The Week’s Worst Climate Stories (Carbon Neutral China? Yeah, Right)
We dive into the “green” nuttiness so you don’t have to
This week, we’re getting caught up on all the crazy that slipped through our butterfly net over the past few weeks, plus we’re taking a look at some new crazy and… well, maybe we should just let it alone. We just can’t quit you, Scientism!
We have a recap of the Conference of the Parties #28 (COP28), the latest navel-gazing convention hosted by the UN to come up with new green redistribution swindles; a Tesla accident that’s the stuff of nightmares; green mutual funds turn out not to be a great investment; the absurdity of trying to stop emissions when China just keeps on rolling coal; and you’ll never guess what was awarded the worst economic investment of 2023 (actually, you probably will guess).
Also, we have some good news: Michael Mann’s hockey stick got blown up! No more junk science, right?
Let’s get to it.
Tesla + Water = Boom
In Hollywood, Florida, a Tesla owner backed a jet-ski on a boat ramp into the water, but the car lost traction and wouldn’t stop rolling. Being stuck in a car underwater is bad enough in a gas-guzzler. But in a battery powered Tesla? That causes fires and explosions. Luckily the driver escaped before she was pulled under. You really have to see this video, courtesy of a Facebook post by the firefighters:
A Tesla Model S was attempting to back a jet ski into the water at the Polk Street boat ramp, when it lost traction and slid into the inter-coastal. The salt water reacted with the the vehicle’s electronics causing them to short, sparking a fire that burned underwater for an extended period of time.
The fire was allowed to burn underwater until it extinguished itself. And even then, it had to be loaded carefully onto a special carrier, and followed by the Fire Engine to the impound lot, where they’ll keep the vehicle isolated for a few days in the very real possibility of re-ignition. EVs have been known to reignite even after the initial fire has been extinguished.
This is an issue with all Electric Vehicles, not just Tesla. And their prevalence is adding a whole new level of hazard to the Fire Service, causing Fire Departments worldwide to rethink how they mitigate electric vehicle emergencies.
NOTE: There’s a second bystander-submitted video in the comments section of the original post.
Nobody was harmed in the incident.
Copping to the Crazy: A Recap of COP28
In 1994, the UN created the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and has met annually ever since. These conferences draw the John Kerrys and Bill Gateses of the world together to compare private jets and come up with new ways to tell us to give them money while we eat bugs. This year’s conference on got off to a rocky start, when the jets of German delegates got stuck in Munich and couldn’t take off because they were frozen to the tarmac after a snowstorm covered 60% of Europe in several inches of global warming.
Then, when they got to Dubai, the conference chair told attendees that anyone who wants to stop petroleum production wants to put people back in caves. Which makes sense, because the chair is Sultan al Jaber, the head of the United Arab Emirates state oil company, Adnoc. Which doesn’t make sense. But it sure is ironic. And then the conference set a goal to get the United States to stop natural gas production, despite a new study clearly showing that natural gas use has led to a reduction in US emissions.
So as always, the UN is totally super cereal about hitting its climate goals.
Green Mutual Funds Lost How Much?
A new report shows that investing in green companies won’t return as much green to your retirement fund. According to the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA), investors around the world have lost trillions in value in “sustainable assets”—i.e. investment portfolios. In the United States, investments in companies and mutual funds that put ESG (environmental, social, and governance) first have lost almost half their value, from over $17 trillion in market value to $8.4 trillion in just two years. Globally, from 2020 to 2022, such funds dropped from $35.3 trillion to $30.3 trillion. The S&P Global Clean Energy Index has lost 30 percent of its value in 2023. Investors expect this trend to get worse in 2024.
Tell Me If You’ve Heard This One Before
China may not have been 100% forthright in its commitment to joining the international community in its climate goals.
Let’s all pause to catch our breath.
China has “pledged” to become “carbon neutral” in only 37 years. Their 2060 pledge isn’t exactly in line with other nations, but hey, they’re trying, right? Right?
Anyway, that pledge may not be completely sincere. Take, for instance, China’s reliance on coal. The country has remained non-committal on creating any new coal-fired power plants after 2025. In the meantime, the Chinese have approved permits on a huge number of coal plants—more in the third quarter this year than in all of 2021, in fact. Got to get those permits now, and THEN they can go carbon neutral. The government has said they could add as much as 200 gigawatts of coal capacity by the end of the decade, to bolster its energy security. “With energy security becoming a code word for coal in recent years, there is a clear-cut path to receive approval on building more new coal while you still can,” Greenpeace project leader Gao Yuhe said.
Worst Economic Development Deal of 2023… and It Isn’t Even Close
In 2023, Michigan announced a total of $1.75 billion in subsidies for an electric vehicle battery factory jointly operated by Ford and CATL, a firm with direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Those billions will go to pay for new jobs at $700,000 apiece, among other things. Governor Gretchen Whitmer bullied and doxed her opponents, and spent thousands in dark money donations to her campaign to engage in a propaganda campaign.
The Center for Economic Accountability (CEA), a nonprofit taxpayer watchdog, awarded this project its award as America’s Worst Economic Development Deal for 2023. “2023 continued the dangerous trend of state and local government subsidies across the country committing billions of dollars at a time to corporate projects,” they said in a statement. “Even in that environment, Michigan’s subsidy of the joint venture between Ford Motor Company and Chinese battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL) in rural Marshall, Mich. stood out for a unique combination of factors.”
Finally, Some Good News: Hockey Stick Blows Up
In November, a Swedish mathematician casually told readers of Steve McIntyre’s blog he’d figured out how Michael Mann fudged his data in creating his infamous Hockey Stick graph a few years back. The revelation sent shockwaves through the climate realists crowd, who had long disputed the validity of Mann’s pronouncements that warming in the late 20th Century was unprecedented in all of Earth’s history. A report later in December by Restoration of America will go into great detail revealing the junk science that has underpinned the global warming scam for the last three decades, but the revelation that Mann spliced a bunch of random data together, while probably unsurprising, should put a nail in the coffin of those who shout about global boiling. As climatologist Judith Curry said on X/Twitter:
New article by @ClimateAudit is astonishing: Michael Mann’s Other Nature Trick. Hockey stick wars could have been prevented decades ago by simple honesty. Now the hockey war lives on with Mann’s lawsuit against @MarkSteynOnline & the forthcoming trial.
Meanwhile, instead of addressing the controversy Michael Mann continues to encourage the censorship of “climate deniers” on social media:
Petrostates (esp. Russia and Saudi Arabia) have ramped up their denierbot attacks in an effort to pollute the social media discourse at this critical (#COP28) climate juncture.
Make sure to block and report, and protect your tweets if necessary by changing who can reply.
We can only hope and pray this will mark the end of junk science, but don’t hold your breath.
