Tidbits

Speaking of the economics of climate, Parker Gallant notes that on two windy days in early November the hyperactive IWTs (Industrial Wind Turbines) cranked out a huge mass of excess power the stupid government bought for $135 per megawatt/hour, then turned around and dumped in neighbouring Quebec, Michigan and New York for roughly $40.50 per MHh (not to mention smaller amounts of solar and BESS surplus at $440 and $672.32 per MHh) thus fleecing citizens for something like $20 million in just two days. How’s it “cheaper”?
From the “but you said” file, the Canadian government, in the form of “Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada”, declares that “Canada’s short growing season limits our ability to produce enough fruits and vegetables to meet year-round demand.” Ah, so if it got warmer we’d have better agriculture? Ods fish no. Instead “Government of Canada invests $750 million in domestic year-round food production to improve access to fruits and vegetables” so we can alter the atmosphere to try to keep nature hostile, grow food artificially (“supports producers in adopting, expanding, and modernizing CEA infrastructure and technologies, including automation, robotics, lighting, and digital growing tools”) and call it environmentalism. While calling spending that will never bring a penny back to the state “investment”.
It turns out the appearance of “heat storms” (and indeed “Super Typhoons”) did not spell the end of the atmospheric-river panic. Heatmap emailed on Oct. 29 that “: A Pineapple Express – the powerful atmospheric river that hits the West Coast, not the marijuana strain – could pummel the Southwest with heavy rain on Halloween”. And did it, in fact, rain hard, bringing relief from drought? No. It brought climate disaster. As always.
OK, not as always. Phys.org blurts out “As ancient oceans warmed, carbon export and fish productivity surged”. We didn’t know anyone was exporting carbon before the invention of carbon credits, and this episode was long ago, during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum or PETM nearly 56 million years ago. But apparently warmth and CO2 are good for life, aka “sustained warming can stimulate open-ocean biomass growth as well as carry carbon taken up by marine plants and algae into the deeper ocean.” Of course it’s still bad, and “the most likely culprit was the North Atlantic Igneous Province (NAIP)” since the PETM must have been caused by greenhouse gases or the theory collapses, and warming is bad so “culprit”. Also “The PETM is considered perhaps the best analog to today’s global warming” because it was totally different. Including that now warming kills fish because um uh…
The Canadian government, which aims to fix the weather while supercharging the economy, rearranging the geopolitical chessboard, and otherwise being utterly splendid, seems to have faceplanted in that “A report prepared by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development on behalf of the Auditor General of Canada concludes that federal organizations did not make progress in effectively implementing selected measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” So the feds can’t even hit their own internal emissions targets, but they can fix yours and your life. Uh, except for the bit where the latter isn’t happening either.
A whole new reason you should shut up and obey orders is provided by the Guardian: “World must reject climate culture wars or face economic ruin, says UN’s Stiell”. Now there’s a lot wrong with that headline and the accompanying story, including the idea that failing to implement costly climate policy will somehow ruin the economy and the tiresome appearance of Friederike Otto, not flagged as part of WWA. But the thing that caught our eye, and stuck in our craw, was “climate culture wars”, as if it were like putting on a MAGA hat to doubt Stiell’s economic babble. He’s right into the omnicause: “To be soft on climate action is to be soft on inflation, and the cost of living, soft on sovereignty and security, and soft on economic growth and jobs. The fossil fuel crisis is also pushing up the costs of government borrowing, meaning less fiscal space to deliver vital services that populations need and expect.” But what has doubting that plant food ruins the weather to do with, say, disliking postmodern films, foul language, or men in women’s changerooms? Indeed, what does “Climate is sometimes seen as a partisan issue, as territory in the culture wars” even mean? Other than you’re a dumbo yokel and I’m cosmopolitan and wise?
Seaweed ate my Caribbean! Canada’s state broadcaster declares, and MSN parrots, that “This seaweed invasion is so big you can see it from space/ A massive seaweed invasion is burying beaches across the Caribbean. It’s called sargassum, and scientists are tracking it from space. So why is there suddenly so much of it? We look at what’s fuelling these enormous blooms, how climate change is playing a role, and the surprising way scientists are turning this problem into fuel.” Also the way alarmists are. The real story being warmth helps promote plant growth (though fertilizer runoff is also involved) and then you can burn it for fuel. But in the wacky world of climate alarmism, all news is bad news. Even news that’s actually old news.
In an attempt to bring light and joy into the bleak landscape of climate alarmism, we note that a National Geographic newsletter actually brings the kind of stuff worth reading. Particularly a story “Do Gorillas Laugh? Grieve? Could They Fight a Hippopotamus?” The last being an especially great question because gorillas are even stronger than they look while hippos look silly but are so dangerous crocodiles fear them. Plot spoiler: their expert gives the banal response that a gorilla would probably win on land and a hippo in the water. But still a great question. And what a relief after endless dreary “Could Humans Fight a CO2 Molecule?”
The Canadian government apparently believing the Treasury is a bottomless pit, or that taxpayers’ pockets are, may be well over a trillion in debt but it still found room to spend $100 million to see if it’s windy in the ocean off Nova Scotia. What’s especially odd is that they’re doing it after announcing, as we ridiculed two weeks ago, that “Canada’s east coast has some of the strongest winds in the world, and developing that natural advantage presents a transformative economic opportunity for Nova Scotia, Atlantic Canada, and our entire nation” whereas actually Nova Scotia isn’t in the top 10 windy places on anyone’s list. But if we know it from sitting at our desk Googling, why do they have to spend $100 million? Oh right. Because they’re the government and last year promised us an “austerity and investment budget”. So as Parker Gallant points out, the plan here is that the $100 million will leverage the catalytic transformation of our economy to the tune of $40 billion in investment. Oh, and the gummint spending $20 billion for transmission lines to carry the alleged power to somewhere it’s allegedly needed. So a bargain at just $100 million. Peanuts.

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