Archive | Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs

New Documentary Film, ‘Juice,’ Challenges Elitism Of Anti-Growth Environmentalism – by Micheal Shellenberger (Forbes Magazine – August 7, 2020)

August 8, 2020 in Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, International Media Resource Articles

https://www.forbes.com/

Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,” Green Book Award Winner, and author of Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All (Harper Collins, June 30, 2020).

The root cause of climate change, say many activist leaders, is economic growth. “How dare you!” Greta Thunberg told the United Nations last September “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth!”

And yet it was economic growth that lifted Thunberg’s ancestors out of agrarian poverty, raised life expectancy from 40 to 70 years, and liberated women and girls from feudal patriarchy.

Without Sweden’s economic growth, and the fossil fuels upon which it depended, the person who is Greta Thunberg would not exist. Continue Reading →

Opinion: Canada needs to go nuclear to reach our emissions targets – by Kim Rudd and Sean Willy (Financial Post – August 7, 2020)

August 7, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, Uranium and Nuclear Power Industry

https://financialpost.com/

Kim Rudd, an entrepreneur, was parliamentary secretary to the minister of natural resources from 2015-2018. Sean Willy is CEO of Des Nedhe Development in Saskatchewan.

To fight climate change, Canada needs clean energy from a source that delivers carbon-free, reliable power 24/7. If we are to reach our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets, nuclear power simply must be in the energy mix.

Nuclear power already displaces over 80 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually in Canada. That’s equivalent to taking 15 million cars off the road each and every year.

Though Canada has a world-class nuclear industry, we’ve only scratched the surface of its potential. Continue Reading →

Stop the regulatory pancaking – by Robert Lyman (Financial Post – July 28, 2020)

July 28, 2020 in Canada Mining, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, Oil and Gas Sector-Politics and Image

https://financialpost.com/

New regulations will only stall billion-dollar energy and transportation projects at precisely the time when economic stimulus is most needed

This month the federal government published new guidelines governing the environmental assessment of the climate effects of certain major projects, including all pipelines, electricity transmission lines, mines and metal mills, nuclear facilities, oil and gas production projects, hydro plants, airports and ports.

The guidelines prescribe how project proponents and the Canadian Impact Assessment Agency are to conduct a “strategic assessment of climate change.”

As a result, proponents will face a daunting set of information and process requirements at each phase of the impact assessment. Projects with a lifetime likely to extend beyond 2050 must provide a plan describing how they will achieve “net-zero emissions” by 2050. Continue Reading →

OPINION: Environmentalists’ new tack signals even more difficult era for pipelines – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – July 10, 2020)

July 13, 2020 in Aboriginal and Inuit Mining and Oil/Gas, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, Oil and Gas Sector-Politics and Image

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Environmentalists have taken a new, and clever, tack in their war against the hydrocarbon economy. As well as going after the companies that pump oil and natural gas, they are going after the companies that transport those products – the pipelines.

And they’re winning. In the past week, three big pipeline projects have taken severe blows.

On Monday, a U.S. federal judge ruled that the Dakota Access Pipeline, which had been in operation and was taking oil from North Dakota to Illinois, must shut down while a new environmental review is conducted. Construction of the pipeline, which is partly owned by Canada’s Enbridge, was fiercely opposed by Native American groups. Continue Reading →

Germany’s plan to exit coal by 2038 becomes law – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – July 3, 2020)

July 3, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, Coal, Europe Mining

https://www.mining.com/

Germany’s lower house of the parliament passed on Friday a bill to phase out coal-fired power stations in the country by 2038.

The new law entails over 50 billion euros ($56 billion) for mining companies, power plant operators, affected regions and employees to mitigate the impact of moving from coal to renewables as power source.

“The fossil fuel age is irrevocably coming to an end in Germany with this decision,” Economy Minister Peter Altmaier told lawmakers inside the chamber, urging opponents not to “talk it down”. Continue Reading →

Forbes falls to cancel culture as it erases environmentalist’s mea culpa – by John Robson (National Post – July 2, 2020)

July 2, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs

https://nationalpost.com/

It’s big news when somebody prominent apologizes for being badly wrong on a major public matter, promises to do better going forward and urges others to do the same, right? Unless the person commits heresy like, say, Michael Shellenberger.

In case you missed it, and they did their best to make sure you did, Shellenberger is an excruciatingly woke environmentalist and progressive. By his own account “At 17, I lived in Nicaragua to show solidarity with the Sandinista socialist revolution.

At 23 I raised money for Guatemalan women’s co-operatives. In my early 20s I lived in the semi-Amazon doing research with small farmers fighting land invasions. At 26 I helped expose poor conditions at Nike factories in Asia.” Continue Reading →

On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare – by Michael Shellenberger (Environmental Progress – June 29, 2020)

June 30, 2020 in Canadian Regional Media and Web Publications, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs

http://environmentalprogress.org/

On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years. Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem.

I may seem like a strange person to be saying all of this. I have been a climate activist for 20 years and an environmentalist for 30.

But as an energy expert asked by Congress to provide objective expert testimony, and invited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to serve as Expert Reviewer of its next Assessment Report, I feel an obligation to apologize for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public.

Here are some facts few people know: Continue Reading →

Why Climate Activists Will Go Nuclear—Or Go Extinct – by Michael Shellenberger (Quillette.com – June 25, 2020)

June 25, 2020 in Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, International Media Resource Articles, Uranium and Nuclear Power Industry

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“I have been a climate activist for 20 years and an energy expert for 10 of them. I was adamantly against nuclear energy until about a decade ago when it became clear renewables couldn’t replace fossil fuels. After educating myself about the facts, I came to support the technology.”

In October 2019, the British climate activist group Extinction Rebellion carried out two weeks of civil disobedience in London and other cities around the world. Six thousand activists blocked the five main bridges that cross the River Thames, which flows through London, preventing people from getting to work or home.

An Extinction Rebellion spokesperson went on national television and made a series of alarming claims. “Billions of people are going to die.” “Life on Earth is dying.” And, “Governments aren’t addressing it.”

Some journalists pushed back. The BBC’s Andrew Neil interviewed a visibly uncomfortable Extinction Rebellion spokesperson in her mid-30s named Zion Lights. “One of your founders, Roger Hallam, said in April, ‘Our children are going to die in the next 10 to 20 years,’” said Neil. “What’s the scientific basis for these claims?” Continue Reading →

The flaw in relying on worst-case-scenario climate model – by Ross McKitrick (Financial Post – June 23, 2020)

June 23, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs

https://business.financialpost.com/

Whenever you read a media story about how we’re heading toward catastrophe if we continue operating “business as usual” — i.e., if we don’t slash carbon emissions — the reports are almost always referring to a model simulation using RCP8.5.

And you can bet that nowhere in the story will they explain that RCP8.5 is an implausible worst-case scenario that was never meant to represent a likely base case outcome, or that scientists have begun castigating its usage as a prediction of a doomed business-as-usual future.

The term RCP8.5 refers to a greenhouse gas emissions scenario often used by scientists for climate model projections. You might never have heard of RCP8.5 but you have definitely heard of forecasts based on it. Continue Reading →

How best to shut down the Canadian Economy? It’s Complicated! – by Parker Gallant (Afordable Energy – June 12, 2020)

June 12, 2020 in Canadian Regional Media and Web Publications, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs

http://www.affordableenergy.ca/

On June 7, 2020 the Globe and Mail published an article by Adam Radwanski criticizing an earlier piece by Christopher Ragan and Andrew Potter of McGill University.

The McGill team advocated the “green recovery” plan as an “excellent opportunity to substantially increase the federal carbon tax”–“rather than trying to pick climate-change winners through government spending”.
Ragan, founder of the Eco-fiscal Commission, and a strong advocate for the carbon tax, has suggested it would have to increase to $210/tonne to be effective in the reduction of emissions to contain global warming. Continue Reading →

Silver remains critical to solar market, but demand may have peaked in 2019 – by Mariaan Webb (MiningWeekly.com – June 9, 2020)

June 9, 2020 in Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, Gold and Silver, International Media Resource Articles

https://www.miningweekly.com/

Aslow decline in silver demand from photovoltaic (PV) cells is forecast for the next several years, but solar generation capacity growth in China, Europe and North America over the next decade, will keep silver demand at elevated levels.

This is according to a new report, which London-based consultancy CRU produced on behalf of the Silver Institute.

CRU reports that from 2020 to 2030, the PV sector is expected to consume a cumulative 888-million ounces of silver, or about 81-million ounces a year. This is lower than the 100-million ounces of silver, or about 11% of total silver fabrication demand, that was used in the production of PV cells in 2019. Continue Reading →

Column: Do renewables hold the upper hand against coal in post-coronavirus world? – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.K. – May 14, 2020)

May 14, 2020 in Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, Coal, International Media Resource Articles

https://uk.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia (Reuters) – Proponents of both renewable energy and fossil fuels see opportunities for growth as the world emerges from the coronavirus pandemic, but working out who has the upper hand largely depends on the actions of governments and financiers.

With much of the world still struggling to contain the new coronavirus and economies devastated by lockdowns, so far the only thing that’s clear is that 2020 is going to be a bad year for new investments and projects.

New wind power installations may drop 12% and solar by 8% in 2020 compared with forecasts prior to the coronavirus outbreak, according to research by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Continue Reading →

China Is Virtually Alone in Backing Africa’s Coal Projects – by Antony Sguazzin, Godfrey Marawanyika and Jing Li (Bloomberg News – May 7, 2020)

May 7, 2020 in Africa Mining, Asia Mining, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, Coal, International Media Resource Articles

https://www.bloombergquint.com/

(Bloomberg) — For more than two decades, Zimbabwe has been trying to break ground on a giant coal-power complex by the world’s biggest man-made reservoir. China just agreed to get the $4.2 billion project underway.

The development near the southern shore of Lake Kariba is good news for Zimbabwe, where a collapsing economy and erratic policies have deterred foreign investment for the past 20 years.

But it flies in the face of a growing global consensus that has seen financial institutions from Japan to the US and Europe shun investments in coal projects. That retreat leaves the way open for Chinese companies—many with state backing—even at the risk of undermining the spirit of China’s international commitments to fight climate change. Continue Reading →

Michael Moore turns on climate left with film skewering green energy – by Valerie Richardson (Washington Post – April 24, 2020)

April 27, 2020 in Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, International Media Resource Articles

https://www.washingtontimes.com/

Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore is under attack from his putative climate allies with a newly released documentary taking on one of the sacred cows of the environmental movement: green energy.

“Planet of the Humans,” released this week free of charge on YouTube to coincide with Earth Day, argues that replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy is not only a pipe dream, but that solar arrays, wind farms and biomass are doing enormous damage of their own to the environment.

The blowback from the left was immediate. Josh Fox, director of the anti-fracking films “Gasland” and “Gasland Part II,” called on activists, scientists and others to sign a letter “demanding an apology and an immediate retraction by the [film’s] producers, director and other advocates.” Continue Reading →

New Michael Moore-Backed Documentary On YouTube Reveals Massive Ecological Impacts Of Renewables – by Michael Shellenberger (Forbes Magazine – April 21, 2020)

April 23, 2020 in Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, International Media Resource Articles

https://www.forbes.com/

Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,” Green Book Award Winner, and author of Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All (Harper Collins, June 30, 2020).

Over the last 10 years, everyone from celebrity influencers including Elon Musk, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Al Gore, to major technology brands including Apple, have repeatedly claimed that renewables like solar panels and wind farms are less polluting than fossil fuels.

But a new documentary, “Planet of the Humans,” being released free to the public on YouTube today, the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day, reveals that industrial wind farms, solar farms, biomass, and biofuels are wrecking natural environments.

“Planet of the Humans was produced by Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore. “I assumed solar panels would last forever,” Moore told Reuters. “I didn’t know what went into the making of them.” Continue Reading →