Month: January 2023

Climate Truth Science Soundbites

The climate realists at Creative Society have put together a short video with pithy statements skewering the CO2 theory of climate change.  Above is the video and below a transcript with exhibits and the speakers’ identities.

Dr. Harold Burnett
Over time the atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have radically fluctuated throughout the earth’s geologic history. They have been in the past as much as 5 000 parts per million. Currently they are about 420 parts per million. So over long periods of time they have fluctuated, but in general they have fallen.

Gregory Wrightstone
There doesn’t seem to be any correlation whatsoever with increasing CO2 and temperature. And in fact one of the things we’re being asked to believe is that our modern temperatures are unusual and unprecedented, as thought we’ve never seen temperatures like this in thousands of years. That’s just not the case.

Prof. Ole Ellestad
We have a map showing temperature changes over the last 11 000 years. These are Greenland ice cores and we can see a thousand years ago, about 2 000 years ago and about 3 000 years ago we had warm periods. And everything indicates that these were periods of global warming.

Hans Borge
It was long before man-made CO2 emissions had any considerable volume. Therefore we know that the natural variability can be large.

Jan-Eric Solheim
In this graph we also show what the IPCC does. It prolongs more or less this curve going to infinite.
So it becomes warmer and warmer because of the CO2 release or climate. And that’s what we think
is wrong. Our prediction is that it will soon start Cooling and we have to be prepared for that.

Gregory Wrightstone
The warming trend we’re in right now though started more than 300 years ago. But again 250
years of warming took place before we started adding CO2. But we’re asked to believe that
those natural forces that have been driving temperatures since the dawn of time suddenly ceased
in the 20th century.

Hans Borge
CO2 is a gas that has very little effect on the climate. The IPCC models assume that the higher the CO2 level, the higher the water vapor level, and water vapor is a gas with the greatest impact on the climate. But the assumption that the more CO2, the more water vapor, has never been proved.

Jan-Eric Solheim
With some colleagues I have done experiments to see if CO2 can heat or carry heat. So we have built small greenhouses and tried to heat it by the sun outside or inside with artificial heating. We were able to show that carbon dioxide stops radiation, but we were not able to show any heating. So it’s a mystery how CO2 cannot heat, but what can heat is the water.

Gregory Wrightstone
The water vapor temperature changes first and then CO2 levels follow that. It’s not the other way around. If man increasing CO2 is going to drive temperature, CO2 should change first and then temperature should change.

Jan-Eric Solheim
The blue curve is the temperature of the sea that is the ocean surface temperatures. The red is the land temperature which we get from in this case HadCRUT, which is an official temperature series. First comes the change in the sea temperature, a little bit later the land temperature (red) and
then about one year, 10 or 11 months the carbon dioxide changes. And when temperature at the sea surface goes down, the carbon dioxide goes down 10 or 11 months later.

Hans Borge
Well let me show you another table that might tell you a little bit about the CO2 content. Take a look:
there are 3 000 billion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere and the total man-made emissions per year are 20 to 30 billion tons. But if you look at the ocean, it has far more CO2. So the exchange of CO2 between the ocean and the atmosphere totally overshadows human activity.

Jan-Eric Solheim
So a more detailed analysis telling that this red part here is apparently what anthropogenic yes or mankind produced carbon dioxide, which is about three percent of the increase from 1960. But nature produces the rest, this variable curve here. So 97 percent of the increase comes from nature, according to these scientists.

Prof. Ole Ellestad
The IPCC also claims that the sun has no effect on us. It’s a great paradox; not clear how they arrive at that. Moreover today we see that the warming is happening not only on our planet but also on other planets and on the moon too, where there’s a completely different atmosphere that has nothing to do with CO2. So clearly there is a sun factor which is missing in their model.

Gregory Wrightstone
Well, the iIPCC if you look back on their charter it was formed to present the data that supports warming. They weren’t tasked to provide all the data. They started with an assumption and went from there. So if that’s their task, they’re doing a darn good job at it. You better have some good science behind you, and it’s just not there.

Dr. Harold Burnett
The world’s governments through the UN formed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Now you would think that would be studying climate change, but they specified that you study the human causes of climate change. So they ruled out all natural factors. They said no no: we’re not going to study whether the sun plays a role; we’re not going to study whether volcanoes play a role; we’re not going to study whether ocean current shifts play a role. And we really don’t understand clouds, so we’re not going to count them much. What we’re going to study is human CO2 emissions because that’s what we can get a handle on.

That’s not the way science is supposed to work. If you make faulty or incomplete assumptions, your models are going to be weak, because they’re only as good as the accuracy of the stuff that’s put in them. Now climate models have failed to accurately reflect past temperatures; they fail to accurately represent present temperatures; but we’re told we can trust their projections of future temperatures.  That doesn’t seem reasonable to me.

Gregory Wrightstone
If on the other hand, you like the scientific process, we’re not getting much data out there. Dr Will Happer is our chairman here at the CO2 coalition and he’s got a paper that he and Dr. Van Wijngaarden have done on climate sensitivities. They’re not able to get it in any prestigious journals, yet it’s a landmark
Study. They need to shut people like me down: I was just banned on linkedin, which should be a professional network, a social media network. I don’t talk those things that are controversial; i post scientific facts, and they were being removed. And they came back and said: No, you’re done. We don’t allow that kind of information on linkedin.

Prof. Ole Ellestad
This debate is so violent that if you go to the media you can express your opinion, but you will be strongly criticized, and then you won’t really have an opportunity to defend yourself. But most importantly, you won’t get into the media with your first articles.

Hans Borge
This is what we see now in the academic world, for example at universities. Academic freedom is endangered. I have to say that many people who joined the ranks of climate realists do so when they retire; because until retirement they just don’t dare. Researchers who claim something different don’t get grants; they don’t have their say in either published media or in edited journals.

Dr. Harold Burnett
First off you’re having a difficult time getting published because journals won’t hear it. Well, that affects your tenure track position and your colleagues are frowning at you. And you’re not getting government grants because government doesn’t give grants to study natural factors for climate change or to study things that prove humans aren’t causing climate change. Because government has a motive: expanding its its reach. I know researchers who’ve left the field because they feel like they can’t give their honest assessment and get it either published or get tenure.

Prof. Ole Ellestad
Climate and environment are often lumped together. But being against climate doesn’t mean being against the environment. That is, we are not against climate, but we are skeptical of CO2, which is not the same as being skeptical of the environment. So important environmental issues should be discussed and resolved.

Dr. Harold Burnett
That subsurface volcanic activity in Antarctica and even in parts of Greenland and Iceland are contributing to the melting of the glaciers there. That is not controlled by CO2. We don’t control the ocean currents; we don’t control the magnetism of the earth’s magnetic poles and how it shifts or can shift over time. We don’t control our orbit.

We don’t control those things and they’re really what’s driving things. That’s why we should study them, because they’re really what’s driving climate change. And we think it’s bad, we should know that too.

I want an adaptable society. An adaptable society is one that does not lock us into solving the wrong problem.

 

via Science Matters

https://ift.tt/VaNFIZB

January 23, 2023 at 06:41PM

Section 230 does not protect Big Tech from their customers

The Communications Decency Act (CDA) Section 230 was enacted in 1996[1] with the main purpose to protect interactive computer service providers that offer a family-friendly internet experience from certain claims of third parties.

Big Tech Platforms that harm their customers by removing or misdirecting content that the customer wanted to receive, or not attempting to deliver the content that the customer have sent, are not protected by the Section 230.

In interactive services, any transaction (a message, post, tweet, video, etc.) has at least two parties other than the service provider: a sender and a receiver. At that time, the service provider usually had no contractual relationship with at least one of those parties in the transaction.

For example, ISPs had contracts with their subscribers but not with the websites that their subscribers browsed. When an ISP, acting on behalf of its subscriber, blocked a porno page on a third-party website, the website owner could potentially sue the ISP for wrongful interference with a business relationship. CDA 230(c)(2) protects the ISP from such liability. CDA 230(c)(1) protects service providers from claims of defamation and similar torts, made by third parties.

A provider of a bulletin board could not know people who used it — much less have a contract with any of them. There was no need for such contracts. There was no certainty that a contract could be made electronically until 2000, when the United States Congress passed 15 U.S. Code Chapter 96 – ELECTRONIC SIGNATURES IN GLOBAL AND NATIONAL COMMERCE.[2]

Today’s Big Tech social media platforms (and search engines) do have or claim to have contracts with their consumers, including those who do not have accounts (so-called browse wrap contracts). Although these platforms’ terms of service, user agreements, and sundry policies are void or even illegal, there are actual contracts that can be construed by courts based on the platforms’ promises and reasonable consumer expectations from those promises and other platforms’ conduct. However, CDA 230 provides no protections to the platforms against their users when there are contracts, attempts to bind users by a contract, and/or promises made by the platform to its users.

P.S.: Section 230 was somewhat influenced by Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy (1995). Prodigy acted as an early internet service provider (ISP) and operated moderated bulletin boards. Because of this moderation or because its earlier statements that it operated as a publisher, the court found Prodigy to be a publisher of these boards, liable for defamatory statements posted by anonymous users. By the way, allegedly defamatory statements were found out truthful.

[1] Section 230 was only a small part of the CDA, which was struck by the Supreme Court. Only Section 230 has survived; it is discussed in legal proceedings as if it was passed independently.

[2] Also explained in NOLO.

via Science Defies Politics

https://ift.tt/la9JrYw

January 23, 2023 at 06:33PM

In Pennsylvania, Will Josh Shapiro Unlock Decades of Affordable Energy?

by Gordon Tomb

With Democrat Josh Shapiro as a newly inaugurated governor and a new legislative body, Pennsylvania will either shine as an energy superstar or continue down the dim path of economic decline.

The commonwealth is a national leader in energy production despite being stifled by onerous regulations, market-distorting subsidies and an irrational hostility toward fossil fuels.

Shapiro’s energy policies will have implications for the power grid’s reliability throughout the Northeast, thousands of jobs in the coal and natural gas industries, and the competitiveness of manufacturers statewide. Residential electricity rates—already up an average of 73 percent since 2020—will continue to erode Pennsylvania’s competitiveness unless the status quo changes.

In 2021, the Keystone State exported more electricity than any other state, according to the Independent Fiscal Office. The U.S. Energy Information Administration lists Pennsylvania as the second-largest net supplier of total energy to other states, after Texas, and the third-largest coal-producing state, after Wyoming and West Virginia. Pennsylvania natural gas production hit a record 7.6 trillion cubic feet in 2021, second only to Texas.

Energy producers managed that despite a regulatory regime inclined to abuse its authority. For example, the Department of Environmental Resources (DEP) of the previous governor, Tom Wolf, tried to impose new regulations on coal mines that directly contradict existing law. DEP withdrew the proposal only after the Independent Regulatory Review Commission disapproved it.

During his tenure, Wolf repeatedly attempted to enact a severance tax on natural gas—an industry already burdened by more than $6 billion in special taxes and fees over the last decade. In 2019, Wolf began his unilateral push for entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), while being opposed by legislators, labor unions, and the public. RGGI, currently under review in the courts, is a carbon tax on electricity generators that would cost Pennsylvania consumers $800 million a year and simply move most of the emissions to neighboring states.

Will Shapiro take a more reasonable approach to energy regulation?

Shapiro’s been lukewarm about the carbon tax, saying it’s “not clear” whether RGGI would “address climate change, protect and create energy jobs and ensure Pennsylvania has reliable, affordable and clean power for the long term.”

With allies in both the environmental and labor communities, Shapiro’s campaign rhetoric alternately addressed the interests of both—speaking sometimes of permitting reform to speed approvals of energy projects and other times of severely restricting gas-well drilling. “Josh refuses to accept the false choice between protecting jobs or protecting our planet,” said his campaign website.

As attorney general, Shapiro charged natural gas drillers and pipeline operators with criminality for offenses ordinarily handled as civil matters. Industry supporters worry that such treatment dampens business investment in the state. The environmental left labels Shapiro’s criminal prosecutions of producers as only a “slap on the wrist.”

What we do know is that Shapiro proposes to increase alternative energy’s share of retail electricity sales from 18 to 30 percent—a 67 percent boost. The alternative energy program already costs consumers $104 million a year in subsidies and puts power plants fueled by coal or gas at a disadvantage.

While some regulations are important for health and safety, there are too many onerous restrictions that keep the state from producing affordable energy. Shapiro should support a constitutional amendment that ensures the legislature can review and disapprove regulations that unduly restrict energy production. Elected representatives, not unelected bureaucrats, should have the final say over these expansive and costly regulations.

Shapiro should also back regulatory reform that allows power plants and well drillers to continue to operate and employ tens of thousands of people. Three at-risk power plants alone support more than 8,000 jobs.

Finally, Shapiro should withdraw from the RGGI carbon tax and streamline regulations on the state’s fossil fuel industry. This would promote affordable energy production and power grid stability and help unleash Pennsylvania’s energy potential.

In 2023, championing good energy policy will be crucial for Shapiro. Developing Pennsylvania’s deposits of natural gas and coal would enhance its role as a global powerhouse and promote the well-being of Pennsylvanians. But further restricting Pennsylvania’s energy potential will continue to drive investments, jobs, and people out of the state.

This commentary was first published at Real Clear Energy, January 22, 2023, and can be accessed here.

Gordon Tomb is a senior fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation, a Pennsylvania-based free-market think tank and a senior advisor with the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. 

via Watts Up With That?

https://ift.tt/81Kwdv5

January 23, 2023 at 04:42PM

Record Cold In China

“The temperature in Mohe, a city in northern China’s Heilongjiang province, dropped to -53C (-63.4F) on Jan. 22, according to a post published on the official social media account of the Heilongjiang Meteorological Bureau. That beat the country’s previous record … Continue reading →

via Real Climate Science

https://ift.tt/iDfAC75

January 23, 2023 at 03:55PM