From THE DAILY CALLER

Nick Pope
Contributor

The Biden-Harris administration announced on Wednesday that it is establishing a taxpayer-funded “environmental justice” jobs training program.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in conjunction with AmeriCorps, is creating the “Environmental Justice Climate Corps,” a $25 million program designed to “open doors” for people seeking careers in “environmental justice,” which is essentially the combination of left-wing social justice ideology and environmentalism. The initiative announced Wednesday is part of the administration’s American Climate Corps program, which the White House established via executive action after it failed to make it into what eventually became the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), President Joe Biden’s signature climate law.

The Environmental Justice Climate Corps “will put more than 250 American Climate Corps members to work over the next three years providing technical assistance to community-based organizations in environmental justice communities – helping them access resources to carry out locally driven projects that reduce pollution, increase community climate resilience, improve public health and safety, and build community capacity to address environmental and climate justice challenges,” according to the White House. Participants will receive an allowance that equates to a wage of roughly $25 per hour, and they will also be reimbursed for some living expenses. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: GOP Lawmakers Demand Answers From Biden Admin On Massive Grants For ‘Environmental Justice’ Program)

“Our partnership is a first-of-its-kind effort within the federal government to expand pathways into environmental justice careers,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said of the new program. “This program will create opportunities for young people through President Biden’s American Climate Corps that will help folks in overburdened communities access and benefit from historic funding secured under the President’s Investing in America agenda.”

Regan and AmeriCorps CEO Michael Smith will talk about the new program during an upcoming panel discussion at Climate Week New York City, a week-long summit attended by numerous other political and business elites, according to the White House.

An earlier iteration of the American Climate Corps did not make it into what became the IRA, largely because Republicans opposed it over concerns about its price tag, according to The Associated Press. Some House Democrats requested $132 billion for the program in the IRA before its removal from the legislation, and Biden’s initial plan budgeted $10 billion for the initiative.

Despite the program’s omission from the IRA, several Democrats, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, called on Biden to set up the American Climate Corps via executive action, according to the AP.

The EPA and AmeriCorps did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

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By David Wojick

My research report — Maine’s Massive “Floating Wind” Folly — is up on the Net Zero Reality Coalition’s webpage hosted by CFACT which sponsored the research. See https://www.cfact.org/netzerorealitycoalition/, which has a lot of other research reports as well.

Below is my Executive Summary, followed by the latest bad news on this ongoing silly saga.

“Executive Summary

This report examines several fundamental aspects of the State of Maine’s offshore wind development plan. It is divided into two parts. Part 1 examines certain economic issues, such as feasibility, cost, and progress to date. Part 2 explores the proposed development as it relates to the entire Gulf of Maine, namely because the project has not advanced to the point where the State of Maine’s responsibilities have been defined.

The offshore wind plan calls for development of 3,000 MW of generating capacity, an amount that is roughly double Maine’s average electricity usage. The viability of Maine’s offshore wind plan depends entirely on the massive transformation of the state’s grid from fossil fuel use to electrification. It is clear that the citizens of Maine have not been informed of this vast transformation requirement. They have certainly not approved it.

The offshore wind facilities will consist of great numbers of “floating turbines” operating at a scale and degree of reliability that hasn’t been verified to work in the real world. Such an assumption makes the entire plan not only technologically speculative but also enormously risky.

Extrapolating today’s small-scale facility cost would make the price tag for this project around $100 billion. That could rise significantly once large scale, hurricane-proof technology is developed and adopted, if it ever is. It is important the citizens of Maine be made aware of such great costs, as well as the far greater cost of the required electrification to place them into operation.

The state of Maine has initiated development of a facility to manufacture the floating wind turbines. This effort appears to depend entirely on getting a nearly half-billion-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. But this grant is likely illegal as the program is for funding highway projects, not offshore wind development. We will explore that in this report.

On the environmental impact side of the equation, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is in the process of leasing 15,000 MW of offshore wind development sites in the Gulf of Maine. The State of Maine’s proposed 3,000 MW development would come from some of these sites.

BOEM’s Environmental Assessment of this leasing program does not include the impact of building and operating the 15,000 MW generating capacity. They say that impact will only be assessed for individual leaseholds. This approach is mistaken as the full life cycle impact needs to be assessed prior to leasing, including the combined impact of all the leases taken together. A cumulative impact assessment is vital because it might affect the viability and nature of the leases.

The crucial need for a “cumulative impact” is also especially needed to assess the project’s impact on endangered whales, notably the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale. The Gulf of Maine is designated as critical habitat for Right Whales under the Endangered Species Act.

The Environmental Assessment does include the leasehold sonar surveys prior to construction. Recent analysis has determined such surveys are likely responsible for numerous whale deaths along the Atlantic Coast. It is therefore imperative the BOEM and NOAA carefully assess the potentially lethal impact of leasehold surveys on whales before any surveys are approved.”

End of Executive Summary. Now for the bad news.

BOEM has scheduled the Gulf of Maine lease sale for October 29, 2024, just before the elections. They are trying to beat the clock since President Trump has promised to kill offshore wind if elected. Of course, they may also try to award leases before the inauguration because the development of awarded leases is much harder to stop.

Note that at the end of the Executive Summary above, I discuss BOEM, including the leasehold sonar surveys in the Environmental Assessment (EA). That was promised in the draft EA, but in the final EA, just published to make way for the quick sale, that assessment was completely dropped. No doubt, this was to avoid the new findings that sonar surveys can cause whale deaths in large numbers.

If Trump wins, I would like to see a separate Transition Team for BOEM handing out resignation letters. BOEM’s blatant disregard for whale deaths is despicable.

The Report is here: http://www.cfact.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Maines-massive-floating-wind-folly.pdf

By Michael O’Sullivan

When I wrote last week on the clever (and misleading) statement from Vice President Harris linking the pursuit of diverse energy sources with freedom from foreign oil dependence, I suspected there was more to the story. I just hadn’t stumbled on the evidence—until I saw a headline referencing a recent study documented in a research article published by PNAS. For the uninitiated, PNAS is a well-known scientific journal trusted by many but not by all. 

The title of the research article is: Effects of system-sanctioned framing on climate awareness and environmental action in the United States and beyond. Sounds pretty heady, I know. But I bought it and read it so you don’t have to. 

The purpose of the study is to determine whether people are more likely to get on board with climate action if they are first exposed to “patriotic” and “system-sanctioned” messaging. My Spidey sense is already tingling, because there’s a hypothesis embedded in that purpose and it doesn’t feel right. 

They didn’t go into the study wondering whether people might be influenced by some sort of messaging (that would sound like objective science). They began with a specific message—which means someone wanted to know whether that particular message would have the desired effect. That sounds like an agenda.

So let’s consider the inciting incident for such a story. The authors note that planetary concern alone has failed to inspire enough people to make the sacrifices needed to avert an alleged disaster. It seems many of us, like the poor R2 unit, have a bad motivator. So we need something else. Something more visceral. Something that really moves us. 

That something, it turns out, is the status quo. Here in America we care deeply about preserving our way of life. And we should—it’s a good way. In fact, the authors suggest the status quo is what keeps many people from taking action. Their version of supposedly saving the planet requires changes that impact our way of life, and we naturally resist such changes—especially if we’re not convinced the cause is real. So someone hatched a plan to use our defense against us. And they tested their idea with this study.

Here’s how they did it. They presented participants with a series of statements and sentimental photos that connect environmental themes with happiness and life in America. It ends with Let’s keep the United States as it should be. Shrewd.

After looking at the “messaging,” the participants answered questions about the severity of climate change and what should be done about it—from raising taxes to government-mandated “sustainable” energy. The control group, who only read a random passage from Great Expectations, answered the same questions.

And now for the exciting conclusion: 

In a large, nationally representative U.S. sample, we found that the system-sanctioned change intervention successfully increased liberal-leftists’ as well as conservative-rightists’ belief in climate change; support for pro-environmental policies; and willingness to share climate information on social media.

Sounds Orwellian? I thought so too. 

It’s probably no coincidence this study was published on September 9 and the presidential debate was one day later. Kudos to the Harris team for picking it up and weaving it in so quickly—unless perhaps they had an advance copy, since it was accepted by PNAS in June.

There’s a lot I could say about the study itself and how the “messaging” is constructed using the principle rules of propaganda. But few of us are truly innocent of that charge, even for honorable purposes. Nonetheless, the mission for this sort of message is not to win on logical grounds. In the words of the research article:

We tested an experimental manipulation derived from system justification theory in which pro-environmental initiatives were framed as patriotic and necessary to maintain the American “way of life.”

From the text it is objectively clear that someone wants to manipulate us. Someone wants us to hear something that makes us go along with what they want.

If the intention were genuinely about protecting our way of life, then the environment is a consideration. But in today’s world the chief factor is affordable, reliable energy—without which everything stops. If we truly want to keep the United States as it should be, then it all starts with energy. And the only proven solution at this time comes from cheap, abundant oil and natural gas. We have plenty of that in America to maintain our way of life for a long time. At least until someone perfects dilithium crystals. 

This allegedly scientific study is not about preserving our way of life. But it certainly provides a base from which to launch a barrage of new messaging.

Coming soon to a campaign near you.

Michael O’Sullivan is Program Director and COO for Blue Energy Nation, a non-profit committed to educating young people on energy realities. He is also a popular podcast host and an advocate for smart energy choices.

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

Jo Nova

The Greens have become the “punching bag” of the Left and the Right

Things just keep getting worse for the Greens in Germany. After two terrible performances in recent state elections the Party “crashed out of the state parliament” in the Brandenburg region of Germany (which surrounds Berlin). Results were so awful, the two current leaders of the German Greens have jointly stepped down.

The Greens won a mere 4% of the vote in the region, not even reaching the minimum 5% required to win a parliamentary seat in the State election. About 70% of their voter base had abandoned them in the last five years. In Thuringia, the entire traffic light ruling coalition of three parties barely amassed 10% of the vote collectively.

The right-wing AfD (Alternative for Germany) party “keeps rising despite efforts to stop the party” says Nette Nöstlinger at Politico, slightly baffled. The establishment used the nastiest names they could think of, and it didn’t work:

Germany’s mainstream leaders have made a concerted effort to stop the rise of the AfD by warning voters of the party’s growing extremism, with some leaders even calling it a Nazi party. 

We’ve heard this before:

State-level domestic intelligence authorities have classified the local branches of the party in both Saxony and Thuringia as extremist organizations aiming to undermine German democracy.

The nasty names are backfiring, because no one is listening anymore:

That points to a core problem that won’t be easy for centrist parties to grapple with — a growing mistrust of the centrists and the country’s institutions that has fomented anti-establishment fervor across a large swath of the country.

In other words, even as many centrist leaders and institutions in Germany warn of the AfD’s extremism, many voters have simply stopped listening. In fact, the approach may be backfiring by alienating AfD voters.

When the TV commentators called the AfD “extremist” the leader in Thuringia said “Please stop stigmatizing me”. “We are the number one people’s party in Thuringia. You don’t want to classify one-third of Thuringian voters as right-wing extremists, do you?” But of course, the TV commentariat probably did want to do exactly that…

Bullying is brittle. When it fails, it crumbles into anti-matter, because there was nothing but nastiness to fall back on.

Even  The Guardian has noticed that the Greens have a crisis:

In the recent election campaigns, it [The Greens] often appeared to be the punchbag for parties across the spectrum. Accusations were rife that the party was trying to “dictate” the lives of ordinary Germans – from which type of heating system to use, to which car to drive – with the BSW and AfD going so far as to compare the Greens to the Communist regime of the former German Democratic Republic.

There is hope. Young voters are abandoning the party faster than any other age bracket:

The party has also lost a larger proportion of its younger voters at recent elections than any other party. In Sunday’s Brandenburg poll, for instance, it saw its support in the 16-to-24 age bracket drop by 24 percentage points, a bigger fall than in any other age range. —

The Crisis of the Greens and the Future of the Left

I have been thinking a lot about the Greens since their drubbing in the recent German elections. Something strange and unexpected is happening to them – something that even two years ago I wouldn’t have predicted. They are bleeding support; they are on the defensive and suddenly everybody hates them. In East Germany you could even say that they are in outright collapse. The party of the future, the party of the youth, the party at the cutting edge of progressivism, is now withering on the vine. And I suspect that this is not just happening in Germany. It may be happening here faster than it is in other countries, but the Greens are an international phenomenon, and Green politics are in trouble in many places beyond the Federal Republic.

(Paywalled)

Votes for the Greens have been stolen from both sides

The collapse in popularity is about the climate, the heat-pumps, the cars, the energy prices — but it’s also about immigration and the war.  A new leftist force has appeared from nowhere in the  last few months, run by a former communist, but wanting to curb immigration:

In some ways, the biggest winner of the night was the populist-left Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), which is led by a former member of East Germany’s communist party. The BSW finished third in both states, a notable result for a party that only formed several months ago.

The party, which merges traditional right-wing stances on immigration and other social issues, has repeatedly called for an end to German military aid for Ukraine and negotiations with Putin — a view for which there is much sympathy in Germany’s formerly communist East. — Politico

It’s part of the Great Realignment of politics. The new force on the left attacks the Greens for being arrogant and out of touch with the workers:

James Angelos, Politico, August 26th, 2024

Sahra Wagenknecht’s brand of “left conservatism” is upending German politics ahead of critical elections in the east.

Listening to Sahra Wagenknecht, Germany’s hard-left icon, you could be forgiven for coming away with the impression that the greatest threat to democracy is “lifestyle leftists” nursing lattes in reusable cups while shopping for organic kale at a Berlin farmers’ market.

Such well-off, eco-friendly urban bohemians hold what they deem to be “morally impeccable” views about everything from Ukraine to climate change, she says, and then impose those beliefs over regular people with draconian zeal.

Sahra Wagenknecht’s brand of “left conservatism” is very tailored to East Germany, but some of it will translate widely. Uncontrolled immigration is a hot button everywhere. She attacks the influx of asylum seekers as a threat to the welfare state, which, she says, requires a “certain degree of homogenity to function”. She attacks the gender bender transformations as something that benefits the big pharmaceutical companies. All of this will resonate across the political divide. At one point last year, the leader of the AfD in Thuringia was so impressed with her, he invited her to join the party in a speech.

The pure environmental Greens are a luxury bubble that no one can afford anymore. Those days are over.

 

h/t   John Connor II

Photos adapted from Image by Image by PayPal.me/FelixMittermeier from Pixabay and Presentsquare Presentsquare from Pixabay