US Supreme Court puts unelected Deep State Kingmakers back in their box

Winning: The new Supreme Court decision is much bigger than the climate wars

US Flag, Flying.Over the last 50 years the Deep State Bureaucrats had become Rulers-defacto and finally the Supreme Court has put the hand-brake on. Instead of unelected agencies deciding national policy, the Supreme Court said, rather radically, that Congress should make decisions of great political significance. Sounds awfully like “Democracy”.

But as far as the Environmental Protection Agency sees it, if the voters are too stupid to elect the correct people, then Congress can’t make the right laws, so it’s up to the EPA to save the people anyway.

It’s what you do when you are Omniscient.

Or as another Ian says: they are only doing “what God would have done if he had truly understood the situation”.

The Supreme Court Restores a Constitutional Climate

The Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal

This has been an historic Supreme Court term, and the Justices kept it going to the end with a major 6-3 decision Thursday (West Virginia v. EPA) reining in the administrative state. The subject was climate regulation but the message should echo across the federal bureaucracy.

The question was whether the Environmental Protection Agency could invoke an obscure statutory provision to re-engineer the nation’s electric grid. Prior to the 2015 Obama rule, the EPA had used the provision only a handful of times to regulate pollutants from discrete sources. The rule would have effectively required coal and gas-fired generators to subsidize renewables.

The Major Questions doctrine sounds like “the big picture”:

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts relies on the Court’s “major questions” doctrine. This requires courts to look with skepticism when agencies claim “‘in a long-extant statute an unheralded power’ representing a ‘transformative expansion” in its power. That’s what the Obama EPA did.

Apparently it’s not OK to play legal word games with old subclauses in order to make your agency more powerful, rich, and likely to get grants and Nobel Prizes.

The Court is now placing guardrails on Chevron to prevent lower courts from going off the constitutional road. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s concurrence, joined by Samuel Alito, is especially helpful in lighting the way for lower courts grappling with when and how to apply the major questions doctrine.

First, he writes, the doctrine applies when “an agency claims the power to resolve a matter of great ‘political significance.’” Second, an agency “must point to clear congressional authorization when it seeks to regulate ‘“a significant portion of the American economy.”’” Third, it may apply when an agency seeks to intrude “into an area that is the particular domain of state law.”

Contrary to their critics, the Justices aren’t blocking climate regulation. They are merely saying that the decision on whether and how to do it rests with Congress.

The EPA Gods are very annoyed

Everything about this response shows that Michael S. Regan, EPA chief, *knows* what is best, and democracy be damned — he will save those voters whether they like it or not.

Today, in response to the Supreme Court ruling in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan issued the following statement:

“As a public health agency, EPA’s number one responsibility is to protect people’s health, especially those who are on the front lines of environmental pollution. Make no mistake: we will never waver from that responsibility.

While I am deeply disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision, we are committed to using the full scope of EPA’s authorities to protect communities and reduce the pollution that is driving climate change.

True believers:

At this moment, when the impacts of the climate crisis are becoming ever more disruptive, costing billions of dollars every year from floods, wildfires, droughts and sea level rise, and jeopardizing the safety of millions of Americans, the Court’s ruling is disheartening.

For tens of thousands of years, rain-dancing shamen said similar things. It was along the lines of Give me women and goats or there will be terrible storms. Now we have to chop down 120 million trees, or kill 200,000 bats, give up roast beef and then the WeatherMasters will give us nice weather.

The EPA just wants power over the national economy, energy systems, land, air and water. They already sound like they are a political party:

Ambitious climate action presents a singular opportunity to ensure U.S. global competitiveness, create jobs, lower costs for families, and protect people’s health and wellbeing, especially those who’ve long suffered the burden of inaction. EPA will move forward with lawfully setting and implementing environmental standards that meet our obligation to protect all people and all communities from environmental harm.”

Since when was the Environmental Protection Agency meant to create jobs, lower costs, and ensure US competitiveness, and if they can do that, who needs Congress?

Judging by the reactions this looks like a big win for voters. The Guardian, Nancy Pelosi, and Ginger Cassady of the Rainforest Action Network really don’t like it. Nancy Pelosi says the Court has “bowed to polluters who seek to poison the air our children breathe…“.

Meanwhile the Rainforest lady said it “condemns everyone alive today and generations to come”. 

And Rolling Stone said everyone will go to hell, or something a lot like that….

h/t Lance, Dave B, Timo Soren, El Gordo, Robert Rosicka, Mark, Ross, Beth the Serf.

9.7 out of 10 based on 111 ratings

158 comments to US Supreme Court puts unelected Deep State Kingmakers back in their box

  • #
    bobby b

    The problem is, our agencies have been captured by progressives, who hire more progressives, who listen to other progressives, and who worship at the Prog Church. It will take decades to rort them out.

    So unless we manage to elect a completely one-sided government in the legislative and executive branches – who can then pass legislation that reins in the power of these progressive bureaucracies – we are saddled with an all-powerful non-democratically-chosen mandarin class which as been able to pass anything as a regulation (not a statute) that hasn’t been explicitly prohibited by statute.

    Until this week. This is huge for the U.S.

    But it’s only a first step, I hope. We have many many agencies which have also been captured by the progs. (Self-respecting conservatives do not, as a rule, make “government employment” their life’s goal. Progs do. They were smarter than we were in this regard.)

    712

    • #
      another ian

      ” It’s what you do when you are Omniscient.”

      “You do what God would have done if he had truly understood the situation”

      [Such a good line I’ve added it to the post! Thank you – Jo]

      380

    • #
      TdeF

      I heard a comment this week from a muslim commentator talking to Jordan Petersen. “Progressive Liberals are the new totalitarians.”

      Throughout history generations worried about maternal and infant mortality, health, teeth, arthritis, predators, food, jobs, war, survival, the new Progressives worry desperately about the average temperature of the planet to 0.1C and racism and whether Irish jokes are offensive.

      And instead of fighting for women’s rights, they insist that women have no rights because there are no women. Even the new Supreme Court judge in America who was given the job because she is a black woman has no idea whether she is a woman because she is not a biologist. I wonder if she knows she is black without the advice of an optometrist?

      Post war Millenials aka Progressive Liberals of the mobile phone era who have no idea of life. Utterly indulged inheritors of the longest peace in human history and the technical revolution, they are happy to blow up power stations because we can run the planet on wind and solar or something will come along, someday. Someone will invent something and who needs carbon dioxide anyway? It’s a toxic emission. And Millenials now outnumber post war baby boomers who have some idea how tough life was.

      581

    • #
      OldOzzie

      Is there a Light starting to Shine at the End of the Tunnel?

      GREEN DREAMS DASHED

      This essay by a disillusioned environmentalist is one of the best, and most honest, pieces I have seen in a long time. It can’t have been easy to write: “I wasted 20 years of my life chasing utopian energy.” Here are some highlights, but please do read it all:

      By 2008, I started to see cracks in my beliefs. The Obama administration had earmarked billions of dollars in federal funding to create jobs in the energy sector, and my company won multi-year contracts valued at over $60 million. Creating jobs and making buildings more energy-efficient were worthy goals. But the project was an utter failure. It didn’t get anywhere close to achieving the goals that the government had set. But what was really shocking to me was how the government refused to admit the project had failed. All of its public communications about the project boasted about its effectiveness.

      Government is the largest and most selfish special interest group in our society.

      This last is a major issue that Robert Bryce has highlighted persuasively. It would take land area equal to twice the size of the State of California to meet the U.S.’s current electricity needs with wind power, assuming it could be done at all. That simply isn’t going to happen.

      8. Lifespan: How long will a source produce energy? Nuclear plants can operate for over 80 years and run for 100 years if they are well-maintained. By contrast, solar panels and wind turbines last only about 20 years.

      My colleague Isaac Orr refers to wind turbines as disposable power plants due to their short useful lives.

      Steve has noted from time to time that smart liberals are getting off the “green” bandwagon and putting their support behind nuclear power. Add one more to the list. Via InstaPundit.

      331

      • #
        Kevin Kilty

        Bryce has underestimated the area needed. It is more like one-half the continental U.S. This is just to meet average demand if everything is electrified — transport, home HVAC, etc.

        101

        • #
          TdeF

          And given that the energy needs of the US are currently being met by fossil fuel and nuclear, surely the environmentalists should be up in arms at the wholesale destruction of deserts and forests and pastures of half a continent and at incredible cost for no more than a short term solution to match the status quo. The generation which has not built a power station or a dam and now lives in cities without manual labour of their grandparents are so indulged they have no idea they are indulged. It’s Jules Vernes Time Machine where the Eloi prance about blithely unaware of the Morlocks for whom they provide happy protein.

          200

          • #
            William

            Meanwhile Mike Cannon-Brookes’s Sun Cable is going to carpet some 12,000 hectares of land with solar panels – not a word from environmentalists about the damage caused there. They are happy to see the environment destroyed to save the environment from a mythical threat.

            211

      • #
        Chris

        Wind turbines are falling to bits around 12 years because the leading edge of the blades gets chopped up by the wind. This significantly reduces their speed and output ; they cannot be repaired.

        180

    • #
      Mike Jonas

      Why are people who actively prevent progress called progressives?

      161

      • #
        bobby b

        “Why are people who actively prevent progress called progressives?”

        Death-cult Cuties was already taken.

        160

  • #
    Simon

    The Supreme Court’s recent radical rulings on guns, abortion, and environmental protections have disregarded over 50 years of legal precedent.
    The Clean Air Act was enacted by the Nixon Administration in 1970 in recognition that pollution could not be regulated at the state level because it affects everybody. Congress was grid locked at the time and insufficiently nimble to legislate against individual polluters. Today, Congress is far more partisan and meaningful legislation will simply not get passed. The USA has signed the Paris Agreement and has commitments that it has to keep. Anthropogenic global warming from the burning of fossil fuels is real and an existent threat to the world’s ecosystems despite the claims of many here. On the positive side, the USA is blessed with natural resources and many states have made significant advances in renewable energy generation. Most democratic countries have recognised that climate change is a bipartisan issue and have instituted independent authorities to manage the change.

    5105

    • #
      Harry+Passfield

      It’s a bit of a stretch to say that the SCOTUS has disregarded over 50 years of legal precedent – when entering judgement on precedent it what they do.

      ROE-Wade was never a constitutional right: it never went through Congress to enable it as a part of the Constitution. It was Judge-made law. But abortion has not been outlawed in the USA, it has been delegated to the States. Correctly.

      691

      • #
        Harry Passfield

        It’s a bit of a stretch to say that the SCOTUS has disregarded over 50 years of legal precedent – when entering judgement on precedent it what they do.

        ROE-Wade was never a constitutional right: it never went through Congress to enable it as a part of the Constitution. It was Judge-made law. But abortion has not been outlawed in the USA, it has been delegated to the States. Correctly.

        90

        • #
          TdeF

          The courts do not rule us. Our parliaments are our law givers. The courts only interpret the law but it has become fashionable for judges to rule from the bench and increasingly in environmental matters. And this strict new Supreme Court has said quite correctly that abortion was obviously not mentioned or even implied in the US constitution. Abortion is not a constitutional right and never was. This was not reading between the lines. It was making it up. No constitutional right to abortion existed. And it has not been removed.

          However if the US Congress representing the people of the US wants to make full term abortion legal, it only has to pass the law. Except the people of America would not agree. Stacking the Supreme Court to get favorable treatment is classic stuff. You might remember The Pelican Brief by John Grisham where judges were murdered to get a court favorable to an oil baron.

          The real back story is the $US6Billion a year trade in abortion drugs like RU48 which is why Christine Blasey Ford testified against nominee Judge Kavanagh. Her entire career and income as a Professor of Psychology at Palo Alto, abortion drug researcher and consultant relies on RU48 and similar drugs. She has authored dozens of papers on the drug. She taught people how to pass lie detector tests and flew often in small planes, despite her story that she was afraid of flying. And she had every commercial motivation to testify even though none of it was true. This position where she was totally compromised hardly mentioned even when her case was dismissed, but she was not tried for perjury. Progressive Liberals will believe everything they read in the progressive liberal press.

          But it remains to be seen whether the abortion drug industry can be cancelled. Or as one commentator noted, they cannot stop Fentanyl.

          231

          • #
            Ronin

            Abortion, what a pathetic way to manage your fertility.

            292

            • #
              TdeF

              I remember one comedian who said he didn’t believe in abortion. But in some cases it needed to be retrospective.

              120

          • #
            DonK31

            The way I understand the ruling is that abortion is not a Federal issue. It is an issue for each state to decide for itself. Therefore, a law passed by the national legislature would be unconstitutional because it is an issue for each state to decide. Congress does not have the power just because it tries to claim it.

            41

      • #
        Kevin Kilty

        To become part of the U.S. Constitution would require far more than being passed by Congress.

        100

        • #
          TdeF

          You cannot just pass a law in Washington.

          It’s a Federation of States.

          So first an amendment may be proposed by 2/3 of both Houses of Congress,

          Then amendment must then be agreed/ratified by 3/4 of all the 50 State legislatures

          Support for full term abortion must pass 75% of most Americans. And even then you have to get thousands of politicians to vote the same way across the whole country.

          Pigs will fly.

          161

    • #

      The US has not ratified Paris and therefore not signed it. And, no, there is no climate ’emergency’. And who does Mr Regan think he is, when was he elected?

      510

    • #
      b.nice

      WRONG.. They have brought the EPA and Roe etc back to a proper constitutional basis.

      And as we all know, atmospheric CO2 does not need to be regulated. IT IS NOT POLLUTION..

      It is highly beneficial to the planet and is NOT the cause of the slight but highly beneficial warming since the LIA.

      The EPA are loaded with anti-science activists who should never have been given the right to regulate CO2.

      Most countries have either been CONNED big time, or think they can get huge financial payments by following the con.

      Most western countries are starting to realise that their countries were built on a fossil fuel foundation, and that the idiocy of going down the “unreliable” path will lead their countries down the path of economic and societal collapse.

      752

      • #
        Simon

        Oh dear. Time to start back at the basics. Please take time to read and understand because you are suffering from some severe misconceptions.
        https://www.epa.gov/climatechange-science/basics-climate-change

        244

        • #
          b.nice

          There is no evidence there of CO2 warming… and you know it, so stop lying.

          Temperature and rainfall patterns have always fluctuated.

          You have no evidence that CO2 has anything to do with these natural climate variation.

          All these pieces of data start at the COLDEST period in some 10,000 years

          Temperatures are less now than they have been for most of the last 10,000 years

          There is far more sea ice and glacial ice now than there has been for most of the last 10,000 year

          The oceans are far cooler now than they have been for most of the last 10,000 years… cooler than baiscally any period except the LIA.

          It is you and the EPA that are suffering from delusion and ignorance.

          372

          • #
            Simon

            Some very good scientists work at the EPA. https://www.epa.gov/climate-research
            I think they might know a bit more about atmospheric science than you do.
            https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/dunning-kruger-effect

            225

            • #
              William

              Simon, my first reaction when anyone raises the Dunning-Kruger effect is that their first action should be to look in the mirror.

              162

            • #
              b.nice

              LOL. It is noted that you immediately dodge producing any actual scientific evidence.

              No counter to any of the facts I stated.

              Hilarious. ! 🙂

              Your petty and gormless attempts at appeals to anti-science activists as any sort of authority, is a meaningless farce. 🙂

              You make a mockery of yourself and all those you worship.

              152

            • #
              b.nice

              Dunning-Kruger, you say?

              Yes, the self-called authorities at the EPA, are classic examples.

              Thanks for bring that up.

              92

              • #
                Simon

                Possibly. The corollary in the effect is that experts often underestimate their ability.

                19

              • #
                b.nice

                Your ability appears to be well below zero, especially when it comes to producing any scientific evidence.

                31

            • #
              Richard C (NZ)

              Simon >”I think they [US EPA] might know a bit more about atmospheric science than you do.”

              So what?

              The UN IPCC says only 1% of the observed planetary energy rise since 1951 has gone to the atmosphere i.e. a negligible consideration.

              93% Ocean
              6% Land, lakes, rivers, ice
              1% Atmosphere

              It’s the attribution of ocean heat rise that’s the major “climate change” issue by far. The IPCC has no physical evidence whatsoever for their anthropogenic attribution – they just speculate (“expect”).

              That is scientific fraud and the US EPA promulgates the falsehood.

              21

        • #
          b.nice

          CO2 is a radiative gas.. It acts nothing like a greenhouse.

          It does not trap any energy, it just helps route it through the atmospheric window.

          There is no evidence of the fanciful anti-science warming that the AGW fairy-tales try to brain-wash you with.

          252

          • #
            Richard C (NZ)

            >”It [CO2] does not trap any energy, it just helps route it through the atmospheric window”

            Exactly. But unfortunately modern educational material is replete with the false term “heat trapping”.

            Impossible, the correct term is “heat transfer” or better still “energy transfer” – either by collision (most likely) or re-emission in this case.

            Besides, heat is by definition an energy transfer process:

            Heat in Thermodynamics

            Heat is a form of energy, but it is energy in transit. Heat is not a property of a system. However, the transfer of energy as heat occurs at the molecular level due to a temperature difference. The conventional symbol used to represent the amount of heat transferred in a thermodynamic process is Q.

            https://www.nuclear-power.com/nuclear-engineering/thermodynamics/laws-of-thermodynamics/first-law-of-thermodynamics/heat-in-thermodynamics/

            There is no “heat trapping” in that process. The temperature difference is between surface (288.15 K, 15 oC at Standard Atm) and space (0 K). Only a gradient in the troposphere so more a zig-zag in total:

            US Atmosphere – Temperature vs. Elevation
            https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/docs/documents/604/us_atmosphere_temperature_vs_elevation.png

            Even the earth’s greatest heat sink, the ocean, does not “trap” heat – it stores it and maybe for centuries. And there’s minimal heat storage in the atmosphere by comparison i.e. not a planetary heat sink but a transfer medium.

            00

        • #
          b.nice

          Simon links to the basic NON-SCIENCE of climate propaganda.

          Thinks it represents evidence or reality.

          NOPE, it doesn’t.

          Its just droll, brain-washed mantra.

          142

        • #
          b.nice

          Did you know that June was only 0.06°C anomaly, Simon.. 13th out of 43 years in the UAH data (only data that isn’t manically adjusted by the climate glitterati)

          That is below 1998, 2019, 2020, 2016, 1991, 2010, 2015, 2002, 2014, 2017, 2013, 2018.

          Tropics, where the heat from the Sun most enters the planet, is at -0.36°C

          Where is this “warming” !

          142

        • #
          b.nice

          “Time to start back at the basics.”

          Ok, where is your scientific evidence that atmospheric CO2 has caused any of the highly beneficial warming since the LIA ?

          Time to present actual evidence for the most basic meme of the AGW farce.

          Ball is in your court…. Don’t continue to be a miserable failure.

          102

          • #
            David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

            Perhaps he’d be kind enough to ensure his evidence would satisfy Professor Plimer, who’s been seeking the same answer for 25 years, as he said recently.

            Good luck.

            Cheers
            Dave B

            71

        • #
          TdeF

          Nothing in that EPA report is correct. It’s hard to know where to start but what they call ‘climate science’ is really ‘climate scientology’. Barely plausible, like most religions. However it seems very authoritative and lots of things area stated very forcefully as if true. So believe them if you will, but none of them are real science.

          Consider in the last 30 years, CO2 has gone up 14%. But Green cover has also gone up 14%, according to NASA and even our own CSIRO.

          So reconcile that. More CO2 actually means more trees when we are told more trees means less CO2. So why are there more trees? No one planted them. The actual Green coverage increase is the size of Brazil.

          And it’s not about the ‘Greenhouse effect’ at all. It’s whether humans can change CO2 because if we cannot, there is nothing we can do about warming or cooling. And if the world gets colder, what do we do?

          The fact is human CO2 in the air today is demonstrably under 4% of the total of CO2, so we have very little impact. Most of the increase is entirely natural and comes with warming. Warming the ocean surface increases CO2, not the other way around.

          The one massive source of CO2 is the vast ocean which cover 2/3 of the planet to a depth of 3.4 km and contains 99.9% of the surface heat and 98% of all the CO2. The oceans never freeze or boil and most do not even change temperature at all.

          And if there is warming, a little of that CO2 comes out. A tiny 1% of the ocean’s CO2 would double CO2 in the atmosphere and the world would green and the rains would come and the deserts would vanish, as is happening.

          Increased CO2 means more plant food and green cover explodes and food production. The % are near identical, so the world really wants more CO2. There is a CO2 shortage.

          So how much (man made) ‘warming’ has there been in 150 years? 1.5C? And what difference has it made? Anywhere? Zero.

          Our annual CO2 contribution in Australia is 3% of total human CO2 output. And human CO2 is only 3% of the annual CO2 cycle of the biosphere. And the biosphere is less than 1% of what is dissolved in the oceans like Soda Water (CO2 is 30x more soluble than O2). The idea that we tiny humans have any control over the world’s climate is just fantasy. But very profitable. It pays a lots of wages at the EPA.

          One of the great fallacies of Aristotlean philosophy was the ‘appeal to authority‘. I mean why would the EPA lie to you? See if you can answer that.

          Just ask yourself if any of the thousands of predictions of man made Global warming (aka Climate Science) in the last 35 years has been proven right. Where are the drowned cities, crop failures, starving millions, dead polar bears. Most of the current massive environmental damage is being done by wind farms and solar panels.

          310

          • #
            b.nice

            “Nothing in that EPA report is correct.”

            Yep, I noticed that too.

            USA temperatures for instance.. a slight bulge through the 2015/16 El Nino, but same now as in 2005

            Real data before that shows current is probably still lower than the 1930’s peaks. Tony Heller has analyzed many un-corrupted temperature sets, and found them all to be cooler than the 1930s/40s with numbers of hot days much lower as well.

            Oceans is NOT acidic, so any mention of ocean acidity is just plain anti-fact nonsense..

            A compilation of all ocean surface measurements over time, shows ZERO TREND in pH value.

            Hurricane and cyclone data show we at in a lull at the moment.

            Ocean heat content.. yes a tiny rise since the LIA, but again, similar proxy data shows its barely a wiggle

            Sea level rise is purely a facet of adjustments as satellites are splices together.. a scientific nonsense, again.

            Tide data shows absolutely no acceleration, just a steady rise with oscillations.

            If I could be bothered I could deconstruct every one of their FAKES.. with actual real data.. but much better things to do.

            162

            • #
              b.nice

              3rd last line.. Sea level rise acceleration is purely a facet of…..

              70

              • #
                TdeF

                And sea level rise, once held to be 1 metre per decade has been scaled back as a claim. In many counties the coastal areas are rising faster than the oceans, say in the Pacific. And Nordic countries including Scotland where the land is still rising quickly after the melting of the 1km thick glaciers only 10,000 years ago. Europe, Scandinavia, North America and Canada are very new lands only recently inhabited since the neolithic. If humans had to worry about anything which would destroy modern civilization, its a return of the unstoppable ice.

                102

            • #
              TdeF

              Yes, the ocean pH is 8.1 which is on the basic side of 7.0 which is neutral. It’s a word game where lowering the Ph is ‘acidifying’ when in fact it is still basic and reducing the ph is making it closer to neutral, not acid. The phrase used ocean ‘acidification’, which implies that you are making something more acid than it is, which is not true.

              For the oceans to actually be acidic the trillions of tons of calcium Carbonate like the visible white cliffs of Dover would have to be dissolved. The ocean is covered in the stuff. And under the oceans and cities like Paris and Odessa, built on limestone and marble. So many of our public buildings are built from limestone and marble and most of the city of Odessa built on a tall limestone plateau with thousands of km of tunnels.

              I saw the researchers in bikinis on the sands of Tahiti and the beautiful but tiny island of Bora Bora. An American university was running this R&D camp where young women were bubbling CO2 into the water to try and ‘acidify’ it in blissful ignorance of Henry’s law. It’s very hard to make the ocean acidic so you can determine the effects on shellfish but the middle aged scientist overseeing the researchers seemed to have an enviable job in the sunshine in the tropics on the beach. Research can be tough when you are trying to achieve the impossible.

              131

              • #
                TdeF

                In fact the recommended ph range for drinking fresh water is 6.5 to 8 where 7 is exactly neutral.

                So if anything, CO2 could bring sea water into the range of fresh water. At present apart from the salt, it is a tiny bit too alkaline. Desalination is about removing the salt and you have fresh potable water. Why anyone sees a problem with a pH of 8.1 is beyond science. I am sure the crabs do not mind.

                91

        • #
          GlenM

          What a clown. Regurgitating the same politically driven science that has wasted so much for nothing- making humanity slaves to the wishes of social engineers and technocrats.

          91

          • #
            TdeF

            Agreed, but what is a non scientist to do? This is the United States Environmental Protection Agency. They are public servants paid from taxes. And in the pages there is no suggestion that they are stating anything less than the proven facts. Except none of it is proven fact. This extreme leftist activism infects every part of the government. And 98% of Washington DC. voted for Hillary Clinton. You do not get a job if you vote Republican. Nor at any university.

            Critical Race Theory, Black Lives Matter, 200 genders, pronouns are important, Climate Change and man made Global Warming are real and you can identify as a chipmunk as long as you vote Democrat and send all available cash to the UN.

            41

    • #

      Simon

      I am interested to know who the ‘independent authorities’ are in the UK as I can’t think of any? The same goes for the EU 27.

      361

      • #
        Simon

        The Climate Change Committee (CCC) is an independent, statutory body established under the Climate Change Act 2008. Their purpose is to advise the UK and devolved governments on emissions targets and to report to Parliament on progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change. https://www.theccc.org.uk/

        360

        • #
          b.nice

          CCC is a bunch of ignorant activists, who are basically clueless about anything to do with climate and what drives it.

          They can’t even define CO2 properly.

          CO2 is a radiatively active gas.

          It acts nothing like a greenhouse, and has absolutely no impact on the climate whatsoever.

          That means that regulating CO2 emissions will have absolutely no effect except to destroy their own economy.

          That is, of course, the stated aim of the far-left globalists that have perpetrated this massive fraud… to destroy western economies.

          722

          • #
            Lawrie

            I am glad someone agrees with me b.nice. I have said from the outset that the communists found a better way of destroying the West than bombs and tanks. Simply use its own structures against it, and the chief weapon was education or lack of it. Eventually the uneducated would ascend to political power and complete the annihilation of once great countries. Think Albanese, Bowen and Co. It would be nigh impossible to find a more scientifically bereft group but then when the DFAT representative thinks climate change is causing more domestic violence we have a trifecta of idiocy.

            522

        • #
          tonyb

          Simon

          nonsense. i suggest you look further into the background of some of the executive committee starting with lord deben who was secretary of state for the Tories for many years and since then has acquired lots of ‘green’ interests.

          31

    • #
      R.B.

      Its not radical changes. You lied in your first sentence.

      Giving the EPA the powers that should be only given to elected officials is radical.
      RvW was radical.
      Ignoring the constitution is radical.

      493

    • #
      b.nice

      “meaningful legislation will simply not get passed.”

      CO2 legislation is totally meaningless, pointless and absolutely unnecessary.

      You prove, yet again, that you don’t have the vaguest clue what you are talking about.

      There is no “climate crisis”. It is a fairy-tale based on nothing but low-level computer games.

      503

      • #
        DonK31

        If the legislation can not be passed, if there is no consensus, perhaps it is not so meaningful.

        21

    • #
      Dave in the States

      All the counter arguments you have brought up are irrelevent to the constituntionalty of these policies. Under the US Constitution there is seperation of powers between three branches of government. And the administrative state is not one of them. Only the legislative branch can make law and Gov. policy is in effect law.

      The alarmists now have to prove their case and get it through Congress through the constutitional methods.

      Furthermore, just calling the paris agreement not a treaty doesn’t make it not a treaty. It is a treaty by any reasonable definition. And a treaty can’t be worth the paper it is written on under the US system unless it is radified by the US Senate, by 2/3 majority.

      Under the US constitution sovereignty belongs to the people, not to unelected officials, and certainly not to international insitutions.

      532

    • #
      Steve4192

      “The Clean Air Act was enacted by the Nixon Administration in 1970 in recognition that pollution could not be regulated at the state level because it affects everybody”

      You could apply the same logical to national regulations. The USA cutting down CO2 emissions is meaningless as long as China and India continue to ramp up their emissions faster than America cuts it’s emissions.

      ————————

      “Congress was grid locked at the time and insufficiently nimble to legislate”

      Too damn bad. Only the legislative branch has the constitutional power to legislate. Allowing executive branch agencies to create their own legislation without any accountability to the electorate is a recipe for disaster. You don’t get to rig the game just because you don’t like the voter’s choices.

      ————————

      “The USA has signed the Paris Agreement and has commitments that it has to keep”

      LOL. It doesn’t have to keep diddly-squat. It’s a non-binding agreement that was never ratified by Congress. Only Congress can approve treaties. That’s why Trump was able to pull out of the Paris accord.

      ————————

      “Most democratic countries have recognised that climate change is a bipartisan issue and have instituted independent authorities to manage the change.”

      Weird. Independent authorities that are not accountable to the voters are inherently UNdemocratic. Thank goodness for the United States Supreme Court slamming the brakes on the continued expansion of unelected, unaccountable, rule by bureaucratic fiat.

      472

    • #
      Bozotheclown

      Simon says:

      The Supreme Court’s recent radical rulings……..

      I suppose one might consider that the U.S. Constitution was unprecedented and also “radical”.

      Simon, aren’t you missing the point of “returning to a constitutional environment”? Yes you missing the point is common enough but then you go off your rocker with a bold lie:

      …….rulings on guns, abortion, and environmental protections have disregarded over 50 years of legal precedent.

      Absolutely wrong and don’t try to be a scholar in this area!

      You cannot know how enjoyable it is for me to watch you whimper and pout. I hope you pick up your ball and go home.

      You’ve been beaten by none other than the wisdom of Donald Trump.

      391

      • #
        Richard C (NZ)

        >”Absolutely wrong and don’t try to be a scholar in this area!”

        Simon’s BSc confers superior opinion in all things apparently.

        Also his expertise in NZ carbon credit forestry is the ultimate green virtue. I do have some green problems with that vs his wider export forestry work though, namely:

        Log harvest machinery – diesel
        Trucking to port – diesel
        Log trains to port – diesel
        Port trucks/loader stackers – diesel
        Log shipping – bunker oil/diesel
        Port trucks/loader stackers (again) – diesel
        Trucking/trains to mill – diesel

        That’s a lot of fossil fuel. But it’s ok because our ETS is saving the planet.

        Combined export/carbon forestry management is a massive conflict of interest – for example:

        Hancock Forest Management (HFM)

        Environmental Stewardship
        https://hfm.nz/environmental-stewardship/

        FSC has a set of 10 Principles and associated criteria which apply internationally. HFM NZ has been certified to FSC since 2004

        FOREST MANAGEMENT AND STUMP-TO-FOREST GATE CHAIN-OF-CUSTODY SURVEILLANCE EVALUATION REPORT [Audit]
        https://hfm.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2021/04/FSC-surveillance-audit-2020-Public-Summary.pdf

        [Note “Stump-to-forest gate” – fossil fueled log trains, trucks, ships NOT considered]

        FOREST STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL® (FSC®) CERTIFICATION
        FSC PRINCIPLES AND CRITERIA FOR FOREST STEWARDSHIP

        file:///C:/Users/Administrator/Downloads/FSC-STD-01-001%20V5-2%20EN.pdf

        Principle 5: Benefits from the Forest

        5.3 The Organization* shall demonstrate that the positive and negative externalities* of operation are included in the management plan*.

        [One major negative externality is that the export of forest logs is fossil fuel reliant]
        [Major $ benefit of a log export forest relies on a negative externality]
        [Audit studiously avoids addressing fossil fuel reliance externality]

        Hence the unethical conflict of interest.

        141

        • #
          b.nice

          “Simon’s BSc”

          LOL.. a High school pass level in Social Science, at best !

          62

          • #
            GlenM

            True? A Bachelor of Science! Seeing how easy it is to acquire such academic qualifications these days doesn’t impress me. Everyone gets Distinctions and HD’s and they’re all brilliant and unique. They’ve been told this since the 1st year at school. Simon is one of these entitled people who thinks they know it all. Am I being too harsh?

            91

    • #
      David Maddison

      Simon, please explain how poor people (or even higher income people) are meant to keep warm in winter without access to inexpensive and reliable coal, gas, nuclear and proper hydro energy.

      Of course, there are many other issues, but let’s start with that one.

      342

      • #
        Sambar

        And soon David it will be how can poor people afford an electric car to drive to the shopping mall to warm up in winter. I hear our very own Lily D’Ambrosio saying she will talk to all of her counter parts to see if Australia can implent the banning of ICE cars by 2035 in line with the EU. Funny how none of these ideas were put up at the last election.

        301

    • #

      Anthropogenic global warming from the burning of fossil fuels is real and an existent threat to the world’s ecosystems despite the claims of many here.

      Your uncounted repetions don’t make it true.
      Real science show you wrong.

      511

      • #
        TdeF

        The real problem is that there is almost no fossil fuel CO2 in the air. Never has been. The arguments otherwise are not based on any science I know.

        And of course the EPA says the 50% increases in CO2 is all fossil fuel, but no one has actually proven that. And as the costs of reducing CO2 are about $1,500 Billion a year and climbing, you think someone would have bothered. But I guess I have answered my own question.

        Then so called man made CO2 driven Global Warming started after the end of the Little Ice Age in 1870 but before anyone could claim this was CO2, they would have to explain the cooling which preceded it. Michael Mann did it best. He just ignored the cooling. And it is most likely that whatever caused the cooling also caused the warming. So did lack of CO2 cause the little ice age?

        The graph of temperature over the last few hundred years has all been explained to incredible accuracy with only a single (De Vries) solar cycle and a single ocean cycle (The PDO/AMO). Further CO2 can only cannot explain why the warming has stopped for the last ten years. Solar and PDO cycles can.

        And then if man made CO2 was the cause of the recent slow warming, why didn’t it scale with human population which has gone up x9 in the last 120 years. CO2 has only gone up x 50%. So it’s all made up science, Climate Change aka Man made Armegeddon end of days tipping point CO2 driven rapid Global Warming.

        You see if there was really GLobal Warming, the first thing you would notice is that the winters were warmer. As far as any non scientist can see, the world is quite a bit colder than it was 35 years ago and the winters are harsher in Europe and North America, Russia and China. So much for the CO2 blanket. It’s not there. And as most humans live next to the ocean, who can say in the last 35 years in their own personal experience that the seas have risen? Where?

        So the next time you go to Bali or Fiji or Thailand or even Queensland or Perth or Broome for a summer holiday on the beach, ask people if the seas have risen. Of course not. From summer to winter, no one drowns unless they jump in the water or there is a tsunami.

        I am amazed that people are prepared to believe things they know from personal experience are just not true.

        191

        • #
          TdeF

          And amazed that Joe Biden’s nominee Kentajii Brown, a black woman could get the incredibly important job of Supreme Court Judge as an objective rational learned person when she said in the final job interview that she had no idea whether she was a woman because she was not a biologist. Obviously she still needs an expert opinion just to go to the bathroom. And surely at the age of 51 she would have sought expert advice by now or at least before the confirmation interview.

          This is just so typical of the new Liberal Progressives, facts don’t exist or they are meaningless. Not knowing if you are a woman or anything else makes man made Climate Change look rational. Anything is possible when the most fundamental ignorance is a virtue which actually commends and qualifies you as as Supreme Court Judge. The press said the question was tricky.

          131

    • #
      b.nice

      “Anthropogenic global warming from the burning of fossil fuels is real ”

      RUBBISH !!

      You know there is absolutely no scientific proof to that fairy-tale.

      Repeating the equivalent of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, over and over again, does not make it real.

      [Snip]AD

      322

    • #
      b.nice

      “and an existent threat to the world’s ecosystems”

      BS again !!

      Extra CO2 causes the expansion of world ecosystems.

      It is what supports all life on Earth, a carbon based planet.

      Why is every comment you make is the absolute opposite of truth, fact and reality.

      “despite the claims of many here”

      You are the one making the anti-science claims, claims you have never been able to back anything remotely related to real science.

      Put up … or don’t.. 😉

      332

    • #
      Honk R Smith

      For zealots, rule of law is either an impediment or a convenience.

      191

    • #
      Gerry

      Simon, you state that …”The USA has signed the Paris Agreement and has commitments that it has to keep”. What are the consequences of the US not fulfilling their part of the Agreement?

      160

      • #
        Ronin

        Biden has signed the Paris agreement, the US is implicated by association.

        35

      • #
        James Murphy

        No consequences as long as they have a Democrat president. If they ever have a Republican president again, you can be assured there will be outrage at the lack of action…
        much like Australia, where anything at all that a Liberal government does is terrible, but a Labor government is fine, no matter what disasters they cause.

        Just imagine the outrage and complaints from the media if, in WA, the Liberals had been the ones to win in a landslide as Labor did at the last state election…. “democracy in peril” etc…

        21

    • #
      Ronin

      “Anthropogenic global warming from the burning of fossil fuels is real and an existent threat to the world’s ecosystems despite the claims of many here.”

      What rubbish, we are still exiting an ice age, a little warming is to be expected, the fact remains that 3% of 3% of .01% anthropogenic CO2 can’t and doesn’t affect anything.

      151

    • #
      Kevin Kilty

      You have no idea what precedent means. If taken your way any number of awful precedents like Dred Scott would be settled law. You are mistaken that any sort of “agreement” binds the U.S. in anyway. To achieve that requires consent of the Senate. There is no climate crisis. And finally I note that some number of your fellow countrymen are offering to fly American Women to the UK for abortions. Apparently you folks don’t understand that women who find themselves in a U.S. state that disallows the procedure, or won’t allow it after the first or second trimester, can simply go to a neighboring state allowing such procedure.

      I don’t comment about Australian, UK, NZ politics because I don’t understand it all. You might consider same.

      121

    • #
      bobby b

      Simon
      July 2, 2022 at 5:10 am · Reply

      The Supreme Court’s recent radical rulings on guns, abortion, and environmental protections have disregarded over 50 years of legal precedent.

      So?

      “Legal precedent” is a preference only. If a ruling can be done without violence to past rulings, the Court will do it that way.

      But many times, that is not possible.

      By your reckoning, we could have essentially shut down the USSC a few decades ago. It had ruled on most major issues, so they were forever and always a done deal, right?

      Wrong. In fact, many of our most impactful and progressive rulings have come about because newer courts were willing to re-examine issues.

      Brown v. Board of Education. By your rule, we’d still be following Plessy v. Ferguson, in which “separate but equal” was the rule of the day. Thankfully, they overruled legal precedent.

      100

  • #
    Simon

    Thanks for the U.Mich. link to the ‘Major Questions’ doctrine Jo. It shows just how radical and contradictory the ruling is from Justices who claim to be ‘textual’.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/30/supreme-court-epa-climate-change-conservative-message/
    Interesting factoid, Justice Neil Gorsuch’s mother was appointed the head of the EPA under Reagan and gutted it arguing that all environmental decisions should be made by individual states.

    353

    • #
      James Murphy

      Using the Washington Post “Opinion” section as a credible source of anything is a fools errand.
      It’s like someone decided that their motto “democracy dies in darkness” was no longer a warning, but an aspirational target.

      441

      • #
        RicDre

        “Using the Washington Post “Opinion” section…”

        Every section of The Washington Post is an opinion section.

        431

        • #
          James Murphy

          Yes indeed, the section marked “opinion” is somewhat redundant, though not as redundant as a lot of the people pretending to be journalists should be.

          291

    • #
      b.nice

      Major question is that CO2 is NOT A POLLUTANT, and the EPA activists have no right to attempt to control the provision of life-supporting CO2 to the planet.

      The decision is absolutely correct under the US Constitution, get over it.

      382

    • #
      b.nice

      “radical and contradictory”

      Yes the original decision in the Obama era was radical and contradictory.

      It gave the EPA powers that a bunch of low-life far-left activists should never have been allowed to acquire.

      REALITY and the Constitution have been restored.. twice now.

      And the left are showing how much they hate and want to ignore that Constitution.

      312

    • #
      R.B.

      Interesting factoid, Hunter Biden’s dad is Joe Biden.

      191

  • #
    James Murphy

    I know what real pollution is, and agree it needs to be prevented or minimised, but what sort of pollution is driving climate change…?

    261

    • #
      Ronin

      If you want to know what real pollution is like, just go to China.

      141

      • #
        James Murphy

        I’ve had the “pleasure” of seeing and tasting the unique blend of pollutants in the air in Beijing, and a couple of other Chinese cities.

        31

  • #
    Harry Passfield

    Checking my blog name is OK. Apologies.

    40

  • #
    b.nice

    Pelosi.. “bowed to polluters who seek to poison the air our children breathe…“.

    Children that breathe out 40,000ppm of CO2

    CO2 is not a poison at any possible atmospheric level.

    It is totally beneficial to all life on this carbon-based planet we are lucky enough to live on.

    Wake up, clueless ditz.

    412

  • #
    b.nice

    UAH down to a scary 0.06°C anomaly. !

    Tropics coldest in 10 year at -0.36°C..

    Remember, warmth comes from solar heating of the tropics being circulated outwards.

    Where has all to mythical “warming” gone to ?

    292

  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    Good to see that the USA will be able to compete with China and India again

    617

    • #
      el+gordo

      Not quite.

      ‘Contrary to their critics, the Justices aren’t blocking climate regulation. They are merely saying that the decision on whether and how to do it rests with Congress.’

      191

    • #
      b.nice

      What a fatuous, empty comment from PF. !

      Probably trying to imply something to its-self.

      83

      • #
        robert rosicka

        I think PF is onto something here , Biden has now managed to turn the USA into a struggling third world country and so now China and India are equals in the race to become energy independent and it doesn’t matter how they get there with this decision by SCOTUS .

        91

  • #

    From my updated Blogpost

    The End of the UNFCCC /IPCC Global Warming Meme is Confirmed by the Arctic Sea Ice.
    1.The Millennial Global Temperature Cycle.
    Planetary orbital and solar activity cycles interact and combine to drive global temperatures. Because of the thermal inertia of the oceans there is a 12+/- year delay between these drivers and global temperature. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is 0.058% by weight. That is one 1,720th of the whole atmosphere. It is inconceivable thermodynamically that such a tiny tail could wag so big a dog. The Oulu galactic cosmic ray count provides a useful proxy for driver amplitude.
    The statements below are supported by the Data, Links and Reference in parentheses ( ) at https://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2021/08/c02-solar-activity-and-temperature.html
    A Millennial Solar Activity Turning Point (MSATP) was reached in 1991/2.The correlative temperature peak and Millennial Temperature Turning Point (MTTP ) was in 2004 as also reported in Nature Climate Change Zhang, Y., Piao, S., Sun, Y. et al. Future reversal of warming-enhanced vegetation productivity in the Northern Hemisphere. Nat. Clim. Chang. (2022) .(Open Access)
    Because of the thermal inertia of the oceans the UAH 6.0 satellite Temperature Lower Troposphere anomaly was seen at 2003/12 (one Schwab cycle delay) and was + 0.26C.(34) The temperature anomaly at 06/2022 was +0.06C (34).There has been no net global warming for the last 18 years. Earth passed the peak of a natural Millennial temperature cycle trend in 2004 and will generally cool until 2680 – 2700…………….
    See more at http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/

    201

  • #
    b.nice

    Greta has experienced no warming in spring in her whole child-activist life time.

    https://notrickszone.com/2022/07/01/late-spring-in-finland-sweden-have-nit-been-warming/

    201

  • #
    David Maddison

    What a wonderful time for rational thinking Americans and their supporters.

    The USSC is rightly moving away from former judicial activism and returning to the Constitutional interpretation intended by the Founding Fathers.

    Recently there have been three fantastic decisions based on the correct interpretation of the Constitution as it was written and intended.

    1) Returning the issue of abortion to the states. Don’t worry Leftists, you can still kill babies, including up until the moment of birth. You just have to go to the states which allow it. And most sensible people still support abortion for extreme cases and can get it if necessary.

    2) Reaffirmed Second Amendment rights.

    3) The ruling under present discussion. It was speciically about enforcement of Obama’s never-implemented “Clean Power Plan” to cut CO2 emissions from proper power plants. The USSC found that the EPA did not have power to direct power generation based on that never-implemented policy, which also involved the EPA declaring the combustion by-product CO2 a “pollutant” in 2007.

    Despite all the evil going under the Biden maladministration designed to destroy the United States, this is fantastic news for rational-thinking non-Leftist Americans.

    Sadly the DemocRATs are now trying to destroy the integrity of USSC as well, by wanting to add greater numbers of judges beyond the present nine, thus ensuring they will always have a puppet court in their image.

    281

  • #
    Penguinite

    Looks like common sense is breaking out all over! We just need some of it to permeate The Antipidies!

    191

  • #
    Richard+Ilfeld

    AS the panic sets in in Euroland, Simon, and all those signatories of solemn international agreements you reference need to burn coal to stay warm, who will punish them?

    221

  • #
    Zane

    CARB – California Air Resources Board – ” clean air agency in the government of California ” – another alphabet soup entity like the EPA weaponized by the green left totalitarians who worship globalism and the cult of Obama.

    151

  • #
    Neville

    AGAIN here’s the co2 warming effect explained by the co2 Coalition’s Atmospheric Physicists.
    After the first 100 ppm it’s downhill all the way. Perhaps the left wing extremists should take the co2 Coalition’s quiz?
    Who knows they might even learn something and then start to understand why we must only invest in RELIABLE BASE- LOAD energy and not their UNRELIABLE, TOXIC S & W fantasies?

    https://co2coalition.org/facts/water-vapor-is-the-primary-greenhouse-gas-3/

    72

    • #
      Neville

      AGAIN here the co2 logarithmic warming effect is explained in the first paragraph.

      “Climate scientists have determined, and both sides agree, that the warming effect of each molecule of CO2 decreases significantly (logarithmically) as its concentration increases. This is one reason why there was no runaway greenhouse warming when the concentration of CO2 was approaching 20 times that of today. This inconvenient fact, important though it is, is kept very well hidden and is rarely mentioned, for it undermines the theory of future catastrophic climate change. Diminishing returns apply”.

      A more detailed description of the chart for the physics aficionados is provided here by Dr. William Happer:

      “The blue curve shows how the thermal radiation flux Z(C) from Earth to space changes with the concentration C of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. This example is for a temperate, summertime latitude. C is measured in parts per million (ppm) of all atmospheric molecules. At the current value of the CO2 concentration, about C = 400 ppm, the flux is Z(400 ppm) = 277 Watts per square meter (W/m^2). If all the CO2 could be removed from Earth’s atmosphere, so C = 0, but there were no changes in the concentrations of the remaining greenhouse gases (water vapor, ozone, methane and nitrous oxide) and no changes in the atmospheric temperature profile, the flux would be larger, Z(0 ppm)= 307 Watts (W/m^2), shown by the blue dot on the vertical axis of the graph. Adding the greenhouse gas CO2 diminishes the flux to space, very rapidly for the first few parts per million of CO2, as one can see from the blue curve. But as more CO2 is added a law of diminishing returns comes into play. The blue curve is almost flat for current concentrations of CO2, so the greenhouse effect is very insensitive to changes in CO2 concentrations. In the jargon of radiative transfer the greenhouse effect is said to be “saturated.”

      The vertical red lines show the decrease of flux to space caused by successive increases of the CO2 concentration C by 50 ppm increments. The increments are so small that they need to be multiplied by a factor of 100 to be clearly visible on the graph. Except for concentrations C that are almost zero, every doubling of CO2 concentrations decreases the radiation to space by 3 W. For example, the first red bar show that increasing C from 50 ppm to 100 ppm decreases the radiation to space by 300/100 W/m^2 = 3 W/m^2.”

      Source(s): Wijngaarden-Happer 2020, Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases
      Source(s): Happer 2021

      81

      • #
        robert rosicka

        You can’t debunk religion using science Neville, faith and blind ideology will always win that argument.

        61

        • #
          Neville

          Robert I just heard yesterday that a friend who fell for the Jehovah Witness’ idiocy 60 + years ago has now left them.
          Over time I tried my best to explain the TRUE history of these con merchants, but he still believed.
          Anyway I’m happy for him and his family and I know they’re very decent people and my informant recently met them on holidays and they seemed relaxed and happy. Good news.

          91

      • #
        Geoff Sherrington

        Neville,
        Thanks for the summary of the log effect. Sadly, there are more questions.
        To graph the expression y=logx you first need to pin down the start point. Usually people use x=0. So, what is meant by zero concentration of CO2? In the global atmospheric context, the purist would logically say that it is zero molecules of CO2. The first doubling would be from 1 to 2 molecules, then to 4, 8, 16, 32 etc so that the logarithmic effect would be saturated (say 8 doublings = 256 molecules) thus a final CO2 concentration too small to measure.
        As you report, van Wijngaarden & Happer start their doubling calculations from an undefined “first few hundred ppm” then use several doublings of that sort of chosen zero point to make their graph to illustrate.
        Their graph might be a good fit to some observed global measurements, but it does not explain the jump from a few molecules to a few hundred ppm.
        I am missing discussion of a concept like the number of CO2 molecules needed in the air to make a measurable temperature difference. The whole concept of saturation by doubling rests on where you start.
        It is almost as if we need calculations of how much energy a single CO2 molecule can accept from a photon, then how many energised molecules are needed before we can detect a temperature change. I used to do such calculations in the 1970s but I am far too rusty now. Geoff S

        71

        • #
          Neville

          Thanks Geoff and it’s certainly confusing, but perhaps you could ask Dr Happer, or Dr Spencer or Dr Lindzen,or Dr Christy etc for a more specific answer.
          But they do state that there is general agreement about the logarithmic effect of co2 as it increases in the atmosphere and I’m just using that agreement for now.
          I’ve no time and no expertise, but perhaps Jo’s hubby might also lend a hand? After all David is a maths guru so he may have the time to answer your question(s)?

          51

          • #
            b.nice

            As I have shown before, The energy absorption by CO2 has been shown, by measurement, to level off at about 280ppm..

            It is close to logarithmic, but not logarithmic.

            Any energy absorbed by CO2 is immediately passed onto the remaining 99.96% of the atmosphere where it is dealt with by convection and other forms of energy transfer

            There is no energy trapped by atmospheric CO2.

            71

            • #
              Geoff Sherrington

              b.nice,
              Since you have explained the effect, you must know enough maths and physics to understand the query I made to Neville, a little back from here.
              In essence, to where do you allocate the start point for making doublings and counting them? At 1 molecule, at 1ppm CO2, at 100 ppm CO2, or where?

              Re “level off at 280 ppm”, all simple logarithmic functions can be thought of as levelling off at all values. It does not matter where you start or finish on a simple log curve because whatever interval you choose will, with selection of convenient axes on a graph, appear to level off at the highest x-value.

              It is a steadily increasing climb to infinity.

              Geoff S

              21

              • #
                b.nice

                ” all simple logarithmic functions can be thought of as leveling off at all values”

                Look at the measured curve from the graph I posted.

                Absorption stops around 280ppm.. period.. no extra absorption after that at all.

                31

  • #
    Honk R Smith

    Back in the box perhaps.
    But they are Jacks.

    40

  • #
    Neville

    Here AGAIN are all countries’and confederations co2 emissions since 1970.
    So can any left wing extremists explain the data over the last 52 years and then tell us how wealthy OECD countries could’ve made a DIFFERENCE?
    And if not why not? Then explain why we’ve also seen the greatest increase in population + health + wealth for Humans in recorded history? In just 52 years.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions#/media/File:World_fossil_carbon_dioxide_emissions_six_top_countries_and_confederations.png

    41

  • #
    Neville

    Here’s more of their so called pollutions increase in the last 12 months.
    NOAA Mauna Loa data increase is 1.86 ppm from May ’21 to May 2022. Gosh this should further condemn us according to Albo’s Labor and their Greens and Teals comrades.

    https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

    41

    • #
      Ross

      The NOAA Mauna Loa data for atmospheric CO2 is too “nice”, IMO. There are some seasonal variations within each year giving that sawtooth effect but the overall trend line is a lovely upward projecting line. Anyone who has charted observations of most natural phenomena will find there is usually wide fluctuations, or at least trends within the main trend line. There’s something a little artificial about those readings. Certainly to allocate all that rise to human activity to me is too simplistic. There are other bigger forces affecting that trend line.

      51

  • #
    Neville

    AGAIN if we are checking their so called co2 pollution, we should take note that the CSIRO tells us that the SH is a co2 NET SINK and the NH is a co2 NET SOURCE of that naughty gas.
    See under “seasonal variation” at the Cape Grim CSIRO link.

    https://capegrim.csiro.au/

    51

  • #
    David Maddison

    Simon, still waiting for your explanation as to how people are meant to keep warm in winter without coal and gas power (and nuclear and real hydro power since the anti-energy lobby hates those as well).

    101

  • #
    Forrest Gardener

    Simon is not a real individual.

    81

  • #
    Zane

    Perhaps the greens are merely misguided romantics. After all, if they get their way, most dinners will be candlelight affairs. 😃

    102

  • #
    Neville

    AGAIN the Bolter links to our Chief scientist Dr Finkel who explains under oath in the Senate that we could stop all Aussies’ co2 emissions and it would not make a measurable difference AT ALL.
    Or all of that multi billion $ PAIN for a GUARANTEED ZERO gain. FOREVER.
    GEEEZZZZ clueless Albo and his delusional mates must have missed this Senate hearing?
    Calling Senator Penny Wong are you comprehending Dr Finkel’s answer YET?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJY8xKknpms

    91

  • #
    Ross

    Back under Obama how on earth did the EPA manage to classify CO2 as a pollutant? Unbelievable stupidity.

    141

  • #
    RickWill

    Meanwhile the Rainforest lady said it “condemns everyone alive today and generations to come”.

    As if a US Supreme Court decision could influence what is happening in China and India. Such limited perspective.

    And where does this person think all the wind turbines will be mounted if the rainforests are not cleared?

    91

    • #
      Neville

      But Rick Will these loonies are always yapping about their fantasy world and therefore no limitations involved for their endless BS and FR-AD.

      61

    • #
      William

      And if it condemns everyone alive today, how will there be generations to come? Rainforest lady makes little sense, but that is not surprising.

      61

    • #
      Tel

      … where does this person think all the wind turbines will be mounted …

      There’s this technique of building concrete on top of a coral reef … works for the Chinese.

      Just throwing some ideas out there!!!

      80

  • #
    GregS

    I see Pelosi is still being deceitful, by implying that CO2 will “poison our children”.

    51

  • #
    Philip

    At this moment, when the impacts of the climate crisis are becoming ever more disruptive, costing billions of dollars every year from floods, wildfires, droughts and sea level rise, and jeopardizing the safety of millions of Americans…

    An extraordinary claim, no point in explaining why it is so obvious to readers here. Yet it is very convincing to many. They simply make the claim and it is real. The claim would be based on some statistic that is possibly true, but the extrapolation is terrible mathematics.

    I listened to John Laws this weak who had a caller from the recent stop the traffic protest alliance, she was a Gen X green, and completely convinced that in 20 years time (that magical far off number, notice how its always 20 years?) humans will stop existing, dying on a burning planet, her literal words. Her reasoning is that apparently we have 200 species dying per day and so, soon that one species will be humans. The earth by the way will continue, her words not mine. And here is the terribly poor calculation. She multiplies this magical 200 by 7 and then by 52 and then by x many years and concludes soon enough it will be us included in that very very big number. This is science.

    This is infantile thinking, very poor low level analysis. And yet it occurs at the lowest level of green protesters and talk back radio, and goes right to the top of the EPA.

    81

    • #
      Sambar

      Always the same, big scary numbers and it must be true. Single use plastic bags stay in the environment for 3 hundred years don’t ya know. Fortunately these are one of the species that will soon be extinct. Ergo by going extinct the planet can be saved.

      41

    • #
      Annie

      The same ludicrous maths is used to demonise cats but they are not interested in the number of birds, bats and insects slaughtered by wind turbine blades or fried by solar arrays, nor the land area cleared for these non- renewables!

      71

      • #
        Philip

        Yes the demonisation of cats is one of my interests and an excellent example of woeful linear extrapolation. It is where the flaw lies with all negative beliefs of environmentalism. I was going to mention it in the OP but edited for brevity.

        42

  • #
    b.nice

    “200 species dying per day”

    Ask them to name just one for each day last week. 🙂

    All you will get is a blank, gormless look !

    151

  • #
    David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

    I first learned of this case yesterday and was amazed. Delighted. And also surprised that I’d not had any prior indication that it was occurring. Another surprise that it was the ABC who broke it for me:

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-01/us-supreme-court-imposes-limits-on-joe-biden-emission-reduction/101199554

    It’s also the first sign I’ve seen for some years that the US legal system can still work.
    Overall, a very good day.

    Cheers
    Dave B

    101

  • #
    Bill+In+Oz

    Looks to me like, finally,
    18 months after his departure,
    Something positive has come out of
    The Trump Presidency.

    It will, from now on
    Be the USA Congress
    Which sets policy & law about
    The need, if any
    For “Climate Action”.

    51

    • #
      Philip

      yes but I dare say the US congress will set law for climate action anyway.

      20

    • #
      Gerry

      You must have been living under a rock during the Trump presidency.

      51

      • #
        Kalm Keith

        Yes, the change in America during those Trump years was astounding and the people who finally got work and self respect did appreciate it.

        91

  • #
    Philip

    The EPA just wants power over the national economy, energy systems, land, air and water.

    Talk to any self proclaimed Green and control is a common theme of their thinking, of how things should be run. They often want to ban things. If they self identify a problem they react by making rules against it, their rules. For example, an exotic plant in nature they will want to ban it and fine you if you have it. They want do this across a wide range of topics. They are convinced their control will save us, rememdy the situation, set things “right”.

    And that conviction is where they go wrong, never considering they may not be right, that maybe people or things should be simply allowed to just work things out, or letting go of control of any situation. Philosopher Alan Watts would talk of this in his lectures quite a lot, that phenomena of wanting to grip to a falling rock as it breaks from the cliff, when it will do you no good at all, but you yearn for control.

    And it is quite odd, given their confession of love for nature. Their philosophy of control does not exist in nature. You would perhaps think they would base themselves on something they worship. But perhaps they don’t understand what they worship ?

    71

  • #
    Honk R Smith

    The DS.
    The GWOT did for the DS intelligence (oxym) apparatus what the pandemic did for the political apparatus.
    A system for global co-operation with a weakening of national loyalty and political control.
    One driving in the DC will notice a curious plethora of oddly fortified sometimes block sized urban a suburban strongholds with vague alphabet markings (there are at least 17 possible combinations), a construction boom of GWOT money.
    I wouldn’t tell tales out of school, but I’ve heard of 1 or 2 nice US DS donjons in Oz.
    The Pandemic arrives a viola, the GWOT is out of fashion.
    Phase 2?
    Of course correlation is not causation.
    Coincidentally many roads lead back to the great progressive hero Barack Obama.
    The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 HR 5736 (such pleasant innocuous names they give them).
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GI7lMPPmgc
    We may have seen the result in this very thread.
    SCOUTUS will need the ally of David.
    (Biblical reference for any progressive reader.)

    41

  • #
    CHRIS

    I’m not progressive, especially with the Bible. How about we cut through the BS, and get down to tin-taks…which is: The USA is dependent on the structure of the US Supreme Court. What a great model for a Republic! PS: I’d love to know what drugs Honky is on

    10

    • #
      Honk R Smith

      Are you American?
      Is your point that the American Republic is flawed because of what you’re calling ‘dependence’ on the structure of the Supreme court?
      I think the founders intended SCOTUS to be independent.
      This independence is under literal physical threat from the Left as we speak.
      Or as I speak at least.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GP3RmAYBzI
      These demonstrations are illegal.
      The law is not being enforced by the current Justice (DS) department.

      51

  • #
    Gbees

    Nice picture of steam in the Rollingstone tweet.

    21

  • #
    Lee Christal

    The E.P.A. has evolved into a powerful monster that thinks it knows better than the American People.

    The E.P.A. forced Obama’s Clean Power Plan on us. This is their attitude about it:

    Under oath, E.P.A. administrator Gina McCarthy (Obama’s point person to get his Clean Power Plan adopted) could not deny that the effects of Obama/Biden’s Clean Power Plan had no possibility of materially reducing the earth’s temperature.

    Here is her sworn testimony regarding the effect of the Clean Power Plan:

    Chairman Lamar Smith: “On the Clean Power Plan, former administration assistant secretary Charles McConnell said at best it will reduce global temperature by only one one-hundredth of a degree Celsius. At the same time, it’s going to increase the cost of electricity. Do you consider one one-hundredth of a degree to be enormously beneficial?”

    Administrator McCarthy: “The value of this rule is not measured in that way!,” (Well, it should be!) “It is measured in showing strong domestic action which can actually trigger global action to address what’s a necessary action to protect…”

    Chairman Smith: “Do you disagree with my one one-hundredth of a degree figure? Do you disagree with the one one-hundredth of a degree?”

    Administrator McCarthy: “I’M NOT DISAGREEING that this action in and of itself will not make all the difference we need to address climate action…

    According to the E.P.A.’s own numbers, Obama’s Clean Power Plan was going to cost $78 billion per year, and by the year 2100, after spending over $6 TRILLION dollars on the plan, it was estimated that it would save between .006 and .0015 degrees Celsius.

    40