Watch: Hillary Clinton: ‘We’re Going to Put a Lot of Coal Miners and Coal Companies Out of Business’
New Study Shows How Coal Plants Are Greening The Earth’s Drylands
Despite the tidal wave of environmental criticism directed at coal plants, a new study shows how emissions from coal and other fossil fuels have a huge benefit: they are greening the world’s most arid regions.
Indiana University researchers reviewed dozens of studies on the global greening phenomenon that’s been occurring over the last few decades and concluded it’s a result of increasing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The study found a “consistent and statistically significant increase in the availability of soil water (11%) was observed under elevated CO2 treatments in both drylands and non-drylands, with a statistically stronger response over drylands (17% vs. 9%).”
For years, satellite images have shown vegetation expanding into the Earth’s drylands, including areas of the Mediterranean, Sahel, Middle East, China, Mongolia and South America. Indiana researchers considered other factors, such as increased rainfall and land use changes, but found CO2 is the only viable reason for the increased greenness.
“We know from satellite observations that vegetation is greener than it was in the past,” Lixin Wang, the study’s lead author and Indiana University Earth sciences professor, said in a statement. “We now understand why that’s occurring, but we don’t necessarily know if that’s a good thing or not.”
Obama tells NPR: ‘Perfectly legitimate’ to believe I’m engaged in ‘war on coal’
Published on Dec 21, 2015
Asked by NPR’s Steve Inskeep why ‘some’ ordinary Americans believe he is changing the country in unacceptable ways, President Obama voluntarily points to America’s coal country to admit people have ‘perfectly good reasons’ to object to his policies. Then, after backtracking the blame for coals troubles to ‘cheaper’ natural gas, Obama concedes, “[I]f somebody tells you this is because of Obama’s war on coal, well, that may be an argument you may be sympathetic to, and that’s perfectly legitimate.”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “But, that’s not to suggest that everybody who objects to my policies may– may not have perfectly good reasons for it. You know? If you’re living in a town that historically has relied on coal and you see coal jobs diminishing you’re probably gonna be more susceptible to the argument that I’ve been wiping out the economy in your area, and you know it doesn’t matter if I tell ’em actually it’s probably cause natural gas is a lot cheaper now and, so…”
STEVE INSKEEP: “Coal plants we’re already closing down.”
OBAMA: “…it doesn’t, it doesn’t pay to– to build coal plants. Uh– your– if somebody tells you this is because of Obama’s war on coal, well, that may be an argument you may be sympathetic to, and that’s perfectly legitimate.”
NPR
President Obama’s Interview With NPR’s Steve Inskeep
December 21, 2015
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Climate change shock: Burning fossil fuels ‘COOLS planet’, says NASA
Major theories about what causes temperatures to rise have been thrown into doubt after NASA found the Earth has cooled in areas of heavy industrialisation where more trees have been lost and more fossil fuel burning takes place.
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The study found existing models for climate change had been too simplistic and did not account for these factors.
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Flashback 1971: NASA scientists warned ‘fossil fuel-burning’ could ‘trigger an ice age’
45 years ago, scientists wanted to ban fossil fuels to prevent a new ice age and flooding of coastal cities.
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Cheers to China! Paris Climate Talks Are Doomed Because China Knows ‘Climate Change’ Is A Hoax
China sees it as a brilliant opportunity to fleece the gullible for as much money as it can, to burnish its international image by making all the right green noises, and to blackmail the West into providing it with free technology.
But it has no intention whatsoever of sacrificing economic growth by reducing its carbon dioxide emissions.
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Obama and other Western leaders like to pretend that China’s appalling air pollution – the “airpocalypse” afflicting major cities which kills at least half a million a year – gives it a strong incentive to reduce its CO2 levels. But in fact the opposite is true.
That’s because China understands – as the West pretends not to – that CO2 and “pollution” are very different things.
Not only do the goals of reducing carbon emissions and air pollution not reinforce each other, they conflict. Carbon dioxide is a colourless, odourless, tasteless gas that does not harm health. Efforts to reduce it rely on un-proven abatement technologies, and are prohibitively expensive. In contrast, abating air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide rely on proven technologies and are relatively inexpensive.
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Although China’s leaders aim to reduce the country’s fossil-fuel consumption to 80% of its energy mix by 2030, they will not forsake national economic growth for the supposed global good. This is because China’s Communist Party knows that to stay in power – its highest priority – it must maintain the economic growth rates that have raised the incomes of much of its population and kept opposition at bay. China’s leaders know that GDP growth is tied to fossil- fuel use.…
The Truth About China – 2,400 New Coal Plants Will Thwart Any Paris UN Climate Pledges
…Study claims EPA’s Clean Power Plan may hike electricity prices in 47 states
Critics of the Environmental Protection Agency‘s Clean Power Plan say the new regulation will cost up to $292 billion and potentially raise electricity prices in 47 states.
“States should be braced to pay higher costs,” said Laura Sheehan, senior vice president for communications for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. “Consumers only lose in the Clean Power Plan.”
The numbers came from NERA Economic Consulting, a firm based in Boston that said it used state-of-the-art economic modeling to get its results.…
‘We have never lived in better times’: Aussie Geologist Dr. Ian Plimer: Heaven and Hell, the Pope condemns the poor to eternal poverty
Heaven and Hell, the Pope condemns the poor to eternal poverty
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/10/heaven-and-hell-the-pope-condemns-the-poor-to-eternal-poverty/
Ian Plimer has a new book out today, as usual, skewering sacred cows. “Only when Third World children can do homework at night using cheap coal-fired electricity can they escape from poverty.” From the press release: Click to buy from Connor Court Publishing HEAVEN AND HELL: THE POPE CONDEMNS THE POOR TO ETERNAL POVERTY by Professor Ian Plimer The recent papal Encyclical was on climate and the environment. This book criticises the Encyclical and shows that we have never lived in better times, that cheap fossil fuel energy has and is continuing to bring hundreds of millions of people from peasant poverty to the middle class and that the alleged dangerous global warming is a myth. I have great respect for the Pope’s sincere wishes to end pollution and poverty. We all share the same sentiments. The solution is to use cheap coal-fired electricity and not to demonise coal and other fossil fuels. The Industrial Revolution and the growth of East Asia and India shows that with cheap coal-fired electricity, people are brought out of poverty. It has happened to hundreds of millions of people over […]Rating: 10.0/10 (1 vote cast)
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Indian villagers protest Greenpeace solar grid: ‘We want real electricity, not fake electricity!’ – ‘Coal Trumps Solar in India’
M.V. Ramana, a physicist at Princeton University who has studied energy access in India, questioned the ethics of foisting an expensive solution on the poor, who’ve historically contributed so little to global warming.
“I strongly encourage [microgrids] for urban, upper classes of people who can afford it,” he said. “But [I would] not do it on the backs of people who are poor and who can’t afford these experiments.”
Christopher Field, director of the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Department of Global Ecology and an active participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that rich nations have a moral responsibility to make renewables more affordable in the developing world.
Until that happens, coal plants will continue being built in India in the near future, Field said in an interview in August.
“Right now, if I were Prime Minister Modi, I’d be saying, ‘Gee, I can deliver coal-based electricity way cheaper than I can deliver renewables,” he said.…