Tidbits

- - One odd side-effect of the “climate crisis” is that news stories keep warning us how hot it is, including in Canada in fall, while our telephones bring us frost warnings.
- From the “experts who say” file, we get from AFP “Rein in social media, not children, say over 130 groups, experts”. And if you’re wondering what it has to do with climate, beyond the non-trivial point that “experts say” in a media headline or story means “left-wingers say”, it turns out that one of the “experts” here is the “Center for Countering Digital Hate” which, amazingly, lists second among their “Impact Stories” that “We exposed the shift to New Climate Denial/ In January 2024, our groundbreaking AI-powered research ‘The New Climate Denial’ showed that climate deniers are changing tactics on YouTube: instead of spreading outright denial, they’re now undermining the climate movement, science and solutions.” So forget antisemitism or segregation. Climate “denial” is the new hate… according to the experts who say.
- Others from that tribe make us fear for the Canadian energy industry. According to CTV “U.S.-Venezuela oil deal ‘years’ away from having impact on Alberta: energy experts”. Oh dear. Ironically an actual expert quoted in the story, Heather Exner-Pirot of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said “Canadian oil always has to be competitive. We can’t rest on our laurels”. But the featured expert said we can rest, the competition’s over the horizon and the world’s keen for our oil.
- More green economics: the New York Times “Climate Forward” tells us “A California law coming into force could change fashion”. And given how ugly and pretentious much fashion is, we’re ready to cheer. Except the yarn they’re spinning is that “California is trying to become the first state to make fashion brands, manufacturers and retailers pick up the tab for textile waste” instead of letting people throw their trash in the trash. And apparently if so companies and consumers will just happily swallow the cost instead of, what’s that alternative again, taking their business elsewhere. Oh, and there’s more: “In theory, the new law will also encourage brands to produce more durable and sustainable clothes from the start, because fees will be lower for clothes designed to be easily repaired and for clothes made from recycled materials.” In theory. Since whenever government tells business how to operate, the results aren’t even slightly patchy.
- We are told by The Economist “The Climate Issue” (August 28 no online post of course) that we shall soon be forced to endure climate idiocy without the consolation of our morning joe. See, coffee trees “are especially pernickety about the weather. As the world heats up, there are likely to be fewer beans to brew. Arabica, the finer tasting of the two coffee species cultivated at scale, flourishes only in a narrow climatic niche. Go above an annual mean temperature of 23°C and the fruits will ripen too quickly for complex flavours to develop; go below 18°C and the trees will be stunted and the pickings slim.” Bosh. Coffee is a hot-country crop (hint: “Arabica”) so in the unlikely event that any part of that passage is true, we’ll start growing it in France or something. Though arguably it’s just journalists, activists and politicians who are especially persnickety about the weather.
- Then from the “hint-of-sanity file” an item from August, when Inside Climate News emailed us that “I’m Anika Jane Beamer and I cover climate and agriculture in Iowa, where hogs outnumber humans eight to one. Iowa’s hogs release about 110 billion pounds of manure every year… But where, exactly? And how much? It turns out, no one knew, since the state had no workable way to track it.” Which is a bit gross and also somewhat worrying. So it’s a real environmental problem, right? And it has NOTHING… TO… DO… WITH… CLIMATE. The word does not appear in the email except, of course, in the name of the outfit. So are they now Formerly Inside Hog and Now Who Knows Where News? But hold the sarcasm especially as the thing was a fundraising appeal. Suggesting that environmentalists are going to start worrying about the environment instead of just being carbon crazies.
- According to the Washington Times, “Global warming will mean 2.5 million fewer elderly deaths over the next 50 years”. So is it bad or good? Not sure, since it says “Global warming will lead to more older adults visiting emergency rooms, but fewer of them will die and overall emergency room spending should drop, according to new research by the Congressional Budget Office.... Warm climates, where deaths usually spike during cold snaps, will experience fewer of those days, CBO said.” As projected by whom? (Apparently SSP2-4.5 is involved, so it could have been worse, but we had to dig to find out.) And why more ER visits? But if the usual suspects were willing to engage with the question whether, since cold kills more people than heat, a warmer planet would ceteris paribus see fewer untimely deaths, and run it through their models, we’d be having a better conversation than we can when they refuse to admit it’s true or refuse to discuss its implications. (And if news organizations of any sort would make a habit of including links to documents they discuss and thus must have seen.)

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