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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (78340)	7/15/2017 4:12:48 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

The New York Times has discovered peril in the Arctic. “Explorers and fishermen find climate moderating about Spitzbergen and the Eastern Arctic,” the newspaper reports, and seal hunters and explorers who sail those icy seas “point to a radical change in climactic conditions, and hitherto unheard of temperatures in that part of the earth.” Many old landmarks have disappeared, and others have so changed as to be unrecognizable. “Where formerly great masses of ice were found, there are now often accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended far into the sea, they have entirely disappeared.” Woe is certainly us. True, this was on Page One of Feb. 25, 1923, which proves, among other things, that the more things change the more they stay the same. But this account might well have appeared today in The New York Times, though the language was more restrained and more persuasive for it. But the world, as the readers of that earlier century knew it, is still pretty much intact in 2017. But today, among right-thinking folk, so called, conversations about why the climate behaves the way it does are taboo. Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, proposes debates between staunch proponents of the widespread view that carbon dioxide discharged by human activity is causing global warming, and the skeptics who are still not persuaded that cause and effect of climate change is clearly understood. A match with adversaries poking holes in each other’s arguments would be an entertaining return to authentic scientific inquiry. There’s more for everyone to fear from too little information than from too much. This would be in sharp contrast to the immediate past, when Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency summarily proclaimed the human-induced warming argument as fact, and dared anyone to argue. The former president succeeded in shifting the center of gravity toward worldwide acceptance of environmental extremism as packaged in the Paris Climate Agreement. It took a man with foolish courage to stand up in the sea of unanimity and ask why the United States should pass up trillions of dollars in economic growth to comply with a scheme that would produce no noticeable effect on global temperatures. Now comes a new study concluding that nearly all global warming reported in recent decades is derived from “adjustments” to surface temperature data which was made by climate scientists, and not from actual readings. The study, by meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo, climate scientist Craig Idso and statistician James Wallace, tests whether temperature data compiled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, and the United Kingdom Climate Research Unit’s Hadley Center are “sufficiently credible estimates of global average temperatures such that they can be relied on for climate modeling and policy analysis purposes.” They found that scientists almost always made “adjustments” to data that revised temperatures upward and seldom downward to produce a steeper warming trend over the years than what the thermometer actually showed. Their summary findings are sobering: “The conclusive findings of this research are that the three … data sets are not a valid representation of reality.” The data from the three government organizations serves as the basis for the EPA’s finding that greenhouse gases endanger human health. And protecting people from the unhealthy effects of global warming — hotter and dryer summers, more severe hurricanes and rising ocean levels — was supposed to be the rationale for nearly 200 nations to adopt the Paris agreement and, for Americans, submitting to a thick rule book of EPA regulations governing nearly all life. Given the flaws in official temperature data, Director Pruitt’s ending the taboo against challenging the conventional wisdom behind the causes of climate change is the right thing to do. Let the debate begin. washingtontimes.com

To: Brumar89 who wrote (78340)	7/19/2017 8:48:31 AM
From: Eric	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

Paris climate agreement Trump regrets 'bizarre mistake' of Paris climate pullout, Branson claims Virgin chief tells audience in Brooklyn Trump’s decision is ‘very, very strange’ ‘I get the feeling the president is regretting what he did’ Branson said: ‘There are some strange people out there who have got into heady positions in the American government.’ Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA Oliver Milman @olliemilman Saturday 15 July 2017 16.14 BST Last modified on Saturday 15 July 2017 16.40 BST Donald Trump regrets the “bizarre mistake” of withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement, Sir Richard Branson has said. The British billionaire also urged the president to help phase out the ailing US coal industry. Donald Trump offers hand of friendship to Emmanuel Macron on Paris visit Read more theguardian.com Speaking in Brooklyn on Friday, the Virgin Group founder said businesses and cities were firmly behind a transition to low-carbon energy, which made Trump’s decision to exit the Paris deal “very, very strange”. “With climate change, it’s America first and our beautiful globe last, and that seems incredibly said,” said Branson. “I’ve got a feeling that the president is regretting what he did. Maybe his children and son in law [adviser Jared Kushner] are saying, ‘Look, I told you so.’ Hopefully there is a positive change of mind.” The US is set to become one of only three sovereign nations in the world not to be part of the Paris accord, which aims to stem dangerous global warming. Of the other two, Nicaragua feels the agreement does not go far enough, and Syria is mired in a disastrous civil war. Branson said his companies would join the “ We are still in” campaign – a coalition of hundreds of businesses, cities and universities committed to keeping to the US’s emissions reduction goals. Companies from Apple and Facebook to oil giants Exxon and BP urged Trump to stick with the Paris agreement, only for the president to fulfill his election pledge to jettison the pact. There’s no guarantee he’ll change his mind. Who knows what goes on in there. The Paris decision was a bizarre mistake Sir Richard Branson “Trump had hundreds of the most influential business leaders in the world speaking to him and he ignored them, so there’s no guarantee that he’ll change his mind,” Branson said. “Who knows what goes in there,” he added, pointing to his head. “The Paris decision was a bizarre mistake. “You have people in America who believe the world was made 5,000 years ago. There are some strange people out there who have got into heady positions in the American government. You have the strange position of a cabal of people with very influential positions in America making these decisions.” Branson admitted that he was unlikely to sway Trump, given his previous criticism of the president. In October, the British entrepreneur recalled a one-on-one lunch several years ago during which the future president explained how he was going to destroy five people who were unwilling to help him after one of his bankruptcies. Branson said the lunch was “bizarre” and showed Trump’s “vindictive streak”. However, he said he would advise Trump to drop his pro-fossil fuels stance and help transition coal miners into new work. “Coal mining is not the nicest of jobs,” Branson said, adding that in Britain miners have largely moved into jobs “far more pleasant, far less dangerous and far better for their health. “I’d suggest that the government should help coal miners move into alternative jobs, such as clean energy. Clean energy needs hundreds of thousands of people. That would be good for the coal miners, good for America and good for the world. “Now is the time to get massive investments into alternative energies. The vast majority of governments in the world are all still going in the right direction and companies in America are stepping into the breach.” Branson was joined in a panel discussion by Andrew Liveris, chief executive of Dow Chemical and part of a group that advises the White House on manufacturing. Liveris said chemicals companies have moved on from “full frontal denial” of climate change and that businesses now grasp the seriousness of global warming. All the president's men's lawyers: who are Trumpworld's leading attorneys? Read more theguardian.com “We are leaving governments behind, it’s completely inverted,” he said. “I believe we will find a way back into Paris. That’s not coming from any deep knowledge, but because of the engagement on the issue.” Branson was in New York to promote DS Virgin Racing, which competes in the Formula E electric racing series. Another of his companies, Virgin Atlantic, is part of an airline industry responsible for around 5% of global carbon dioxide emissions. He said cleaner fuel and more efficient plane designs were getting “closer step by step”. “I was told 10 years ago it wasn’t possible to get across the Atlantic with a plane carrying a battery powered by clean energy before 2050, because of the weight of it and so on,” he said. “But the way things are moving, it’s quite possible that a battery driven plane could carry a plane full of passengers across the Atlantic by 2030. The airline industry could tick that box [on reducing emissions] before some other industries.” theguardian.com