From the DAILY CALLER

Nick Pope
Contributor

Utah filed a major lawsuit with the Supreme Court on Tuesday that could have major implications for federalism and the administration of public lands across the country if successful.

Utah’s lawsuit contends that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) does not have the authority to effectively hold “unappropriated” state lands indefinitely under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), the state announced. The federal government controls about 18.5 million acres of “unappropriated” Utah land under the FLPMA, and Utah’s suit argues that the state ought to control this land because nothing in the Constitution expressly permits the federal government to do so instead.

In the context of federal lands, “appropriated” land is that which has been designated for specific purposes like military use or to serve as a national park, for example, according to the state of Utah. By comparison, “unappropriated” territory is essentially land that the federal government is controlling “without formally reserving it for any designated purpose.” (RELATED: Native American-Owned Entities Sue Biden Admin Over ‘Unconstitutional’ Decision To Kill Alaska Mining Project)

READ THE LAWSUIT:

“It is not a secret that we live in the most beautiful state in the nation. But, when the federal government controls two-thirds of Utah, we are extremely limited in what we can do to actively manage and protect our natural resources,” Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said in a statement about his state’s lawsuit. “We are committed to ensuring that Utahns of all ages and abilities have access to public lands. The BLM has increasingly failed to keep these lands accessible and appears to be pursuing a course of active closure and restriction. It is time for all Utahns to stand for our land.”

The state contends in its lawsuit that “Utah is deprived of basic and fundamental sovereign powers as to more than a third of its territory” because federal control prevents the state from taxing those land holdings and using eminent domain to build key infrastructure projects, for example. The status quo with respect to federal control over much of Utah is “egregious federal overreach” that “disrupts the constitutionally prescribed balance of power between the federal government and the States” and “cannot continue,” the lawsuit states.

In total, the federal government controls about 70% of Utah’s land, and the “unappropriated” land that is the subject of Utah’s legal challenge makes up about 34% of the state’s territory. The federal government also controls massive swaths of the land in many other Western states, including Nevada, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska.

Myron Ebell, chairman of the American Lands Council, explained the possible effects of Utah’s lawsuit in a statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. The litigation could be hugely impactful beyond Utah’s borders if it is successful, according to Ebell.

“Utah’s suit is one of the most important federal lands cases ever brought to the Supreme Court. It raises fundamental questions of federalism and statehood and has wide ramifications,” Ebell said in his statement. “If the Supreme Court agrees that FLPMA conflicts with the Constitution’s property clause, then it will apply to all unappropriated federal lands in the West and Alaska.”

“I think Utah’s legal case is strong, but so is the practical impetus for bringing it. The federal government’s incredible mismanagement of federal lands is harming the environment and economy in many ways in Utah and across the West and Alaska,” Ebell continued. “Utah and other states have proven that they are much better stewards of their lands and wildlife than the federal land agencies. Turning management of 18.5 million acres of unappropriated federal lands (which is about one-third of the state) over to state and county management would be a boon to the environment and to rural economies.”

BLM declined to comment for this story, citing the pending nature of the litigation.

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From the MANHATTAN CONTRARIAN

Francis Menton

Come here for the latest news on how the so-called “energy transition” is grinding to a halt. No amount of government handouts can make this ridiculously uneconomic fantasy work. My last post on the subject, on July 20, reported on the collapse of a large “green hydrogen” project in Australia, with the stated loss of an investment of about $2 billion (Australian) (equivalent to about $1.3 billion U.S.).

It seems that that one was just the tip of the iceberg. Today’s [August 19th~editor] Wall Street Journal has a substantial roundup of the financial status of a half-dozen or so so-called “clean fuel” projects. The headlines from the print and online versions tell you what you need to know. In the print edition (page B3) it’s “Clean-Fuel Startups Begin to Fizzle Out.” Online, it’s “Clean Fuel Startups Were Supposed to Be the Next Big Thing. Now They Are Collapsing.” As the headlines indicate, pretty much all of these “clean fuels” ventures are failing. Who could have guessed?

The Journal’s label of “clean fuels” is used to cover two different categories, one being biofuels, and the other being so-called “green hydrogen” (the stuff produced by electrolysis of water using electricity produced by wind or sun). The biofuels category appears to include such genius ideas as making fuel for airplanes or ships out of used cooking grease. Whatever you might think of that idea, these are still carbon-based fuels, and it’s not clear to me at all why they are supposedly “cleaner” than other carbon-based fuels like petroleum or natural gas.

Hydrogen, on the other hand, offers the promise of providing energy for planes, trains, ships and automobiles free of the dreaded “carbon emissions.” Just hook up some solar panels or wind turbines to big electrolyzers and watch the stuff bubble out of the water virtually for free! The badly misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” made billions upon billions of dollars of subsidies available for these kinds of projects. Surely the successes should be rolling forth one after the other by this time.

It turns out that no matter how many subsidies the government doles out, nobody can make this “green” hydrogen stuff as cheaply as natural gas can be produced by drilling into rock.

One of the big green hydrogen startups is called Plug Power. The Journal quotes its CEO, Andy Marsh:

“The excitement of the early days has not lived up to the hype,” said Andy Marsh, chief executive of Plug Power, a startup that recently opened one of the country’s first plants making green hydrogen, a potential replacement for fossil fuels in industries such as steel making and chemical production. Shares of Plug Power have tumbled more than 90% since the passage of the U.S. climate law two years ago.

Well, at least they’re not bankrupt — yet. You do have to wonder how Mr. Marsh could qualify to be a CEO of such a company and raise hundreds of millions of investor dollars without ever crunching the numbers to realize that green hydrogen could never be economical. Could it be that his business plan all along was to pay himself a big salary out of the investors’ funds and then walk away when the inevitable bankruptcy came?

Here are a couple of paragraphs from the Journal summarizing the overall state of the industry:

Many clean-fuel projects have become money pits, in part because of the great amounts of power they need. High interest rates, supply-chain disruptions and expensive power-grid upgrades have driven up electricity prices. . . . “The only way to fix it is by lowering the cost of green electricity,” said Andrew Forrest, one of the most vocal advocates of hydrogen.

Wait a minute. Andrew Forrest — where have we heard that name? Oh, he is the Australian tycoon who goes by the name “Twiggy.” He’s the head of the company Fortescue, and was the subject of my July 20 post as a result of the collapse of his big Australian green hydrogen project. The Journal goes on to some detail about “Twiggy’s” ongoing green hydrogen plans:

Forrest, the billionaire founder of Australian iron-ore giant Fortescue, said his company’s 2030 hydrogen production target now looks unrealistic. Fortescue is planning to produce its own clean power to make hydrogen in Australia and is considering doing the same in Arizona.

But somehow the Journal fails to mention the failure of Forrest’s big Australian project. Could it be that they interviewed him a month ago, before that happened?

So the odds are that nobody will ever be able to make these “clean fuels” economically. The consequence:

Without clean fuels, emissions at many companies are expected to keep climbing, threatening U.S. and global climate targets. Industries including aviation and shipping are counting on the new fuels because wind and solar power and batteries can’t meet their huge energy needs.

When are we allowed to declare that this whole charade is over?

UPDATE, August 20: Commenter Pablo Honey suggests that it might be interesting to look at the financials for one of these “clean fuels” companies. Here is the 2Q 24 earnings release for Plug Power, just out on August 8. Some key figures: revenue — $143.4 million; “earnings” — net loss of $262.3 million.

Margins: “The Georgia plant’s increased production capacity and strategic price increasesacross the hydrogen product portfolio have significantly improved hydrogen margins.” So they are increasing prices from levels that were already a multiple of the price of natural gas for equivalent energy content. Good for them if they can get someone to pay, but that inherently means that their market is limited to buyers who either need hydrogen for its non-energy properties (i.e., fertilizer) or ones who are willing to forego profit out of religious devotion to “decarbonization.”

Government handouts: “Plug Power became one of the first companies to leverage the PTC [Production Tax Credit] for its liquid hydrogen plant in Georgia, optimizing financial performance and enhancing shareholder value. . . . Plug Power is progressing with the DOE loan, which aims to support the expansion of its green hydrogen initiatives and infrastructure for up to six sites.”

Guest Essay by Kip Hansen — 24 August 2024 — 2000 words

The latest fad in all kinds of activism to attack one’s ideological opponents via “fact checking”.    We see this in politics and all the modern controversies, including, of course, Climate Science.

Almost none of the “fact checking sites” and “fact checking organizations” actually check facts.  And, if they accidentally find themselves checking what we would all agree is a fact, and not just an opinion or point of view, invariably it is checked against an contrary opinion, a different point of view or an alternative fact.  The resulting fact check report depends on the purposes of the fact check.  Some are done to confirm that “our guy” or “our team” is proved to be correct, or that the opposition is proved to be wrong, lying or misinformation.  When a fact is found to be different in any way from the desired fact, even the tiniest way, the original being checked is labelled a falsehood, or worse, an intentional lie. (or conversely, other people are lying about our fact!).   Nobody likes a liar, so this sort of fake fact checking accomplishes two goals – it casts doubt on the not-favored fact supposedly being checked and smears an ideological opponent as a liar.  One stone – two birds.

While not entirely new on the fact-checking scene, an AI-enhanced effort has popped to the surface of the roiling seas of controversy: Logically Facts.  “Logically Facts is part of Meta’s Third Party Fact-Checking Program (3PFC) and works with TikTok in Europe. We have been a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) since 2020 and are a member of the Misinformation Combat Alliance (MCA) in India and the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) in Europe.” [ source ]   Meta? “Meta Platforms…is the undisputed leader in social media. The technology company owns three of the four biggest platforms by monthly active users (Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram).” “Meta’s social networks are known as its Family of Apps (FoA). As of the fourth quarter of 2023, they attracted almost four billion users per month.”   And TikTok?  It has over a billion users.

I’m doubt that one can add up the 4 billion and the 1 billion to make 5 billion users of META and TikTok combined, but in any case, that’s a huge percentage of humanity any way one looks at it.

And who is providing fact-checking to those billion of people?  Logically Facts [LF].

And what kind of fact-checking does LF do?  Let’s look at an example that will deal with something very familiar with readers here:  Climate Science Denial.

The definition put forward by the Wiki is:

“Climate change denial (also global warming denial) is a form of science denial characterized by rejecting, refusing to acknowledge, disputing, or fighting the scientific consensus on climate change.”

Other popular definitions of climate change denial include: attacks on solutions, questioning official climate change science and/or the climate movement itself. 

If I had all the time left to me in this world, I could do a deep, deep dive into the Fact-Checking Industry.  But, being limited, let’s look, together, at one single “analysis” article from Logically Facts:

‘Pseudoscience, no crisis’: How fake experts are fueling climate change denial

This article is a fascinating study in “fake-fact-checking by inuendo”.  As we go through the article, sampling its claims, I’ll alert you to any check of an actual fact – don’t hold your breath.   If you wish to be pro-active, read the LF piece first, and you’ll have a better handle on what they are doing.

The lede in their piece is this:

“Would you seek dental advice from an ophthalmologist? The answer is obvious. Yet, on social media, self-proclaimed ‘experts’ with little to no relevant knowledge of climate science are influencing public opinion.” 

The two editors of this “analysis” are listed as Shreyashi Roy [MA in Mass Communications and a BA in English Literature] and Nitish Rampal [ … based out of New Delhi and has …. a keen interest in sports, politics, and tech.]  The author is said to be [more on “said to be’ in a minute…] Anurag Baruah [MA in English Language and a certificate in Environmental Journalism: Storytelling earned online from the Thompson Founation.]

Why do you say “said to be”, Mr. Hansen?  If you had read the LF piece, as I suggested, you would see that it reads as if it was “written” by an AI Large Language Model, followed by editing for sense and sensibility by a human, probably, Mr. Baruah, followed by further editing by Roy and Rampal. 

The lede is itself an illogic.  First it speaks of medical/dental advice, pointing out, quite rightly, that they are different specializations.  But then complains that unnamed so-called self-proclaimed experts who LF claims “have little to no relevant knowledge of climate science” are influencing public opinion.   Since these persons are so-far unnamed, LF’s AI, author and subsequent editors could not possibly know what their level of knowledge about climate science might be.

Who exactly are they smearing here?

The first is:

“One such ‘expert,’ Steve Milloy, a prominent voice on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), described a NASA Climate post (archive) about the impact of climate change on our seas as a “lie” on June 26, 2024.”

It is absolutely true that Milloy, who is well-known to be an “in-your-face” and “slightly over the-top” critic of all things science that he considers poorly done, being over-hyped, or otherwise falling into his category of “Junk Science”, posted on X the item claimed.  LF , its AI, author and editors make no effort to check what fact/facts Milloy was calling a lie, or to check NASA’s facts in any way whatever. 

You see, Milloy calling any claim from NASA “a lie” would be an a priori case of Climate Denial:  he is refuting or refusing to accept some point of official climate science. 

Who is Steve Milloy? 

Steve Milloy is a Board Member & Senior Policy Fellow of the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, author of seven books and over 600 articles/columns published in major newspapers, magazines and internet outlets.  He has testified by request before the U.S. Congress many times, including on risk assessment and Superfund issues.  He is an Adjunct Fellow of the National Center for Public Policy Research.

“He holds a B.A. in Natural Sciences, Johns Hopkins University; Master of Health Sciences (Biostatistics), Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health; Juris Doctorate, University of Baltimore; and Master of Laws (Securities regulation) from the Georgetown University Law Center.”

It seems that many consider Mr. Milloy to be an expert in many things.

And the evidence for LF’s dismissal of Milloy as a “self-proclaimed expert”  having “little to no relevant knowledge of climate science”?  The Guardian, co-founder of the climate crisis propaganda outfit Covering Climate Now, said “JunkScience.com, has been called “the main entrepôt for almost every kind of climate-change denial”” and after a link listing Milloy’s degrees, pooh-poohed him for “lacking formal training in climate science.”  Well, a BA in Natural Sciences might count for something. And a law degree is not nothing. The last link which gives clear evidence that Milloy is a well-recognized expert and it is obvious that the LF AI, author, and editors either did not read the contents of the link or simply chose to ignore it.

Incredibly, LF’s next target is “… John Clauser, a 2022 Nobel Prize winner in physics, claimed that no climate crisis exists and that climate science is “pseudoscience.” Clauser’s Nobel Prize lent weight to his statements, but he has never published a peer-reviewed paper on climate change.“

LF’s evidence against Clauser is The Washington Post in an article attacking not just Clauser, but a long list of major physicists who do not support the IPCC consensus on climate change:  Willie Soon (including the lie that Soon’s work was financed by fossil fuel companies) , Steve Koonin, Dick Lindzen and Will Happer.   The Post article fails to discuss any of the reasons these esteemed, world-class physicists are not consensus-supporting club members.  Their non-conforming is their crime.  No facts are checked.

LF reinforces the attack on world-renown physicists with a quote from Professor Bill McGuire:  “Such fake experts are dangerous and, in my opinion, incredibly irresponsible—Nobel Prize or not. A physicist denying anthropogenic climate change is actually denying the well-established physical properties of carbon dioxide, which is simply absurd.”  

McGuire, is not a physicist and is not a climate scientist, but has a PhD in Geology and is a volcanologist and an IPCC contributor.   He also could be seen as “lacking formal training in climate science.”

But, McGuire has a point, which LF and its human editors seem to miss, the very basis of the CO2 Global Warming hypothesis is based on physics, not based on what is today called “climate science”. Thus, the physicists are the true experts . (and not the volcanologists….)

LF then launches into the gratuitous comparison of “fake experts” in the anti-tobacco fight, alludes to oil industry ties, and then snaps right to John Cook.

John Cook, a world leader in attacking Climate Change Denial, is not a climate scientist.  He is not a geologist, not an atmospheric scientist, not an oceanic scientist, not a physicist, not even a volcanologist.   He  “earned his PhD in Cognitive Science at the University of Western Australia in 2016”. 

The rest of the Logically Facts fake-analysis is basically a re-writing of some of Cook’s anti-Climate Denialists screeds.  Maybe/probably resulting from an AI large language model trained on pro-consensus climate materials.  Logically Facts is specifically and openly an AI-based effort.

LF proceeds to attack a series of persons, not their ideas, one after another:  Tony Heller, Dr. Judith Curry, Patrick Moore and Bjørn Lomborg.

The expertise of these individuals in their respective fields are either ignored or brushed over.

Curry is a world renown climate scientist, former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.  Curry is the author the book on Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans, another book on Thermodynamics, Kinetics, and Microphysics of Clouds, and the marvelous groundbreaking Climate Uncertainty and Risk: Rethinking Our Response.  Google scholar returns over 10,000 references to a search of “Dr. Judith Curry climate”.

Lomborg is a socio-economist with an impressive record, a best selling author and a leading expert on issues of energy dependence, value for money spent on international anti-poverty and public health efforts, etc.   Richard Tol, is mention negatively for daring to doubt the “97% consensus”, with no mention of his qualifications as a Professor of Economics and a Professor of the Economics of Climate Change.

Bottom Line:

Logically Facts is a Large Language Model-type AI, supplemented by writers and editors meant to clean-up the mess returned by this chat-bot type AI.    Thus, it is entirely incapable to making any value judgements between repeated slander, enforced consensus views, the prevailing biases of scientific fields and actual facts.  Further, any LLM-based AI is incapable of Critical Thinking and drawing logical conclusions. 

In short, Logically Facts is Illogical.

# # # # #

Author’s Comment:

I am not a fan of Artificial Intelligence (an oxymoron).  Logically Facts and the rest of the Logically empire, Logically.ai, suffer from all of the major flaws in current versions of various types of AIs, including hallucination, break-down and the AI-version of “you are what you eat”. 

As I understand it, Logically Facts uses a LLM that is trained to trust official sources (governments), newspapers of record (such as the The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, etc) and academics quoted in those sources and discount any source that does not agree with the opinions of those sources.

The problem is immediately apparent:  in any sort of controversy, the most “official” and widespread view wins and is declared “true” and contrary views are declared “misinformation” or “disinformation”.  Individuals representing the minority view are labelled “deniers” (of whatever) and all slander and libel against them is rated “true” by default. 

That is the natural outcome of LLMs – that effect is magnified by tweaking their training algorithms to accept certain sources and types of sources as definitive and other sources and types of sources as untrustworthy. 

An AI-chat-bot can answer easy, non-controversial factual questions correctly – and are a quick, down-and-dirty method of find out things like:  “What is the capital city of Turkey?” (as long as you don’t want to fight about the history….).  “What’s the population of New York City?” (but be careful, make sure that is what you want to know, and not the population of what we think of as “NY City” including all the boroughs and surrounding areas – The NY-NJ-Connecticut megalopolis).  

Logically Facts does not check facts.

Thanks for reading.

# # # # #

By Jo Nova

Mark the turning point: Climate activists know they have to hide “the climate” to win the election

Now that Trump is ready to make climate change an issue, the last thing the Democrats want is to put this debate out on the table. So their strategy is to say nothing about it, in case they offend the voters in the middle. As Marc Morano says “‘No one is buying their ‘climate emergency’ claptrap anymore’“.

In an extraordinary headline the New York Times is letting everyone know that the new “green” thing to do is to sit back quietly and wait for her to win. They don’t want activists to complain she’s gone soft on climate change and accidentally trick her into making public commitments which Donald Trump will use against her.

We’re at the point where the Climate die-hards openly admit that it will cost them votes if she talks about the climate. They know the voters don’t want it, and the only way to slide it through is to hide it.

And these are the same people saying Trump is destroying democracy. They don’t want a mandate for action anymore, they just want to win. They’ll claim the mandate later anyway.

Make no mistake she and Tim Walz are as deep green as any fungus. Climate groups were happy to send $55 million to the Democrats silent campaign. They know what they’re getting.

Party strategists are happy to explain that lying-by-omission to voters is all for the cause. In The New York Times, the Democratic Governor of Washington openly says he “is not concerned” about Kamala’s silence on the climate: “I am totally confident that when she is in a position to effect positive change, she will,” Gov. Inslee said. Who cares what the voters want, she’ll do it anyway.

Kevin Book, a manager of a Washington based research firm, pretty much explained voters don’t want what Joe Biden delivered:

““This doesn’t look accidental, it looks like a deliberate choice,” …they are worried if she takes a strong position on climate, even it fits the same position that Biden took, it will make her look too progressive,” Mr. Book said, adding, “It’s a divisive issue and they need both sides as much as possible to win Pennsylvania.” — New York Times

The $55 million dollar ad campaign doesn’t mention climate change or global warming either. It sells Kamala by saying she will “strengthen the middle class”  with “advanced manufacturing and clean energy”. Democrats apparently are nothing more than cliches, namecalling and a bucket of other-peoples-money to pour on the right keywords.

And of course if the Green Blob doesn’t want us to talk about climate change, it’s our duty to raise hell with it (in the nicest possible way, of course). Not just with far left politicians, but with the media. Make them explain why it’s OK for Kamala to hide what she is planning to do to. Isn’t the planet at stake? Doesn’t Democracy matter?