The Real Story Is Not ‘Climate Change’, But Climate Speed Or Something

By William Teach May 21, 2020 – 7:17 am

Well, this is a new Talking Point, which builds on the whole “climate change is here, now! Yearrrrrrrggggg (Howard Dean style scream)”

RISING WATERS
Forget about climate change. The real story is climate speed.

A two-hour cloudburst drenched Charleston on Wednesday, turning downtown streets into swirling rivers. Nearly 5 inches fell over the city’s hospitals, turning the medical district into an island. Five inches fell on Johns Island, turning parking lots into lakes. It was a mess. And it’s not normal.

Set aside the notion of climate change. The climate has always changed. The real story is about speed. The pace of change. From rain bombs to higher sea levels, the impacts are coming faster. This is as real as Wednesday’s storm. And the one four weeks ago. And so many others in the past five years.

In the coming months, The Post and Courier will explore these accelerating forces and their many ripple effects. We’ll explore the underlying science and responses by our elected leaders. We’ll look at the winners and losers. We’ll examine potential course corrections.

And we’ll do this in real time, as the king tides rise, the hurricanes gain strength, amid the thunder and lightning. Why? Because a breaking news story only skims the surface of what’s really happening. Deeper currents can remain hidden amid the immediate need to stay dry or move your belongings to higher ground.

In other words, they’ll assign witchcraft, er, anthropogenic causation, to ever storm and tide. Especially in Charleston, where the Post and Courier is located, which is only a few inches above sea level, but is now flooding more than ever. Couldn’t have anything to do with all that construction, could it?

And given what scientists have learned in recent years, big changes are happening now: Seas are rising faster than they did a few decades ago.

And the pace is picking up.

Scientists have good data on this. They’ve been measuring the sea level in Charleston Harbor continuously since 1921. Since then, the sea level here rose about 1 foot.

Part of this has nothing to do with saltwater. When the last ice age ended 20,000 years ago, sheets of ice melted in what today is New England. Freed from the weight, land there moved upward while land to the south, including South Carolina, sank like the lower end of a seesaw.

Known as subsidence, this sinking has happened at a relatively slow rate — about 5 inches during the past century. This gives marsh-building sea grasses time to trap sediment and rise with the water, as long as the pace isn’t so quick.

Hmm, subsidence. They do do something you almost never see: attempt to offer data

From 1990 to 2000, the sea level rose 1.4 inches.

From 2000 to 2010, it added an additional 2 inches.

From 2010 to now: 2.7 inches more.

But, where’s the data from before 1990? Because there are peaks and valleys. And it is still below the rate one would expect during a Holocene warm period.

The sea level data from NOAA actually doesn’t show any real acceleration.

Follow this curve into the future, and you see a growing threat — a sea level that rises an additional 3.2 inches by 2030.

Then 4.1 inches between 2030 and 2040

And 5.3 inches between 2040 and 2050.

And now we’re into prognostication. But, climate speeding, people! Will it catch on?

Read: The Real Story Is Not ‘Climate Change’, But Climate Speed Or Something »

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North Carolina Set To Enter Phase 2 Reopening, But Bar And Gym Owners Stunned

By William Teach May 21, 2020 – 6:54 am

North Carolina governor Rory Cooper is taking an even handed tone in reopening NC, but, might he be looking at some lawsuits in short order?

North Carolina will move into Phase 2 on Friday; Salons, restaurants can reopen but gyms must stay closed

Governor Roy Cooper on Wednesday announced another step toward North Carolina’s reopening plan and signed a new Executive Order easing restrictions on such businesses as restaurants and salons.

“Last month, we laid out a phased approach to easing restrictions in our state that relied on data science and facts,” Cooper said. “Today we’re announcing another gradual and cautious step while still keeping important health and safety measures in place.”

Officially, Phase 2 will begin Friday at 5 p.m.

The Stay-At-Home order will be lifted but a “Safer-At-Home” recommendation will go into effect.

New guidance provided by state officials require restaurants to operate at 50 percent capacity and have all staff wear masks or face coverings, among other mandates and recommendations.

Personal care businesses, including barber shops, hair and nail salons, tattoo parlors, tanning salons and massage therapists, must also operate at 50 percent capacity.

But, those last ones can only operate on appointment, and everyone must wear a facemask. Indoor gatherings can have no more than 10 people, while outdoors the number goes up to 25. Pools can open and operate at 50%. Camps for kids, both day and overnight, can now open, and daycare can start having kids. (WRAL has a more detailed list of this)

Sports and shows can be held, but no more than 10 people can attend. That would be interesting for a Carolina Hurricanes or Durham Bulls game, eh? But

Notably, bars, nightclubs, gyms and health clubs must remain closed, according to the new order. Though Cooper and health officials had expressed hope the trends in new cases and testing would allow modified openings, the Governor explained that recent data and metrics compelled them to “back off” further lifting restrictions.

Phase 2, moreover, also precludes movie theaters, bowling alleys, and other indoor entertainment venues like museums from opening.

Playgrounds will also stay closed.

Suffice to say, those business owners are stunned

But Cooper said Wednesday that indoor places where people crowd together and often share items could become flashpoints for a renewed coronavirus outbreak, so he left all of those locations off his updated plan for Phase 2, which officials said would last at least five weeks. (snip)

“We had planned to open, and we thought that opening would come either this week or next week,” said Jack Wiggen, owner of Bull City Crossfit in Durham. (snip)

Wiggen said he couldn’t forecast the financial impact of waiting another five weeks to open.

“It’s devastating news financially, he said. “Thinking about another five weeks of this is really hard to wrap my mind around.”

That’s right, five more weeks. Places like Planet Fitness might survive, but independent gyms and other businesses, including bars, probably won’t. Might business band together to sue? What’s the difference between going to a restaurant with 50% capacity and distancing and a bar with the same? People who go to gyms tend to be more healthy, and for many, going to the gym helps with their mental health. Another 5 weeks is not a good thing. Many of the gym owners spent money getting their business ready, with taped off areas, sanitizing equipment, contracting for specialized cleaning crews, and more.

It’s progress, though.

Read: North Carolina Set To Enter Phase 2 Reopening, But Bar And Gym Owners Stunned »

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CDC Quietly Updates It’s Guidance On How Coronavirus Spreads

By William Teach May 20, 2020 – 3:21 pm

Hey, remember when everyone was freaked out and started wearing gloves because they were concerned with touching things and getting Bat Soup Virus? How the media, politicians, and health departments were saying “wear gloves, wash your hands, don’t touch stuff?” People were binge buying cleaners and disinfectants, washing everything? Yeah, about that

CDC: Coronavirus mainly spreads through person-to-person contact and ‘does not spread easily’ on contaminated surfaces

Even before COVID-19 officially had a name, public health officials said the virus could be transmitted through infected respiratory droplets and by touching infected surfaces and then touching your nose, mouth, and possibly your eyes. So, people began snatching up face masks, wearing gloves, and ramping up hand hygiene to try to protect themselves.

While touching infected surfaces has always been part of the messaging on how the virus spreads, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently shifted its stance online. The CDC now says that COVID-19 spreads from person to person contact, and then lists touching infected surfaces under a section titled, “The virus does not spread easily in other ways.” The CDC adds: “This is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads, but we are still learning more about this virus.” The language is a subtle change from the organization’s warning in early March, when it wrote simply that it “may be possible” to spread the virus through contaminated surfaces.

OK, in all fairness, we just didn’t know enough about COVID-19, so, better safe than sorry. You can understand the early panic. It’s easy to Monday morning QB it all. You’d think this would be bigger news than it is, wouldn’t you? Something rather important to know?

They’ve also released a big plan for re-opening

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has quietly released detailed reopening guidance for schools, child care facilities, restaurants and mass transit systems as states have already started reopening businesses over the past few weeks.

The 60-page set of recommendations encourages communities to use coronavirus transmission rates to determine whether to reopen, adding that restrictions should remain in some locations for now.

The guidance was released without media attention over the weekend after reported delays and internal administration debate about the recommendations.

I’m good with the basics. Wash your hands a lot (I did that beforehand, because I shake a lot of hands, and hands are nasty, and I am 100% OK with not shaking hands, which I never liked to do). Keep your distance. Cover your coughs and sneezes (which you should have done anyhow). I’m personally not happy with having to wear a face mask, but, I have a good cooling bandana for when required. The problem, of course, is some people are, let’s generously call them “assholes”, who can’t follow some basics to safeguard themselves, much less others.

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris should resign, seeing as she doesn’t seem to understand the 1st Amendment

Read: CDC Quietly Updates It’s Guidance On How Coronavirus Spreads »

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If All You See…

By William Teach May 20, 2020 – 1:00 pm

…is coffee that will soon be too expensive for most people to drink due to carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Other McCain, with a post on the Battle of Atillis Gym.

Read: If All You See… »

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University Of California Divests From Fossil Fuels

By William Teach May 20, 2020 – 10:30 am

The divestment craze continues. Guess who will pay for the loss of all that revenue from their portfolio?

UC becomes nation’s largest university to divest fully from fossil fuels

The University of California announced Tuesday that it has fully divested from all fossil fuels, the nation’s largest educational institution to do so as campaigns to fight climate change through investment strategies proliferate at campuses across the country.

The UC milestone capped a five-year effort to move the public research university system’s $126-billion portfolio into more environmentally sustainable investments, such as wind and solar energy. UC officials say their strategy is grounded in concerns about the planet’s future and in what makes financial sense.

“As long-term investors, we believe the university and its stakeholders are much better served by investing in promising opportunities in the alternative energy field rather than gambling on oil and gas,” Richard Sherman, chair of the UC Board of Regents’ investments committee, said in a statement.

The movement against fossil fuels has mushroomed to encompass more than 1,100 faith, educational, government, corporate and nonprofit institutions with $14 trillion in assets in the last decade, according to 350.org, a global climate justice organization. Among them, more than 50 universities have committed to full or partial divestment.

One question every reporter writing these articles forgets to ask is “well, are you going to stop using fossil fuels for your institutional functions?” Because there is no mention from UC that they are going to replace all their fossil fueled vehicles, and fossil fueled travel for things like their sports teams.

At UC, students began organizing for divestment across all 10 campuses in 2012 and formed Fossil Free UC with staff, faculty and alumni. A major win came in 2017, when UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Henry Yang became the first campus leader to endorse divestment following a three-day occupation of the administration building, according to an account by two UC Santa Barbara students.

Remember this from England

And when the kiddies said the response was flippant, the professor replied “It is all too easy to request others to things that carry no personal cost to yourself.” Well, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of personal cost for the UC system or the kids. Or, is there?

In all fairness, this is also due to the massive revenue loss from Coronavirus in multiple ways. Kids aren’t happy, though. Will they be more happy when the revenue from divestment is lost? It won’t be coming back from “green” investments. UC should ban all fossil fueled vehicles from campus. That would be fair, right?

Read: University Of California Divests From Fossil Fuels »

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“Carbon Emissions” Dropped 17% During Bat Soup Pandemic

By William Teach May 20, 2020 – 8:43 am

That’s good news for climahysterics, isn’t it? Of course, they are all Very Concerned that people will start living modern lives again soon (there are lots of charts at the Washington Post link)

Global emissions plunged an unprecedented 17 percent during the coronavirus pandemic

The wave of shutdowns and shuttered economies caused by the coronavirus pandemic fueled a momentous decline in global greenhouse gas emissions, although one unlikely to last, a group of scientists reported Tuesday.

As infections surged in March and April, nations worldwide experienced an abrupt reduction in driving, flying and industrial output, leading to a startling decline of more than 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions. That includes a peak drop in daily emissions of 17 percent in early April, according to the study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change. For some nations, the falloff was much steeper.

Scientists have long insisted that the world must scale back carbon pollution significantly — and quickly — to mitigate the worst effects of climate change over the coming decades, although none have suggested that a deadly global pandemic is the way to do so.

Tuesday’s study projects that total emissions for 2020 will probably fall between 4 and 7 percent compared with last year — an unheard-of drop in normal times but considerably less dramatic than the decline during the first few months of the year, when economies screeched to a halt. The final 2020 figure will depend on how rapidly, or cautiously, people around the world resume ordinary life.

The unprecedented situation produced by the coronavirus has offered a glimpse at the massive cuts in global emissions, year after year, that would be required to meet the most ambitious goals set by world leaders when they forged the 2015 Paris climate accord. Last fall, a United Nations report estimated that global greenhouse gas emissions must begin falling by 7.6 percent each year beginning in 2020 to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Have you enjoyed your test drive of a Modern Socialist world where their ‘climate change’ policies are enacted? Being locked down? Law enforcement pulling you over during your few drives to check where you’re going? Telling you you cannot go to your vacation home? Being told who is essential and who isn’t? Telling you where you can go and when? What activities are allowed? What you are allowed to purchase?

Tuesday’s study underscores how far the world remains from that long-term aspiration. The forced plunge in greenhouse gas emissions in recent months, while extraordinary, returned carbon pollution only to levels last seen in 2006. And the changes are unlikely to last.

Warmists want to put you further in the hole.

Although some aspects of life may change in the wake of the pandemic — more people working remotely, fewer people commuting and taking frequent plane trips — individual changes are unlikely to make much of a long-term mark on emissions, said Zeke Hausfather, a scientist and director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute.

“Unless anything structurally changes, we can expect emissions to go back to where they were before this whole thing happened,” he said.

Structural, meaning Government dictating your life. Interestingly, here’s the BBC News article on the same subject of the emissions drop

“A big worry that people will naturally want to go back to their cars to go to work, and that could rebound the emissions to the same level or even higher than before, once everybody goes back,” said Prof Corinne Le Quéré from the University of East Anglia, who led the analysis.

The researchers say that fundamental, systemic change is needed if the emissions curve is to be flattened in a way that would limit the very worst impacts of climate change.

Interestingly, most of these same climate cult scientists refuse to give up their own use of fossil fueled travel. They just want government to restrict yours, along with the rest of your life.

Read: “Carbon Emissions” Dropped 17% During Bat Soup Pandemic »

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Senate Democrats Seem Upset That GOP Is Probing Obama Era Abuses

By William Teach May 20, 2020 – 8:11 am

If you’ll remember, Democrats were calling to impeach Trump even before he took office, and formalized that process once he took the oath of office. They’ve wanted, and held, investigations into Trump firing public employees, most particularly appointees, who serve at the pleasure of the President. You name it, Democrats want to investigate it. And they spent years on their Russia Russia Russia investigation, and haven’t given up even after the Mueller report was a big nothingburger, considering yet another impeachment process. And then they had their Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine investigation, which was really a bad idea, because it exposed Joe Biden and potentially Obama, which led to more GOP investigations of Russiagate, which has now led to

Tensions flare over GOP’s Obama probes

Tensions are flaring in the Senate as Republicans prepare to ramp up their investigations into Obama-era officials.

Amid public and private pressure from President Trump, GOP senators are increasingly embracing calls to use their congressional power to investigate some of Trump’s biggest grievances stemming from the Obama administration, including the origins of the Russia investigation, the court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and Hunter Biden.

Democrats argue Republicans are using their committee gavels to probe Trump’s political enemies, an effort they say is designed to hunt for political fodder against former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, while inadvertently spreading Russian misinformation.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) railed against Republicans, saying they were chasing a “wild conspiracy theory.”

“Senate Republicans are diving head-first into the muck to smear the family — the family — of the president’s political opponent. It is such a gross misuse of the power of the majority,” Schumer added.

Seems like Chuck isn’t a big fan of Democrats being investigated, especially when there is actual meat in the investigation, actual reality. He’s only good with Republicans being investigated in what turned out to be a witchhunt. Perhaps he knows something is not on the up and up with ObamaBidenGate?

Those frustrations are poised to come to a head as two committee chairmen — Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — have vowed to hold votes on subpoenas as part of their investigations over the objections of Democrats.

Graham is asking for the Judiciary Committee to vote to give him broad subpoena authority to call dozens of officials to testify, either in depositions or hearings, as part of his investigation into the FISA court and “Crossfire Hurricane,” the name of the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s election meddling and the 2016 Trump campaign.

“We’re going to investigate the investigators, and try to find out how Crossfire Hurricane got off the rails,” Graham said.

That really should have happened years ago, but, it has been tough to get the necessary information from the utterly partisan DOJ and FBI, which have been infested with Obama supporters over his 8 years in office, people who put politics over their jobs.

The subpoena will be on the committee’s agenda Thursday, but the vote is expected to take place on June 4. Under a timeline outlined by Graham, he would release a report on his findings by October, saying he wants “to do it before the election.”

“I want to get all the information out there. … I’m trying to explain to the American people what happened with Crossfire Hurricane,” Graham said when asked if releasing a report in October would look like he was trying to influence the November election.

Ah, so that’s what Democrats do not like, that Graham will expose the malfeasance of the Obama administration when it came to Russia Russia Russia, and how Democrats followed along in the Big Lie.

Trump raised the investigations during a closed-door GOP lunch Tuesday, urging Republicans to be “tough” on Democrats, citing what he has called Obamagate.

Say what you will about Trump personally, Republican voters have been calling for the GOP to get tough with Democrats, and the media, for decades. Trump has gotten many squishy Republicans, including Graham and Mitch McConnell, to get tough and fight back.

Read: Senate Democrats Seem Upset That GOP Is Probing Obama Era Abuses »

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Surprise: Democrat Governors Are Getting Hit With Lots Of Lawsuits

By William Teach May 19, 2020 – 3:48 pm

The Politico’s Caitlin Oprysko seems rather shocked that Democrats are getting sued left and right, but mostly not Republicans

Democratic governors hit with flurry of legal challenges to coronavirus lockdowns

The raging public debate over statewide coronavirus lockdowns is running parallel to a series of legal battles in state capitals — and the lockdown skeptics got a big boost this week.

The decision by Wisconsin’s Supreme Court on Wednesday to toss Gov. Tony Evers’ statewide shelter-in-place order set off a scramble in cities across the state to impose their own local restrictions. Elsewhere, bars and restaurants shut down by the order declared themselves open for business.

And legal challenges are continuing to pile-up across the country — even as governors who extend their state’s shelter-in-place orders begin peeling back some restrictions. The plaintiffs are business owners, aggrieved private citizens, pastors and in some cases, state legislators and legislatures.

The targets? Almost always Democratic governors or their top health appointees.

Gee, I wonder why? Suits against Dems in Maine, Michigan, California, New York, Oregon, Washington state, Colorado, Virginian, and others

The lone pair of Republican governors facing such lawsuits, Maryland’s Larry Hogan and Ohio’s Mike DeWine, recently announced reopening plans that could potentially render pending lawsuits moot.

They aren’t drunk with power

Legal threats against Democrats who have kept more stringent social distancing restrictions in place have taken different forms.

In Texas, for example, the pressure has come from the top down. There, state Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday threatened the leaders of three major metro areas — Austin, Dallas and San Antonio — with legal action if they don’t roll back parts of their local stay-at-home orders.

Because cities and counties run by Democrats have been just as authoritarian. What started as elected officials slapping restrictions and such because they were afraid and people were afraid and wanted to do something morphed into quasi-dictatorships. Hogan and DeWine knew when to back off. They weren’t the ones telling people that no only do they have to stay home, but they couldn’t even be outside at their own home, so, no gardening stuff (initially, that woman in Michigan backed off).

Read: Surprise: Democrat Governors Are Getting Hit With Lots Of Lawsuits »

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Americans Haven’t Forgotten About ‘Climate Change’ During Bat Soup Virus

By William Teach May 19, 2020 – 1:00 pm

Do you believe that the climate has changed, that it has gotten warmer since 1850? I do. Because there have been multiple warm and cool periods during the Holocene alone. The debate is on causation, not warming. But, hey, good news, people polled haven’t forgotten about ‘climate change’

Americans See Climate as a Concern, Even Amid Coronavirus Crisis

Americans’ positions on climate change have remained largely unshaken by the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis, according to a new national survey that showed acceptance of the reality of global warming at record highs in some categories.

In the report, Climate Change in the American Mind, written by researchers at Yale University and George Mason University and scheduled to be made public on Tuesday, 73 percent of those polled said that climate change was happening, which matches the highest level of acceptance previously measured by the survey, from 2019.

The percentage of people who are “extremely” or “very” certain that it is happening has risen to a record high, 54 percent. And 62 percent accepted the established scientific view that global warming is mostly caused by human activity, a level also tied with the figure for 2019.

That seems like good news, right? Of course, the question from the survey in section 2 “Global warming beliefs”, is simply “do you think global warming is happening?” I would answer yes, because it doesn’t differentiate between anthropogenic and natural, or some combination of the two.

The new survey also found that two out of three Americans said global warming was either extremely, very or somewhat important to them personally, and more than four in 10 said they would be personally harmed by the effects of a warming planet. Nearly half said global warming would affect people in their community, and a majority said they were at least moderately interested in news stories about climate issues, including actions by government.

You know what is missing from the study? A question on how much of their own money they would be willing to spend/give up to solve their beliefs. Also, how much of their own freedom, liberty, and choice they would give up.

We also learn from the survey (chapter 5)

More than six in ten Americans (64%) say they “rarely” or “never” discuss global warming with family and friends. Fewer than four in ten (36%) say they discuss global warming “occasionally” or “often,” but that reflects a 10 percentage-point increase over the past five years (since our March 2015 survey)

Two in three Americans (66%) say the issue of global warming is either “extremely” (13%), “very” (24%), or “somewhat” (29%) important to them personally.

So, people are very engaged, think it is important, they just don’t bother talking about it. Must be super important, eh? People care in theory. Most people do not care in practice. Seriously, this super important poll only used 1,029 adults.

And, the NY Times article can’t help itself in Trump bashing and such and linking Bat Soup in

Dr. Maibach agreed. The loss of 90,000 American lives, he said, “has been a very powerful and bitter lesson in the need to listen to experts.”

The experts said that 2.2 million would die. Other nations had the same kind of predictions. Certainly, many measures have helped reduce that number, but, experts were making all sorts of dire predictions, just like with ‘climate change’. What prognostications from climate cultists have actually come true?

Read: Americans Haven’t Forgotten About ‘Climate Change’ During Bat Soup Virus »

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If ALl You See…

By William Teach May 19, 2020 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrible fossil fueled vehicle, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Daley Gator, with a post on the number one thing to remember about the Russia hoax.

Read: If ALl You See… »

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