by Gideon Rozner Republished with permission from:The Spectator Australia, 9 March 2019 When the Left talks derisively about ‘climate deniers’, they probably imagine someone very different from Dr Peter Ridd. Bearded, bespectacled and softly-spoken, Ridd is a sandal-wearing one-time Green voter and former president of his local chapter of the Wildlife Protection Society. He is…
via Watts Up With That?
March 11, 2019 at 10:16AM
LONDON—The U.S. is on track to become a net petroleum exporter by 2021 and will soon after surpass Russia and rival Saudi Arabia, currently the world’s largest oil exporter, the International Energy Agency said Monday.
The U.S. is expected to double its gross crude oil exports to 4.2 million barrels a day by 2024, while total exports of crude and refined products should reach 9 million barrels a day, the IEA said in its annual five-year oil outlook report.
U.S. crude production, driven by relentless growth in shale oil, is expected to account for 70% of the total increase in global production capacity over the next five years, the agency added. The report also said the U.S. should account for 75% of the expansion in liquefied natural gas trade.
“The second wave of the U.S. shale revolution is coming,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. “This will shake up international oil and gas trade flows, with profound implications for the geopolitics of energy.”
The use of hydraulic fracturing in the U.S. to drill for oil in shale rock, a process known as fracking, has dramatically reshaped the global oil industry over the past decade. It has allowed the U.S. to rival traditional producers like Russia and Saudi Arabia—the de facto head of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries—for market share.
Shale was largely behind the glut of American oil that flooded the market more than four years ago, leading oil prices to fall to $30 a barrel from more than a $100 a barrel in late 2014.
U.S. shale production in 2018 grew faster than it did during the boom years of 2011 to 2014, the IEA said last year.
The U.S. last year surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of crude oil, with output currently hovering around 12 million barrels a day.
The post Second Wave of U.S. Shale Revolution Is Coming, Says IEA appeared first on The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).
via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
March 11, 2019 at 09:30AM
AUGUSTA, Maine — The beginning of March brings bad news for carbon tax supporters, who have been successful in getting legislation to impose the regressive tax introduced at the federal and state levels, but not in getting it enacted, not even in left-leaning, Democratic-run states that should be most inclined to welcome this policy.
A February 28 Maine House Committee on Energy Utilities and Technology hearing on legislation that would impose the nation’s first statewide carbon tax ended with Representative Deane Rykerson (D-Kittery), the legislator sponsoring the bill, announcing that he will pull his proposal and will instead push for a “Carbon Pricing Study Group” that will explore the topic and issue recommendations at a later date. The committee subsequently voted on March 7 against reporting Rykerson’s carbon tax bill out of committee.
In the hours-long hearing on Representative Rykerson’s bill, 60 Maine residents testified in opposition to the proposed carbon tax, explaining the harm that the regressive tax would do to Maine families and employers. Only one person testified in favor of the bill. This strong display of public opposition to a carbon tax was instrumental in killing the bill in committee.
By reacting early to raise awareness about the destructive carbon tax that was being proposed and exposing the corrupt kickbacks and special interests it was going to be paying for, we were able to gather men and women of all ages from every corner of the state to march on the capital and send a clear message to lawmakers that the people of Maine stand united against new and useless taxes the would have crushed both Maine’s economy as well as our middle and low income families,” says Waterville Mayor Nick Isgro, explaining how opponents of the carbon tax managed to come out victorious despite every branch of state government being under Democratic control.
Because there is “gridlock at the federal level,” writes Governing Magazine’s Elizabeth Daigneau, “activists are focusing their attention on states and cities where action on climate change seems more likely.”
Though green activists are taking their proposals for new taxes and regulations to the state level, they have been unable to get a carbon tax enacted, even in state legislatures where progressives hold the most sway. Maine becomes the most recent blue state to reject a carbon tax. Legislation to impose a carbon tax has also been introduced in Vermont, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Oregon, and other states, but all have declined to implement one. Americans for Tax Reform has put together a timeline of all the carbon tax proposals that have been rejected both in the U.S. and abroad.
Ballot measures to enact the nation’s first statewide carbon tax were rejected by Washington State voters in both 2016 and 2018, the same elections that Evergreen State voters gave Democrats total control of state government and awarded the state’s 12 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton.
The post Another Blue U.S. State Rejects Carbon Tax appeared first on The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).
via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
March 11, 2019 at 09:19AM
The days of EPA science advisers rubber-stamping EPA staff’s regurgitation of the EPA-paid advisors own junk science have come to an end. Read the draft letter. For historical background on the PM2.5 saga and PM2.5 science reality, read “Scare Pollution: Why and How to Fix the EPA.”
via JunkScience.com
March 11, 2019 at 08:41AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 