The Worst Climate Stories of the Week (The Harris-Walz Ticket Promises More Climate Hysteria)

Well, here we are, with a presumptive Democratic presidential ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. They present themselves as climate champions. Walz has faced all sorts of scrutiny since Harris announced him as her running mate, specifically over whether he has accurately represented his military record. Accusations of stolen valor have grown more clamorous since the announcement, putting Walz under a spotlight he couldn’t have previously anticipated. Walz also failed to protect Minneapolis from the destructive riots that followed the death of George Floyd in 2020. Safe to say he brings a lot of baggage to the ticket. It really calls into question the judgment of Harris and the people handling her campaign.

That baggage, by the way, includes radical actions on energy and climate that put the Harris-Walz ticket firmly into the hysterical fringe. Harris opted for climate insanity over someone like Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania—an energy producing state.

(Don’t miss last week’s column: Kamala Harris, We’re Ready For Your Closeup)

We have a couple of weeks before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, but the message has already come into focus. Harris and Walz will push “clean energy,” demonize “fossil fuels,” and make energy prices skyrocket even more than Biden did if they win. The choice between Trump-Vance and Harris-Walz could not be more stark when comparing energy policies. Buckle up—the next three months until Election Day promises to bring fireworks between polar opposite world views.

The Climate Stories Just Keep Going

In the meantime, the climate stories haven’t stopped chugging along. We have a paper in a scientific journal claiming we can’t see climate change because climate changes too fast for us to keep up; a “heat wave” in Antarctica so severe that nothing’s melting; the Securities and Exchange Commission climate reporting rule that will disrupt the markets; a blue-green state on the West Coast forced to change its climate action plan; the intersection of climate anxiety and teenage girls; and once again, several EV explosion/implosion/meltdown stories that just won’t go away.

In our good news segment, a recent article reminds us the United States has done pretty well in conserving energy, compared with many other nations across the globe.

But first, let’s start with a little cringe, shall we? Here now, a clip from 2019 when Kamala Harris told Jimmy Fallon her policy positions:

Since global warming has taken center stage in the Biden-Harris administration, there’s no reason to believe her beliefs have moderated since this was broadcast.

Did You Blink and Miss the Global Warming?

According to academics, the way we model climate means we can’t see the global warming when it happens. Or something. The Conversation is a website that publishes science news by scientists and scientific journalists. It has a reliable reputation for putting out climate cultism that often veers into the incomprehensible. A recent article ran with this breathless headline: “The climate is changing so fast that we haven’t seen how bad extreme weather could get.” Apparently, because computer models run climate simulations over periods of thirty years, the models can’t predict or observe extreme weather. In short, “the range of possible weather conditions, including extremes, is changing.” That makes for a pretty convenient excuse when predictions of doom fail to materialize, as they have since the likes of Al Gore started sounding alarm bells.

Antarctic Heat Wave

A heat wave in Antarctica has sent temperatures soaring. Currently in winter, temperatures rose up to 50 degrees (Fahrenheit) over normal the past few weeks. Notice, by the way, how this story uses Fahrenheit, instead of the conventional Celsius in most science-based reporting? Why would that be? Anyway, the temperatures soared from the negative 60s to a high of negative 13. Sure, that’s a lot, but is that heat wave really unprecedented? Or is it simply on the outer edges of normal? In any event, the article mongers all the fear when talking about a theoretical future in which all the ice melts and sea levels rise by 150 feet. Even with this unusual heat wave, we’re nowhere close to that happening, and in any event, nobody can possibly know whether that weather event is out of the ordinary.

Climate Reporting Requirement for Stocks

A new rule by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would require publicly traded companies to report “climate risk factors” in public disclosures. RealClearEnergy reports:

With the SEC’s 12 new climate disclosure categories, investors will be spammed with a flood of confusing and potentially contradictory environmental data. This will undermine the ability of investors to navigate the actual meaningful risks in the markets or assess the health of a company. The doom and gloom of climate risks will imperil sensible financial analysis.

This runs counter to the SEC’s primary mission to “facilitate capital formation and maintain market efficiency.” The new rules will waste significant capital for companies forced to hire climate experts, lawyers, and a fleet of other administrators to produce these reports—with questionable benefit to consumers. That’s why the SEC now faces multiple lawsuits attempting to block the new rule, including by 25 state attorneys general. Another giant waste of time and resources in an attempt to advance the Biden-Harris climate agenda through excessive regulation in every federal agency imaginable.

Court Ordered Change to State Climate Action Plan

In the blue-green state of Oregon, radicalism long ago replaced sanity in the halls of government. That’s why the state Supreme Court recently ruled the Climate Action Plan invalid, for not going far enough to comply with the federal Clean Air Act. So the Department of Environmental Quality has gone back to the drawing board, working up a new plan:

The program was originally designed to reduce 90% of carbon emissions from oil and natural gas companies by 2050. Under DEQ’s reworked draft rules, the program would now also regulate other industries that are heavy carbon emitters, like paper mills and concrete manufacturers.

Other changes include:

• Regulated entities — like oil and gas companies, as well as those heavy carbon emitters — would have two years to comply with new regulations, instead of three.
• DEQ would work with the Oregon Public Utilities Commission to monitor how the program affects customers’ natural gas bills.
• A planned carbon credit program would allocate 4.5% of its funding to administrative costs to improve how the program is implemented.

That carbon credit program, the Community Climate Investment program, aims to serve what DEQ calls environmental justice communities, the disadvantaged groups most impacted by climate change. It would use funds raised through the sale of carbon credits to pay for projects like adding more renewable energy to the grid and retrofitting homes. 

So, if approved, this “climate” plan would redistribute even more wealth than the original plan. This proves yet again that the only solution to the climate is more socialism.

Adolescent Girls Suffer More from Global Warming Hysteria

A survey of over 2,400 students aged 11-14 in England produced some interesting results in climate and education topics. The Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education at the University College of London (UCL) found that girls worry more about the climate than boys, but overall very few students see themselves getting environment-related jobs as adults. Overall, 36 percent of those surveyed said they worry “a lot or all the time” about the climate, while 50 percent only worry a little about it. More girls worry—44 percent, versus 27 percent of boys. Only 17 percent “showed interest in pursuing careers in the field,” which surveyors called a “gap in climate-focused career guidance in schools.”

The study authors concluded that British schools simply haven’t ratcheted up the hysteria enough. One unintentionally hilarious result: 73 percent of students said they’d like to learn more, “particularly through activities outside the traditional classroom setting.” Anything to get out of class.

EV Meltdown Mania

So many stories about failing electric vehicles, so little space left. Here are some quick hits:

• EV drivers have started pointing fingers at each other, throwing around accusations of “charger hogs” blocking access. Apparently the last 20% of a full charge at a Tesla fast charging station takes a really long time, delaying the next poor fellow waiting in line, and it’s the charger hog’s fault, not the tech.
• The fire sale of EVs by Hertz Rental Car apparently hasn’t gone well. They recently decided to sell off most of their EV fleet, but consumers won’t bite. So their losses have mounted even more in the second quarter than in Q1.
• Austin, TX committed in 2020 to converting its entire city bus fleet to electric, raising taxes to fund the transition. Unfortunately, and predictably, the endeavor succeeded only in wasting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds. Money quote from CapMetro CEO Dottie Watkins: “Honestly, we thought and hoped that the technology would progress a little faster than it has.”
• Nickel for EV batteries is smelted in Indonesia using coal. That’s it, that’s the story.  
• Another week, another unfightable fire involving lithium batteries in transport. This time, it involved an overturned 18-wheeler on I-15, the main route between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. In the summer heat in the Nevada desert, firefighters had no hope of extinguishing the fire, and just had to let it burn itself out—a process that took more than a day.

Finally, some good news . . .

The United States Has Done Pretty Well On Climate and Conservation

You would never know it, of course, if you only listen to corporate media and Democratic officeholders. But the United States has done a pretty great job of conserving energy, as visualized in per capita energy consumption. The U.S. ranks #11 in the world in that statistic, consuming significantly less energy per resident than Canada, Norway, Iceland, and other presumably more enlightened nations.