Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions Hit Record High

Global carbon dioxide emissions hit a record high of more than 36 billion tons in 2022, although emissions grew more slowly than anticipated, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported Thursday.

Emissions from coal surged by 1.6%, to a record breaking 15.5 billion tons, as Europe turned to coal after Russia slashed exports of natural gas following its invasion of Ukraine, the IEA reported. Growth in renewable energy sources mitigated more than half a billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, helping keep emissions growth below expectations, and accounted for roughly 90% of all new power generation.

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Commentary: Google’s Influence on Elections

There are people who talk nonstop with their dogs and cats. When I get bored, I interrogate machines. My favorite is Google Trends because it shows a lot of things that Democrats would rather you didn’t know. For example, it demonstrates that the main concern of the American people has to do with their sports team and not with sex-change operations and things like that. This leaves Democrats deeply disappointed. A contemporary Democrat is someone who firmly believes that people get out of bed, kneel in front of a picture of the ozone layer, and beat their chests while apologizing to Pachamama for climate change.

With one eye on the elections, I asked Google a few questions, paying special attention to the search trends of American users, and the answers are interesting, to say the least. In the months leading up to the 2020 election, and using George Floyd’s death as an excuse, Democratic discourse focused on stopping the racism that Republicans supposedly encouraged, pretending that this was the country’s biggest problem. But the evolution of Google queries on “racism” reveals a fun fact: no one cared about racism in the least until the Democratic Party decided to bring it into the campaign to capitalize on Floyd’s death. And the funniest thing: that concern disappeared completely the same day Joe Biden became president of the United States, which places his government’s actions in the realm of the paranormal. To put it another way: the old zombie works miracles! As I am suffering a terrible flu (this article might turn out to be posthumous), this miracle has me now seriously thinking of catching a plane, turning up at the White House, and trying to touch the hem of Joe Biden’s robe in a desperate attempt to be healed.

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Volvo Says Connecticut Following California Emissions Standards Would ‘Pose Problems’

In a podcast discussion with Motor Transport Association of Connecticut President Joe Sculley on Friday, Volvo Group North America spokesperson Dawn Fenton objected to the Constitution State following California’s carbon-emission regulations for trucks.

California is the only state possessing a waiver allowing it to establish its own emission controls which are stronger than those required by the federal Clean Air Act. Environmental progressives have backed the waiver, which former President Donald Trump rescinded and which President Joe Biden reactivated last month.

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Commonwealth Court Blocks Pennsylvania’s Entry into Carbon Taxation Initiative

Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court this week blocked the state’s entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an 11-state compact requiring de facto taxation of power plants’ carbon emissions.

Gov. Tom Wolf (D) tried to effect Pennsylvania’s participation in the initiative by issuing an executive order in 2019, thus neglecting to seek approval of the Republican-led General Assembly. The court’s new opinion comes one day after the state Senate failed to override the governor’s veto of legislation letting the General Assembly end the state’s membership in the compact. Legislative leaders have argued that the governor’s unilateral action violated the state Constitution and were heartened upon hearing of the judges’ decision.

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Retired General Picked by Nancy Pelosi to Review Capitol Security Appears on Chinese Propaganda Network

Russel Honore

Chinese government officials and state-controlled media agencies have recently ramped up their rhetoric against the United States on the issue of climate change, portraying the U.S. as not doing enough to limit greenhouse emissions even though China is by far the world’s biggest polluter.

One shot fired in the propaganda war came this week in the form of an interview that CGTN America, the U.S. affiliate of the Beijing-controlled China Central Television (CCTV), conducted with retired Army Lt. General Russel Honoré.

Honoré, who is founder of the environmental group Green Army, decried in the CGTN interview that a “large part” of the population in his native Louisiana denies the existence of climate change.

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US CO2 Emissions Cuts Are ‘the Largest in the History of Energy,’ IEA Chief Says

by Michael Bastasch   Over the last decade, the U.S. has been the largest cutter of carbon dioxide emissions in the “history of energy,” said Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA). “In the last 10 years, the emissions reduction in the United States has been the largest in the history of energy,” Birol said at a press conference in Washington, D.C., Thursday, standing alongside U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry. “Almost 800 million tons, and this is a huge decline of emissions,” Birol said, before going on to praise Perry for pushing carbon capture technology. Birol’s remarks reinforce a major Trump administration talking point — that greenhouse gas emissions are being driven down through innovation, not taxes and regulation. Experts say U.S. emissions cuts have largely been driven by a boom in natural gas production, which has supplanted coal-fired generation. The Trump administration has been cutting regulations on oil and natural gas production and plans on withdrawing from the Paris climate accord. “Like Dr. Birol has said many times, without carbon capture, any planned climate target is impossible to meet,” Perry said at the press conference. “We believe that you can’t have a serious conversation about…

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Scientist Bullied By Fellow Faculty, Students For Climate Change Heresies Speaks Out

by Michael Bastasch   Climate scientist Cliff Mass is speaking out against “academic political bullying” from University of Washington faculty and students, stemming from Mass’s rejection of a carbon tax initiative favored by activists. “Science can only flourish when there is tolerance for a diversity of viewpoints and ideas,” Mass told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Name calling and politicization of science are toxic to the scientific enterprise, and undermines our credibility in the general community.” “I am hopeful that the exposure of such intolerance will lead to an improved working environment in my department and among others in my discipline,” Mass said via email Wednesday. Climate scientist Judith Curry detailed in a blog post Wednesday the actions UW and student activists have taken against Mass in recent months. Curry said Mass was a “victim of academic political bullying.” There are clearly UW faculty “that don’t like Cliff Mass,” including, his department chair, and “most fundamentally, they seem to dislike that his blog is getting in the way of their own political advocacy,” Curry wrote. Mass joined UW’s Atmospheric Sciences Department in 1982 where he specializes in numerical weather modeling and weather patterns in the Pacific Northwest. Mass also publishes…

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