I asked Gemini to draw a graph of Arctic sea ice extent since 2007, and it plotted values for 2025 and 2030. Then it acknowledged that was scientific malpractice.
Just having fun
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via Real Climate Science
September 4, 2024 at 11:06AM
Green energies cannot liberate EU, which remains Russian natural gas junkie.
Showing support for peace initiatives to curb the Russia-Ukraine conflict quickly gets you labelled a Putin-appeaser here in Europe.
And just imagine the reaction you might risk getting if you called on ramping up more gas imports from Russia, where the energy is cheap and plentiful?
Incredibly, that’s what many European countries have been doing lately: importing lots of gas from Russia to meet their appetite for cheap, reliable and efficient energy.
Germany’s DPA news agency reports, citing a study by think tank Bruegel: “For the first time in almost two years, the countries of the European Union imported more natural gas from Russia than from the United States in a single quarter.”
From April to June this year, the EU purchased more than 12.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia, compared to 12.3 billion from the USA, the think tank reports. Currently Norway delivers the most gas to the EU.
Though Germany no longer purchases gas from Russia, Russia has risen to second place among suppliers across the EU.
Foreign affairs expert Norbert Röttgen of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has called for an EU-wide ban on imports of Russian gas. “The Europeans are supporting Ukraine with billions and at the same time paying billions into Putin’s war chest – that is neither responsible, rational nor credible,” said Röttgen.
The policy contradiction illustrates just how desperate the EU is for low-cost energy, and how EU countries don’t always dance to the music they like to play.
Meanwhile other Europeans are calling for a complete ban of the Russian energy: “Importing Russian gas equals supporting the Russian war economy and its war on Ukraine,” says Ville Niinistö, a green Finnish MEP. “We must continue to push for a total ban of Russian gas to EU markets and to limit its markets elsewhere globally as much as possible,” he told Euractiv.
FDP energy policy spokesman, Michael Kruse, on the other hand, sees the Russian imports as a source of tax revenue, and is calling for “a surcharge” on the price of Russian import gas, which could be used to help finance weapons deliveries to Ukraine. In other words, German consumers should be forced to foot the war bills by paying more for energy that is already expensive.
In August, Austria made a commitment to “phase out Russian natural gas supplies by 2027”, but that commitment was “non-binding.” Europe has obviously realized that even though it is at war with Russia, the continent still has to rely on Russia to meet its energy needs.
All that green energy hasn’t done anything – except make energy and living far more expensive, and EU citizens poorer. It’s Games Without Frontiers.
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via NoTricksZone
September 4, 2024 at 10:28AM
AP Photo/Nicholas K. Geranios
John Stossel bring us up to date on the fishy case for removing hydroelectric dams on the Snake River in Washington state. His Townhall article is A Dam Good Argument. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.and added images.
Instead of using fossil fuels, we’re told to use “clean” energy: wind, solar or hydropower. Hydro is the most reliable. Unlike wind and sunlight, it flows steadily.
But now, environmental groups want to destroy dams that create hydro power.
The Klamath River flows by the remaining pieces of the Copco 2 Dam after deconstruction in June 2023. |Located on Oregon/California border.Juliet Grable / JPR
“Breach those dams,” an activist shouts in my new video. “Now is the time, our fish are on the line!“
The activists have targeted four dams on the Snake River in Washington State. They claim the dams are driving salmon to extinction.
Walla Walla District Dams on the Snake & Columbia Rivers
It’s true that dams once killed lots of salmon. Pregnant fish need to swim upriver to have babies, and their babies swim downriver to the ocean. Suddenly, dams were in the way. Salmon population dropped sharply.
But that was in the 1970s.Today, most salmon
make it past the dam without trouble.
How? Fish-protecting innovations like fish ladders and spillways guide most of the salmon away from the turbines that generate electricity.
Lower Granite fish count station & ladder (left, bottom right); Lower Monumental fish ladder (top right) Source: Fish Passage Thru the Lower Snake & Columbia Rivers
“Between 96% and 98% of the salmon successfully pass each dam,” says Todd Myers, Environmental Director at the Washington Policy Center. Even federal scientific agencies now say we can leave dams alone and fish will be fine.
But environmental groups don’t raise money by acknowledging good news. “Snake River Salmon Are in Crisis,” reads a headline from Earthjustice. Gullible media fall for it. The Snake River is the “most endangered in the country!” claimed the evening news anchor.
“That’s simply not true,” Myers explains. “All you have to do is look at the actual population numbers to know that that’s absurd.” Utterly absurd. In recent years, salmon populations are higher than they were in the 1980s and 90s.
The fish passage report for 2023 (here) has many results like this for various species. Conversion refers to completing the Snake River run from Ice Harbor through Lower Granite.
“They make these claims,” Myers says, “because they know people will believe them … they don’t want to believe that their favorite environmental group is dishonest.”
But many are. In 1999, environmental groups bought an ad in the New York Times saying “salmon … will be extinct by 2017.” “Did the environmentalists apologize?” I ask Meyers. “No,” he says. “They repeat almost the exact same arguments today, they just changed the dates.
I invited 10 activist groups that want to destroy dams to come to my studio and defend their claims about salmon extinction. Not one agreed. I understand why. They’ve already convinced the public and gullible politicians. Idaho’s Republican Congressman Mike Simpson says, “There is no viable path that can allow us to keep the dams in place.”
“We keep doing dumb things,” says Myers. “We put money into places where it doesn’t have an environmental impact, and then we wonder 10, 20, 30 years (later) why we haven’t made any environmental progress.”
Politicians and activists want to tear down Snake River dams even though they generate tons of electricity.
“Almost the same amount as all of the wind and solar turbines in Washington state,” says Myers, “Imagine if I told the environmental community we need to tear down every wind turbine and every solar panel. They would lose their minds. But that’s essentially what they’re advocating by tearing down Snake River dams.”
I push back: “They say, ‘Just build more wind turbines.’” “The problem is, several times a year, there’s no wind,” he replies. “You could build 10 times as many wind turbines, but if there’s no wind, there’s no electricity.”
Hydro, on the other hand, “can turn on and off whenever it’s needed. Destroying hydro and replacing it with wind makes absolutely no sense. It will do serious damage to our electrical grid.”
“It’s not their money,” I point out.”Exactly,” he says. “If you want to spend $35 billion on salmon, there’s lots of things we can do that would have a real impact.” Like what?
“(Reduce the population of) seals and sea lions,” he says, “The Washington Academy of Sciences says that unless we reduce the populations, we will not recover salmon.” “People used to hunt sea lions,” I note. “Yeah, that’s why the populations are higher today.”
But environmentalists don’t want people to hunt sea lions or seals. Instead, they push for destruction of dams. “Because it’s sexy and dramatic, it sells,” says Myers. “It’s more about feeling good than environmental results.”
Of course there is a political dimension to this movement. Left coast woke progressives are targeting Lower Snake River dams located in Eastern Washington state. Folks there and in Eastern Oregon would rather be governed by common sense leaders like those in Idaho.
The case against the dams is actually about climatism. The fish are not at risk, as shown by many scientific reports. But climatists do not include hydro in their definition of “renewable.” And they promote fear of methane, claiming dam reservoirs increase methane emissions.
So here’s the political solution. Keep the dams open and the fish running to their spawning grounds. And to appease climatists ban any transmission of electricity from those dams to Seattle and Eastern Washington state. Deal?
Background Post
via Science Matters
September 4, 2024 at 10:28AM
