New Study Finds That CO2 is Increasing the Rate by Which the Globe is Greening, Even Under Drought

Coal Plant

A new study finds that human-caused carbon dioxide emissions are driving increased plant growth that’s greening the Earth, even in areas experiencing drought.

The peer-reviewed study, which was published in the scientific journal Global Ecology and Conservation, finds that the phenomenon known as “global greening” is an indisputable fact. The rate of global greening has increased slightly, and drought has only slowed, but not stopped, the process.

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Commentary: Alternatives to Wind and Solar Energy

Power plant

If the delusional but dead serious demands coming out of the international climate crisis community are to be believed, and as documented in the earlier two segments of this report, achieving universal energy security in the world will require wind energy capacity to increase by a factor of 60, while solar capacity increases by a factor of 100. The mix between wind and solar can vary, of course, but the required overall increase is indisputable. As noted in Part One of this report, that would be a very best-case scenario, where extraordinary improvements in energy efficiency meant that total energy production worldwide would only have to increase to 1,000 exajoules per year, from an estimated 600 exajoules in 2022.

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Commentary: Coal’s Life-Saving Role Ignored by Climate-Obsessed Media

Coal Mining

On a recent cold winter day, residents of Munich were surprised to see people skiing in the street. Yes, that is how much snow fell in the German city and other parts of Europe during the early winter of 2023-2024.  

Despite a disruption to both ground and air travel, the Germans survived the freezing weather with access to heating and basic utilities. But not everyone in our world is as fortunate as those living off reliable energy sources in Western economies.

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Commentary: A Clean Future Does Not Exist Without Nuclear Energy

On the heels of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai, it’s clear that nuclear energy’s role in achieving a clean energy future cannot be overlooked or understated. 

At COP28, we heard from dozens of top minds in-person and from afar who echoed the same message: Transitioning to cleaner energy sources cannot come at the price of an unreliable power supply, and that is where nuclear energy comes in. Not only is it a reliable, proven technology, but it is also clean, producing zero carbon emissions. Already, the United States’ 94 nuclear power reactors generate around 18% of all U.S. electricity.  

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More Than 1,600 Scientists, Nobel Laureates, Declare ‘Climate Emergency’ a Myth

A coalition of 1,609 scientists from around the world have signed a declaration stating “there is no climate emergency” and that they “strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy” being pushed across the globe. The declaration does not deny the harmful effect of greenhouse gasses, but instead challenges the hysteria brought about by the narrative of imminent doom.

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Commentary: Republicans Are Trying to Sneak a Carbon Tax Through the Back Door

Fresh from the looming trainwreck that is the deal to increase the debt limit, four Republican senators recently signed onto legislation that would require the Biden administration to study the feasibility of . . . a national tax on energy that would be collected at the gas pump and in electricity and heating bills.

The four Republicans — Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) — joined five Democrats in asking Team Biden to determine the amount of energy used — and carbon dioxide emitted — by various countries in the production of essentially everything that makes modern life possible (aluminum, iron, steel, plastic, crude oil, batteries, etc.).

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Masks Offer ‘Small’ Benefit Against COVID, Increased CO2 May Be Tied to Stillbirths: Research

The termination of the COVID-19 national emergency has not ended mask mandates in various jurisdictions and settings such as healthcare, even as more peer-reviewed research suggests that face coverings can cause more harm than good.

The Annals of Internal Medicine published the “final update” to a three-year “living, rapid review” of research on mask effectiveness against COVID infection, which concluded masks in healthcare and community settings “may be associated with a small reduction in risk” — 10-18% — but that the evidence is weak.

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Pennsylvania Supreme Court Hears Tax-Versus-Fee Arguments About Whether RGGI Can Stand

Arguing before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday, one state agency alleged another improperly refused to publish an executive action implementing a de facto carbon tax, effectively halting the polcy. 

At issue is a decision made by the Pennsylvania Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) not to publicize a regulation decreed by then-Governor Tom Wolf (D) entering the state into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The LRB, which drafts all state legislation upon lawmakers’ requests and provides other policy reference services, declined to promulgate the rule enrolling the commonwealth in the multistate compact, citing a state House of Representatives resolution opposing it.

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House Follows Senate in Voting for Resolution to Halt Tougher EPA Vehicle Emission Standards

The GOP-led House on Tuesday voted in favor of a resolution to strike down the Environmental Protection Agency’s  emissions restrictions for heavy-duty trucks. 

The joint-chamber resolution, which passed the House by a 221-203 vote, was introduced by Republican lawmakers in February via the Congressional Review Act (CRA) – a law that allows Congress to reverse rules made by a federal agency.

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Pennsylvania’s Largest Coal Plant Closure Shows Effect of Coming De Facto Carbon-Tax

In July, the Homer City Generation LP Plant, Pennsylvania’s biggest coal-fired energy creator, will be taken offline, meaning 129 well-paying jobs will disappear in Pennsylvania’s fifth-poorest county of Indiana. 

This event, say free-market advocates and fossil-fuel supporters, should admonish Keystone State policymakers not to let the commonwealth let its abeyant membership in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) become active. The pact involving a dozen northeastern and mid-Atlantic states entails de facto taxation of carbon emissions. Even pre-implementation, industry experts explain, preparation for RGGI is killing otherwise viable power plants. 

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Commentary: America’s Energy Future Depends on Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh by night, Duquesne Incline in front.

For decades, many of us in northeastern Pennsylvania have talked about knocking the rust off our regional economy and creating not only new jobs but also new industries.

Diversifying the economic portfolio of northeastern Pennsylvania means creating an ecosystem for entrepreneurs that helps small businesses prosper in our downtowns through partnerships with the region’s great institutions of higher education – partnerships like the Invent Penn State launchbox at Penn State Hazleton and the Idea Hub at the Wilkes-Barre Innovation Center.

Creating a strong regional economy also means investing in the economic assets – like Pennsylvania natural gas – that enable us to compete for good manufacturing jobs. Affordable, Pennsylvania-produced natural gas is a foundational component of our national economy, fueling America’s manufacturing plants, farms, hospitals, schools, and homes. The Keystone State’s natural gas powers our energy economy and produces thousands of family-sustaining jobs, ranging from the scientist in the laboratory to the union laborer on the pipeline. 

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Falling CO2 Emissions Expose ‘Global Warming’ Alarmism As Anti-Science

The “experts” that dominate government, big business, universities, and international institutions vitriolically insist that “science” purportedly establishes beyond doubt that carbon dioxide emissions are raising global temperatures and that the warmer earth will be catastrophic.

In 2020, the pandemic-induced shutdowns that inflicted so much economic harm, particularly on the Third World’s already poor, reduced CO2 emissions by a record-breaking 7 percent. Those demanding that Americans reduce emissions must be especially pleased: the U.S. led the world with a 12 percent reduction.

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Commentary: Why Don’t Climate Activists Support Nuclear Power?

by Edward Ring   For several days in mid-April, downtown London was paralyzed by thousands of “climate activists” protesting the failure of the British government to act swiftly enough to combat climate change. In mid-March, thousands of students across the United States staged school “walkouts” to demand action on climate change as well. These protests are ongoing, but the underlying logic is hard to see. The primary sources of anthropogenic CO2 are no longer Western nations, which are only responsible for about 30 percent of all global emissions. The biggest single culprit, if you want to call it that, is China, responsible for 28 percent of global emissions, nearly twice as much as the United States, and 28 times as much as the United Kingdom. Rapidly industrializing India, responsible for 6 percent of global CO2 emissions, is on track to become the most populous nation on earth. The chances that China and India will sacrifice their national future in order to reduce CO2 emissions are zero. The same holds for every emerging nation, including the demographic heavyweights Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, along with all the rest. The logic of these protestors also fails when it comes to the science…

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Bernie Sanders Promises To Offset CO2 From His Private Jet Flights

by Tim Pearce   Sen. Bernie Sanders pledged to offset carbon emissions from his 2020 presidential campaign travel by donating contributions to renewable energy projects. “Bernie Sanders is a champion in the fight for climate justice and, like him, we know we need to address our emissions through action, not just rhetoric,” Sanders’s campaign manager Faiz Shakir told HuffPost in a statement Thursday. “We are proud to lead the way in the fight against climate change by acting boldly to move our energy system away from fossil fuels and towards sustainable energy sources.” The pledge follows a March 15 announcement that Sanders’s campaign would be the first presidential campaign to unionize under organized labor. I’m proud that our campaign is the first presidential campaign to unionize. We cannot just support unions with words, we must back it up with actions. On this campaign and when we are in the White House, we are going make it easier for people to join unions, not harder. https://t.co/JNv3dpss6D — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 15, 2019 Sanders has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to travel across the country on private jets during past campaigns. During his 2018 Senate re-election campaign, the Vermont senator…

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Commentary: Mass Immigration and Climate Change Doublethink

by Quentin Borges-Silva   Doublethink, as articulated by George Orwell in 1984, “means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” Unfortunately, the modern left takes Orwell’s book not as the warning it was intended to be, but as an instruction manual. Perhaps nowhere else is doublethink more readily apparent than in the absurdly conflicted intersection of leftist environmentalism – think of it as ecological conservation with a pagan streak – and support for mass immigration. Climate change true believers have perfect faith in the notion that the human contribution of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is the primary driver of global warming, and that only by drastically reducing that contribution can we avoid apocalyptic climate tragedy on a global scale. But when a grand imam of the Climate Change faith, Michael Mann, is called “A Disgrace to the Profession” and many other unflattering things by dozens of his equally credentialed peers, perhaps they are onto something. When recipients of tens of millions of dollars in federal climate research grants ask the Department of Justice to arrest, prosecute, and imprison those who question their data quality, analysis, and conclusions, it’s a fair bet they’re up to something,…

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US Leads the World in Cutting CO2 Emissions, But That’s Not Good Enough for the UN

by Tim Pearce   The United Nations is urging countries to pursue more aggressive emissions-cutting policies to keep post-Industrial Revolution global warming under 2 degrees Celsius. The U.N. released a report Tuesday that says the world must revamp efforts several times what they are currently to avoid climate change’s worst effects. The United States leads developed countries in cutting emissions. President Donald Trump ignited a furor in the environmental community when he announced he would pull the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris climate accord. The agreement outlined strategies and goals for combatting climate change, but the deal, without an enforcement mechanism, has done little to reduce the world’s carbon output. Most countries continue to increase their carbon emissions. China, the largest contributor to increasing emissions, has said it will continue to increase emissions for several more years before peaking and focusing on reducing emissions. India will continue to develop and increase its fossil fuel use. European countries increased emissions by 1.5 percent on average in 2017, according to an annual report by British Petroleum. Germany and France, both attempting to ratchet up environmental policies, increased emissions by 0.1 and 2 percent, respectively. “The science is clear; for all the…

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