By Kevin Dayaratna Roy Spencer

Access to affordable and reliable energy is central to a flourishing society. Everything we do, from waking up in the morning, to going to work, to enjoying time with our families, requires energy. Fortunately, Chris Wright, President-elect Trump’s choice to serve as Secretary of Energy, understands this.

But Mr. Wright’s qualifications have become obscured by media focus on his views on climate change. For example, the Washington Post derides Mr. Wright as a “skeptic of mainstream climate science.” But mainstream climate scientists say that there have been no changes in severe weather that can be attributed to greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning. There likely will be few, if any, such changes by the end of this century.

This is the problem with most media reporting: If the subject is climate change, then the sky is falling. But even the U.N.-led Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admits that there have been no changes in severe weather, anywhere, that can be tied to human greenhouse gas emissions.

It’s true that temperatures have risen modestly, at a rate of about 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade (with large, natural year-to-year variations). But it’s not at all clear this is bad news for humans, flora, or fauna. Growing seasons are lengthening. Cold weather-related deaths far exceed hot weather deaths. Global crop yields continue to set records in most years. If you have been led to believe otherwise, blame your local alarmist cadre of environmental organizations, activist scientists, and alarmist media outlets.

The fact is that global warming has been progressing at a lesser rate than predicted by most climate models used to alarm elected representatives into climate action. After 40 years and billions of dollars in investment in the climate modeling enterprise, those models now disagree with each other more than ever.

In projections of future warming in response to the same assumptions about changes in CO₂, the model with the largest change has three times the temperature change of the model with the smallest forecast. This is surprising given that climate models are allegedly based upon “known physical principles,” and so the different models should produce about the same levels of warming.

The lack of climate model accuracy is especially pronounced in the U.S. corn belt, where every one of three dozen state-of-the-art models has over-predicted warming in the last 50 years — despite knowing the answer ahead of time. But global greening from more CO₂ in the atmosphere is a fact, attested to by multiple NASA-sponsored studies (e.g. here, here, here).

More fundamentally, policies aimed to constrict Americans’ choices of energy away from fossil fuels will have significant effects on the economy. Using government models, Heritage Foundation analysis concluded that the regulations pursued by the Biden-Harris administration seeking to diminish the use of fossil fuels would have cost the economy over $7 trillion over a 20-year time horizon, amounting to a loss of over $80,000 for a family of four.

And all these trillions of dollars for a reduction of less than 0.2 degrees Celsius in global temperatures by 2100. That’s a huge amount of pain for miniscule gain.

Increasing access to fossil fuels here in the United States, on the other hand, would expand the economy by over $3 trillion a 20-year time horizon. This would result in less than 0.13 degrees Celsius temperature increase in 2100, again using government models.

America is fortunate to have vast resources of fossil fuels that enable energy independence both from OPEC and from China, which dominates renewables, batteries, and electric vehicles. Increasing production of fossil fuels can lower electricity prices, benefiting all Americans, and help allies abroad. Chris Wright, the CEO of Liberty Energy—one of the largest fracking companies in the U.S.—has the experience to pave the way for a massive private-sector expansion.

Mr. Wright’s knowledge of energy markets should be celebrated, not derided. Allowing the incoming administration to leverage his talents and expertise will put affordable and reliable energy back on the pedestal, thereby enabling America to flourish for years to come.

Kevin Dayaratna, Ph.D., is Chief Statistician and Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, where Roy Spencer, Ph.D., is a Visiting Fellow.

This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.

Essay by Eric Worrall

Last week Rising tide provided an impressive showcase for plastic fossil fuel products during their climate protest.

Arrests made as Rising Tide climate change protesters take to Newcastle Harbour over coal exports

By Romy Stephens and Bridget Murphy

In short:

Activism group Rising Tide says multiple people have been arrested at an anti-fossil fuels demonstration in Newcastle.

Thousands have attended the multi-day protest, where Midnight Oil front man Peter Garrett delivered a speech and performed.

What’s next?

The demonstration is expected to continue until Sunday evening.

Several people have been arrested at a climate protest in Newcastle that involved hundreds of activists taking to the city’s harbour in canoes and kayaks.

The demonstration, organised by activism group Rising Tide, was advertised as a “blockade” of the world’s largest coal port.

A Rising Tide statement said multiple people were arrested on Saturday afternoon, most of whom were released without charge.

…

Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-23/police-arrests-climate-change-protest-rising-tide-newcastle/104620058

If you look closely at the picture above, you would struggle to find one thing which is not made of plastic, other than the ship carrying the coal. Their life jackets are plastic, their oars are made of plastic, their kayaks are made of plastic, their T-shirts are mostly plastic, and if we could see them, we would likely discover whatever they were wearing on their feet is likely made of plastic.

If all the petroleum products carried by and being used by the protestors were to suddenly disappear, they would all find themselves naked and swimming in the water.

China makes extensive use of coal in plastics synthesis. Mainland China has lots of coal but very little oil or gas, so their petrochemical industry is increasingly geared to use coal as its base plastic synthesis hydrocarbon.

Black Coal to White Trash

February 13, 2020 By Richard Liu

Coal has long been China’s “black gold,” supplying over half of the nation’s electricity. Yet as coal’s energy share decreases due to domestic action to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, a new coal industry is emerging. In China’s arid northwest, eight plants are pulverizing coal chunks and “cooking” coal powder into something more valuable than power—or maybe even gold. These coal conversion plants, soon numbering over 20, churn out chemicals to produce plastic.

In China’s Thirteenth Five-Year Energy Development Plan, central policymakers set a target to decrease coal’s share in China’s energy mix. Reducing coal power puts China on track to meet its 2015 Paris Agreement commitment to peak emissions by 2030. But China’s investments in coal conversion now threaten to increase coal consumption. The risk of China deepening its coal dependency intensified at the 2019 United Nations Climate Summit, when China’s State Councilor Wang Yi made no new commitments to cut coal.

…

China’s love affair with CTO

While most plastics are produced from natural gas or crude oil, Chinese plants are converting coal into chemicals used to produce plastics through direct coal-to-olefins (CTO) or the multistep coal-to-methanol (from coal) and then methanol-to-olefins. China is the only country to implement CTO at scale. From 2011 to 2015, China’s CTO capacity grew from 1 million tons annually (MTA) to 7.2 MTA, equivalent to 20 percent of China’s plastic feedstock capacity.

While methanol-to-olefins has become unviable in recent years due to uncompetitive methanol pricing, the profitability of CTO draws investment. According to Tian Yajun, a coal conversion expert from the National Institute of Clean and Low Carbon Energy, “CTO companies profit from high oil prices. In recent years, CTO has the best return out of all coal conversion industries because demand is high and the central government doesn’t control olefins or plastic prices.”

…

Read more: https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2020/02/black-coal-white-trash/

Most Kayaks today are made from polyethylene resins – a direct product of China’s growing coal to plastic chemistry.

I find it difficult to see this ridiculous plastic Rising Tide “climate protest” as a legitimate protest. I see it more as an unconscious cry for help from young adults who were failed by their teachers and the Aussie education system. If they had the faintest clue about science or the machine age products they take for granted, they wouldn’t be out there making such fools of themselves.

What happens to the coal which is exported from Newcastle? You are wearing it and sitting on it, Rising Tide.