“Net-Zero Tyranny”

New York seems determined to challenge California for the title of green energy “leader,” regardless of what doing so costs residents. The state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is reportedly “considering” (read: almost certainly will adopt) rules that will be used to justify more forced electrification and higher energy costs for New Yorkers.

The DEC intends to accomplish this using new estimates of the “social cost of carbon” (SCC). The SCC is a made-up number, calculated using simplistic models that assume a one-to-one relationship between carbon emissions and global temperature. After estimating how much carbon dioxide will get released into the atmosphere and the resulting temperature increases, the models project the resulting environmental doom and its costs: rising seas that will flood coastal cities and sink island nations, the expansion of virulent tropical diseases into colder climates, and megadroughts leading to crop losses.

The UK should treat fossil fuel adverts in the same way as tobacco commercials and ban them, the head of the UN has said.

António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, said countries including the UK should prohibit fossil fuel adverts because of the damage to health that they cause. Campaigners said the call from such a senior figure was “extraordinary”.

The world of climate science is in shock following extraordinary findings from a team of high-powered NASA scientists that suggest most of the recent global temperature increases are due to the introduction of draconian fuel shipping regulations designed to help prevent global warming. The fantasy world of Net Zero is of course full of unintended consequences, but it is claimed that the abrupt 80% cut in sulphur dioxide emissions from international shipping in 2020 has accounted for 80% of global warming since the turn of the decade. Although the extra heat is described as “transient”, the warming is extraordinary and is expected to rise during the 2020s at a rate of 0.24°C a decade, 20% higher than the claimed warming trend since 1980.

It is being called a “greenlash”.

Resistance to green policies has broken out across Europe. It was all so different in the last European elections five years ago, when young voters especially demanded action against climate change.

Soaring energy prices because of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the wider cost of living crisis have turned many Europeans against abandoning fossil fuels. And farmers across Europe have blocked roads in anger at environmental reforms.

It could spell trouble for the EU’s Green parties at the polls from 6-9 June.

Germany’s climate advisory body has called for new policy measures to slash greenhouse gas emissions, warning that the country looks set to miss its 2030 climate change targets.

In a report published on Monday, the Council of Experts on Climate Change said Germany was unlikely to reach its goal of cutting 65% of emissions by the end of the decade compared to 1990 levels.

The panel, which is appointed by the government and has independent authority to assess the country’s climate performance, said sectors such as transport and construction in particular were struggling to decarbonize.

Shutting down their Nuclear Power Stations was a great idea.

If we ‘just stopped’ using fossil fuels billions of people would die. We need to balance the benefit of reducing emissions against its cost

We constantly hear that because climate change is real we should “follow the science” and end fossil fuel use. We hear it both from politicians who favour swift carbon cuts and from natural scientists themselves, as when the editor-in-chief of Nature insists “The science is clear — fossil fuels must go.” The assertion is convenient for politicians because it allows them to avoid responsibility for the many costs and downsides of climate policy, painting these as inevitable results of diligently following the scientific evidence. But it is false. It confounds climate science with climate policy.

A recent poll by Leger, commissioned by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), reveals that 70% of Canadians support a carbon tax exemption on propane and natural gas for farmers.

The findings come as MPs debate Bill C-234, which seeks to extend the carbon tax exemption to these essential farm fuels.

“The poll is clear: the vast majority of Canadians want the government to get farmers relief from the carbon tax,” said Gage Haubrich, CTF Prairie Director.