- Inside Climate News scratches its non-venerable head and demands to know “Why Isn’t the IRA More of a Political Winner for Democrats?” It should be, see, because “The landmark climate law is an economic boon but not an electoral one, at least not yet.” Gosh. Any chance the money goes to well-connected people already firmly on the left, and isn’t working for regular folks?
- As G.K. Chesterton once observed, there’s a tendency for mediocrities to live in the future lest their feeble accomplishments be compared with things people actually did in the past. And now a Guardian columnist insists that “I woke up to a call from Vincent van Gogh today. He told me he wants the Just Stop Oil protesters who threw soup on his Sunflowers to be released immediately.” While we realize newspapers run horoscopes, we didn’t know opinion writers were encouraged to do seances. But she goes on to mention that van Gogh was desperately unhappy and mentally ill, which might explain why she thinks he’d fit in with the Just Stop Oil crowd.
- Last week we put forward what we thought was a hypothetical example of Mount Everest changing height to illustrate the difference between identifying trends absent natural fluctuation and in its presence. Only to learn from Reuters that in fact Everest is growing. The cause seems not merely to be the ongoing uplift from the collision of the Indian subcontinent with Eurasia 50 million years ago, but also that the “hostile takeover” of the Arun by the Kosi river a mere 89,000 years ago increased erosion of the greater Everest plateau, speeding up isostatic rebound. If you’re planning to climb it you don’t need to hurry before it vanishes into the sky as it’s only rising some 0.2 to 0.5 mm/year (it’s unclear because as usual it turns out the whole thing is a computer simulation). But you might want to ponder that the Earth is and always has been a hugely dynamic place in which even mountains don’t stay put, so it would be strange to expect rainfall or temperature to do so absent malevolent human folly. Or like the Washington Post you might say “this uplift may have given Everest a slight advantage in a warming world.”
- Attribution science has nothing on attribution politics. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gets very agitated in Canada’s Parliament in response to questions about why his government ignored seven years of warnings about highly questionable forest management practices before a disastrous fire in Jasper, Alberta and winds up hollering “This is a result of climate change, Mr. Speaker, climate change HE… DOESN’T… WANT… TO… FIGHT” while jabbing a sunny finger repeatedly at Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.
- Adoption, that’s the key. No, not adaption. Adoption. Canada’s Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne insists that more of us have to buy electric cars and he has a plan, telling the House of Commons industry committee that: “We need to make sure we have adoption. We’ve seen what is going on in the United States. We are working with provinces but I would agree governments, and I will put governments with an s, still need to work to make sure we have greater adoption.” When asked for details he stammered: “We need to work on adoption. I think that’s what your point is. We need to make sure we have adoption. We have seen what is going on in the United States.” And if you’re still not convinced, he can say those words in yet another order. They still won’t mean anything, though.
- Periodically we get appeals from news outlets such as one from Reuters stressing how “We don’t do opinions, we don’t try to tell you how to think or what to make for dinner. We want you to make up your own mind.” Unfortunately we also get pieces such as one from NBC saying stuff like “Supreme Court declines to block Biden rules on planet-warming methane and toxic mercury emissions… The Supreme Court on Friday left in place Biden administration regulations aimed at curbing oil and gas facility emissions of methane, a major contributor to climate change.” We don’t mind people having opinions, including media outlets. But when they don’t know they have them, we wonder what else they don’t know, and realize it’s a deep pit.
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09 Oct 2024 | News Roundup
History has shown Canadians consistently adopting US systems. $7.2B, 8 Charging stations. Champagne will probably adopt that system.
I still do not understand the @Inflation Reduction Act”. How does $1 TRILLION of extra spending reduce inflation? Especially when it is largely financed by debt money.