Big Gov Octopus squeezes Russia into sending very mixed messages

Putin doesn’t think humans control the climate, and has said so openly. Now, he’s finally agreed to ratify the Paris agreement, though with very low targets. He even did it by a government order (which means he has bypassed the house — the State Duma) — presumably to avoid the people who would voice “the same kinds of arguments against the need for collective action that he himself has frequently expounded.”.

The Cold Calculus Behind Putin’s Lukewarm Embrace of Paris Pact

By Natasha Doff, Ilya Arkhipov, and Yuliya Fedorinova, Bloomberg

Putin, who presides over the world’s fourth-largest emitter, is trying to position himself as a leader of the same transnational regulatory movement that his first economic adviser compared to fascism. After three and half years of foot-dragging, Putin has finally decided to ratify the 2015 Paris Agreement — and the reasons have less to do with the fate of the planet than with geopolitics and gross domestic product.

Mark it in your diary. Straight answer coming:

 In fact, when asked if embracing the Paris pact means Putin now agrees with the scientific consensus on the primary cause of planetary heating, his spokesman was unusually blunt:

“No,” Dmitry Peskov said by text message.

 He’s now speaking double-inverted climate speak — where he still says he doesn’t agree with the consensus but they should do some mitigation, while dropping coded complaints about “unidentified Western leaders who he said continue to cynically distort the issue for political and economic gain.”

In the leadup he was lobbied by leaders in Germany, France and Scandinavia.

[Officials involved in those discussions] said Putin’s policy pivot was driven by the cold calculus of economics and realpolitik rather than any real conviction in the efficacy of further crimping personal and corporate behavior.

The reason for the flip is that Russia is already isolated and faces sanctions from the West and he can see more coming. Environmental standards are being promoted everywhere and it’s just a matter of time before Russia is isolated further, and Russian exports  are taxed out of business.

In other words, no nation (bar the US, perhaps) can stand alone against the Big Government Octopus.  (It’s time other nations got organised — bring back the Commonwealth!) We need a coalition of countries, the Anglosphere, plus Brazil, Japan, Russia?

Because of the fallout from the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s emissions are 25% less than they were in 1990. So Putin could brag about that if he wanted too. Doesn’t count for anything though. It’s not how much CO2 you produce, it’s how much you say you care about it….

 

h/t Pat

 

9.6 out of 10 based on 71 ratings

199 comments to Big Gov Octopus squeezes Russia into sending very mixed messages

  • #
    Kalm Keith

    It good to see the inside workings of Russia’s actions here.

    For Russia as with Paris, it’s all about keeping people onside so that “product” can be moved and money can flow in the right direction.

    KK

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    • #
      Bill in Oz

      Putin will do what he thinks works to undermine
      The political strength of the USA and EU
      While still selling gas & oil to them.
      China will do the same
      While still selling it’s exports to them.
      Pure ‘real politic’.
      Nothing to do with ‘communism’
      Communism is old crap that no one believes any more.
      Just like in the RC church no one actually believes
      In transubstantiation any more
      But no one is rude enough to say so.

      70

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Follow the money and you always go in the right direction. But I wish for once it could just be the money, not climate change as an excuse for the financial juggling.

        70

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      I notice from the map in the Bloomberg link that the USA and Russia are not at all compatible with the Paris accord. As both have actual large reductions in CO2 emissions since 1990, you have to wonder what they have to do? Send more money to the UN?
      Meanwhile India, Bangla Desh and Morocco are shown as highly compliant with the Paris Accord. As all 3 are building new coal fired generation you have to wonder what planet Bloomberg is on.

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    • #
      Vladimir

      Whet time suits them both Putin and Xi will sign any Agreement without a second thought about
      a) necessity to follow it,
      b) ability to fulfil it.

      In their Universe only the losers comply to the International Agreements.

      171

      • #
        Tom O

        It must be wonderful to be a mind reader like you are. Can you read in my mind what I really think of your comment?

        Notice that he signed an “executive order,” it wasn’t passed by the government, thus just as Obama’s was, it is meaningless without the government rubber stamp. I don’t know why people think that Trump “withdrew us” from the Paris Accord since the “executive” is not the government, Congress is, and Congress never passed accepting the Paris Accord.

        04

  • #
    Gordon

    But China will back Russia. So, what is going on here? Yes Russia is isolated from the west, but they are still selling oil to the west. Games aplenty here folks. Nobody really knows the entire game.

    190

    • #
      PeterS

      The game is clear. Russia and China have a common goal to weaken the power of the West. The climate change agenda is a perfect way. They are waging war with the pretence to save the planet (and the children as Hitler started with his campaign to rule the world).

      201

      • #
        robert rosicka

        If Russia and China can get the west to go totally green the communist countries will Hold World dominating power .
        Prius versus Russian tank no contest .

        190

        • #
          PeterS

          We don’t have to go Green. We can go nuclear. Much of the West is already using nuclear. We are the odd one out. We must therefore go nuclear too. That way we can meet any draconian emission reduction target very easily without compromising our economy by moving too much to renewables. It’s a simple and logical choice.

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          • #
            el gordo

            Nuclear is too expensive to startup, coal fired power stations are better.

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            • #
              PeterS

              I agree but that’s not the point. Please read my comment again. Besides other nations are building them by the dozens. Currently 37 reactors are operable. The first two restarted in August and October 2015, with a further seven having restarted since. 17 reactors are currently in the process of restart approval. So inspire of building their coal fired power stations they will still rely a lot on nuclear.

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            • #
              PeterS

              I agree but that’s not the point. Please read my comment again. Besides other nations are building them by the dozens. In Japan currently 37 reactors are operable. The first two restarted in August and October 2015, with a further seven having restarted since. 17 reactors are currently in the process of restart approval. So inspire of building their coal fired power stations they will still rely a lot on nuclear.

              70

            • #
              PeterS

              Having said all that I would rather we focus on building new generation coal fired power stations (which aren’t that cheap either). However, that’s not going to happen as long as we have an aloof PM like Morrison.

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              • #
                el gordo

                Morrison is not aloof, he is a man of the people.

                Australia doesn’t have a need to build a nuclear or coal fired power plant, if there is no obvious demand. The states have to decide these things and the commonwealth won’t intervene.

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              • #
                PeterS

                Yes but which people? Those who believe we should reduce our emissions to meet the Paris Agreement or those who want cheaper power? We can’t have both unless we go nuclear.

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              • #
                el gordo

                The crow eaters could go nuclear, if they can afford that level of virtue signalling.

                We have reached our Paris targets and from now on the Morrison government will only be paying lip service.

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              • #
                Sceptical Sam

                El Gordo says:

                the Morrison government will only be paying lip service.

                The Morrison government is playing a very careful game. It knows that the majority of the Australian electorate dismiss the alarmist scare and a goodly number doubt the greens and the Labor Party on this issue.

                At a future time, when jobs start going over-seas as a result of price hikes and reliability issues, the Morrison government will move. They’ll be into funding new power stations (or subsidizing) and new dams. The work is already being done behind the scenes. They’re waiting for the labor Party to travel further up the road-of-no-return before they act. Let’s see what happens at the Queensland election this time next year on the coal issue.

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              • #
                OriginalSteve

                I suspect from putins perspective ( and possibly China too ) the old maxim applies:

                “Never interupt your enemy when they are making a mistake”.

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              • #
                PeterS

                At a future time, when jobs start going over-seas as a result of price hikes and reliability issues, the Morrison government will move.

                That’s already happened a long time ago. We are still waiting for the appropriate action by the government to rectify the crisis. At the rate things are going we might start building coal and/or nuclear power plants in a couple of decades or so. By that time it will most likely be too late. Then China can step in and do it for us.

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              • #
                el gordo

                There is no need for Australia to become an industrial juggernaut, requiring an inordinate amount of new energy, in the new world order we should become a huge tourist attraction and quarry.

                There is no crisis and the coming decade, under Morrison’s leadership, should be bountiful, creative and stable.

                If the states are willing to invest in Hele or nuclear then the Fed will contribute, after due diligence, and in this way Morrison can avoid criticism while the states receive political accolades or are thrown from office.

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            • #
              sophocles

              Think LFTR, not water-cooled of any sort.

              60

        • #
          Zane

          The less fossil fuels the West uses the more there is for China.

          90

      • #
        el gordo

        ‘The game is clear. Russia and China have a common goal to weaken the power of the West.’

        For more than 500 years the Christiaan West has tried to weaken the power of the East.

        410

    • #
      ghl

      I think it’s simple. Both Russia and China will be sellers in Fat Albert’s world carbon permissions market. Some people will prosper.

      60

    • #
      Tom O

      Since it is non-binding anyway, it is just an appeasement for the EU to allow them to do more business with Russia. the EU is going to need Russia even more than before as they keep up their transition to “renewable energies” for all the spinning reserve. This is just to ease the backlash from the “greenies” for doing business with “the great Satin.”

      40

  • #
    Rob JM

    Jo, We have empirical falsification!
    Just look at the water vapour in the upper troposphere.https://www.google.com.au/search?q=climate4you+water+vapour&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-au&client=safari#imgrc=kq2OpXFfppLKxM:
    The enhanced GHG theory is based entirely on increasing water vapour due to static relative humidity. The observations show that both relative and specific humidity are decreasing.
    Thats why the hotspot is missing.
    It seems no one even checked the entire premise of the theory to see if it matched observations.

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    • #

      Rob

      The ipcc say that water vapour is the most important GHG at some 60000ppm and representing some 50 percent of the effect,

      this is followed by clouds at 25 percent of the effect then co2 at 20 percent of the effect. Obviously molecule for molecule co2 is the most powerful but as water in all it’s forms is by far the most prevalen at some 70 percent of the effect the models need to be able to model this.

      Tonyb

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    • #
      Kalm Keith

      Hi Rob,

      Interesting, also the Enhanced Greenhouse gas theory was only created after the original show pony, Carbon Dioxide, was shown to be unable to create Global Warming.

      There’s also the other bit of sleight of hand where water vapour is being monitored at irrelevant altitude to create a bit of fluff to point to.
      🙂

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    • #
      David Wojick

      Skeptics have checked and pointed this out. They have also repeatedly pointed out several other observations that are each sufficient to falsify AGW. But AGW is clearly immune to falsification. This is politics disguised as science. The AGW community-in-charge does not even respond.

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      • #
        PeterS

        Yes it’s now a lost battle. The alarmists have won the battle but not the war. The next step is pretty clear. We must now push the nuclear option. Staying on the renewables path is economic suicide.

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        • #
          David Wojick

          First the renewables bubble has to burst. We are not quite there yet, but getting close.

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          • #
            ЯΞ√ΩLUT↑☼N

            A few well-timed blackouts should help that along. Wait for summer and another Adelaide.

            90

          • #
            PeterS

            True. The irony of it all is the renewables bubble only exists in the West. Most other places are going ahead building in total hundreds of new coal fired power stations and dozens of nuclear ones. Makes one wonder why so many Westerners are so reluctant to let go of the renewables cancer. Money and power come to mind but I thinks it’s deeper than that for some. It’s more of a religious cult and a hatred of the traditional Western style of living.

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    • #
      sophocles

      RobJM says:

      We have empirical falsification!

      Sure do. These guys Drs Ronan and Michael Connolly have analysed a huge database of data from weather balloons as well as `flying’ their own.

      Yes, there is a Green House Effect and there are IR sensitive gases but neither is warming the atmosphere! There’s only one thing left which can do it: the sun and it’s not through the IPCC’s favourite method of TSI …

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  • #
    David Wojick

    Does Russia qualify for developing country funding? They are pretty poor.

    121

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      No, Russias economy is reasonable.
      Russia doesnt waste money like the West.
      Russia knows oil (and gas) isnt a fossil fuel. Russia now has one of the biggest gas and oil reserves. Japan recognizes that and is buying Russian gas.
      Houston we have a problem ..https://russia-insider.com/en/we-are-living-during-last-years-last-western-empire/ri27744

      51

      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        True, the Russians believe the oil is a geological process, not a dinosaur residue.

        I’ve read article on both sides. The geological explanation makes a billion times more sense to me, but I’m no expert on the subject either.

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      • #
        • #
          MudCrab

          Sorry, Young Sam, but Russia_insider, publisher of a borderline coherent article that drools in anticipation of the upcoming collapse of the ‘AngloZionist Empire’ is right-wing extremist?

          You then link to WikiPee (so it must be true) which in the usual disjointed Wiki manner eventually goes on to suggest that Russia Insider may be anti-Zionist.

          Your mileage may vary, but my take is RI is a few ‘Saint Greta’ articles away from being MSM and the only reason organisations like the BBC are complaining is that deep down Lefties just don’t get on with others.

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          • #
            Sceptical Sam

            OK. However, read the article again and think about the power of the $US in international trade. Especially with Communist China.

            The proposition put by “The Saker” pays scant attention to the need of $US by the Chinese (and the Russians).

            Most analysts fail to understand (or in the case of “The Saker” accept) the massive power that the economy of the USA can unleash when the regulatory burden is lightened. We are currently seeing it. It’s awesome. Fraking has provided the USA with energy independence for the first time in decades. Walking away from the Paris nonsense has reinvigorated USA industry, as has the application of tariffs on the cheating Chinese and Russians. And Iran.

            That’s what the RI article is whining about. “The Saker” knows that his alliance partners (China, Russia, Iran) are being called out by the current Trump presidency on their cheating and disingenuous behaviour. Their theft of IP. Their currency manipulation. Their human rights record (ask the Uighers). Their massive subsidies of State owned businesses. Their unaudited NY listed companies. Their rejection of International Law. And, their failure to abide by the conditions of their WTO membership.

            “The Saker” is providing a response similar to that which you’d find at “The Conversation” or on their “ABC” (Australian), when they defend the CAGW nonsense or the green-left, and censor any alternative view. It’s just that in the case of RI, it’s putting the case from the position of an extreme right position. It’s propaganda. Pure and simple.

            “The Saker” is a purveyor of untruths, myths and delusional expectations.

            Believe him at your peril.

            40

      • #
        PeterS

        Russia also has a large arms industry that feeds into their economic growth. Their export in that area is second to the US.

        40

  • #
    TdeF

    I was amazed on the Trans Siberian railway, up to 8 lines, that the entire system is electric. Like many of their other railways. A testament to the use of nuclear power instead of fossil fuel. Like France, where you do not see a single windmill in the Tour de France.

    The extreme druidic Greens are not only strangling the use of cheap coal and oil, they are preventing the use of any alternative fuel.

    As to power, in the 1890s the Russians in Baku supplied 95% of the world’s oil. Now they are the great supplier of gas to Europe and Ukraine and Germany in particular. So the Russians control the source of power and heat in many countries, as always.

    In the 2100s, it will be Venezuela taking over from Saudi as the world’s major supplier but fracking will open up vast new sources of gas. The game keeps changing but while the Russians want to come in from the cold and extreme poverty, the arrogant Europeans still want to run the world. China and North America will be the great powers though. And Russia.

    This will be interesting with the extreme cold coming in the next twenty years as world temperatures plummet with the end of the de Vries cycle coinciding with the dip from the induced PDO. Man made Global warming will be quickly forgotten. The glaciers will grow rapidly again and the sea ice and we will be back to man made Climate Cooling, caused of course by carbon. Plenty of skiing though.

    140

    • #
      ivan

      TdeF,

      Here in France we have a lot of windmills in the usual out of the way places – at least they keep them from the picturesque sites. The government wants to start shutting down the nuclear power plants – the eco-loons don’t like nuclear.

      To give some idea of the generation make up see, http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/

      80

    • #
      Vladimir

      It could be explained by excess of electricity in Siberia. There are some huge (at least used to be…) energy consumers beyond Ural mountains but 2-3 hydroelectric station cover them.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      “The extreme druidic Greens are not only strangling the use of cheap coal and oil, they are preventing the use of any alternative fuel. ”

      yes and I epect at some stage, someone will take them to task directly…may not be pretty….

      110

      • #
        PeterS

        A lot of Australians as we all know are very much laid back. Things will have to get really bad before they bother to stand up and act accordingly against the crazy Greens. The Greens won’t go away otherwise since there will always be a certain percentage of the population who are in favour of the Greens and their crazy policies; simply because they are equally as crazy.

        30

  • #

    The trick is to be Norway: sell hydrocarbons abroad for others to consume, make your oil money and use hydro at home. With serious dough you can even pay a neighbour like Sweden to be your incinerator, to keep those naughty emissions over the border.

    However, there is only one Norway. So one must learn hypocrisy and fine accounting. Russia’s gas exports are worth a few green hits. With the dismantling of Syria cancelled Qatar has to look more east; Turkmenistan’s pipeline plans depend too much on the dodgy geo-politics of neighbours like Afghanistan; and though China is just a tantalising cut across Afghanistan, Iran is blocked politically and sanctioned every which-way, which may not be to Russia’s total disadvantage.

    Russia can be gas pipeline king. The US can’t keep freighting in gas to Poland etc to block Russia forever (even buying and rebranding Russian gas to ensure supply!). Northern Europe is any easy hop across water from Vyborg, hence Nordstream I and II. You take a few hits from Big Green to keep that kind of position. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream#/media/File:Nordstream.png

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    • #

      Another handy map. Russia is the guy in almost-black lying between China and Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream#/media/File:Countries_by_Natural_Gas_Proven_Reserves_(2014).svg

      Yeah, I’d sign a few Bambi-friendly “international agreements” and do some tree-hugging if I was in that sort of position. It’s like owning a lolly shop between two gigantic primary schools. You might have to donate some brokens and off-cuts to the school fetes. The parents might warn their children, but…

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    • #
      tom0mason

      mosomoso
      These maps may help to see how expansive the Gazprom empire stretches.

      https://eegas.com/maps.htm

      70

      • #

        Thanks Tom. It really is an archipelago. And further abroad Gazprom also has agreements and contracts for tech, infrastructure and fields like the Eastern Mediterranean finds. Should be no surprise that economic pivot-countries like Israel and the Netherlands, home to Shell fortunes, are never as anti-Russian as they’re supposed to be. You don’t argue with the archipelago, you do business.

        Interesting to watch Algeria, supplying 11% of Europe’s gas and with Russian relationships going right back. It came off the naughty list after giving a whopping donation to the Clintons when Hillary had control. It would seem to be an easier take for the West if it goes back on the naughty list, but the real potential there is shale gas, water is short and another mess of wars in N Africa would cost. Still, someone will invest a lot more there soon, with the new scramble for Africa.

        It would be nice to stay out of gas wars and pipeline wars and strait wars and scrambles generally, at least a bit. But the War on Coal is, of course, leading us right into that tangle.

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    • #
      • #

        It’s odd that Gazprom’s biggest potential competitor is Iran while Iran is being driven into Russia’s political camp. Not even Gazprom can go on without heavy investment in new Russian fields and infrastructure; moreover even Australia and PNG can apply competition pressure in LNG while being a more savory political choice. But on price+volume, piped+liquified, who competes with Iran? Would Iran trading hard and openly be too much competition and downward price pressure for US product as well as everyone else’s?

        More is going on than a bush-punter like me can know or find out.

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          I suspect it matter snot….just make sur eyou have access to an alternative form of energy that doesnt rely on the grid or govt….both I suspect are going to fail catastrophically in the near future…..

          90

  • #
    Carp

    I suspect that UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is in the same position as Putin. I doubt if Boris believes in man-made global warming (most Brexiteers that I know don’t) but he has backed the Conservative Party’s declaration of a Climate Emergency. My guess is that he doesn’t want to be fighting on two fronts (Brexit and climate change) at the same time.

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    • #
      ivan

      Don’t forget his girlfriend is a rabid green which must change his thinking .

      60

    • #
      PeterS

      At least they already have nuclear power stations. They have 15 reactors generating about 21% of its electricity but almost half of this capacity is to be retired by 2025 with new ones planned. Gross production comprised 72 TWh (21%) nuclear, 143 TWh (42%) from gas, 31 TWh (9%) from coal. https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/united-kingdom.aspx

      So they have the option to rely more on nuclear to satisfy any emissions reduction targets no matter how draconian. We don’t. We must go nuclear ASAP or we will be forced to use more renewables. So much for Morrison’s speech at the UN. It was a smoke screen to cover up a serious dilemma we are facing. It’s no longer a matter of fighting the trend to cut emissions. We must comply or face threats of trade restrictions. We must go nuclear.

      60

    • #
      el gordo

      Boris was a skeptic but at some point he went over to the dark side, a real tosser. Farage is looking good.

      80

      • #
        PeterS

        Yes Farage is the way to go. I started to like his political views a couple of years ago. He calls a spade a spade unlike the typical politicians we see in both major parties, there and here. Craig Kelly is an exception and of somewhat similar mindset to Farage. We need more politicians like them.

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  • #
    tom0mason

    And with Putin’s signature still wet on the document, he can move ahead with shackling Europe to Gazprom as the primary supplier of gas. With Europe self inflicted wound of not allowing fracking, they are stuck for any suitable energy alternatives. As Germany will try to unlock their power grid from coal and nuclear by 2040(?), and the same for France and nuclear, something reliable will be needed to fill the huge and looming gap in electricity production across Europe. What Scandinavia wants is anyone’s guess, maybe Scandinavia wants to export some of their excess wind generation to Russia.

    And if Putin has to make some meaningless gesture to Germany, France and Scandinavia then so be it.
    I’m sure he is very capable of maneuvering around it. With the highly probable forthcoming cooling climate coming, it will greatly assist his efforts to keep Europe needing Russian gas (and maybe also some Russian oil).

    See https://eegas.com/europipe.htm for a map of all major gas pipelines to and through Europe.

    70

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      tom0mason:

      Germany needs Russian gas to stave off the current winters. Further cooling will mean more demand for gas, especially if they give in to the ecoloons and cut back on brown coal mining AND nuclear. Gas would then be the only way to reduce their CO2 emissions, especially as 29,900 wind turbines have done nothing to their overall emissions in 10 years. Mind you a recession will fix that.
      Russian gas is essential across northern Europe as Norwegian and UK North Sea supplies dwindle. They are injected into the gas grid and people pretend that they aren’t using any of that nasty Russian gas, only that squeaky clean stuff from Norway. Like the pretence that CO2 from wood is different to CO2 from coal.
      I notice that northern USA is seeing early snow falls and that the predictions are for a cooler than usual October in northern Europe. Putin may have foreseen a transition from untouchable to essential.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      “nd with Putin’s signature still wet on the document, he can move ahead with shackling Europe to Gazprom as the primary supplier of gas. With Europe self inflicted wound of not allowing fracking, they are stuck for any suitable energy alternatives.”

      Well yes…the Communist model of co-dependency for everyone, means the European Soviet can now be fully at home with its communist allie, Russia…..

      If you look at power here in Australia, with dynamiting of power stations and shutting everything down anything that might be useful, Australia is moving to the same “wont be long now till it collapses” Soviet model of complete lack of competency….

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      • #
        PeterS

        With successive governments of the ALP (socialist) and LNP (do as little as possible approach) it is no wonder we as a nation have been slowly in decay. At some point of course we will hit a brick wall. It won’t be pretty.

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  • #
    She

    Commonwealth of Nations revived after Brexit, with the US and a new conservative Canada, Japan and others opposed to UN and EU?

    60

    • #
      tom0mason

      “Commonwealth of Nations revived after Brexit”

      I’m with you on that, it make more sense than being with the dictatorial socialist of mainland Europe.

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  • #
    Bruce of Newcastle

    Putin certainly will have studied Napoleon, who said “never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake”, or words to that effect. I suspect both he and Bony would be amused it’s called the ‘Paris Agreement’.

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    • #
      PeterS

      I’m sure that’s how China and Russia perceive the chaos in the West. Most empires/civilisations rise and fall from within. They are sitting back waiting for the right moment like vultures circling above a wounded animal. The West still has an opportunity to avoid the collapse but it requires real action on the part of the leaders. Sadly we lack such leaders. Trump is our only hope thus far but even he can’t perform miracles for too long. If only Nigel Farage in the UK would become PM over there. The we would have two great Western leaders on the front-line.

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      • #
        Fred Streeter

        If only Nigel Farage in the UK would become PM over there.

        “Distance lends Enchantment to the view.”

        If only a competent, trustworthy individual could become PM over here.

        But, alas, only shysters need apply.

        “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

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      • #
        Fred Streeter

        If only Nigel Farage in the UK would become PM over there.

        “Distance lends Enchantment to the view.”

        If only a competent, trustworthy individual could become PM over here.

        But, alas, only shysters need apply.

        “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

        10

    • #
      Greg in NZ

      Egg-zackly! What have the French ever done for us – apart from croissants and Charlotte Gainsbourg (whose mother was a Pom from ‘across the Channel’). What is it with these cheese-eating surrender monkeys falling for foreign women: after all, Joséphine was born in Martinique in d’ Caribbean, mon chéri!

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      Not sure if Napoleon would be the best choice. But Sun Tzu was chinese and you can bet your bottom dollar that The Art of War would have been well read by both parties.

      Sun Tzu was a Chinese general, military strategist, writer and philosopher who lived in the Eastern Zhou period of ancient China. Sun Tzu is traditionally credited as the author of The Art of War, an influential work of military strategy that has affected Western and East Asian philosophy and military thinking.

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      • #
        Zane

        The greens certainly practice the art of deception, which seems to indicate they have read Sun Tzu.

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        • #
          PeterS

          Deception not required. There is and always will be a certain percentage of the population who are like minded to the Greens and their policies. If a party called the Flat Earth Party was ever started you can bet your bottom dollar a certain percentage of people would vote for them. It’s up to the rest of us to try and educate others of the truth to avoid these fringe dwellers from having any influence at all on the running of our nation.

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  • #
    pat

    Time Mag devoted an entire issue to climate change in Sept. this is one of their masterpieces:

    12 Sept: Time: What It’s Like Living in One of the Hottest Cities on Earth — Where It May Soon Be Uninhabitable
    By Aryn Baker in Jacobabad, Pakistan | Photographs by Matthieu Paley for TIME
    (This is one article in a series on the state of the planet’s response to climate change. Read the rest of the stories and sign up for One.Five, TIME’s climate change newsletter)
    Jacobabad may well be the hottest city in Pakistan, in Asia and possibly in the world. Khosoo shakes his head in resignation. “Climate change. It’s the problem of our area. Gradually the temperatures are rising, and next year it will increase even more.”…
    The week before I arrived in Jacobabad, the city had reached a scorching 51.1°C (124°F). Similar temperatures in Sahiwal, in a neighboring province, combined with a power outage, had killed eight babies in a hospital ICU when the air-conditioning cut out. Summer in Sindh province is no joke. People die…

    If the planet continues warming at an accelerated rate, it won’t be just the people of Jacobabad who live through 50°C summers. Everyone will. Heat waves blistered countries across the northern hemisphere this summer. In July, all-time heat records were topped in Germany, Belgium, France and the Netherlands. Wildfires raged in the Arctic, and Greenland’s ice sheet melted at a record rate. Globally, July was the hottest month ever recorded.
    Climate scientists caution that no spike in weather activity can be directly attributable to climate change…

    Scientists estimate the probable increase in global average temperature will be at least 3°C by the end of the 21st century. That, Mora says, would mean three times as many hurricanes, wildfires and heat waves. People won’t be able to work outside in some places, and there will be increased cases of heatstroke, heat-­related illness and related death. In the U.S., extreme heat already causes more deaths than any other severe weather event, killing an estimated 1,500 people each year.
    A 2003 heat wave in Europe is estimated to have caused up to 70,000 deaths…

    While Pakistanis regularly claim Jacobabad as the hottest city in the world, it depends on how you measure it. Various atmospheric-­science organizations use different metrics, and record-­breaking highs have ping-ponged between Iran, Pakistan and Kuwait over the past couple of years. After extensive research, the World Meteorological Organization announced earlier this year that Turbat, Pakistan, 900 km (560 miles) to the southwest, could claim the title with a temperature of 53.7°C (128.7°F) on May 28, 2017. Jacobabad may very well win the endurance round, though, regularly surpassing 50°C (122°F) in the summer months…
    Most days, the Jacobabad district, population 1 million, suffers from power outages that can last as long as 12 hours…

    The only problem is that most of the trees in the area have been chopped down for firewood. “Sometimes, when it gets above 52°, I feel like my brain is rolling around in my head.” It was never that hot when he was a child, he complains. “We had more trees then. Now the trees are gone.”…

    Nick Obradovich, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, started looking at the mental-health impact of climate change when colleagues noted a correlation between increased nighttime temperatures and suicide rates in the U.S. and Mexico…
    “If I were to say that climate change simply makes you grumpy, it doesn’t sound all that catastrophic,” Obradovich says. “But if grumpiness is one of myriad social changes that result, regularly, from unusually warm temperatures, we should be concerned about the cumulative effects of these changes over time on the long-term well-­being of our society.”…

    In Pakistan, evidence of a climate crisis is easy to find. For the past few years, Pakistanis say, every summer has felt hotter, every drought longer, and every monsoon shorter and later in the season. “Before, it used to be one or two weeks of 50° days,” says the nation’s climate-change minister, Malik Amin Aslam. “Now it is months.”…

    (Climate-change minister, Malik Amin Aslam’s) office estimates that climate change could cost the country anywhere from $7 billion to $10 billion a year in disaster response alone, never mind lost economic activity. And Pakistan is no different than anywhere else, he warns. “With a temperature increase of three to five degrees that we are now looking at, the survival of the world is at stake. We cannot run away from it.”…

    The only way to reduce heat waves would be to reduce global carbon emissions. But cities can make them safer by providing more green spaces…
    (Halima Bhangar, a 38-year-old widow who lives in a small village not far from Jacobabad) followed my gaze. “How can we protect ourselves from this heat?” she asked. “For how much longer can we survive here?” She has considered moving, but where in the world is immune from the rising temperatures? “We can’t run away from nature.”
    https://time.com/longform/jacobabad-extreme-heat/

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      David Wojick

      Sounds like they mostly need reliable electricity and Pakistan is building coal fired power plants, financed and built by China. Funny that woman in the hottest city in the world cannot think of a cooler place to move to. Mount Everest is not far away, so she should try living on a glacier.

      Note reference to 3 to 5 degrees of future warming. Pure hot garbage, like the article.

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        PeterS

        If you look into the future at this site you will see how many new coal fired power stations are being constructed and in the planning stages. It’s truly amazing. We are being left behind for dead, thanks to both major political parties.
        https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants

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        PeterS

        China is building or planning more than 300 coal plants in places as widely spread as Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt and the Philippines. They are not doing all that just because they are nice. One doesn’t need to be a genius to figure it out.

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    el gordo

    Digging a little deeper on the relationship.

    https://thediplomat.com/tag/china-russia-relations/

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    […] pivots to turn Green in a cynical ploy to stay on side with the woke West. Putin, who presides over the world’s fourth-largest emitter, […]

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    TdeF

    Excellent information. Interesting that nuclear (34.35) + hydro is (2.87) means 37.3 out of 42gw of demand or 89%. It would not take much expansion of the nuclear power to eliminate all other sources including wind. I would guess that the wind is about appearing Green as it is a completely silly investment in the circumstances. Also France is powering all adjacent countries at times and Italy all the time.

    Too bad we Australians refuse to even have French nuclear submarines and insist on diesel, even if we only have 7 days supply of imported diesel. We are perhaps the only first world country without nuclear (plus New Zealand). I cannot see what difference this makes to anyone except it leaves us extremely vulnerable. I suppose we had ample supplies of cheap coal and felt there was no need. Which was before Carbon Dioxide became an evil industrial pollutant.

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      TdeF

      We are throwing away our birthright with cheap coal, while being equally the biggest exporter of coal in the world with Indonesia. Plus gas and iron ore. Hypocrite is not right. A bit thick fits better.

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      AndyG55

      “the only first world country”

      I wonder how ling the “first world” thing will last !

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    Steve of Cornubia

    This is one of the most alarming stories I have read regarding climate change. If true, it means that no major country/economy can avoid joining the AGW movement, even if it makes no real contribution to the cause, or if its citizens reject the new religion. If enough major economies join up and decide to use their economic muscle to force adherence to the faith through tariffs or sanctions, how can developed yet small (i.e. Australia) economies survive?

    There will be major cost impacts on citizens of ‘sceptical nations’ even if they do not implement unnecessary ‘de-carbonisation’ programs, through trade barriers and tariffs, which will drive up their cost of living and loss of employment.

    Truly alarming. The sound of marching jackboots grows louder every day.

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      el gordo

      ‘ … how can developed yet small (i.e. Australia) economies survive?’

      Easy, we have paid our dues at an international level and the renewable industry is in free fall. All clear sailing from here.

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        OriginalSteve

        I suspect we could use the blades from the bird shredders as boiler fuel to stay warm and generate power….

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    pat

    29 Sept: NYT: 40 Inches of Snow in Montana: ‘It’s a February Storm in September’
    By Jim Robbins and Vanessa Swales
    A powerful winter storm socked much of Montana with a wave of heavy snowfall on Sunday, with weekend totals climbing to 40 inches in some places, and breaking century-long daily records.
    Never mind that it has only just turned to fall. Gov. Steve Bullock declared a winter emergency as cars skidded off highways, communities lost power and farmers despaired at the damage to crops that were still in the ground.
    “It’s a February storm in September,” said Jeff Mow, the superintendent of Glacier National Park in the state’s mountainous northwest. “We’re used to this kind of storm, just not this time of year.”

    The snowfall totals were staggering for any time of year: 40 inches in Browning since Friday, and 38 inches in St. Mary…
    Records were tumbling across the state. On Saturday, the National Weather Service recorded snow at the Missoula International Airport. There had not been a trace of snow recorded on any Sept. 28 since 1893…
    Great Falls was blanketed by 9.7 inches of snow on Saturday, topping a daily snowfall record of 6.1 inches that had been set in 1954. By Sunday afternoon, another 4.8 inches of snow had fallen there.

    “We have very wet and heavy snow, which has compacted down, making it look less than 14 inches,” said Thomas Pepe, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Great Falls. “But we’re just getting into round two of snowfall — it’s starting to intensify again. It’s pretty bleak out there.”
    Montanans are no strangers to snow, but the early arrival of this storm was a test even for those with decades of experience with harsh winters…
    “In the 20 years that I’ve been here, I have never felt as much angst among my community,” said Cassie Barnett, 50, who lives near Fairfield in northwestern Montana. “The scariest thing is for our neighbors, who are farmers. The crops they had in the ground are now buried in the snow.”

    The snow drifts were so high, Ms. Barnett said, that when her 6-foot-tall husband went to feed their chickens, the snow reached his chest.
    “When the snow goes over my knee-high snow boots, I know to just stop trying,” she said.
    For ranchers and farmers, the snowfall was much more than a nuisance, setting off a scramble to protect livestock…
    For example, farmers involved in the burgeoning hemp industry had not even harvested their crops yet, he said…

    Mr. Mow, the superintendent of Glacier National Park, said that he hoped the park’s scenic Going to the Sun Highway could reopen in October, after the snow melted.
    “Our weather goes from one extreme to another, so it could get warm again,” he said. “We have to play with what nature sends us.”
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/29/us/montana-snowstorm.html

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      pat

      7 Feb 2014: NYT Op-ed: The end of snow
      by Porter Fox
      (Porter Fox is the features editor at Powder magazine and the author of “Deep: The Story of Skiing and the Future of Snow.”)
      The facts are straightforward: The planet is getting hotter. Snow melts above 32 degrees Fahrenheit. The Alps are warming two to three times faster than the worldwide average, possibly because of global circulation patterns. Since 1970, the rate of winter warming per decade in the United States has been triple the rate of the previous 75 years, with the strongest trends in the Northern regions of the country…
      My bosses were generous enough to send me to five continents over the last 15 years, with skis in tow…

      It’s easy to blame the big oil companies and the billions of dollars they spend on influencing the media and popular opinion. But the real reason is a lack of knowledge. I know, because I, too, was ignorant until I began researching the issue for a book on the future of snow.
      I was floored by how much snow had already disappeared from the planet, not to mention how much was predicted to melt in my lifetime…

      Nothing besides a national policy shift on how we create and consume energy will keep our mountains white in the winter — and slow global warming to a safe level. This is no longer a scientific debate. It is scientific fact. The greatest
      fear of most climate scientists is continued complacency that leads to a series of natural climatic feedbacks — like the melting of the methane-rich permafrost of Arctic Canada…
      Last spring, 108 ski resorts, along with 40 major companies, signed the Climate Declaration, urging federal policy makers to take action on climate change…
      https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/08/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-snow.html

      27 Feb 2014: Newsbusters: CBS Predicts Climate Change Means the End of Snow: ‘Winter Sports Could Be Doomed’
      In another attempt to promote global warming activism, CBS This Morning journalists on Thursday warned viewers that climate change could lead to the end of snow and skiing. Co-host Charlie Rose informed viewers that “the author of a controversial book believes winter sports could be doomed.”
      Yet, if there was much “controversy” in the notions pushed by writer Porter Fox (features editor of Powder magazine), they hardly made it onto the CBS segment…

      7 Feb 2014: WUWT: Over two-thirds of the contiguous USA covered with snow
      by Anthony Watts
      Readers may recall our story from Dec 15th, 2013: Over half the USA covered in snow, the most in 11 years
      Now, it’s even more. See the map and the 3D image…
      https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/07/over-two-thirds-of-the-continental-usa-covered-with-snow/

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        Greg in NZ

        We have 40 inches, do I hear 48 inches?

        https://electroverse.net/browning-mt-receives-a-record-busting-4-feet-of-september-snow-missoula-also-breaks-records/

        “Montana’s Governor Steve Bullock issued an executive order on Sunday, Sept 29 declaring a state of emergency due to the severity of the early season snowstorm that struck the region. ‘With an unprecedented winter storm throwing our state a surprise in September, state and local governments are working closely together to protect the health and safety of Montanans'”.

        • 48 inches (4 feet) of snow had fallen in Browning, Montana from Friday evening thru Sunday — the city only expects 59.5 inches throughout the entire year. It’s because the planet’s on fire and burning and drowning and everythink™… so some say.

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          Greg in NZ

          Or maybe that should be every fink:

          fink informal noun, an unpleasant or contemptible person • a person who informs on people to the authorities
          ORIGIN late 19th cent. of unknown origin; perhaps from German, literally ‘finch,’ but also a pejorative term. Students started to refer to nonmembers of fraternities as finks, probably by association with the freedom of wild birds as opposed to caged ones.

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    pat

    community broadcaster 4RPH (and other stations no doubt) did half-hour from the Time Mag “climate” issue last nite, following a climate-filled-half-hour from this foundation-funded Democracy Now episode:

    16 Sept: Democracy Now: Amy Goodman: “We in the Media Have Not Been Doing Our Job”: 250+ (LATER REPORTED AS 300+) News Outlets Pledge to Focus on Climate Crisis
    Guest: Mark Hertsgaard, environment correspondent and investigative editor for The Nation, author of seven books, including Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth.
    AMY GOODMAN: A major new project from The Nation and the Columbia Journalism Review hopes to improve global coverage of the climate crisis, with more than 250 media outlets around the world — including Democracy Now! — signing on to the effort to publish or broadcast stories on climate…
    As part of the effort, CBS News released a new poll of over 2,000 U.S. residents that measured attitudes around climate change, which found that two-thirds of Americans believe climate change is either a crisis or a serious problem, and a majority want immediate action to address the Earth’s temperature rise…

    EXCEERPTS FROM TRANSCRIPT
    AMY GOODMAN: For years, the corporate media has been criticized for failing to connect the dots between climate change and extreme weather around the globe. A recent study (LINK) by Public Citizen found the country’s leading print publications devoted 363 articles to Hurricane Dorian; only nine mentioned climate change. Another study (LINK), by Media Matters, in the first week after Dorian hit, from August 28th to September 5th, found, of the 216 segments aired on main television networks on Dorian, only one mentioned climate change…

    MARK HERTSGAARD: As you mentioned, we have 250 news outlets from all around the world, across the U.S. and overseas, who have committed, in the following seven to eight days, to do serious climate coverage, leading up to the September 23rd United Nations Climate Action Summit there in New York at United Nations headquarters. And we calculated that if you put all these 250-plus news outlets together, our combined audience is over 1 billion people — with a B…

    AMY GOODMAN: — intensity of these hurricanes, the frequency of these hurricanes, caused by human — well, behind it, it’s human actions, human activities, human-fueled climate change…

    MARK HERTSGAARD: Sure. Yeah, the science on this is pretty clear. And unfortunately, the U.S. media, in particular, has a long ways to go in its climate coverage. You know, we are trying, first of all, to break the climate silence that you’re talking about here, Amy, that has been the main problem with media coverage of this issue going back for more than 20 years now. You know, I’ve been reporting on climate change since the 1990s, and I spent a lot of that decade traveling around the world. And it’s been clear ever since then that the U.S. media is about 10 years behind the media in Europe and Asia in reporting the climate crisis. First of all, we don’t mention it, as you just talked about. And when we do do the climate story, we often get it wrong…

    AMY GOODMAN: Be careful about mentioning that the world is round, Mark, because we’re going to have to bring on someone from the Flat Earth Society to counter what you say, just to give, you know, a fair and balanced approach to it…

    MARK HERTSGAARD: We really — this consortium of Covering Climate Now is striking in many respects, in that we’ve got such a diversity. There’s very big outlets, like Bloomberg; like CBS News; like The Times of India, which alone has over 1 billion monthly unique visitors to its website; Asahi Shimbun, the biggest newspaper in Japan; La Repubblica, the biggest newspaper in Italy. And then, here in the U.S., we’ve got the San Francisco Chronicle, The Seattle Times, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer, most of the major public radio stations in the country. So there’s a lot of participation, but also from some very small nonprofit outfits…

    MARK HERTSGAARD: We worked closely with CBS on this. And they found that, essentially, most Americans understand that the climate crisis is serious, and they want action right now. And to me, the most interesting finding — well, there were two. One is that about 70%, 69%, of the American people expect that the next president takes serious climate action. There’s 56% of the public wants action right now, and another 13% want action in the next few years, meaning in the term of the incoming president. That is a very striking number that I think politicians in both parties need to be paying attention to.
    But the second finding that is striking out of that CBS poll is that even though most Americans think climate crisis is serious and needs action, there is deep confusion about whether the scientists really believe this. Only about half of the country, 48%, understand the truth, which is that science is finished, is decided on this…
    Ninety-seven percent of the working climate scientists say that this is a serious problem, man-made, we have to do something about it. Forty-eight percent think that the scientists are not clear on this. That number, that 48 and 48%, the fact that people are confused about a basic fact about climate science, shows that we in the media have not been doing our job, and that for 20 years we have been taken in, really, by the propaganda of the fossil fuel industry, which has been saying, as you well know, Amy, and you’ve reported here on Democracy Now! numerous times — the fossil fuel industry has been saying for almost 30 years now, “Oh, the science isn’t clear.” They’ve been trying to muddy the waters with this false equivalence…
    Imagine, though, if we had had the proper coverage of climate science for these past 10, 20 years, what the poll data would be saying now and what the political candidates would be saying now, because there would be political awareness…

    And that’s why we’re really doing this Covering Climate Now initiative, because, you know, last October, the IPCC scientists of the United Nations said we have 12 years in which to slash the emissions on this planet in half in order to basically retain a livable world. And they said — the scientists added that in order to do that, we need fundamental transformation in the economic sector, the energy sector, the transportation sector, construction, agriculture. But they left out one critical sector, which is the media sector. As you well know, Amy, the media is the key to political consciousness. And if you don’t have media coverage of the climate crisis, you will never have the public awareness and the public pressure that, frankly, is needed to get government and corporations to do what is required to face up to this climate crisis…

    MARK HERTSGAARD: Sure. We’re very happy to have The Guardian as our lead media partner in Covering Climate Now. They’ve been with us from the beginning. And we chose them because they are the gold standard in climate coverage. If you are looking for good coverage, that’s the place to go. They have it on their front page every day. It’s solid reporting. It’s good analysis…

    If you follow the science, those terms are not activism. If you think that having 12 years to turn around the entire world economy, to get it off of fossil fuels and to put it onto a climate-smart basis of solar, wind and efficiency, if that isn’t an emergency, I don’t know what is. The scientists said in that report that the kinds of changes we need over the next 12 years are without precedent in human history, meaning we’ve never made this big of a change this fast. If that isn’t a crisis, if that isn’t an emergency, I don’t know what is. That’s why the United Nations secretary-general, Mr. Guterres, has consistently said that we face a climate emergency. So, we feel, as journalists, our job is to be honest and straightforward about the facts. And the scientific facts here are very clear: This is a crisis situation…

    You know, Secretary-General Guterres called this summit precisely because governments around the world are not living up to the pledges that they made in Paris in December 2015, the very famous Paris Agreement, which is the high point of climate diplomacy…
    So, Secretary-General Guterres is summoning the world leaders to New York a day before the General Assembly meeting of the United Nations to say, “Look, you’ve got to increase your ambition. You’ve got to raise your game. We need to go faster and farther. The science is more serious than we thought.”…
    And I think, frankly, that he is trying to — the secretary-general is hoping that this summit, because of media coverage and because of pressure from the youth activists, will force governments to do a better job of living up to their pledges. And he’s famously told the heads of state, “Don’t bring a speech to the summit. Bring a plan.” In other words, no blah-blah-blah, that we usually have at U.N. meetings. Show us what you’re doing. Show us the concrete examples of cutting emissions that can be replicable around the world…

    AMY GOODMAN: You’re speaking to us from San Francisco, Mark. As we wrap up, President Trump is expected to be out in California in these next days, doing his fundraisers, a proud climate change denier. Your message for him as he comes to San Francisco and Los Angeles?…

    MARK HERTSGAARD: I wish that President Trump would remember that I have a daughter, he has daughters. He has, presumably, grandchildren, as well, I think. And we owe it to them to do better than this. And I would just remind everyone that Donald Trump said that he pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement. He has not. He cannot yet. That decision is for the next president. By the agreement itself, the U.S. cannot leave until one day after the 2020 presidential election. So, whoever Americans elect on November 3rd, 2020, that president will make the decision about whether the U.S. stays in the Paris Agreement or not…

    AMY GOODMAN: As we continue our climate coverage through the week, tomorrow we’ll spend the hour with Naomi Klein. It’s publication day for her. She has a new book out. It’s called On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal.
    https://www.democracynow.org/2019/9/16/covering_climate_now_media_project

    this is Part 2 of 5-part Naomi Klein hour:

    17 Sept: Democracy Now: Ecofascism: Naomi Klein Warns the Far Right’s Embrace of White Supremacy Is Tied to Climate Crisis
    Renowned climate activist and author Naomi Klein addresses the rise of ecofascism, the marrying of environmentalism and white power, which she says manifested in the Christchurch, New Zealand, white supremacist terrorist attack, where the shooter identified himself as an ecofascist. In her latest book, “On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal,” Klein writes, “My fear is that, unless something significant changes in how our societies rise to the ecological crisis, we are going to see this kind of white power eco-fascism emerge with much greater frequency, as a ferocious rationalization for refusing to live up to our collective climate responsibilities.”…
    https://www.democracynow.org/2019/9/17/naomi_klein_eco_fascism

    THE “MEDIA” IS THE PROBLEM.

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      pat

      just checked & last nite it was a full hour of “Democracy Now”. not sure if Time Mag got a half-hour or an hour.

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        Greg in NZ

        Re: Klein’s Christchurch pap ©©©rap –

        Is she referring to the patsy-eco-nut Australian spook who took part in the international psychological operation on the Ides of March? Our media carried the story about a practise drill happening the very same day across the park (it was a week-long affair leading up to the 15th of March) yet the day after, not a mention – whoosh! – all gone. It was a lone wolf, whitey, China Trump supporter, donchaknow?

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    Greg in NZ

    Off-topic but not:

    ‘Runaway Woman-made Catastrophic Heating’ causes dangerous life-threatening snow to fall on NZ’s North Island roads –

    https://www.metservice.com/warnings/road-snowfall-warnings

    Napier-Taupo Road and Desert Road, 1 October 2019: “Snow is expected to affect road during Tuesday afternoon and evening. Between 2pm and 9pm Tuesday, 3 to 6cm of snow may settle on the road near the summit, with lesser amounts down to 800 metres”. Also many South Island passes/roads.

    https://www.metservice.com/skifields/whakapapa

    A freezing howling whiteout snow blizzard stole my dream of going snowboarding this week. Mt Ruapehu ski report: apart from the lower, learners’ slopes, “All other lifts are CLOSED for the day due to terrible poor weather and visibility conditions”. The initial report had terrible weather which has since been adjusted/homogenised to simply poor weather. The Green Stasi Police have obviously been monitoring MetService’s website and offered some language advocacy tips to fit their Theory of Nonsense. I mean, who will think of the children and their whacky back-to-front beliefs?

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    pat

    29 Sept: Voice of America: Russian Opposition Stages New Moscow Rally After Summer of Protests
    By RFE/RL
    MOSCOW – Tens of thousands of Russians braved a cold rain to jam a central Moscow square as opposition groups sought to regain momentum following a summer of demonstrations that targeted both local elections and Russia’s broader political system.
    The Sunday rally was the first major effort by liberal political groups and allied parties since elections earlier in the month…

    27 Sept: Voice of America: Reuters: In the Shadow of Strict Protest Laws, Young Russians Build a Climate Movement
    At 15 years old, Margarita Naumenko is one of the youngest participants in Russia’s Fridays for Future climate protest movement.
    Each week, she stands in downtown Moscow with other young activists chanting, brandishing posters and demanding the government take action on worsening climate change threats.
    Her parents support her decision to protest, Naumenko said, but they are less convinced about the urgency of slowing the climate change.
    “I tried talking to them and changing their opinion,” she said. “But that is not easy.”…

    The protests may be having some effect. Earlier this month, Russia announced it would join the 2015 Paris Agreement to fight climate change – one of the last countries in the world to do so…
    For Arshak Makichyan, it was the March protest in Moscow that sparked his involvement in climate activism…
    And the crowds at protests have been getting bigger over the past few months, he added. These days, an organized climate demonstration in Moscow attracts between 20 and 40 participants…
    “Ten weeks ago, I was very often protesting on my own. Now every week we get more participants and new cities join in.”…

    Recent climate disasters such as the wildfires that raged across Siberia earlier this year, destroying at least 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of forest, have turned the public’s attention toward the global crisis, said Konstantin Fomin, a spokesman for Greenpeace Russia…
    At a climate forum in September, Russia’s presidential climate adviser Ruslan Edelgeriev noted that this year so far global warming has caused 9.5 billion rubles ($148 million) worth of damage to the country’s agricultural sector.
    Most of that is due to losses from wildfires and droughts, he said…
    A poll conducted in December 2018 by the Moscow-based Public Opinion Foundation, a think tank, showed that 84% of Russians have heard about climate change, while almost two-thirds believe it is serious and happening…

    Veronika Essen, 25, said she joined the protests out of concern for her 5-year-old sister’s future.
    “In 11 years, when she is 16, we probably won’t be able to prevent the negative consequences of the climate crisis,” said Essen, who works in marketing…
    https://www.voanews.com/europe/shadow-strict-protest-laws-young-russians-build-climate-movement

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    pat

    hmmm! CBC re the study BBC reported, claiming for $300 billion (instead of $100-trillion+) we could basically solve CAGW!

    29 Sept: CBC: Missing the forest for the trees: In climate change fight, simplest solutions might be the most obvious
    Study says 1.25 trillion trees could be planted worldwide to remove carbon — and Canada could be a leader
    by Nazim Cicek
    (Nazim Cicek is a professor and associate head in the department of biosystems engineering at the University of Manitoba)
    For example, a recent research study suggests a way to make a real impact — at the cost of what many of us spend on a cup of coffee once a week over the course of a year.
    The study by Swiss scientists, recently published in the prestigious journal Science (LINK), assessed the global potential for tree restoration using over 78,000 satellite photo measurements and artificial intelligence to generate predictive models.

    The results shocked even the scientists who conducted the work: without interfering with agricultural and urban lands, there was potential to add at least 0.9 billion hectares (LINK) of forest to the globe — an area roughly the size of the United States.
    What this means in terms of the potential to store carbon is staggering. A whopping 205 gigatonnes of carbon could be taken out of the atmosphere when the 1.2 trillion trees planted on the available land fully mature, which represents about 25 per cent of all the carbon in the atmosphere. This also amounts to almost two-thirds of all carbon humans are estimated to have contributed to the atmospheric pool…

    More than 50 per cent of the total available area lies within the boundaries of only six nations (Russia, the U.S., Canada, Australia, Brazil and China). With the potential to add 78.4 million hectares of forests, Canada ranks third, which places it in an important position for leadership and responsibility…
    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/opinion-climate-change-trees-1.5301474

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      Graeme No.3

      Even better, all those forests could be chopped down and burnt in generating stations; as every little bureaucrat knows burning wood doesn’t emit CO2.

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    pat

    29 Sept: UrduPoint Pakistan: Senior Russian Official Warns Against Attempts To Politicize Climate Change
    by Faizan Hashmi
    MOSCOW (UrduPoint News/Sputnik) Yuri Averyanov, the deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, has warned of attempts to politicize the climate change struggle to get a competitive edge, in an interview out Sunday.
    “We need to make an effort to prevent the climate issue from being politicized to serve someone’s interests and exploited for unilateral gains,” he told the Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily.
    Averyanov said climate change was one of the most urgent issues of our time. He added Russia was a world leader in terms of greenhouse gas emissions cuts and was going to strengthen its position in line with the Paris climate deal…
    https://www.urdupoint.com/en/world/senior-russian-official-warns-against-attempt-724045.html

    29 Sept: Tass: Russia, US maintain constructive cooperation on Arctic problems – Russian Security Council
    Moscow and Washington “have managed to create a rather substantial basis for cooperation in that region”
    Russia, US maintain constructive cooperation on Arctic problems – Russian Security Council
    Moscow and Washington “have managed to create a rather substantial basis for cooperation in that region”.
    As a result, in his words, Moscow and Washington “have managed to create a rather substantial basis for cooperation in that region”. They continue to work to improve the legal framework in the areas of navigation security, fishing and research cooperation…

    A regular, eighth, international meeting of high representatives of member states and observer nations of the Arctic Council organized by the Russian Security Council will take place on September 30 through October 2. It will be held aboard a ship voyaging from St. Petersburg to the Island of Valaam and back to St. Petersburg.
    https://tass.com/russia/1080417

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    pat

    behind paywall:

    29 Sept: UK Times: Ofgem to step in amid energy chaos
    Watchdog may gain powers to veto sales of suppliers after wave of collapses
    by Rachel Millard
    The energy regulator could win powers to veto the sales of energy companies to address the turmoil in the market.
    Fourteen household gas and electricity suppliers have collapsed since January last year, with up to nine more predicted to fold this winter amid fierce competition and volatile wholesale costs.

    The watchdog is concerned that stronger rivals could try to cherry-pick profitable customers from failing companies, leaving the industry safety net to pick up the bill for those in debt, or that customers might be sold to companies where they are then switched to more expensive deals.
    Mary Starks, Ofgem’s head of consumers and markets, wrote to energy bosses this month to warn against sales that could “subvert or distort” its procedure for dealing with bust companies…
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/ofgem-to-step-in-amid-energy-chaos-jt368zqhd

    29 Sept: CityAM: Ofgem looks at powers to block sales of energy customers
    by August Graham
    Energy regulator Ofgem is considering plans which would allow it to block transactions between suppliers, as the industry worries that it is being left to pick up the pieces for failed companies…
    Ahead of its collapse, Solarplicity, the one of the latest casualties, sold more than 40,000 customers to Toto before closing its doors. Fellow supplier EDF agreed to take on the remaining 7,500 customers in a process run by Ofgem.
    EDF will be able to claim back some of the costs of taking on these customers from the rest of the industry.

    Now the head of consumers and markets at Ofgem, Mary Starks, has warned companies against selling customers in a way that might “subvert or distort” Ofgem’s supplier of last resort process.
    “We are … considering whether … there is a case for strengthening our powers to veto such transactions,” she wrote to energy companies in a letter seen by the Sunday Times.
    The regulator will consult on introducing a veto, starting next month, the paper reported…
    https://www.cityam.com/ofgem-looks-at-powers-to-block-sales-of-energy-customers/

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    pat

    29 Sept: UK Times: Green gas buyers face bigger bills
    by Rachel Millard
    The cost of green gas certificates has shot up amid demand from companies keen to display their environmental credentials.
    Industry sources say the price of Renewable Gas Guarantees of Origin (RGGOs) has gone from a few pounds to £9 each in recent months, pushing up bills if the costs are passed on to consumers.
    The certificates are issued by the Green Gas Certification Scheme to biomethane producers for each KwH produced, to verify the source of the gas. They are then sold on, either alongside the gas or separately. Utilities and transport companies are big buyers of both.

    Household energy suppliers such as Green Energy UK are increasingly providing biomethane, which is released in the decomposition of landfill or by the use of anaerobic digestion systems. But demand far outweighs supply as it is difficult to produce. Green energy certificates are designed to incentivise supply of low-carbon energy, but have run into controversy due to concerns over “greenwashing”.
    A survey for consumer group Which? last week found that some energy companies were using an Ofgem certification system for green electricity supply to tell consumers they were buying renewable electricity without directly buying from renewable sources…
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a5ad8822-e216-11e9-82bd-8d46f6325aea

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    pat

    behind paywall:

    29 Sept: UK Times: David Quinn: Eco-radicals are ignoring our economic doom
    Climate campaigners fail to consider the frightening financial and political consequences of phasing out fossil fuels
    [It’s not] acceptable to make children the symbolic leaders of a movement and then morally blackmail the rest of us into not challenging anything they say or do, precisely because they are so young. You can’t have it both ways: you can’t say we must listen to the children, and at the same time forbid critical analysis of exactly what they are saying.
    For example, are we supposed to simply accept it as true when the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg tells us that, unless we reduce our carbon emissions by at least half over the next 10 years, we’re probably on a path to civilisational destruction? On the contrary, the bigger and more extravagant the claim, the more it should be questioned. In fact, we have an absolute duty to do so.

    We must find ways of uncoupling our prosperity from fossil fuels, but it won’t be easy. In fact, it’s going to take decades, and it will be tremendously expensive. But let’s first pause and ask whether the apocalyptic warnings of impending doom are even true…
    When we read dire headlines, they are usually drawn from the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But when you look a bit more closely at the UN body’s predictions, you find all sorts of caveats, assumptions and levels of probability that don’t justify a lot of the subsequent alarmist reporting…

    There is absolutely no way the world can replace more than half of the power provided by fossil fuels with renewable energy over the next decade. It is going to take far longer than that. Two ways forward come to mind. One is to buy nuclear energy from the likes of Britain and France via underwater cables, because nuclear power does not produce direct carbon emissions. Another is to increase the carbon tax, which the government proposes, but to do so faster. Currently it is €20 a ton. A €10 increase appears to be on the cards in the coming budget. Ministers should double it, and go from there, but provide an offset via income tax cuts and increases in fuel allowances for those on low incomes…
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/david-quinn-eco-radicals-are-ignoring-our-economic-doom-t5kkx8nth

    28 Sept: UK Telegraph: Greta Thunberg is the first saint of our cruel new environmental religion
    by Madeline Grant
    Religious thinking pervades our supposedly secular age, from the purity-obsessed “clean eating” fetish, to the unforgiving online lynch mob, with its public shamings and demands for penance. The Greta Thunberg phenomenon will fascinate future sociologists – and for similar reasons.
    Thunberg, with her apocalyptic warnings and Pippi Longstocking plaits, has become a global icon in a matter of months. More striking than the ubiquitous crowds accompanying her, however, is their quasi-religious reverence. She is portrayed as a child-prophet, a modern-day Joan of Arc in her ability to inspire a movement. Senior broadcasters call her “Greta” as though they enjoyed a direct connection with the teenager….

    Thunberg’s affiliation with Extinction Rebellion’s extreme, anti-capitalist aims should prompt questions – especially because Left-wingers have routinely used the threat of global panic to herd populations towards socialism. During the Cold War, the anti-nuclear movement was infiltrated by hard-Leftists, keen for the West to drop its opposition to the Soviets. Quasi-religious fervour is no substitute for hard headed discussion of costs, benefits and policies. Nor, indeed, should it stop us from asking whether it is really appropriate to expose a child to this level of global scrutiny…
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/28/greta-thunberg-first-saint-cruel-new-environmental-religion/

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    Another Ian

    Maybe Putin has already seen this?

    “The “climate doom” timeline”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/29/the-climate-doom-timeline/

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  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    Does it matter whether or not Putin believes. It is still a commitment, and as the last Premier of China allegedly said “it do not matter about the colour of the cat, as long as it catches rats”. Those abated CO2 molecules will still be abated, no matter what the ideology.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      You are delusional PF.

      You have not understood what this is all about have you.

      There will be a continued increase in CO2 emissions around the world as new coal fired power stations are built.

      There will be zero CO2 emission reduction from Russia, as this statement will allow them to do exactly what China is doing INCREASING emissions, while selling more gas and oil.

      This is a good thing, we need to keep the level of atmospheric CO2 climbing if we can, because it is wholly beneficial.

      And as you said yesterday, there is no scientific evidence that CO2 has any affect on the global climate, so the statement is meaningless in every respect.

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      Don’t ever play poker Peter. You’ll never see the bluffs before or after.

      What they say isn’t what they believe.

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      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        That is what I’m saying – if you reduce your carbon emissions, why should I care what your underlying beliefs are?

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        • #
          AndyG55

          “if you reduce your carbon emissions”

          Seriously, PF, wake up !!

          Russia will NOT be reducing its emissions.

          They have signed the Paris farce as a political ploy, just like many other countries have.

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        • #
          Sceptical Sam

          Do you still believe that man-made CO2 is the predominant driver of global warming Peter?

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        • #
          Graeme No.3

          @Peter Fitzroy

          And who is reducing their emissions? The USA is by far the greatest. Russia claims reductions in 1990 etc. as Soviet style factories were forced out of business. So much for the bad guys.
          The good guys…China’s emissions have shot up and are continuing to climb. India’s emissions are up 50% and they are aiming for a MINIMUM of another 50%. German emissions have been stationary for 10 years, and that’s not counting burning wood or household rubbish to generate heat. Denmark has supposedly reduced its emissions but isn’t counting those from burning wood pellets nor its commercial fleets. The UK has reduced its emissions by, maybe 20%, at the cost of a lot of their industry moving to Asia (hence lots of far from gruntled unemployed) and a big increase in electricity costs along with deaths of the poor and elderly in winter. France??? Norway???? Poland has increased its emissions of CO2, as have Hungary, and several other countries in the eastern EU. Spain at the cost of 25% unemployment, although that is reducing as they dump renewables. Greece where things were even worse? Howabout Venezuela? With 20% of their population in other countries and most of the rest unable to afford electricity (when it is available) their emissions may well have dropped.
          The whole world’s CO2 emissions are increasing faster than the supposed coming catastrophe claimed 30 years ago if they didn’t drop. You really are stupid and ignorant.

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    • #
      Peter Fitzroy

      Also, as I forgot the other link

      50 plants shut down in the US over the last 2 years, with 50 to follow
      https://m.phys.org/news/2019-05-coal-power-trump.html

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      • #
        AndyG55

        Small, old ones.

        Replaced with GAS.

        You are trying to spread MIS-INFORMATION, yet again PF

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        • #
          Zane

          Spot price of natural gas at Henry Hub is $2.60 per million BTU, same as in 1998, far below the $12 peaks of 2008. Gas is dirt cheap in the US, thus utilities are switching to it. Also, building a gas generator takes 2 years as opposed to 4 years for a modern coal plant. Lower capex. Different story in China, where using coal is two thirds cheaper than gas. In SE Asia coal and gas costs for electricity were similar, but domestic gas supplies are running low so 75% of future power generation will be coal, either locally mined or favouring imports from Indonesia.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        And guess what, PF

        Because of that change to GAS, the USA has decreased its CO2 emissions more than any other major country in the world

        They don’t need to be in the Paris climate accord/farce

        They can go on their merry way while other countries such as China and India continue to increase their coal usage, and while many under-developed countries start to build up the coal-fired electricity fleet with the help o9f Chinese money.

        There is no doubt at all that global CO2 emissions will continue to rise for MANY years.

        And there isn’t a thing the greenie/socialist agenda can do about it.

        All they might succeed in doing is making life in the now-developed country a whole lot harder as they battle against intermittent and erratic power supplies, forcing industries to move to the NEW DEVELOPING WORLD of coal-fired power and industry.

        All these climate clown in western countries on this fanciful AGW “trip”, (yes it is like a drug induced fantasy) are only hurting the countries they live in.

        THEY will be the LOSERS.

        Just DUMB !!!

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      • #

        Yes Peter Fitzroy, 50 of them since (capitalise this bit) TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP….. etc etc.

        In fact, they’re slowing down now, as most of them are now closed down in fact, replaced in their totality by natural gas fired plants on a MW for MW basis.

        It started back in 2008 in fact, and at that time, coal fired power provided around 51% of every watt of power being generated in the U.S.

        Those plants were old, and in an awful lot of cases, ancient, some in operation more than 70 to 80 years. In fact the average age of the whole coal fired fleet in early 2008 was 49 years and 10 Months, and keep in mind here that the average life span of a coal fired plant is 50 years, so the whole fleet was almost at that time expired date.

        What they then started in 2008 was a move to close those older, and smaller Units, nearly all of them at the start less than 20MW, most even less than 10MW. They were replaced with newer gas fired Units, most of them on the same brown field sites as those existing coal fired Units.

        To date, not one coal fired plant has been replaced by a wind plant with respect to generated power.

        Coal fired power closures, Nameplate since 2008 – 56775MW (a reduction in actual generated power of 620TW)

        Natural Gas Fired additions, Nameplate since 2008 – 58551MW (an addition in actual genereted power of 560TWH, or 90% replacement of coal fired power)

        So, Peter Fitzroy, you are way way way behind the times here.

        Tony.

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        • #
          Peter Fitzroy

          Oh, and I forgot again world wide, more plants are closing than those being build, and forward projects for new coal plants, has gone over a cliff.

          Of course the older ones would be shut down, that is logical. And they are replaced with gas units – so as I said, it doesn’t matter what colour the cat… Carbon abatement rules

          /except in old men

          017

          • #
            Bill in Oz

            B/S propaganda Fitz !

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          • #
            AndyG55

            Are you intentionally trying to be an IDIOT, PF ?

            Because you are certainly succeeding.

            CO2 is a GLOBAL thing, and GLOBAL emissions are just going to keep going UP and UP.

            The USA just happens to have found a cheaper substitute that can still provide RELIABLE, ON DEMAND electricity.

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          • #
            robert rosicka

            Yep everyone is getting out of coal meme .

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          • #
            Graeme No.3

            Peter Fitzroy:

            To my previous comment about you being ignorant, please add gullible and deluded.

            According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, world coal consumption was 3,732 million tons of oil equivalent in 2017. Between 2007 and 2017, world coal consumption grew at an average annual rate of 0.8 percent.

            Which Countries Depend the Most on Coal?
            China. Roughly 70% of the energy consumed in China is obtained from coal, making it one of the most coal-reliant countries in the world. …
            India. India is the world’s second-largest producer of coal, with 692.4 million tons produced yearly. …
            United States. …
            Australia. …
            Indonesia.

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            • #
              AndyG55

              I really don’t understand how one person can be so consistently WRONG in basically every respect, on EVERYTHING.

              No-one is that “unlucky” or that dumb !!

              It can only be intentional.

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        • #
          tom0mason

          TonyfromOz,

          “… some in operation more than 70 to 80 years. In fact the average age of the whole coal fired fleet in early 2008 was 49 years and 10 Months, and keep in mind here that the average life span of a coal fired plant is 50 years, so the whole fleet was almost at that time expired date.”

          And that lifetime is something the unreliables of wind and solar will never get close to. The majority of those expensive unreliable wind and solar may last 20 years (if you’re lucky), while industrializing vast areas of the world. On top of that there’s the MASSIVE maintenance outlay required by these installations running. Overall the cost/benefit of unreliable head to negative numbers.

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    • #
      bobl

      Peter, What about “Wind and Solar Generation don’t save any CO2” don’t you understand. The lifecycle emissions from grid scale Solar/Wind power including industry self consumption and the reductions in sinks caused by the massive land clearing required for renewables means that Coal power emits less CO2 Watt for Watt than wind or Solar when implemented at grid scale.

      It just like your denial that your typical coal fired car (IE Electric Vehicle) Emits more CO2 over it’s life than your typical diesel car (and is far less convenient to boot). That’s been shown here with engineering certainty (all calculations shown) so many times, it’s embarrassing.

      I don’t understand your inability to adapt to new information and reformulate your views. Clearly you don’t really care about reducing CO2 otherwise I’d think that knowing that these tech doesn’t fix the problem would make you look for other real solutions. So it must be about something else for you, What?

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      • #
        AndyG55

        Not only that, but the HUGE amounts of REAL pollution caused by the manufacture of wind turbines and solar panels, and the harm inflicted in third world countries mining for rare materials, is totally disgusting.

        If any of this is ever held to account by the greenies, I will be amazed…..

        Because they JUST DON’T CARE.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          “Because they JUST DON’T CARE.”

          See, PF is a disgusting anti-environmentalist who couldn’t give a stuff about REAL POLLUTION.

          … so long as its somewhere else.

          Right PF !!!!

          81

        • #
          tom0mason

          AndyG55,

          And how many children’s dreams are destroyed by some of those mining operations.
          How dare these Greenies inflict slavery on these children.
          I’m pretty sure these children in the Congo, DRC, etc., mining minerals to make solar panels and EV batteries are the ones who’ve had their childhood stolen, and are not represented by some white, wealthy, brat Boating Around The World Making UN Speeches.

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      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        1. I don’t care about your motive, but if you reduce carbon emissions then you are my friend
        2. More coal plants are being retired than are being built.

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        • #
          Bill in Oz

          Where ?
          In Oz maybe.
          In most countries of the world NO !
          In China – No
          In India – No !
          In Philippines – No
          etc etc

          Stop blowing B/S propaganda Fitzroy.

          90

        • #
          AndyG55

          Stop your mindless BLATHERING, PF

          You are deliberately TROLLING by posting utter BS

          USA old coal to gas…. because they can.

          So glad you are now supporting Trump’s actions and understand that he is FAR AHEAD of any of the Paris-ites.

          Rest of world CO2 emissions are just going to keep going up and UP and UP.

          And there is absolutely NOTHING you or your fellow AGW galahs can do about it 🙂

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        • #
          AndyG55

          World coal..

          Currently operating: 1,783,292 MW

          Being Build: 232,133 MW

          Planned: 306,651 MW

          Real Data is NOT your friend PF

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          • #
            tom0mason

            AndyG55,

            https://www.eia.gov/beta/international/
            This graphic from EIA shows changes in the consumption of coal worldwide.
            I suggest you Click on ‘Energy Source’ – Coal and change Visualization to ‘Column Chart’

            Run the animation and see how worldwide consumption of coal as an energy source has shot-up since 1992 (no figures for the USSR before then). Global Coal consumption for electricity generation has gone up massively.
            From 2000 to there finish date of 2016 coal has really taken-off! It graphically shows China’s humongous up-take in coal consumption overshadows all others across the globe.
            China alone — ~1.5 billion short tons in 2000, to ~4.25 billion short tons in 2016.

            40

            • #
              tom0mason

              Oops,

              One other change to that graphics screen click on CONSUMPTION at the bottom near the run controls.

              30

        • #
          tom0mason

          Peter Fitzroy,

          Keep repeating it without evidence.
          You demand CREDIBLE evidence from others but provide nothing yourself?
          Just like a lefty, demand everything from others while providing NOTHING yourself.

          Where is your evidence? You have not shown ANY CREDIBLE evidence from a reliable source that deals with this matter of coal fired generation, therefor anyone with sense understands all you’ve written is just lies and propaganda!

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        • #
          Bobl

          1. I don’t care about your motive, but if you reduce carbon emissions then you are my friend

          OK then, maybe the basis of a rational discussion, keep to this thread. Let’s establish some common ground.

          Do you acknowledge that the biosphere loves CO2 and uncontraversially half human CO2 is absorbed to it each year. This means that if CO2 were a bad thing and we just stopped increasing, output the biosphere would expand to reach CO2 equilibrium in under 5 years.

          Do you acknowledge that grid scale solar does not achieve CO2 savings compared with state of the art ultra supercritical HELE coal. Grid scale means, land is scraped of vegetation and maintained that way, concrete/steel support structures are built for the panels, roads and access paths built and maintained, switch rooms, switch yard and interconnects built and maintained, some km of feeder and support structures are built and maintained with SF6 gas (also on maintained clear land, output is taken to be exclusive of the consumption of the operations of the generation company dedicated to operating the solar plant, and CO2 footprint inclusive of the loss of CO2 sinks caused by scraping the land under the array. Also taking into account the fact that the panels must be replaced 3 times over the life of the competing HELE coal plant IE Manufacturing CO2 footprint of panels is multiplied by 3.

          Do you acknowledge that wind power dies not achieve CO2 savings relative to USC HELE coal when taking into account the above listed for grid scale solar, noting that areas under the towers must be detreed but in wind plants can be grassed. This must take into account the fact that the turbines must be replaced 4 times over the life of the competing coal plant. (IE manufacturing CO2 footprint of turbines needs to be multiplied by 4)

          Do you acknowledge that EVs when powered by the current energy mix at a rough delivery thermal efficiency of around 14%, results in more CO2 emissions than an equivalent state of the art turbo diesel car (thermal efficiency around 45%). Especially note in this comparison that the 80% of electricity coming from coal emits 100% CO2 rather than oil, a hydrocarbon with only around 40% of emissions by volume being CO2 because of the oxidation relation

          IE CnH3n + 1.5bO2 -> nCO2 + 1.5n H2O

          Regardless of your dedication to the CO2 = pollution meme, do you acknowledge these engineering realities to be true?

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    • #

      It’s hard for some, saturated in media, to see how carbon “abatement” is part of a war waged by Big Oil/Gas on its main competitors, coal and nukes. As I discussed above, one reason behind the sanctioning of Iran may be the need to keep it out of the market. Despite alliances, Russia may be complicit in this, and is at least happy with it. For the same reason, Turkmenistan’s gas piped west across the Caspian to join with Baku’s oil would form a mini-Iran which Russia would never allow. And Syria knows the price you pay for saying no to pipelines desired by Western policy.

      I don’t see the whole of geo-politics as pipelines, but it’s amazing to listen to people discussing the hot and cold wars of the ME as if they were black hats vs white hats…and then see the War on Coal as a tussle between polluting meanies and boomer-shaming Gretas. What was it that dodgy WA premier said about “getting real”?

      By the way, here is an illustration of where coal goes. You can’t miss it. It’s all lit up for you…https://tinyurl.com/y432kyfo

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      • #
        Greg in NZ

        Gentlemen, gentlemen,
        so much hot air and CO₂ and un-renewable electricity wasted – expended! – over two simple letters: PF.
        Or should that be F P ?

        10

  • #
    pat

    brilliant. Bidens/Ukraine, first half. then the Bidens/China. watch til the very end.

    Youtube: 40min06sec: Fox News: Life, Liberty & Levin 9/29/19 [ Full ]
    Mark Levin with Peter Schweizer, author of “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich” and “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_dQhMUygWs

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    pat

    29 Sept: ConservativeTreehouse: He Continues – Rudy Giuliani Wrecks ABC’s Narrative Engineer George Stephanopoulos…
    by sundance
    Remember, in the deep & factional political weeds George Stephanopoulos is ‘team Cinton’. Team Obama are exposed in the Biden-Ukraine pay-to-play scandal. The aspect that exposes Team Clinton is the FBI false construct of the vast Russian conspiracy with Crowdstrike, DNC server hacking and the Ukraine dirt-digging participation for 2016.
    As a result, Stephanopoulos is more concerned with defending Team Clinton (DNC hack via Crowstrike) than defending Team Obama (Joe Biden selling influence).

    Giuliani knows the factional nuance; and as a result he immediately side-steps the part of the Ukraine narrative that Stephanopoulos is prepared to defend (Clinton). Instead, Giuliani goes to the part of the Ukraine narrative that surrounds Team Obama (via Biden), where Stephanopoulos is less invested. Smart move…
    VIDEO: 14min53sec

    Following these interviews today, Team Biden (aka Team Obama) recognize that Rudy Giuliani has the facts to expose their corruption and begin demanding (LINK DAILY BEAST) that media executives stop allowing Giuliani to tell the truth…
    TWEET: ALX
    BREAKING: The Biden campaign has written a letter to top executives and hosts at major news networks demanding that they stop booking @RudyGiuliani.#QuidProJoe is getting scared!…LINK
    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/09/29/he-continues-rudy-giuliani-wrecks-abcs-narrative-engineer-george-stephanopoulos/

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    daw

    When people talk about the nuclear option they really should be calling it the Thorium Reactor option and dispensing with the word’nuclear’ which instantly acts to repulse many.

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  • #
    pat

    23 Sept: SanJoseMercuryNews: Jerry Brown partners with China to fight climate change
    ‘The world is goofing off, and the number one goof-off is Trump himself,’ Brown says
    by Casey Tolan
    Jerry Brown isn’t finished fighting climate change just yet.
    The former California governor is launching a new partnership with China and UC Berkeley — the California-China Climate Institute — to research new solutions for cutting carbon emissions and averting the disastrous impact of global warming, he announced Monday…

    The Berkeley institute, which is being funded by the Hewlett Foundation and other philanthropic groups, will bring together researchers at Berkeley and Tsinghua University, one of China’s top research institutions in Beijing and the alma mater of Chinese President Xi Jinping. They’ll help develop new climate technologies and policy plans and work closely with government leaders from both sides of the Pacific.
    The unveiling in New York Monday was timed to coincide with this week’s United Nations General Assembly session, and featured Xie Zhenhua, China’s top official on climate change issues…

    “The world is goofing off, and the number one goof-off is Trump himself,” Brown said. “We can certainly fight him in the courts and do our best to get a saner human being in the White House, but in the meantime, California will continue as we have.”…

    The Berkeley institute is expected to work on issues like expanding the use of electric vehicles, implementing a cap-and-trade policy in China, and designing more effective clean electricity grids. One project that researchers could collaborate on, said David Ackerly, the dean of UC Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources, is figuring out how to most effectively spread electric vehicle chargers and get more people to drive EVs at the same time — “a chicken-and-egg problem,” he said.

    The new institute will launch at a pivotal moment for efforts to fight climate change in both China and the U.S. Scientists predict the world has only a few decades or less to avert a catastrophic rise in global temperature that would mean an increase in devastating hurricanes, sea level rise, droughts and wildfires.
    Chinese government officials predict that the country’s emissions could peak in the next few years and then fall as more renewable energy comes online…

    The country’s authoritarian government also makes it easier in some ways to pioneer policy changes to reduce emissions — although, Brown noted, the market still plays a big role.
    “I once asked a high Chinese official who was more powerful, the Chinese Communist Party or the automobile, and he couldn’t answer,” Brown said…
    https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/09/23/jerry-brown-uc-berkeley-china-climate-institute/

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    • #
      pat

      26 Sept: YaleEnvironment360: Why China’s Renewable Energy Transition Is Losing Momentum
      By Michael Standaert; Additional reporting and research assistance was provided by Zhong Yunfan
      Growth of wind and solar in China is slowing as government funding for green energy falters and upgrades to the transmission infrastructure lag…
      Wind and solar facilities must now compete directly at auction with other forms of power generation. China’s green energy sector seems increasingly capable of winning that competition, but solar energy installations are nevertheless expected to drop by about half this year, from a peak of 53 gigawatts in 2017.

      And while curtailing subsidies for wind and solar power, the central government has sharply increased financial support for what it calls “new energy” extraction, which includes fracking of shale gas and separating methane from coal. Those subsidies are an important reason behind China’s rising CO2 emissions…
      “Though China is the largest clean energy market in the world, wind and solar only accounted for 5.2 percent and 2.5 percent of China’s national power generation in 2018,” says Kevin Tu, former China program manager at the International Energy Agency and now a fellow with the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University…

      A major issue, according to Tu and other experts, is the level of “curtailment,” or energy that is generated but not purchased because it cannot be absorbed by the electricity grid…
      Many larger renewable projects are located in remote landlocked provinces like Qinghai, Gansu, and Inner Mongolia. Until more transmission lines are built and government reforms are enacted that better enable power to be transferred to other provinces, far-western “battery provinces” like Qinghai will mainly end up generating power for themselves…

      While several non-subsidized renewable energy projects had been scheduled to start in Guangdong in 2019, few actually seem to be moving forward.
      When I attempted to visit renewable energy projects that were said to be in the works, government offices and companies in the Guangdong cities of Jiangmen, Meizhou, and Zhanjiang declined my requests because the projects hadn’t started.
      https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-chinas-renewable-energy-transition-is-losing-momentum

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        pat

        AUDIO: 14min20sec: 23 Sept: CAP (CapitalPublicRadio): Interview: Former California Gov. Jerry Brown Launches Climate Change Institute With China, UC Berkeley
        by Ben Adler
        “We’re in the face of a demolition derby coming out of the Trump White House, eviscerating every clean air law in sight,” Brown told CapRadio during a telephone interview last week from his ranch previewing Monday’s launch. “So, it’s particularly important that we mobilize an important set of constituencies and raise awareness.”
        The institute, a partnership with Tsinghua University in Beijing, will focus on research and training initiatives, as well as “dialogue” between American researchers, scientists and public officials and their Chinese counterparts…

        China’s top climate change official attended the launch announcement Monday in New York City, which was timed to coincide with the United Nations General Assembly and Climate Week NYC.
        ***Brown was scheduled to join him, but his office said a “personal matter” forced him to remain in California. His successor, Gov. Gavin Newsom, is in New York this week but did not attend the launch…
        Brown’s interview with CapRadio also touched on China’s trustworthiness as a partner, a couple of other California issues…

        BROWN: We need continuing scientific research — how to implement a cap and trade program. China has not done it at the level of California. They got to audit emissions. We can be helpful. We’ve been doing that. We have third party verification of all our audits of carbon emission. And you gotta know what’s coming out of the tailpipe or the factory chimney if we’re gonna reduce it. So I think there’s ways California can help…
        And China has far more money going into new battery technology that will make more electric cars possible, cheaper, go further. And also, we’ll be able to run more cities on wind and sun — because when the wind stops and the sun goes down, we’ll have adequate storage, which we don’t have today. And that takes billions and billions of very careful and productive research…

        CAP: On whether he’s concerned that giving China a foothold at one of America’s most prestigious universities could give it a competitive edge over California and the U.S. as a whole

        BROWN: I’m not prepared to comment on Chinese violation of California law, whether it be intellectual property or cyber rules…READ/LISTEN
        http://www.capradio.org/articles/2019/09/23/interview-former-california-gov-jerry-brown-launches-climate-change-institute-with-china-uc-berkeley/

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          pat

          Berkeley: California-China Climate Institute
          CCCI in the News
          The New York Times: Talking to Jerry Brown About Tackling Climate Change, With Help From China
          TEAM:
          Jerry Brown and
          Fan Dai, Ph.D., Director, California-China Climate Institute
          Dr. Dai has played a significant role leading California’s collaboration with China on climate, energy and environment. She was appointed by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr as Special Advisor on China. Under Brown, Dr. Dai chaired the state’s China Interagency Working Group, and acted as the state’s liaison on its critical economic and environmental initiatives on China. Previously, Dr. Dai served as senior advisor at California Environmental Protection Agency and California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, advising on the state’s international policy and global climate partnership. In 2017, she organized Governor Brown’s trip, which resulted in a successful meeting with President Xi Jinping and the commitment to establish the California-China Climate Institute.
          Dr. Dai is a graduate of Berkeley Law, University of California, and holds a doctoral degree on Environmental Policy and Economics from State University of New York…
          https://ccci.berkeley.edu/about/team

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    Zane

    The UN is trying to mandate a transfer of $100 billion a year from the rich West to the ” developing ” countries to fight climate change. It’s a con pure and simple, but no third world ruler is going to say no to free cash. Let’s hope this nonsense is squashed.

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      She

      The UN wants $100 billion a year from member nations to fight the IPCC climate change based hoax.

      But the UN also wants to raid developed nation’s savings, sovereign wealth funds, etc.

      And, also in their grab bag wish list is levies, like EU members pay to the fat controllers, in lieu of taxes the fat controllers cannot yet levy.

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        She

        And emerging news claims that regardless of Brexit being completed the EU will have taken command of the UK Military forces, as apparently secretly already agreed.

        I recall when Germany (Merkel) and France (Macron) publicly called for an EU Military to replace the defence forces of all EU member countries, in 2018.

        Help!

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          Serp

          I’d like to see your source for the claim about EU controlling the vestigial UK military as I know this plan was on foot but believe it has been superseded by Ursula von der Leyen’s EU Army scheme.

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    pat

    ***posting this because yesterday I posted the Atlantic Council list showing Schiff being in Ukraine late August; seems a staff member went in his place:

    29 Sept: GatewayPundit: EXPLOSIVE REPORT: Rep. Adam Schiff Linked to Prominent Ukrainian Arms Dealer!
    by Joe Hoft Hat tip Kevin O. and Yaacov Apelbaum
    In 2013 Ukrainian Igor Pasternak held two different fund raisers for Schiff asking for contributions between $1,000 and $2,500…
    Pasternak is an arms dealer. He has sold arms in places like Syria…
    Pasternack has also been connected to George Soros…

    Schiff was reportedly scheduled to be in the Ukraine just last month with the Atlantic Counsel.
    ***Adam Schiff’s staffer made the trip…

    This is also the same time that Schiff tweeted that information on the Ukraine –
    TWEET: Paul Sperry
    Wait a minute. Check this out: Schiff tweeted this exact same Trump-Ukraine “collusion” narrative a month ago. Hmm … Exactly how long have Schiffty-Schiff and Dems been working with this “whistleblower”? Smelling more and more like prefabrication LINK…

    The earlier tweet was at the exact same time Schiff was reportedly scheduled to be in the Ukraine…
    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/09/explosive-report-rep-adam-schiff-linked-to-prominent-ukrainian-arms-dealer/

    10 Apr 2017: Breitbart: Rep. Adam Schiff’s Congressional Career Aided by Soros-Financed Groups
    by Aaron Klein
    Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was previously financially aided by the George Soros-financed MoveOn.org to win his Congressional seat.
    Schiff was also awarded the Toll Fellowship, which is sponsored by the Council of State Governments, a nonprofit that monitors federal government activities and is heavily financed by Soros’s Open Society Foundations
    The Open Society and Soros-funded groups have additionally supported a number of Schiff’s legislative efforts…
    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2017/04/10/rep-adam-schiffs-congressional-career-aided-soros-financed-groups/

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    dazza

    Wow how many of you speak rubbish in your comments.
    1-Russia is not a communist country and has not been since the early nineties.
    2-Russia threw out the Bolshevik`s and the criminal Khazarian`s they now infest your west.
    3-Russia is booting out the US dollar and your SWIFT systems because you have and continue to use them as weapons to control dominate and dictate to other countries who you will tolerate in power in said country.
    4-China is also slowly getting rid of the US dollar and with new pipelines and railways between China, Russia and Mongolia, Australia might want to watch its back. Between Russia with the vastest untapped mineral wealth on the Planet and Mongolia they can supply everything you currently supply to China.
    5-Your false Russia gate scandals have driven Russia and China Together so who needs your west, Kissinger warned you to keep these two apart or they would united unravel your anglo-saxon empire….How smart are you lot.
    6-Russia`s economy continues to grow at a good rate running the worlds third largest trade surplus at 50 billion US dollars a Quarter of which 44% is merchandised trade. The rest is agriculture and raw and semi processed ores, minerals and petroleum products. Russia`s vast gold reserves mean it is debt free,,,,, hows your country doing..
    7-Russian industrial production has increased 50% in 17 years just how much has your industrial production collapsed in the same time.
    8-Russia is now the worlds most self sufficient country in the world, pretty much makes a mockery of your western world.
    9-Russia continues to modernise at a fast rate just check its new Airports, seaports new highways, bridges and the list goes on.
    10-Russia has become the largest food producer and exporter in the world no GMs and no round up.
    11-Russia gets 4x the spending power on every dollar spent on its military than in the west.
    12-Russia supplies Europe particularly Germany with the cheapest gas and oil in the world and that would be because it sits next door to Europe and its all about competitiveness when your competing against every body else in the world.
    13-Russians in general will never tolerate a western backed leader because they do not trust you like Iran Syria and Venezuela and they never will.
    14-It has been the US and NATO that have broken all there treaties and agreements with Russia since Gorbahev it is NATO who has been aggressively expanding up to Russia`s borders with your military.
    15-It is the US and its Nato allies that Bombed supplied terrorists and bombed Libya into the mess we have today and then tried to pull the same stunt on Russia`s ally Syria i wonder who the real aggressor is??????……………….
    16-Putin is popular because he stood up to the losers that run your western world and is actually honest to a much greater degree than the trash you elect.
    17-Russia has developed a method of recycling its nuclear waste and reuse it in a nuclear reactor.
    And finally if all you have is Phobias to the Russians based on cold war rubbish then maybe you need some medical help or just maybe your a troll
    And do not bother to call me a Putin Lover they are just the facts.

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    • #
      Dave

      Hey Dazza

      You say at 10:

      :Russia has become the largest food producer and exporter in the world”

      It comes no where near it!
      Exporters of food, Russia not even in the top ten!

      And now Food production?
      No where near it Dazza!
      China, India, USA and Brazil all much bigger than your colourful country!

      I think I may go through your other claims of Greatness!

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      AndyG55

      Ah the Russian propaganda machine has taken resident inside dazza’s tiny little skull !!

      So funny ! 🙂

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      Zane

      Russia is in bad economic shape, and once the China bubble implodes and energy prices tank, as they did in 1997 – 1998 during the Asian financial crisis when oil went from $40 to $10, Putin better be preparing his private jet to do a runner to Dubai.

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    Dave

    Yet some of the Russian Left in Queensland act with a different colour cat?

    The trade mission will be led by Deputy Premier and Treasurer Jackie Trad to promote key resource commodities of coal, LNG and metals.

    I wonder if Jackie has let ABC know she’s promoting coal to China, maybe Russia next?

    China is Queensland’s largest coal customer, it purchased 50.8 million t of coal in 2018 or almost a quarter (23%) of all Queensland’s coal exports in 2018. China is also our largest LNG customer, it purchased 14.2 million t in 2018 or more than two-thirds (68%) of Queensland’s entire LNG production.

    I wonder how Jackie Trads GREEN electorate feels about this?

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    Roy Hogue

    This is off topic but should please a good many readers. In California the movement to recall Governor Gavin Newsom has gone off like a house a fire. It needs more signatures but that can be taken care of by a little hard work.

    Let’s hope it’s the beginning of the long hard road back to sanity.

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    robert rosicka

    Here’s one for Fitz to argue about !
    The ACT is trailing electric buses but so far they have proved unreliable missing over 30% of scheduled runs due to breakdowns etc .
    But of course this means the ACT government love them and want to expand the trial by buying more .
    The company involved even scoff at the suggestion they’re unreliable by doing a Fitz and saying they are reliable .

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-30/electric-buses-struggle-in-canberra-act-government-trial/11560042

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      Peter Fitzroy

      What do Imcare? Your,article,lists,the reasons why the electric alternative is better. Every day in every way there are more renewables, more electric vehicles. History is against you.

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        AndyG55

        “History is against you.”

        Until they find the NSW coal-fired grid can’t power the buses because the erratic intermittent, unreliable nature of renewables has destabilised the grid.

        They can’t even get just TWO electric buses to run on time,

        imagine the mayhem when they have a few more or them. 😉

        History is against you, PF.

        They used to have electric vehicles for delivering milk, y’know.

        There is NO history of electrical transportation buses, so how can history be against us.

        You are on a super-dumb streak today, PF

        Peak renewables… as soon as you remove the subsidies and feed-in mandates. 🙂

        NOBODY wants UNRELIABLE electricity. !!!

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          Annie

          “There is NO history of electrical transportation buses…”

          Umm…I wonder if I imagined all those trolley-buses I used to travel on to school in Reading many moons ago?

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          • #
            Annie

            Of course, we had reasonably reliable electricity and not fairy dust and unicorn stuff in those days…

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              tom0mason

              Annie,

              You must have seen the replacement for the horse drawn milk deliveries — the original EV aka the ‘milk float’. Back in the days when just about everything that could have been recycled/re-purposed/rebuilt was.

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              • #
                Annie

                tom0mason:

                Milk floats, yes, doing the rounds early in the morning and making a characteristic whining noise.
                We had our milk in bottles which we always washed and put out for collection and reuse by the dairy.
                In the winter we had to be quick about bringing the milk in as it froze and expanded and pushed the cap off. In summer we had to bring it in quickly to try to save it from being pecked into by the blue tits; crafty little birds.
                Our coal merchant was still delivering coal by horse-drawn lorry. He kept his horse in a field nearby and I remember once having to drive away some little bully boys who were throwing stones at it; I was only little but very angry!

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                tom0mason

                Yes, same here but I remember the horse drawn milk deliveries! (feeling my age now.)

                But also we has visits from the rag-and-bone men with his horse and cart, as did the ‘tinker’ — A curious old man and boy helper who would fix holes in pots and kettles, sharpen knives and scissors, fix umbrellas, and collect your saved scraps of aluminium foil, wool, and old cloths. The tinker also sold buttons, handmade toys and many other useful household items — vegetable peelers, cheese graters, and wrought iron pokers for keeping your coal fire in good order.
                The best was to look out for the baker’s van! Often he’d give us kids a handful of broken biscuits to munch on.

                Back then neighbours would ask if you wanted anything down the shop before they set-off, knowing that on return a warming cup of tea (sometime something stronger!), a slice of homemade cake, and a good gossip awaited them.

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                AndyG55

                “making a characteristic whining noise.”

                A greenie milk float !!

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            AndyG55

            Not running from batteries.. Overhead pick-up wires.

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              Annie

              Andy:

              Correct! There was the occasional right performance when a pole fell off and we ground to a halt. The conductor had to leap off, fish out a long pole and reconnect the bus to the overhead wires.
              Those trolley buses were quiet; their diesel replacements were noisy and smelly.

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        OriginalSteve

        Nope…the day it replaces diesel….like never…

        The *only* way electric will replace diesel/petrol is if the govt of the days wants to slide knife between the robs of the australian economy ( and people ) and kill off any form of fossil fuel transport and the ecomomy.

        Thats the brief version.

        Oh and we will need like 10-15 large capacity nuclear power stations to charge all the currently puppy dog and rainbow-fuelled electric vehicles.

        Having grown up playing with and tuning high performance vehicles, the concept of being locked down to an autonomous electric “death by boredom” scenario horrifies me. Apart from losing a freedom of movement and having to recharge an electric vehicle at the “benevolent” teat of govt mandated eco-religious zealotry, the idea of running everything electric ( likewise losing the ability to use fossil fuels ) is just plain dumb.

        If there is no *scientifically proven* man made climate change ( as its been proven to be ), so by what measure of anything sane or logical, would we want to kill our economy or lock down freedom of movement? Its like North Korea wrote our energy policy…..well I guess its close….fabians and all…

        Any way, I’ll take the smell of fuel and the musical sound of all 4 carby barrels opening up, as the rear end breaks free and scrambles for traction and we go flying down the race track….

        By all means Fitz, move to north korea to you want…..you may feel more at home.

        Bah.

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        el gordo

        ‘History is against you.’

        You are on the wrong side of history, the renewable industry will fail to develop beyond its present level. In the same way that electric vehicles cannot possibly take away the universal supremacy of the fuel injection engine.

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        robert rosicka

        Your comments Poiter are as expected , never mind the detail it’s green it’s good .

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    Zane

    Once of the funniest incidents in Russia occurred in 2010 when a Dutch chap named Jorrit Faasen got beaten up rather badly by a Moscow banker’s bodyguards during a road rage argument after an accident. What the attackers didn’t realise was that this Dutch guy was the boyfriend of one of Putin’s daughters. Oops… 7 and a half year’s jail plus a $500 million fine for the banker dude and no doubt a good working over by the FSB.

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    DonS

    Hi Jo

    “bring back the commonwealth!” I didn’t know it had gone. They still have heads of government meetings every 2 years or so don’t they?

    I don’t see what good it would do anyway. Let’s look at the sate of commonwealth countries or anglosphere to include the USA. The UK has been governed by the conservative party for almost 10 years and it is mad for action on climate change. Same for Australia, you heard the PM last week say the Queensland bushfires were due to climate change. Same for New Zealand all parties agree on doing stupid things to change the weather. Same for Canada. India agrees on doing things as long as they can be left out. Only the USA has held out and only because of Trump. Once he goes, hopefully in 5 years, the Republicans will swallow the green cool aid and start foaming at the mouth like the rest of us.

    What we need is the emergence of new political parties that are willing to make the fight against the green rubbish. The Brexit party in the UK might be the start. Until people in positions of power understand that the climate scare is not about the environment but is in fact a battle between modern scientific civilisation and irrational medieval green communism will we see the tide turn. That day is still some time off, I think at least 10 years.

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    Geoff Sherrington

    After the Paris meeting, media commentary that I recall failed to mention that Russia did not sign. The impression I recall is that all major countries signed in a show of global solidarity.
    Am I going memory-deficient?
    What really went on? Geoff S

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    PeterS

    There has been a lot of talk here about coal and a climate emergency. The future for our coal exports to around the world is brighter than ever before despite the fake stories from the left. So I don’t understand why anyone here in Australia would want to let our existing coal fired power stations be closed down, no new ones built, stop new coal mining, and only focus on renewables – unless they have an agenda to destroy our nation or they are completely stupid. Either way it’s an extremely dangerous position to hold because the result is still the same; the destruction of our economy. The simple fact of the matter is coal is not going away and the demand for it is on a steady increase for the next decade or so. Hundreds of new coal fired power plants are under construction or planned around the world. So talk about a climate emergency is really just so pointless because diddly-squat is being done to reduce emissions worldwide. Those screaming and carrying on about a climate emergency can continue doing so but nothing will change. All they are doing is exposing their utter stupidity and complete lack of logic and understanding of the facts. I give them some credit. They can make people laugh at a sick joke.

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    dazza

    theres are saying garbage in garbage out.
    Dave, Andy Zane How nasty you get when some one challenges your programming no doubt you hate anything else that is not white or western European The same western elites who sell you the global warming propaganda sell you the same propaganda on Russia China Syria Libya Iran North Korea or any one else that opposes the US dollar system or does not have a Rothschild federal reserve system you think your country owns the Australian Federal Reserve find me the legal document that states it to be. there is none they quietly flogged that out the back door in the 70`s i suppose next you be believing banks actually lend deposits.
    And as for your coal and Iron exports to China keep playing the anglo-saxon empire card and when china gets sick of it they will dump your country like a rock.LOL
    Russia opens very shortly the first direct rail line.A new China-Europe freight train line was launched Tuesday, linking Delingha, northwest China’s Qinghai Province, with Russia. The first train, loaded with chemical containers, will leave China through the Alataw Pass in Xinjiang and pass through Kazakhstan before reaching Barnaul in Russia.Oct 9, 2019.
    The main body of the Chinese part of the first cross-border railway bridge connecting China with Russia has completed. The new route is expected to provide further impetus for economic cooperation between the two countries.
    So you keep believing your soooo indispensable

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