Addressing the Climate Change Emergency
Before starting, be prepared to feel more pain because somebody(ies) decided Americans should save the world from climate change.
Here’s a famous quote by President Clinton in 1998:
“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the—if he—if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement. … Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true.”
President Biden announced recently that he will be imposing additional executive actions focused on combating climate change – because climate change is an “emergency.
So much for his administration’s idea of representative democracy that’s supposedly under attack by conservatives. But I digress.
The president gets the power to bypass the Congress by using the National Emergencies Act of 1976 – put in place for circumstances that threaten the country and call for an immediate response. That Act empowers the President to activate special powers during a crisis.
Congress can terminate an emergency declaration with a joint resolution.
The President is following The Center for Biological Diversity outline for executive orders under “climate emergency:”
- Halt crude oil exports
- Stop oil and gas drilling
- Restrict international trade and private investment in fossil fuels
- Order the defense industry to ramp up clean energy tech
- Build solar and wind farms
At this point his new orders include FEMA to heighten resilience to heat waves and natural disasters, HHS for air conditioning and equipment cost relief, and Interior to open a 700,000-acre area of the Gulf for offshore windmills.
We’ve already seen how Biden’s initial attacks on our energy industry, through the Executive Orders he signed on his first days in office, have created a rolling, country-wide, economic disaster. When energy prices skyrocket, all prices skyrocket.
President Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Accord last year. In doing so he expanded the original commitment to an emission reduction of 52% by 2030 from the 2005 levels and pledged zero fossil fuel emissions by 2050. Radical global warming proponents cheered.
We didn’t expect this Congress to override the President’s EOs or his unilateral commitments.
But now, the Democratic majority in Congress has finally convinced WV Sen. Manchin to support The Inflation Reduction Act (a misnomer if there ever was one). It’s a scaled back version of Biden’s Build Back Better Act – and we can now expect its passage.
The bill has $433 billion in “investments:” $369 billion for “energy security and climate change” and $64 billion for health care – extending Obamacare.
Here’s a summary of the climate change numbers:
- $60+ billion to support U.S. clean energy manufacturing, including $30 billion in incentives for wind, solar, and battery production. Plus, another $10 billion in tax credits for the construction of facilities that make electric cars and renewable energy technologies, and another $2 billion in grants to “retool” existing car factories for electric vehicles.
- Another $60 billion to invest in the reduction of pollution from factories and ports – and purchase cleaner public transportation vehicles. (Included are Post Office trucks)
- $30 billion in grants and loans to states and electric utilities to help them transition to cleaner forms of electricity.
- $27 billion for a clean energy technology accelerator to support deployment of technologies to reduce emissions.
- $20+ billion” to support agricultural practices that reduce emissions – (meaning less use of fertilizer, ergo, less food.)
- Continues a $7,500 tax credit for purchasers of new electric vehicles and creates a $4,000 tax credit to purchase a used electric vehicle.
- $10 billion in grants and rebates for homeowners, including 10 years of tax credits to help offset the costs of installing rooftop solar panels, electric appliances, and efficient HVAC technologies like heat pumps.
On the tax side here’s the biggest items:
- Imposes a 15% minimum corporate income tax.
- Imposes increased tax rates on all taxpayers, regardless of income.
- Closes the carried interest ‘loophole’ for private equity, venture capital and hedge funds. (This may be removed)
- Increases IRS funding some $80B to collect more tax. (This is billed as revenue?)
So, this is happening to solve the ‘national emergency’ we face with climate change. It all depends on what your definition of “emergency” is.
I’m not going to spend much time today addressing the pros and cons of climate change and how “real” a crisis or emergency it is. Suffice to note a couple of things: the temperature of the whole earth has changed 0.05C since 1970; since 1957 the north polar ice cap has melted off the north pole 6 times; sea level has risen 8 inches since 1880; currently CO2 makes up 0.04% of our atmosphere. Would 0.05% as the percent of our atmosphere – a 25% increase – make the earth uninhabitable? Does anyone know the perfect temperature for the earth that humans can create and/or maintain?
The only thing separating our modern era from pre-modern is fossil fuel. Without it the standard of living in the US and elsewhere would be much lower. We’d likely still be in the Agricultural Age where most people were merchants, craftspeople, farmers, or farm workers.
95 degrees in NYC, western wildfires or floods in E. Kentucky are not harbingers of a climatic emergency. That’s ignorant.
Fact is that the country is facing several actual emergencies that fit the meaning of the word – inflation, crime, Russia-Ukraine war, and massive illegal immigration. Climate change ranks tied for 6th on the list important issues to Americans. (April CBS poll)
Not addressing them only make the real emergencies worse.
Transition to green energy? Fine. But are we ready for blind ideology and subjective timelines from people who don’t (care to) know the basics of climatic history, scientific data, or economics, to force us down a path we don’t want to go and where we won’t have the capacity for sufficient and reliable energy? That sounds like an emerging national emergency to me. These people are the real threats.
Who’s buying ocean side estates anyway?
Energy. Don’t make using it an “emergency.”
Why is China so gleeful about what we’re doing?
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References:
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Emergencies_Act
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-inflation-reduction-major-effort-climate.html
SPIDER Bites
Here’s one I assume you’ve been dying to know. Scientists at a Belgium university have determined why woodpeckers don’t suffer brain damage with their furious pecking. Unlike monkeys and humans, it seems the brain of a woodpecker is small enough to withstand the shock. So don’t go banging your head against the wall, your brain is too big.
NASA has been testing the most powerful rocket ever built and has scheduled an August 29, Cape Canaveral test launch of the Artemis I rocket. The rocket is part of NASA’s planned manned flight to the moon in 2024. It’s expected capacity is to carry up to 46 metric tons into space (101,400 pounds -3 tons more than Saturn V) – with 15% more thrust than the Saturn V used in the last moon mission. NASA also expects to recover 4 of the rocket’s biggest engines for re-use.
The July Jobs report was strong at 528,000. Hopefully workers can hang on to them as the economy spurts and inflation continues. The report didn’t include food banks are overwhelmed with workers trying to make ends meet.
As you might expect, as the price of gas and diesel have skyrocketed thefts of fuel have followed. The thefts are mainly from manipulating pumps at gas stations and siphoning fuel from parked vehicles. One more thing of which to be aware. Fuel prices have come down a little the last several weeks as recession sets in and oil consumption decreases and overall commercial production begins to slide.
Success would have been to avoid the Russia-Ukraine war. Instead, the ‘hawks’ have us spending billions we don’t have without prospects of success and lots of pain. We just sent hundreds of millions more in military equipment last week. Then Pelosi flies to Taiwan in the face of threats by China. Why? I mean, I’m not saying back down. I am asking the purpose the Speaker of the House’s Taiwan visit. Was it purposeful provocation? What happened to statesmanship and diplomacy – and peace?
A researcher at Vanderbilt University, Matthew Schrag, has determined that slides included in a highly influential 2006 paper about Alzheimer’s disease were fabricated. The revelation has cast doubt on the popular, though increasingly embattled theory of how Alzheimer’s does its grievous damage. Science is only as good as the scientists. Theories are meant to be challenged and either proven or not. Group think has no place anywhere, but especially not in science.
I mentioned the ‘cave-in’ by WV Sen. Manchin last week to another big ‘tax and spend’ bill called The Inflation Reduction Act. In addition to raising taxes on everyone, all corporations will pay a minimum of 15% on income. It gives billions to the wealthy to help them buy electric cars. It raises taxes on those producing energy on public lands. And it gives tens of billions to health insurance companies. It does everything except what the title of the package says. It not only exacerbates runaway inflation, the bill taxes people and companies more as we enter recession. Who’s running the “beltway economic clinic?”
