Surprise: Warmists Sue To Block Nevada Geothermal Plants

By William Teach January 1, 2022 – 3:00 pm

Warmists are super excited about “clean, green energy” right up to the point it moves from theory to practice

Lawsuit seeks to block 2 geothermal power plants in Nevada

Conservationists and tribal leaders are suing the U.S. government to try to block construction of two geothermal plants in northern Nevada’s high desert that they say will destroy a sacred hot springs and could push a rare toad to the brink of extinction.

The lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe says the project would turn a “pristine and unique location of ecological value and spiritual significance” into an industrial site.

It’s the latest public lands conflict pitting green energy production against potential harm to wildlife habitat or cultural resources in the biggest U.S. gold producing state, where legal challenges traditionally target things like hard-rock mining.

Environmentalists nationally have rallied around President Joe Biden’s ambitious renewable energy agenda, which embraces solar, wind and geothermal production.

Wait, what was that part about being an “industrial site”? Anyhow, did anyone consider the impact of building it there, where it would mess with hot springs sacred to Indians and the toads? Why are most of these things built far, far away from where Warmists can see them? How about we build them right there in the big cities?

The Biden administration approved the project last month even though the center’s petition to list the toad as a U.S. endangered species is still pending before the Fish and Wildlife Service. (snip)

“We strongly support renewable energy when it’s in the right place, but a project like this that threatens sacred sites and endangered species is definitely the wrong place,” Patrick Donnelly, the center’s Nevada state director, said about the geothermal plants.

It rarely ever seems to be “the right place” in practice.

Tribal Chairperson Cathi Tuni said the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone’s ancestors have lived in the Dixie Valley region for thousands of years and long recognized the hot springs as “a sacred place of healing and reflection.”

“The United States has repeatedly promised to honor and protect Indigenous sacred sites, but then the BLM approved a major construction project nearly on top of our most sacred hot springs. It just feels like more empty words,” she said.

Way to turn on the Indians, Brandon!

Read: Surprise: Warmists Sue To Block Nevada Geothermal Plants »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming, Joe Biden | 7 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach January 1, 2022 – 1:00 pm

…is a perfect field, far from the big cities so you don’t have to see it, for a solar or wind farm, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Not A Lot Of People Know That, with a post on using children to sue governments over ‘climate change.’

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

Democrats Think Not Giving Free Money For Student Debt Could Hurt Their Midterms

By William Teach January 1, 2022 – 10:30 am

Such is the state of Democratic Party politics, where they have to give oodles of money away in order to get people to go to the ballot box

Progressives warn inaction on student debt could hurt Democrats in midterms

While the Biden administration has once again extended the pause on student loan repayments, some progressives have said that unless more is done, it could cost Democrats in the midterms in 2022.

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is sounding the alarm over potentially losing voters and subsequent races if the campaign promise of canceling student loan debt goes unfulfilled by the Biden-Harris administration.

Before the pause was extended, several prominent Democrats voiced their concerns about payments starting again and how it could cost them the midterms.

Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., tweeted, that “forcing millions to start paying student loans again” will cost Democrats the midterms.

Perhaps they shouldn’t have been promising to cancel the debt of people who legally signed for it, knowing that it had to be repaid, particularly when so many used the money to get worthless degrees. No one is worrying about those with home loans, auto loans, or other loans. Why is it necessary to take care of those who signed to take the student loans as adults? Just because they are demanding it? If it causes Democrats problems in the midterms, that’s the fault of the Dem elites, who should have been telling those people “you took it, you pay for it. Stop ordering food delivery every day. Reduce your expenses.”

The total amount of student loan debt in the U.S. currently stands at $1.75 trillion.

The average student debt right now is $37,693. In 2020 dollars, debt in 2001 was $24,680. Perhaps Democrats should be looking at ways to lower the cost of college, which has skyrocketed due to Democratic policies at Democratic Party run colleges.

Natalia Abrams, president of the Student Debt Crisis Center, a nonprofit focused on ending the student debt crisis, told ABC News that “Democrats and lawmakers need to be careful because this is something the public has said they want.”

“If you can afford to pause student loan payments over and over again, you can afford to cancel it,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson tweeted after President Joe Biden announced his administration would extend the federal pause on student loan repayment for the third time in December.

What’s that old saying about people voting themselves money and the end of the Republic?

Vice President Kamala Harris responded to Ocasio-Cortez’s comment in a recent interview with CBS News, saying that Secretary of Education Cardona is looking into what the Biden administration can do to alleviate the pressure that borrowers are enduring from student loan debt. However, Harris also acknowledged the impact student debt is having on individuals across the country.

“Graduates and former students across our country are literally making decisions about whether they can have a family, whether they can buy a home,” she said.

That’s life for everyone, not just people who have student loans debt with a degree in Feminine Studies who can only get a job at a coffee house.

Back in July, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a press conference that President Biden does not have the legal authority to use executive action to cancel federal student loan debt.

“People think that the president of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness; he does not,” said Pelosi. “He can postpone, he can delay, but he does not have that power, that has to be an act of Congress.”

Remember that.

Read: Democrats Think Not Giving Free Money For Student Debt Could Hurt Their Midterms »

Posted in Democrats | 22 Comments | Trackback URL

Climate Cultist Make 2022 Predictions

By William Teach January 1, 2022 – 7:00 am

Well, in lieu of post my yearly challenge to Warmists to make climate predictions, lets see what Andrew Pershing, the director of Climate Science at Climate Central, has to say

Six climate trends may shape 2022 across the US

We’re about to wrap up 2021, another year of climate extremes across the U.S. It’s tempting to look back at the big stories: record cold in Texas, record heat in the Northwest, record rains from Hurricane Ida and December’s heat and deadly weather. But thinking about my climate work over the last year, I was struck by how much of it is about trends. I see six trends that can impact virtually all of us next year.

The first is the big one: carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We all hoped that maybe the economic slowdown from the COVID-19 pandemic would blunt the rise of carbon dioxide that drives global warming and makes extreme weather more likely. Nope.

Yet, there have warmer periods during the Holocene with much lower CO2 concentrations. Weird

The second trend follows the first: rising temperatures. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA in the U.S. and the UK Met Office will soon release their final calculations of global mean temperature. The year 2021 will likely be the sixth warmest on record. We are currently in a La Nina — a weather pattern triggered by unusually cool water in the equatorial Pacific. La Nina is like having the global air conditioner set on max — it tends to depress global temperatures. But it’s expected to fade in the coming months, so 2022 has a good shot at being warmer than 2021.

So, if nature can have such a big impact, why can in not also drive warming?

With or without La Nina, we can expect to see parts of the country struggle with deadly heat this summer. Something as weird as the 2021 Northwest heatwave may be unlikely, but the climbing global temperatures ratchet up the probability of dangerously high temperatures in the U.S. and around the world.

And, what if these don’t happen? Heat waves are entirely normal, but, what if there are few this summer? What will the climate cult say then?

The biggest trend, though, is the chance of storms rapidly intensifying into major hurricanes. In many ways, Ida was the perfect example of how climate change affects hurricanes. It was a fairly ordinary storm until it passed over the unusually hot waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Then, it exploded into a Category 4 hurricane and crashed into Louisiana — but caused heavy rains and flooding as far north as New York. Even if the number of named storms fluctuates year-to-year, each storm that forms now has a greater chance of growing into a monster like Ida.

That’s a lot of vacillating, eh? It could happen but it might not happen this year but maybe another year we just want to scare you.

Ida points to the fourth big climate trend to watch: more extremes in precipitation. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor. This means that when it rains, there is a greater chance that it will pour. Events like the flash flooding in West Virginia and the catastrophic rains from Ida are becoming more common. Extremes in precipitation also apply to snow. Even though the number of days when it’s cold enough to snow is decreasing across much of the country, the same moist atmosphere that can bring us big rain events can also produce big snow events.

Floods are normal. And here you have him blaming big snow events on warming. But, what if the floods do not happen? In reality, you should expect some, because floods are 100% normal.

Fifth is drought in the Southwest, which is also rather normal. What if it flips to wetter? Will they also blame that on ‘climate change’?

The final trend to watch is the total cost of all of these climate-influenced events. The human costs of extreme heat, fires, floods and high winds are brutal. But there are also direct economic costs — money that we have to pay to rebuild communities and money that we lose due to droughts and disruption. In dollars, final tallies from these events often reach the billions. And their frequency — and costs — are growing every year: the U. S. now experiences a billion-dollar disaster every 22 days.

Actually, they aren’t growing in trend, we can just track them better. But, it’s a cult, so, no matter what the weather does, they’ll blame you.

Read: Climate Cultist Make 2022 Predictions »

Posted in Climate Cult, Global Warming | 29 Comments | Trackback URL

Say, About Those Brandon Home COVID Tests: They’ll Take About Three Years

By William Teach January 1, 2022 – 6:45 am

Obviously, there are already home tests, but, here’s how Team Brandon does it

From the link

Biden Brain SlugThe Biden administration has signed a $137 million contract with a pharmaceutical company for the purpose of building a factory for COVID-19 test strip materials, a White House official confirmed to FOX Business on Wednesday.

But the new facility will not start churning out the materials for three years, according to the company. If the timeline is correct, the deal will not alleviate the administration’s scramble to make more tests available in the near future amid a lack of supply for Americans. The administration is under fire for reportedly rejecting a deal in October that would have strongly ramped up the supply of COVID tests.

But the new facility will not start churning out the materials for three years, according to the company. If the timeline is correct, the deal will not alleviate the administration’s scramble to make more tests available in the near future amid a lack of supply for Americans. The administration is under fire for reportedly rejecting a deal in October that would have strongly ramped up the supply of COVID tests.

The three-year timeline also signals that the administration expects the need for tens of millions of such tests per month into 2024 or 2025 and beyond.

Reuters first reported that the White House inked the agreement with MilliporeSigma, a subsidiary of German firm Merck KGaA, not be confused with U.S. company Merck & Co.

“The money will allow the company over three years to build a new facility to produce nitrocellulose membranes, the paper that displays test results, in Sheboygan, Wisconsin,” the outlet reported. “That, in turn, will allow for 85 million more tests to be produced per month, the official said.”

The whole idea was to make home tests readily available quickly. Trump (and other world leaders) was able to get vaccines available in less than a year (OK, they act more like 6 month flu shots, same as other nations were able to do), and Biden can’t get large amounts of test strips going for three years.

But, hey, there’s a problem with all this home testing, too

(NY Times) Millions of rapid at-home COVID tests are flying off pharmacy shelves across the country, giving Americans an instant, if sometimes imperfect, read on whether they are infected with the coronavirus.

But the results are rarely reported to public health departments, exacerbating the long-standing challenges of maintaining an accurate count of cases at a time when the number of infections is surging because of the omicron variant.

At the minimum, the widespread availability of at-home tests is wreaking havoc with the accuracy of official positivity rates and case counts. At the other extreme, it is one factor making some public health experts raise a question that once would have been unthinkable: Do counts of coronavirus cases serve a useful purpose, and if not, should they be continued?

Whoops! Makes it rather hard to track how many positive tests there have been. How is there any tracking and tracing? Sadly, that is something that really was necessary early on, but, you can understand the resistance, but, it could have eliminated a lot of the spread.

Read: Say, About Those Brandon Home COVID Tests: They’ll Take About Three Years »

Posted in Bat Soup Virus, Joe Biden | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Climate Doom Today: Feral Hogs, Drastic CO2 Cuts Worthless, Radioactive Wildfires

By William Teach December 31, 2021 – 3:00 pm

Oh, this is some great stuff. First I found this cult beauty

Feral hog invasions leave coastal marshes less resilient to climate change

Coastal marshes that have been invaded by feral hogs recover from natural disasters up to three times slower, and are significantly less resilient to climate change, according to a recent study from Duke University and the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Feral hogs invade marshes to eat ribbed mussels, a shellfish species that plays a vital role in the resiliency of marshes by creating healthy areas for marsh plants to live.

“[Saltmarshes are] really considered the Superman of marine ecosystems in that they are incredibly resilient,” said Brian Silliman, a professor of marine conservation biology at Duke and study co-author. “The key to this superpower are the [ribbed] mussels. So the hogs are acting like the Kryptonite here because they’re taking away that superpower.”

Silliman’s research suggests that marshes disturbed by hogs can take an extra 80 to 100 years to recover when hit by a natural disaster, like a drought. There’s also a possibility that disturbed marshes may never recover from disasters.

See, in Warmist World, the Earth is a static system that never, ever changes. Their belief in Darwinism has taken a big hit as the climate cult becomes stronger and spreads.

Even Drastic CO2 Cuts Won’t Bring Back The Climate We’ve Lost

We’re so far down the road of climate change, that even making drastic cuts to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels won’t be enough for the world’s weather systems to fall back into their previous patterns, according to a new study.

But the research also suggests we still can have a huge impact on how severe that change will be.

Through a series of advanced climate model simulations, researchers looked at the effect of ramping up CO2 levels to 1,468 ppm – four times their current level – over the course of the next 140 years, then bringing them all the way back down to where they are today across another 140 years.

First, climate models. Garbage cult beliefs in, garbage cult beliefs out. Second, why was it warmer in previous Holocene warm periods than today with much lower CO2 concentrations? Third, could this be the beginning of the cult saying that reducing CO2 doesn’t matter, and we need to do X?

But, this might top them all, perfect for a year end (you can also read it here, no paywall)

Are radioactive wildfires next on California’s apocalyptic climate-change guest list?

After what we experienced in 2021, there’s no doubt that California’s wildfires are increasing in frequency and intensity as climate change alters the ecosystem. The state’s forests are burning at an alarming rate, creating environmental catastrophes and endangering lives. (snip)

And there is another potential hazard that has largely been neglected in forest fire smoke – radiation.

In April 2020, the forest around the disaster site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine ignited into wildfire. More than 115,000 acres burned in 10 days, and the smoke, along with the radiation, traveled 1,000 miles to countries as far as Norway. (snip)

While the risk that California could be similarly affected may be small, the possibility of climate change changing our world in 2022 and beyond adds another kink.

After learning about the Chernobyl fires this summer, I became curious about the possible effects of radiation from forest fires on our populations. As part of my internship at DoseNet, a UC Berkeley science initiative for high school students, I began an investigation using data from the program’s global network of radiation sensors.

Read: Climate Doom Today: Feral Hogs, Drastic CO2 Cuts Worthless, Radioactive Wildfires »

Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming | 13 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach December 31, 2021 – 1:00 pm

…is a calm sea because carbon pollution is shutting down ocean circulation, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is A View From The Beach, with a post on the possibility of Greater Idaho.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Apparently, Florida Is So Bad That AOC Is There On Vacation

By William Teach December 31, 2021 – 10:30 am

AOC, like so many Democrats, has slammed Florida during COVID, complaining about the lack of masking and so much more. Whining at Gov DeSantis and the GOP led general assembly. So, of course

AOC in Miami Beach for ‘taste of freedom’ as New York sees record number of COVID cases: report

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appeared to get an early start on New Year’s weekend Thursday, according to a report.

The New York Democrat was seen, maskless and drink in hand, as she dined outside in Miami Beach, Florida, the National Review reported. The congresswoman and a companion were spotted at Doraku Sushi and Izakaya, the report said.

The sighting quickly drew snarky reactions on social media.

“You’re being played by @AOC dummies,” one writer claimed, referring to the Democrat’s supporters.

“Hey @AOC tell me you endorse @RonDeSantisFL without telling me you endorse @RonDeSantisFL,” another commenter wrote, referring to Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been known for coronavirus policies that contrast from many of those in Democrat-run states.

And

She’s escaping the record number of cases in NYC, and a huge surge in D.C., by going to a nice, open, Red state. Doesn’t look like she’s masking up, eh? It’s like when COVID hit and the big city liberals blew out of town for better pastures, spreading it around. Photo from National Review.

Meanwhile

(Reuters) – COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations are “comparatively” low as the highly infectious Omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said on Wednesday as cases in the United States reached a record high.

“In a few short weeks Omicron has rapidly increased across the country, and we expect will continue to circulate in the coming weeks. While cases have substantially increased from last week, hospitalizations and deaths remain comparatively low right now,” she said, referring to overall cases.

I wonder how many other Democrats will be seen in Red states?

Read: Apparently, Florida Is So Bad That AOC Is There On Vacation »

Posted in Bat Soup Virus, Democrats | 17 Comments | Trackback URL

Oops: GM Electric Vehicle Batteries Keep Exploding

By William Teach December 31, 2021 – 7:00 am

Just what you need with the really expensive car you didn’t want to buy but were forced into, eh?

GM heralded this plant as a model for its electric car future. Then its batteries started exploding.

Electric vehicleBefore General Motors recalled the entire fleet of its most popular electric car because of fire dangers, before her factory was stilled, assembly line worker Carol McConkey stood in the middle of a teeming factory floor and marveled at how seamlessly the Chevrolet Bolt is manufactured.

The nine-year GM employee ducked under a car frame on an orange vehicle carrier, swung a mechanical arm out and drove five bolts into a nearly 1,000-pound battery pack with roughly the footprint of a bathtub.

Little did she know that soon, the same section of the car she works on would garner worldwide attention for another reason: exploding lithium-ion batteries. She and hundreds of other workers were sent home to wait out an extended assembly line closure.

The crisis involving the Chevrolet Bolt was a painful reminder for the auto industry that despite treating the electric vehicle era as essentially inevitable – a technical fait accompli – significant obstacles to manufacturing the cars, and especially their batteries, continue to threaten that future.

Why is it essentially inevitable? Consumers aren’t clamoring for them. There’s not big demand. Demand for hybrids is up a bit, because they make economic sense, being not much more than the standard versions. And they sure don’t want the batteries to explode while driving the super expensive EVs.

It’s the kind of disruption GM can ill afford as it aims to scale up its production of electric vehicles to 1 million units per year by 2025. The company wants to have a global lineup of 30 EVs by that year. And it plans to shift production away from gasoline-powered cars entirely in the next decade and a half.

Are they expecting to actually sell one million? GM sold 7.72 million in 2019, which was about half a million down from 2019, and that was down about 1.3 million from 2017. EVs being one seventh of their yearly sales is ludicrous.

Today, electric cars – plug-in hybrids, battery-powered vehicles and hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles – make up less than 5% of U.S. new vehicle sales. But policymakers and automakers hope that by 2030, EVs will make up at least 40% of U.S. new car sales. That would be a critical development in the nation’s strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Funny that most of the same policy makers aren’t driving them themselves. What they’re doing is being authoritarian in trying to force citizens to comply with their climate cult demands.

Anyhow, it is a long, long piece on how bad things are for GM. Maybe they and the others should consider what the consumers want, not a bunch of fascist lawmakers.

Read: Oops: GM Electric Vehicle Batteries Keep Exploding »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 8 Comments | Trackback URL

Bummer: Omicron Puts A Damper On Brandon’s Vaccine Mandates

By William Teach December 31, 2021 – 6:45 am

It’s still a really good idea to get the vaccine. And, if it’s been 6 months since you had your last one, get a booster. Because, really, the vaccines aren’t like the vaccines which keep your from getting a disease. You get the smallpox vaccine, you will not get smallpox. You won’t carry it, you won’t transmit it. The COVID vaccines are more like flu shots: they can hopefully reduce the chance you get it, and, if you do, it will be light. I already know of multiple people in the workplace who have it in the past few days

(CNN) An unprecedented spike in Covid-19 cases fueled by the fast-moving Omicron variant is crushing hospitals across the United States, with doctors describing packed emergency rooms as health experts implore New Year’s Eve revelers to keep parties small and outdoors to help avert an even worse surge.

“It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen, even at the peak of the prior surges of Covid,” Dr. James Phillips, who works in Washington, DC, said Wednesday, when the nation hit a new pandemic high of 300,886 average new daily cases over the prior week, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Remember when Biden said he he’d shut down the virus, not the country? Interestingly, the national media is focusing on Florida breaking infection records. But, I can only find one lonely local story about New York shattering records. And surging heavily in California. Weren’t we told those states were the models? Also, Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. Poor Brandon

Omicron puts pinch on Biden vaccine mandate efforts

The rapidly spreading omicron variant poses a problem for the White House as officials try to convince a skeptical public that vaccine mandates are necessary.

Opponents of mandates are seizing on early evidence that shows vaccines are not as effective at stopping transmission of the new strain, which they say undermines the administration’s key arguments for championing them.

This week, airlines were forced to cancel thousands of flights as COVID-19 swept through its flight crews and other employees. (snip)

Administration officials have cast vaccine mandates for health workers, and mandate-or-test requirements for large employers, as essential tools to get more people vaccinated.

While vaccines don’t necessarily keep someone from getting COVID-19, they greatly reduce the chances of hospitalization or death. If the mandates result in more people getting vaccinated, it could also reduce stress on the nation’s healthcare system if waves of people do get infected.

Well, true. But, they don’t seem to be stopping it from hitting the vaccinated.

Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health at Georgetown University, said there’s been too much fatalistic messaging from the administration. If people are under the impression that they’re going to get COVID-19 no matter what, that will make selling mandates much more politically difficult, he said.

Gostin acknowledged that vaccines don’t totally prevent transmission of the omicron variant, but he said that doesn’t reduce the ethical justification for requiring somebody to be vaccinated.

“But I still think vaccine mandates are warranted,” he said. “If you can do something for somebody that is safe and keeps them healthy, when they otherwise might get very sick or die, that’s a good thing. And it’s also justified by the fact that we need to preserve health system capacities.”

Again, I’d agree if it was like so many vaccines, where you don’t get it. Period. It is more like the flu shots. How many people get them and still get the flu? Raising my hand. But, the flu does tend to be lighter. I’d say position it like the flu shots, but, people blow those off, too. People are going to have to really get a booster like every 6 months. And we need to learn to live with it. And if people want to not get it, that’s on them. I don’t want to hear them complain. But, what most news outlets are refusing to publish

(Deseret News) The omicron variant is “not the same disease” compared to previous COVID-19 strains, according to John Bell, a professor of medicine at the University of Oxford.

Bell, the U.K. government’s life sciences adviser, told BBC Radio 4 Tuesday that the omicron variant has led to fewer hospitalizations and severe disease so far, which shows the vaccines are still working, according to Bloomberg.

“The incidence of severe disease and death from this disease (Covid-19) has basically not changed since we all got vaccinated and that’s really important to remember,” he told the BBC.

“The horrific scenes that we saw a year ago — intensive care units being full, lots of people dying prematurely — that is now history in my view and I think we should be reassured that that’s likely to continue.” (snip)

This aligns with some early data and research suggested that the omicron COVID-19 variant leads to less severe symptoms and hospitalizations, as I wrote for the Deseret News. So far, data from South Africa has shown fewer hospitalizations tied to the variant, even though it has shown the power to evade COVID-19 vaccines and antibodies.

Yes, the major media is still trying to scare The People by not telling us this. And it barely helps Biden’s case by requiring vaccination.

Read: Bummer: Omicron Puts A Damper On Brandon’s Vaccine Mandates »

Posted in Bat Soup Virus, Joe Biden | 2 Comments | Trackback URL
Pirate's Cove