Guest post by David Middleton

A supervisor at the Energy Department’s international climate office told staff this week not to use the phrases “climate change,” “emissions reduction” or “Paris Agreement” in written memos, briefings or other written communication, sources have told POLITICO.

Employees of DOE’s Office of International Climate and Clean Energy learned of the ban at a meeting Tuesday, the same day President Donald Trump signed an executive order at EPA headquarters to reverse most of former President Barack Obama’s climate regulatory initiatives. Officials at the State Department and in other DOE offices said they had not been given a banned words list, but they had started avoiding climate-related terms in their memos and briefings given the new administration’s direction on climate change.

[…]

News of the DOE office’s word ban drew criticism from one green group.

“What exactly is this office supposed to call itself now? The international C****** office? Ignoring the climate crisis will not make it go away, will not create jobs in the booming clean energy economy, and will not make our country great,” Liz Perera, climate policy director at Sierra Club, said in a statement.

Darius Dixon and Ben Lefebvre contributed to this report.

Politico

Setting aside the fact that it is truly idiotic for the Department of *Energy* to even have an office, department or bureau with the word “climate” in its name… The irony here is priceless.

The greatest governor in U.S. history is now the Secretary of the Department of… Ooops.

And the Department of Ooops now has an Office of International Climate and Clean Energy.

Getting back to truly idiotic government things… Why does the *United States* Department of Energy have an *International* office of anything?  Is the swamp really this deep?

From the “Who freaking cares about the carbon footprint of criminals?” department comes this inane study that only a fully invested warmist could give a rats posterior about. With statements like this: “to ignore these carbon emissions risks crime prevention strategies being unsustainable.” one wonders if the author of the study really understands that the real goal of crime prevention strategies is to reduce crime, not a carbon footprint or to be “sustainable”. Sheesh, I’m beginning to think that this comment yesterday on the “weather whiplash” story might might merit after all:

How about a policy of regular drug testing of professors? If they drug test air traffic controllers why not the people who teach our children? – Bob Osborn 2017/03/29 at 10:01 am

The carbon footprint of crime has fallen, study finds

A study led by an Engineering Doctorate student at the University of Surrey has found that the carbon footprint of crime over the last 20 years has fallen.

The study, published in the British Journal of Criminology, applied estimates of the carbon footprint of criminal offences to police-recorded crime and self-reported victimisation survey data, to estimate the carbon footprint of crime in England and Wales between 1995 and 2015.

The study was conducted by Helen Skudder at the University of Surrey and supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Home Office, and Secured by Design Police Crime Prevention Initiatives Limited.

The carbon footprint of acquisitive and violent crime was estimated at around 7 million tonnes CO2e in 1995, falling to below 3 million tonnes CO2e by 2015. This represents a substantial carbon drop of 62% and a total cumulative reduction of 54 million tonnes CO2e over this period.

Research lead Helen Skudder said: “All public bodies, organisations and businesses must reduce their carbon emissions wherever possible, so to ignore these carbon emissions risks crime prevention strategies being unsustainable. Our study has shown that the carbon emissions have fallen further than the rate of crime, with a 48% carbon drop observed alongside a 30% crime drop.”

Focusing on areas that resulted in the majority of emissions reductions may offer the best potential opportunities for further decreasing the carbon footprint in the future. These include burglary and vehicle offences, which reduce the need to replace stolen or damaged items, which was found to contribute substantially to the footprint.

The relationship between the drop in crime and drop in carbon footprint is complex. A 30% drop in police-recorded crime between 1995 and 2015 resulted in a 48% reduction of carbon emissions. This clearly demonstrates that there is not a straightforward relationship between the number of offences and the resulting carbon footprint. This study adds to previous research on the carbon footprint of crime, and the results presented in the paper are an important contribution towards a growing connection between crime prevention and sustainability agendas.

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The full study can be accessed online here: http://ift.tt/2nPMBy3