Alaska’s Throwback Winter – a one-off or an omen of a change?

Alaska’s Throwback Winter

Joseph S. D’Aleo, CCM

Last summer when Alaska reached 90F, many claimed it unprecedented. The record for Alaska actually was 100F at Fort Yukon June 27, 1915, near the summer solstice. A big turn around took place this winter. I haven’t heard much about it.

Fairbank’s average 2019/20 daytime high was -2.1F, while the daytime low -20F, average daily mean was -11F!

The coldest was -43F while the warmest was 31F December 9. 33 days were at or below -30F, 5 were at or below -40F.

The winter averaged 4.7F below normal, the coldest (3^rd) since before the Great Pacific Climate Shift (a shift of the so called Pacific Decadal Oscillation to positive) in the late 1970s when warmer Pacific waters favored warmth in Alaska and western North America.

See how the world’s oceans in the year of the lowest sunspot action in at least a century cooled (here I used change in the anomalies to remove seasonal changes).

Note NOAA estimated the PDO in January as -1.17, characteristic of the colder periods 1950s to 1970s. We had a few periods in the late 90s and early 2000s where it teased us with negative PDOs, which flattened the warming curves (the pause).

See how the polar high atmosphere (vertical cross section of temperature anomalies 60-90N) cooled dramatically after late December and remains that way at the end of meteorological winter. Temperatures there are record cold for so late.

Models suggest that continues at record low levels. Here is a two week forecast (50mb).

The cold arctic favors what we call a zonal flow that drives milder Pacific air inland into North America and from Atlantic into Eurasia.

We lost a big chunk of winter in the lower 48 despite a cold start in November and very early December as the Madden Julian Oscillation shifted into warmer regions with the demise of the positive IOD in the Indian Ocean (that led to record crops in India and drought in Australia.) When it weakened and it started looking in the models the cold would return, the high arctic cold that danced for weeks with a warm pool settled into the western arctic. That meant a positive AO and NAO (and EPO) states that favor zonal flow into the land-masses from the oceans.

The cold pool will break down and it may or may not do it in a way that brings surprises. March is often fickle and anything can happen as the sun begins operating on the land and atmosphere. When the cold pool and three wave pinwheel begins to break down we would have the best chance of one or late surprises. The first hint was on the Saturday GFS with a fickle finger of cold into the U.S. Regardless,

As is often the case at this time range, the model backed off the next run.

At this point we all are saying ‘I’ll believe it when i am out shovelling.”

Most in the lower 48 are saying ‘what winter?, Alaskans are saying “What a winter!”.

 

Heightening the Contradictions

By J.R. Dunn

Much conservative writing about communism being published today amounts to little more than nostalgia reading. It seems that every year we see yet another of the endless line of books dealing with either the Red Era in Hollywood or the glories of Joe McCarthy. The purpose of these appears to be to generate feeling of comfort on looking back at an era in which men were men, commies were commies, and J. Edgar… Well, we’ll overlook what he was doing.

The problem is that this stuff, pleasant though it may be, tends to push out work that deals with aspects of communist theory and practice that have an actual impact on the current situation. Too few conservatives are adequately informed about these matters. Not many could define the Iron Law of Wages, surplus value, or, in particular, “heightening the contradictions.”

Heightening the contradictions… that sounds pretty harmless. But in fact, it is the most important element of Marxist thinking as applies to things as they are in the opening decades of the third millennium. Heightening, or enhancing, or exploiting the contradictions is the concept used to push every last political and social program of the modern Left.

How often does the Left come up with ideas that, on the face of it, appear absurd, irrational, or utterly insane? The answer, is, of course, all the time. The general response is bewilderment or incomprehension – a shrug and an assertion that “those lefties are crazy.”

But in truth, they’re no such thing. There’s nothing irrational about it. It’s all part of the program.

The concept comes directly out of Marx. Capitalism, according to Marx, is filled with contradictions, all of which guarantee its eventual failure. One example is the belief that capitalists, seeking every greater profits, will increase the “immiseration” of the working class, which will in turn encourage “revolutionary consciousness,” leading to the downfall of the capitalist system. This leads to the idea of “heightening he contradictions” – encouraging matters so as to bring about the emergence of the glorious worker’s paradise even sooner. This involves activities – both propaganda and direct action – that increase anxiety and dissatisfaction among the workers while generating isolation, fear, and doubt in the targeted classes.

This concept has been dealt with in detail by numerous Marxists, including Lenin, Mao, and Rosa Luxemburg, to mention just a few. Following the master, communist-era Marxists largely confined the concept to economic matters. Expanding it to the social sphere was an American contribution. Appealing to American workers on an economic basis was hopeless – they were the best-paid laboring class in the world, largely content with things as they were. But there were other apparent schisms in the American social structure that might be open to exploitation.

• Drugs – Widespread drug use became politicized in the late 1960s. It wasn’t just a matter of waving your freak flag high – it was also a means of putting it to the Man. Drugs, whether pot, acid, heroin, what have you, immediately turned America’s youth into an oppressed minority. Arrests of drug users created cynicism and bitterness. The Hard Left valorized users and addicts. Heroin use became endemic in the 1970s, leading to increased crime and destroying entire neighborhoods, particularly in the inner cities. Not a single policy created to “control” drugs accomplished anything other than increasing drug use and further damaging society. But that was the point.
• Race – The American racial problem was essentially solved in the mid-60s. But the Left, sensing a dramatic opportunity, leapt in, raising marginal racial crackpots such as Huey Newton, Stokely Carmichael, and H. Rap Brown to the status of racial spokesmen, deliberately antagonizing working-class whites through bussing and legal block-busting, and constructing elaborate theoretical (Black Liberation Theory), and legal (affirmative action) systems designed to institutionalize  racial hostility.
• Abortion – The two decisions (Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton) written by the incompetent Harry Blackmun were so incoherent that they could tolerate virtually any interpretation whatsoever. The left took advantage of them to attack religious belief, increase tensions between the sexes, and degrade the very definitions of life and personhood.
• Immigration – in 1967, a perfectly worthwhile and well-managed system of overseeing Mexican migrant labor (the Bracero program) was eliminated by liberal bureaucrats. Desperate workers began sneaking across the border to find work, often remaining rather than returning and risking another cross-border passage. Leftists seized on the resulting illegal “community” as an oppressed proletariat deserving protection along with privileges largely denied the native-born.
• LGBTHX1138 – During the 60s, homosexuals, understandably tired of persecution and second-class citizenship, began agitating for a new social status. This unfortunately became melded with leftism, resulting in the “gay” concept, which can be defined as homosexuality plus new leftism. This pitted gays, lesbians and those associated with them such as cross-dressers as a sexual proletariat against the straight majority. As with blacks and immigrants, the gays constituted a “new proletariat” that could be exploited to undermine the status quo.

The list is effectively endless. To go from general to particular, consider the Obama/Holder “Fast and Furious” program. In this puzzling scheme, powerful firearms were deliberately sold to border drug cartels on the promise that they would be “tracked,” even though there was no means of doing so. But puzzlement vanishes once we apply the “contradictions” paradigm. Clearly, the intent was to increase border violence, inflict terror on the public, and utilize that to curtail Second Amendment rights.

The same is true of any other “senseless” or “irrational” leftist program. None of them, whether they involve introducing transsexualism to schools or placing jihadis in Congress, occurred by accident. They were meant to happen exactly the way they did, to heighten the contradictions.

How has conservatism responded? It hasn’t. In fact, there’s no sign that conservatives, mired in the Cold War interpretation of communism, have any idea that the concept exists. The contradictions tactic is next to universal and ever-present in any leftist effort or scheme, but far from having workable countermeasures, traditional American conservatives have been utterly oblivious.

Open any conservative magazine, access any website, go through the archives of any conservative think tank, and you will find myriads of articles, blogs, and papers dealing with the issues mentioned above. All of them contain precise, carefully researched information, well-crafted arguments, all bulge with quotes from Tocqueville, Chesterton, and Russell Kirk. All of it is excellent of its kind, and all of it is utterly useless.  Because that’s not where the battle is being fought. The Left isn’t interested in rational arguments, but in bringing the temple down.

What’s the solution? The answer is simplicity itself — argue the strategy. Instead of constructing lapidary responses, start out by stating bluntly and straightforwardly that this isn’t about transsexuals, or immigrants, or race, or whatever. What it’s about, first and foremost, is a method of attacking this country and its people, an effort to make an end run around the rules without admitting they’re doing any such thing. The record is clear that the Left doesn’t actually give a damn about blacks, or women, or anybody else. The record is clear that the left is not interested in solutions. Once that is made evident, the battle will be half won. You will immediately throw leftists on the defensive, forcing them into a position of having to prove their bona fides – which they will not be able to do. It will also open up the debate to past efforts of a similar type. The ball will be in their court, and they will fumble it, as they always do.

Chances are that there will be no necessity for fancy, filigreed arguments – with leftists on the defensive, it will never reach that point.

Conservatives have been neglecting an effective weapon. It’s time to start heightening their contradictions.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/02/heightening_the_contradictions.html#ixzz6DrxnGBDu

Is The United States Economy “Working” For Everyone?

February 12, 2020/ Francis Menton

At his various speeches and rallies, President Trump likes to tout a particular list of recent indicators of a strong U.S. economy — relatively robust growth, very low unemployment (including for women, African Americans, and other minorities), and a booming stock market. Meanwhile, the recurring theme of his Democratic rivals is that the economy is somehow not “working” for average Americans. Here are some examples of Democratic candidates expressing that theme:

• Bernie Sanders, from February 5, 2019: “Despite what President Trump says, it is not “a hot economy” when 43% of households can’t afford to pay for housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone without going into debt. That is not a hot economy.”

• Elizabeth Warren, from July 19, 2018: “There was a time when saying, ‘Hey the unemployment rate has gone down,’ that [was] a great thing. But you know, when people are working at minimum-wage jobs that won’t support them or they’re working two, three, or four jobs to try to pay the rent and keep food on the table, then simply saying ‘The unemployment rate figures have gone down’ just doesn’t get you there.”

• Pete Buttigieg, from his current website: “In America today, it is harder and harder not only to get ahead, but also to hold on to what we’ve got. The stock market may be up, but millions of Americans see their paychecks stay flat even as the costs of health care, housing, and college are rising. For too many workers, one job is not enough. Working and middle class families simply can’t keep up.”

All of those three, as well as the other six or so remaining in the race, propose massive increases in government spending and programs supposedly as the way to make the economy “work” better for the average family.

Without minimizing any of the statistics cited by the President, there is an even more revealing place to look to get a true idea of the overall success of the American economy, including success for those toward the lower end of the income distribution. That place is the statistics for per capita GDP and income. The statistics on those subjects show the extent to which the U.S. economy greatly outperforms all of its competitors on the world stage.

In making these comparisons, note first that the United States has a large and very diverse population that includes every ethnic group in the world, and very large numbers of immigrants, many of them recent and unskilled. Among the countries of the world, the U.S. ranks third in population, after only China and India. Our 330 million or so people include close to 40 million legal immigrants, and another 10 or more million illegal. The comparison of U.S. economic performance to that of the other large-population countries is truly dramatic (IMF figures for 2019):

• China: population 1.4 billion, per capita GDP $10,098

• India: population 1.3 billion, per capita GDP $2,171

• United States, population 330 million, per capita GDP $65,111

• Indonesia: population 270 million, per capita GDP $4,163

• Pakistan: population 216 million, per capita GDP $1,388

• Brazil: population 207 million, per capita GDP $8,796

• Nigeria: population 200 million, per capita GDP $2,222

• Bangladesh: population 163 million, per capita GDP $1,905

All of those outside the U.S. suffer from unjustifiably large government role in the economy and lack of personal freedom for the citizens. The results are there for all to see. China is the best of the bunch, with per capita GDP less than one-sixth ours. Most of China’s wealth is concentrated in the gleaming new coastal cities, while out in the hinterlands hundreds of millions continue to live in abject poverty. How has 70 years of socialism worked out for them? Meanwhile, as China increasingly cracks down on freedom of expression and even slight political deviation, it remains to be seen whether it can continue the rapid economic growth of the past couple of decades.

Democratic candidates like Sanders and Warren like to ignore any comparison with the countries above that are the U.S.’s real competitors, and instead focus on a few tiny, ethnically uniform countries in Europe, like Sweden and Denmark, that are not really “socialist,” but have more extensive social welfare programs than we have. Remarkably, despite their small size and uniformity, they still can’t match the U.S. for economic performance:

• Sweden, population 10.1 million, per capita GDP $51,241

• Denmark, population 5.8 million, per capita GDP $59,795

As the European countries get bigger and more diverse, with their high social spending model, the degree to which they lag the U.S. widens:

• Germany, population 83.7 million, per capita GDP $46,563

• France, population 65.2 million, per capita GDP $41,760

• UK, population 67.9 million, per capita GDP $41,030

None of these European countries bears anything near the military burden carried by the U.S. All of them suffer from very high youth unemployment that is a hallmark of overly generous social welfare schemes. (Youth unemployment rates for December 2019: United States 8.1%; Sweden 19.7%; Denmark 10.3%; France 18.8%; UK 11.2%.) And the social spending makes the assimilation of immigrants particularly difficult. From the Mises Institute, August 20, 2018, “The Swedish Welfare State Leads to Poor Immigrant Assimilation”:

At the moment, Sweden is experiencing trouble in assimilating its immigrant population. Recent reports reveal a rising number of violent crimes in immigrant suburbs. Although Sweden’s overall crime rates are low, the country is experiencing increasing levels of gang violence and shootings, and the emergence of immigrant ghettoes. . . . Sweden’s vaunted welfare state could be the very culprit behind the recent wave of immigrant unrest. Since the publication of Nina Sanandaji’s Scandinavian Unexceptionalism, a growing number of intellectuals have started to remove the magical aura of the Scandinavian welfare model. . . . Sanandaji argues that the welfare state has impaired immigrants when it comes to integrating into, and contributing to, the Swedish economy.

And finally, there is the ridiculous idea that vast and wasteful new government spending programs like the “Green New Deal” are somehow going to “create jobs” and improve economic performance. If you think that, you must not be following the latest economic developments from Germany, as it accelerates its authoritarian push to “decarbonize” its economy. From NoTricksZone, February 11: “Germany’s Green New Deal Begins To Deliver: ‘Horrible Numbers,’ A ‘Disaster.’”

Germany’s onslaught on its famed automotive and production industries appears to be taking an economic toll as the country pushes ahead to go green by phasing out internal combustion engines and coal power plants. Recently we reported how electricity prices are again slated to increase this year, and thus will continue to make German power among the most expensive worldwide. A wave of green activism has led to tighter regulations against the internal combustion engines and to a planned phase-out of coal-fired power plants. . . . “Experts spoke of ‘horrible numbers’, a ‘disaster’ [for year-end 2019 numbers]. Industry, construction, and energy providers produced a full 3.5 percent less in December than in the previous month,” the Handelsblatt reports. . . . The German auto sector has been hard hit. . . . Late last year Daimler, owner of Mercedes Benz, announced plans “to ax at least 10,000 jobs,” Volkswagen’s Audi said “it would slash up to 9,500 jobs or one in ten staff by 2025 and car suppliers Continental and Osram announced staff and cost cuts.”

As far as I can tell, all of the Democratic candidates support the policies that have gotten Germany to this point.

Why The Green New Deal Would Destroy The Environment

• ENVIRONMENTALISM

The Green New Deal is anything but ‘clean’ or ‘green.’ Even the relatively modest numbers of solar and wind installations in the United States today are causing serious environmental damage.

By Paul Driessen

FEBRUARY 12, 2020

A few minutes of serious thought from self-described environmentalists would prompt a realization that if the Green New Deal, a program championed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, were implemented, it would create an environmental disaster.

In recent decades, policymakers have forced public utilities to generate increasingly more electricity from fashionable “renewable energy” sources, especially wind and solar, and pushed automakers to manufacture more electric vehicles. Their chief goal is to eliminate reliable, affordable, generally clean fossil fuels, including natural gas, even though they generate most of America’s electricity and power most U.S. transportation.

Environmentalists claim to worry that carbon dioxide from these fuels will cause devastating global warming. Many would also eliminate nuclear power, which they say is inherently unsafe.

As I argue in a new Heartland Institute policy study, however, environmentalists have paid too little attention to the serious harm Green New Deal policies would inflict on the environment — including scenic lands, wildlife habitats, and threatened and endangered species. Implementing the Green New Deal would undermine the very values environmentalists have espoused for decades.

America faces a dilemma. Will it focus on real environmental problems that do measurable harm to human and ecological wellbeing, or will it mandate policies to head off climate disasters that are based on warming predictions have been repeatedly proven wrong by real-world empirical observations? Will it recognize that harnessing intermittent, weather-dependent wind and solar energy requires enormous amounts of raw materials and mining, resulting in massive land-use impacts and human rights abuses, and is anything but clean, green, renewable, and sustainable? Or will it ignore all this?

The Green New Deal Would Inflict Countless Costs

Before formulating your own opinion, consider just some of the damage the Green New Deal would inflict.

Solar farms generate only 1.5 percent of the nation’s electricity and would be an inefficient way to generate the more than 8 billion megawatt-hours of power that fossil fuels and nuclear provide each year to meet industrial, commercial, residential, and automotive transportation needs and charge backup-power batteries. Using cutting-edge Nellis Air Force Base solar panels to generate that electricity would require completely blanketing 57,000 square miles of land — equivalent to the land area of New York and Vermont — with 19 billion photovoltaic solar panels. Because billions would be placed in less-sunny places, the area required would certainly be higher still. The effects on habitats and wildlife would be incalculable.

Onshore wind turbines are no better. Indiana’s Fowler Ridge Wind Farm covers 68 square miles, an area larger than Washington, D.C. Using similar facilities to replace all our country’s fossil fuel and nuclear power would require more than 2 million turbines on more than 500,000 square miles of farm, wildlife habitat, and scenic lands. That’s equivalent to the combined acreage of Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and one-quarter of Washington state. Consider also that many of the huge number of turbines needed to meet Green New Deal requirements would have to be placed in lower-quality, less-windy sites, which would certainly drive the amount of required land and raw materials even higher.

Environmental groups have long expressed concern that onshore wind turbines kill bats and birds. In fact, the 56,000 turbines we now have could already be slaughtering millions every year, including many protected and endangered species. Remember that these birds and bats eat insects, which, when left alive, can ravage crops and harm humans. The millions of turbines required by the Green New Deal could even threaten the existence of some species.

Renewable energy proponents tout offshore wind turbines as superior to those on land because ocean winds blow more steadily. Yet because of opposition from environmental groups, only one relatively small offshore facility is operating today off Rhode Island’s coastline.

Turbines ruin scenic views, kill countless birds and bats, and harm marine mammals, which is why environmentalists — and even the late leftist icon Sen. Ted Kennedy — have long opposed the planned Vineyard Wind facility off the Massachusetts coast. To provide enough power for the country, Green New Deal advocates would have to build hundreds of thousands of truly gigantic offshore turbines.

Environmentalists Should Shun This Policy

Green New Deal-mandated solar and wind facilities would need to be located further from populated urban areas than natural gas, coal, and nuclear facilities, meaning a major expansion of high-voltage transmission lines. But as recent wildfires in California show, power lines can cause major environmental damage if brush, trees, and grass are not cleared regularly. Environmental groups have opposed new power lines, and consistently oppose clearing vegetation, calling it “unnatural” or “harmful to wildlife,” thereby making deadly, habitat-destroying fires more probable.

Solar panels require many toxic materials, and wind turbines require enormous amounts of steel, concrete, copper, and rare earth elements. Storing a week’s worth of power for periods when the sun is not shining or the wind isn’t blowing would require some 2 billion half-ton Tesla car battery packs. Meeting these needs would require a massive expansion of mining for lithium, cobalt, and other substances in the United States or in Asia, Africa, and South America. Operations in the latter countries involve extensive child labor, create environmental disasters, and even lead to premature death.

What’s more, disposing of obsolescent solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries is already causing problems in the United States and in countries such as Germany. Green New Deal advocates ignore this problem, which would multiply substantially under their plan.

The Green New Deal is anything but “clean” or “green.” Even the relatively modest numbers of solar and wind installations in the United States today are causing serious environmental damage. Multiplying these facilities to meet Green New Deal goals would result in unimaginable environmental devastation and reverse decades of environmental progress. Environmentalists worthy of the name need to oppose the Green New Deal.

 

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and author of numerous books and articles on energy, climate, environmental, and human rights issues.

Deceptive rhetoric at Davos could bring disaster

The theme at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos was “Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World.” For a gathering of global movers and shakers, who want to improve the world “by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas,” it was a deceptive and depressing thesis. It reflects how too many of these “leaders” succumb all to easily to pressure from hard-green environmentalists.

The “stakeholders” those leaders listen to never seem to represent blue collar workers or the world’s poorest citizens. The “solutions” they propose will lead to division and rebellion, not to cohesion. And the energy alternatives they offer to fossil fuels are anything but sustainable, renewable or eco-friendly.

I hope you enjoy my Davos discussion. Thank you for posting it, quoting from it, and forwarding it to your friends and colleagues.

Best regards,

Paul

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Deceptive rhetoric at Davos could bring disaster

By Paul Driessen

There is nothing ‘cohesive’ or ‘sustainable’ about ‘solutions’ demanded by WEF ‘stakeholders’

The World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland is billed as the globe’s most prestigious annual gathering of movers and shakers. Its mission is to “improve the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.”

This year’s theme was “Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World.” Unfortunately, the lofty rhetoric belies the misleading, potentially disastrous realities of agendas supported by many participants.

A primary basis for this year’s theme is the repeated assertion that the world faces a climate cataclysm. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen thus wants to tax carbon-based energy imports into the EU and end humanity’s practice of “taking resources from the environment and generating waste and pollution in the process.” She (and others) insist that “green energy” would do no such thing.

Climate crisis claims in turn are based on computer models that are only as good as the assumptions built into them – and on attempts to blame temperature changes, extreme weather events and future crises on fossil fuel emissions, because the assumptions and models say it’s a cause-effect relationship.

The most cited model is (naturally) the most extreme: RCP8.5, which predicts temperatures way above what we are actually measuring and all manner of future calamities. But it is based on the assumptions that: methane and plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide (a tiny 0.0402% of Earth’s atmosphere) are vastly more important than the sun in driving climate change; our planet will have 12 billion people by 2100; there will be no energy innovations over the next 80 years; and therefore coal use will increase tenfold by the end of the century. On that we’re supposed to base restrictive energy policies, and Davos meeting themes.

Who are the stakeholders that Davos attendees will consult? Greta Thunberg was invited, to present her patented tirade that fossil fuels are destroying her future. But no climate realists (alarmism skeptics) were given the podium, nor were representatives of EU or US factory workers or the world’s poorest citizens.

The good news is that several bankers made assurances that they were not going to stop lending funds to fossil fuel companies or “major polluters.” (Will that latter category include the mining companies that will have to provide voluminous raw materials for a US and global “green new deal,” as discussed below?) The bad news is that Davos bankers and politicians allow themselves to be pressured constantly primarily by far-left “stakeholders,” who hold the stakes that they and global ruling elites want to drive through the hearts of developed nation living standards and poor country aspirations for better lives.

Indeed, contrary to its assurances at Davos, despite consultation with indigenous peoples supposedly being a core company business principle, and without consulting with Alaska Native stakeholders who want to drill carefully and ecologically for oil and gas on their own lands, to improve their people’s living standards, Goldman Sachs has decided it will no longer fund such development in the Arctic.

With “mainstream” outlets and social media increasingly controlling news and opinion, and siding with climate alarmists and anti-fossil activists, that pressure will continue to build – to our great detriment.

Will Davos themes, agendas and policies usher in a more “cohesive” world? The opposite is infinitely more likely. Deprive people of abundant, reliable, affordable fossil fuel (and nuclear) energy, as eco-activists seek to do – and you deprive them of jobs, living standards, food, health and life. People die in droves (itself a goal of more rabid environmentalists panicked about an over-populated world). Implement “green new deal” policies, and the results will be anything but cohesion. The policies will bring rage, protests, violence and anarchy – as France and Chile vividly demonstrated over the past two years.

Turn African, Asian and Latin American countries into vassal states, with enormous mines serving “ecologically responsible, climate-focused” nations that don’t tolerate mining within their own borders – and any cohesion will rapidly disappear. Tell American, European and other families they must accept massive wind and solar installations in their backyards or off their coasts, and the results will be similar.

A “sustainable” world? Yes, fossil fuels are ultimately finite resources – hundreds of years from now, after we run out of huge coal deposits, oil and gas from fracking, methane hydrates and other supplies, assuming policy makers don’t lock them up and “keep them in the ground.” But long before that happens, human innovation will create far better alternatives than wind turbines, if we let creativity flourish.

Meanwhile, just remember: Wind and sunshine are sustainable. But lands and raw materials required for the technologies to harness this intermittent, widely disbursed energy absolutely are not.

Sustainability is a useful concept for assessing hidden costs, risks and fiduciary responsibilities – such as those associated with climate change, as we are constantly reminded. But we must apply those same considerations to wind, solar, battery and biofuel operations; and to impacts on habitats and wildlife, air and water quality, human health and wellbeing in green new deal mining and manufacturing regions, and human welfare in an energy-deprived world of increasing hunger, death, anger, riots and chaos.

As my new Heartland Institute reports and previous articles note, fossil fuels and nuclear currently provide over 8 billion megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity and electricity-equivalent power annually, to meet America’s industrial, commercial, residential and transportation needs. Using solar to generate all that power – and charge batteries for a week of sunless days – would require 19 billion state-of-the-art sun-tracking photovoltaic panels, completely blanketing an area equal to all of New York and Vermont.

But that assumes the panels are all located where the sun shines with summertime Arizona intensity 24/7/365, which will never happen. So we’d probably have to double (perhaps even triple) the number of panels and affected acreage. The impacts on habitats and wildlife would be significant.

Using 1.8-MW wind turbines instead of solar panels would require more than 4 million turbines on farm, wildlife habitat and scenic lands equal to Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon and part of Washington State combined. But the more we install, the more we have to put turbines in poor wind locations. We’d probably have to double (or even triple) the number of turbines, and acreage impacted. Their rapidly turning blades (200 mph at their tips) would slaughter millions of eagles, falcons, other birds and bats.

Going offshore instead would require hundreds of thousands of 650-foot-tall 10-MW turbines. Their impact on birds, bats, marine mammals, vistas, and ship and aircraft navigation would be intolerable.

Each 1.8-MW turbine requires some 1,200 tons of steel, copper, aluminum, rare earth elements, zinc, molybdenum, petroleum-based composites, reinforced concrete and other materials. Each ton of materials requires removing thousands of tons of rock and ore – and processing ores with fossil fuels. In fact, wind turbines need some 200 times more material per megawatt than a modern combined-cycle gas turbine!

Storing a week of electricity for windless and sunless periods would require some 2 billion half-ton Tesla car lithium-cobalt battery packs – and more materials; more mining. Connecting wind, solar and battery facilities to distant cities would require thousands of miles of new transmission lines, and more mining.

This doesn’t include materials to replace existing cars, trucks, heating systems and other technologies.

And that’s just for the United States. Imagine how many turbines, panels, batteries, transmission lines, raw materials, mines, processing plants and factories we’d need for a global transformation!

But green new deal advocates detest mining, at least by western mining companies in western countries. So it’s mostly done in faraway places that have virtually no environmental, health, safety, wage or child labor rules. Places like Inner Mongolia, where rare earth operations have fouled the air, created a huge toxic lake, and poisoned thousands of people. And Africa’s Congo, where 40,000 children labor in mines just for the cobalt needed in today’s cell phones, laptops and electric cars; not for any green new deal.

This eco-imperialism and false sustainability must end. As to all those self-styled stakeholders, You first. Lead by example. Slash your energy use and living standards. Then you can (nicely) ask the rest of us to do likewise. That means you, Greta, Leo DiCaprio, Al Gore, Emma Thompson and all the other climate scolds. (But of course they won’t. So why should we? And why should the world’s poor?)

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on environment, climate and human rights issues.

More Government Spending Does Not Buy Results In Education Or Poverty Reduction

February 03, 2020/ Francis Menton

Here in New York, we love to feel good about ourselves for our compassion for the less well off. Yes, we pay higher taxes than they do in other places, but for that we get a much higher level of social services to lift up the poor and the downtrodden. Or at least, that’s the narrative.

I first covered this subject back in the very early days of this blog, on November 13, 2012, in a post titled “Why New York City Is A High Tax Jurisdiction.” That post pointed out that in fact the differential in public spending (and therefore taxes) between New York City and other jurisdictions could be found almost entirely in three things, none of which provided any measurable improvements in life quality to the poor and the downtrodden. The three areas were (1) overspending on public pensions, brought about by early retirement ages that enable New York City workers to have 25 to 40 years of post-retirement leisure at taxpayer expense, (2) overspending on K-12 education, brought about by paying about double the number of workers as other jurisdictions use to do the same work, and (3) overspending on Medicaid, brought about by adding every possible bell and whistle to the program without improving health outcomes in any measurable way.

For example, I had this to say about New York City spending on K-12 education:

According to census bureau figures cited here, New York City school spending was about $19,000 per student in 2009.  That’s about double the nationwide average of $10,615 per student cited here for 2010.  What do we get for double the cost per student?  Worse test scores than the national average. . . .   With over a million school children, the extra $8000 per student is an $8 billion budget item.

Somehow, in seven plus intervening years, almost no one seems to be paying attention to how New York just throws money away to achieve worse results than those achieved elsewhere for half the money. But over the weekend, the New York Post made an exception, publishing an op-ed by a guy named Ryan Fazio titled “NY and CA spend billions more in taxes than TX and FL — and get worse results.” Fazio updates many of the statistics that I had collected for the 2012 post.

Let’s focus on spending for K-12 education and for anti-poverty programs. Fazio provides the following chart of K-12 education spending and results for four states: New York, California, Texas and Florida:

 

New York’s spending is wildly out of line even compared to California. Meanwhile, the test results are barely distinguishable from state to state. (These results are from what is called the National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP, sometimes called “the nation’s report card.”) Indeed, lowest-spending Florida beat New York, if only slightly, in three of four categories — 4th grade math, 8th grade reading, and 8th grade math — while spending far less than half the amount per student. Meanwhile, low spending Florida actually is a national leader in test results for minority students:

Minority students in Florida, meanwhile, tested among the highest in the nation across the board, with black students overall scoring 240 out of 500 on a simple average of the four tests (compared to 234 nationally) and Hispanic students scoring 250 (compared to 240 nationally). . . . In New York, minority students scored just above or around the national average (236 for blacks, 237 for Hispanics). . . .

In the anti-poverty department, Fazio has the following annual spending figures for the four states for 2017: New York approximately $21,000 per poor person (PPP), California $19,000 PPP, Florida $9,000 PPP, and Texas $8,000 PPP. Fazio then says that “The official poverty rate, which measures only market income, remains slightly higher in absolute terms in Texas and Florida than New York and California.” But, given the vast spending differential, the comparison looks hugely unfavorable for New York compared to Florida:

• Here is the Census Bureau “Quick Facts” page for New York State, which gives the most recent (2018) official “poverty rate” as 13.6%.

• Here is the comparable Census Bureau “Quick Facts” page for Florida. The “poverty rate” is stated to be 13.6%, which is exactly the same as for New York.

• How about for New York City? Here is the 2019 Report from the Mayor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, bragging that the City’s “poverty rate” had fallen to 19% for 2017. Not much to be proud of there!

In short, we spend vastly more, and get exactly nothing to show for it.

To get an inside look at the official New York mentality, check out this piece from the Daily News for January 24, headline “Teachers unions protest state education funding shortfalls at NYC schools.” The subject is the big push being promoted by the New York teachers’ union to counter what they call the “shortfall” in state funding of New York City schools:

The city and state teachers unions visited two city schools Friday morning to highlight what they called chronic holes in school budgets resulting from annual shortfalls in state education spending. . . . This year’s initial budget proposal was no different, with New York falling more than a billion short of what the state’s Board of Regents called for, despite a suggested increase of more than $800 million from last year’s total. But union officials said the yearly funding squeeze has left schools like I.S. 81 in the Bronx unable to fund important initiatives like small-group instruction. “We hear every year that there is a budget gap, but the state can’t close it on the backs of the New York City’s middle-class families and students through more underfunding of our education system,” said Andy Pallotta, the president of the state teachers union. “Fully funding our students’ futures can’t wait any longer.”

With New York’s wild over-spending on K-12 education, how could they possibly be protesting “shortfalls”? Got me. The Daily News piece contains no mention whatsoever that other states spend on average less than half of what New York City spends on K-12 education, nor that Florida spends well less than half and actually achieves superior results both overall and for minority students. Really, it’s best that New Yorkers be left ignorant about such issues.