to cut CO2 emissions 32% within 25 years — basically by shuttering coal plants and force feeding “renewable energy.”

In pushing the Clean Power Plan, the EPA claimed it would cost industry $9 billion a year, but produce up to $54 billion in annual health benefits, including “avoiding 2,700 to 6,600 premature deaths and 140,000 to 150,000 asthma attacks in children.”

Who could complain about that?

Turns out, the benefits of the Clean Power Plan will be closer to $0, while the costs would be far higher than the EPA claims.

That’s the conclusion in an in-depth report by the Manhattan Institute’s Jonathan Lesser.

Put simply, Lesser says the EPA’s benefit calculations are based on faulty assumptions and statistical legerdemain. He notes, for example, that since the Clean Power Plan will have an infinitesimal impact on global CO2 levels, it can’t have a $20 billion impact on health.

The EPA also claims $34 billion in side benefits because the rules will reduce other pollutants. But Lesser notes that the EPA has been double counting this co-benefits, using them to justify other costly rules, and that there’s likely to be zero improvement in health, given how clean the air is already.

EPA regulations to cut mercury emissions, for example, relied almost entirely on these supposed co-benefits to justify the $9.6 billion price tag. The direct health benefits from the reduction in mercury was negligible.

4,000 YEARS OF CLIMATE IN ONE CHART

From Andy May at Watts Up With That, a fascinating chart that plots estimated global mean temperatures along with historical events over the last 4,000 years. Most of the time line is based on ice cores, while the most recent temperatures are from the HadCRUT (probably inflated) database. There are explanation and commentary at the link, but for now, the chart. Click to enlarge:

climate-civilization-gisp-chart

As has been noted many times, cold eras are bad for humans (e.g., the Dark Ages), while warm eras are good.…