Category: Climate realism

Study shows operating expenses of low-emissions rigs are far higher than those for diesel trucks—’the economics just don’t work for most companies’

By Paul Berger, Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2024

Executives at truck leasing company Ryder System spent years listening to some of their biggest customers say they wanted to switch to battery-electric big rigs. 

“The economics just don’t work for most companies,” said Robert Sanchez, the chief executive of Ryder, which manages 250,000 trucks and vans for tens of thousands of retailers and manufacturers.… Read more

Global fossil fuel consumption is increasing, not decreasing, and this growth can only continue

By Vaclav Smil and Elmira Aliakbari, National Post, May 29, 2024

Canada and other developed countries have committed to achieving “net-zero” carbon emissions by 2050. Yet here at the midway point between the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the first international treaty to set binding targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and the looming deadline of 2050, there is good reason to doubt the feasibility of this ambitious transition.

Our new study for the Fraser Institute demonstrates how the world’s dependence on fossil fuels has in fact steadily and significantly increased over the past three decades — this despite international agreements, significant government spending and regulation and some technological progress pushing in the opposite direction.… Read more

A rapid transition away from fossil fuels to all ‘renewable energy’ is, quite simply, naive

By Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2024

Rich countries, global institutions and the private-jet set haven’t always been obsessed with climate change. Their preoccupation began in the early 1990s, at the end of the Cold War. That wasn’t a coincidence. The Soviet Union fell, communism was vanquished, and peace prevailed among major powers. As Francis Fukuyama brashly claimed, history had ended. All that remained was fixing climate change.… Read more

French scientist summarizes the findings of physicist William Happer in a single figure

By Prof. Jean N., Faculty of Sciences, European University, June 2022

Originally published in French on Science, Climat, Energie.

When we talk about the greenhouse effect and the level of atmospheric CO2 there are three categories of scientists: 

(i) those who accept this greenhouse effect and who think that the increasing rate of CO2 will have major effects on the temperature of the lower troposphere; they are generally the partisans of the theses of the IPCC; 

(ii) those who accept the idea of ​​a greenhouse effect but who believe that the warming will be modest or even non-existent; they are scientists qualified as climato-realists or climato-skeptics; we can, for example, place in this category physicists and climatologists such as William Happer , Herman Harde , Roy W.… Read more

CO2 impact on climate ‘unjustifiably exaggerated’…catastrophic predictions ‘not realistic’

To the President of the Republic, of the Senate, of the Chamber of Deputies, and the Council
PETITION ON ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING, JULY, 2019

The undersigned, citizens and scientists, send a warm invitation to political leaders to adopt environmental protection policies consistent with scientific knowledge.… Read more

Canada has only reduced carbon emissions by 4 per cent in the 25 years from 1979-2022, from 86% to 82%. That emissions will drop the remaining 82% in the next 25 years is an impossible dream

By Vaclav Smil, Fraser Institute, May 28, 2024

The global goal to achieve “net-zero” carbon emissions by 2050 is impractical and unrealistic, finds a new study published today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

“The plan to eliminate fossil fuels and achieve a net-zero economy faces formidable economic, political and practical challenges,” said Vaclav Smil, professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba and author of Halfway Between Kyoto and 2050: Zero Carbon Is a Highly Unlikely Outcome.… Read more

Europe’s voters want climate policies—until they discover how much they cost. No one wants to be the party that’s promising to take voters’ jobs and raise their energy bills

By Joseph C. Sternberg, Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2024

You know you’ve stumbled through the looking glass when European politicians start sounding saner on climate policy than the Americans do. Well here we are, Alice: Europeans are admitting the folly of net zero quicker than their American peers.

The latest example—perhaps “victim” is more apt—is Humza Yousaf, who resigned this week as Scotland’s first minister. That region within the U.K. enjoys substantial devolved powers over its own affairs, including on climate policy.… Read more

It would take Canada’s emissions 4,055 years to warm the globe by 1°C. The Conservative Party should use these figures to educate the public on folly of climate taxes

By Pav Penna, May 25, 2024

Which factually equivalent statement better communicates Canada’s impact on the climate?
 
a) “Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2022 were 548 Million tonnes.” 
 
or
 
b) “In 2022, Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions warmed the globe by 0.000247°C, which is equivalent to 1°C in 4,055 years.”
 
Statement a) is a meaningless theoretical construct to the average citizen, whereas statement b) can be readily understood by all and gives voters desperately needed context on climate change. … Read more

IPCC has abandoned claims of more floods, droughts, storms, heat waves, etc., due to fossil-fuel emissions—but alarmists still beat the ‘extreme weather’ drum

By Tom Harris, America Outloud News, April 4, 2024

Climate campaigners and their political and media allies often tell us that their frightening forecasts are backed up by the best available science. In particular, they point to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that they tell us are the gold standard of climate science research. If the IPCC said it, it must be true, they proclaim!

The late Dr. Jay Lehr and I have often written about the serious flaws in the IPCC reports.… Read more