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“…CO2 emitted into the atmosphere is rapidly and, for all practical purposes, uniformly distributed around the planet.
I may be stating the obvious but it needs to be pointed out. Voters and even political leaders are surprisingly poorly informed on this point. Emissions cuts in California don’t have any significant effect on California’s climate. They also have no global effect. California’s cuts are too small relative to the global whole; they also are largely illusory.
Emitting industries leave the state. They don’t stop emitting. If California imports Canadian hydro to charge its electric vehicles, consumers elsewhere have to burn more coal and gas. If Californians drive EVs, more gasoline is free to be burned by others, releasing more CO2 that influences climate change in California and everywhere else.
Green-energy subsidies do not reduce emissions. This will be news to millions of California voters. It contradicts a central tenet of state policy. It isn’t news to the actual enactors of these subsidies. A National Research Council study sponsored by congressional Democrats in 2008 concluded that such handouts were a “poor tool for reducing greenhouse gases” and called for carbon taxes instead.
Unfortunately, the incoming Obama administration quickly discovered it favored climate taxes only when Republicans were in charge. Backers would later engage in flagrant lying to promote Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, knowingly citing bogus predictions that its trillion-dollar spending profusion would reduce emissions.
A 2019 University of Oregon study had already revealed the empirical truth: Green energy doesn’t replace fossil fuels, it enables more energy consumption overall. That same year the EPA calculated that the potential emissions savings from subsidizing electric vehicles had been offset five times over by the pickup truck and SUV boom Team Obama facilitated to assure the success of its auto bailout.
Last year, the premier journal Science put a nail in the question: 96% of policies supported worldwide as “reducing” emissions failed to do so, consisting mostly of handouts to green-energy interests…”
And why was global warming embraced by the left? It was a panacea to explain away the terrible policies of unthinking Democrat polls and the institutional corruption in blue states:
“…He chased her with hair spray. She saw him get shot. Salena Zito is the journalist who knows Trump—and his voters—better than anyone…”
“…5 separate state and local agencies pass the buck…”
Related:
Democrats Are Terrified of Kash Patel Leading the FBI
And garbage media, and bureaucrats.
“…Other disaster-prone states, such as Florida, have major insurance problems, but the causes vary. In California, the cause is tied to our prior-approval system of insurance regulation. Wildfires exacerbate that problem. Climate change might intensify the wildfires. But the issue is California makes it inordinately difficult for insurers to price their policies accordingly. Price controls always lead to shortages. Instead of risking their financial health, insurers quietly leave.
Our controls came in 1988 when voters approved Proposition 103. It made the insurance commissioner an elected official. Elected officials have a political incentive not to raise rates for obvious reasons. It instituted a prior-approval system (similar systems exist in 12 states), whereby the commissioner must approve any rate increases. It created a Byzantine rate-review process that’s costly and time-consuming. It gave consumer attorneys (“intervenors”) standing to oppose rate hikes. It even rolled back rates.
The state can enact reforms within the Prop. 103 framework (mainly through expediting the rate-review process and allowing use of those catastrophe models), but it won’t have a healthy insurance market until it ditches price controls. To make matters worse, the state’s FAIR (Fair Access to Insurance Requirements) Plan is in deep trouble, as increasing numbers of property owners rely on this bare-bones state-created insurer of last resort. If that fails, what exactly will people do?…
…the state needs to allow a competitive marketplace. If insurers were free to price their policies to reflect their risk, they would be more apt to write them in riskier areas — and competition would eventually reduce the cost of premiums…”
“…President Biden’s staff released a behind-the-scenes video Thursday of the retiring president ordering milkshakes and chatting with staff during his final days as commander in chief.
Biden, 82, was shown asking for the dairy treat twice — in one instance being told he’d have to wait for the blended confection to be prepared.
“I’m going to miss you. I just came down to say hi, and by the way, can you make me a milkshake?” the leader of the free world asked a staffer at the Navy Mess on the floor below the Oval Office.
“Yeah, just give me like five minutes,” the male staffer said.
In another clip, a female Mess employee said to the president: “A chocolate milkshake? You want one? On it, sir!”
Biden, joined by adviser Amos Hochstein, proceeds to walk around the executive grounds with a chocolate syrup-lined ice-cream-sundae glass…”
“…In following the defamation trial against CNN by veteran Zachary Young, we have previously (here, here, and here) marveled at how bad things were going for the network. It appears that they are getting even worse. This has been a brutal week as CNN figures, including host Jake Tapper, took the stand. If “this is CNN,” the judge (and possibly the jury) are not liking what they are seeing. The report at the heart of the case aired on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper” on Nov. 11, 2021, and was shared on social media and (a different version on) CNN’s website. In the segment, Tapper told his audience ominously how CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt discovered that “Afghans trying to get out of the country face a black market full of promises, demands of exorbitant fees, and no guarantee of safety or success.”
Marquardt piled on in the segment, claiming that “desperate Afghans are being exploited” and need to pay “exorbitant, often impossible amounts” to flee the country. He then named Young and his company as an example of that startling claim. The evidence included messages from Marquardt that he wanted to “nail this Zachary Young mf**ker” and thought the story would be Young’s “funeral.” After promising to “nail” Young, CNN editor Matthew Philips responded: “gonna hold you to that cowboy!” Likewise, CNN senior editor Fuzz Hogan described Young as “a shit.” As is often done by media, CNN allegedly gave Young only two hours to respond before the story ran. It is a typical ploy of the press to claim that they waited for a response while giving the target the smallest possible window. In this case, Young was able to respond in the short time and Marquardt messaged a colleague, “f**king Young just texted. “In the last week, Tapper was seen on video by the jury and was mocked for claiming under oath that he “doesn’t pay attention to ratings,” a claim that could make him unique as a network host. While Tapper can argue that he was referencing the following of daily numbers, critics hammered him by showing repeated clips where he discussed ratings. However, the most damaging testimony may have come from top producers who told the jurors that they opposed the modest apology given to Young on air. Since Young seemed to do well before the jury, the testimony of senior editor Fuzz Hogan, CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt, CNN producer Michael Conte, CNN’s executive vice president of editorial Virginia Moseley, and CNN supervising producer Michael Callahan undermined any effort to portray the network as seeking to amend a wrong or reduce damage to Young. Arguably, the worst moment came with an argument by CNN’s lead attorney, David Axelrod. Axelrod introduced a document that he claimed was a smoking gun and showed that Young was a liar. Pointing dramatically at Young and waiving the document in the air, Axelrod declared that he had the proof:
“Plaintiff’s entire case, sitting right there, is that after the publications, he couldn’t get any work…Mr. Young knew, when he filed this lawsuit that he had entered into a new consulting agreement with a government contractor one month after CNN’s publication. This entire lawsuit was a fraud on this court. It was a fraud on CNN. This man knew it. I don’t know what they know. But when his came up in discovery, CNN’s counsel asked Mr. Young about the Helios connection, and he completely lied in his deposition. Over and over again, he made up some incredible ruse that Helios just had his security clearance because it was a company that held security clearances. It makes no sense. He knew at that time that he had a consulting agreement with Helios Global and he didn’t disclose it. It was an outright lie.”
However, it turned out that the document merely was Young’s application to maintain his security clearance.
Young’s attorney, Vel Freedman, later laid waste to CNN. He told the court that Young had lost his security clearance back in 2022 and that he hadn’t been aware of that until he double-checked after his testimony in the case. Freedman asked for the right to present a witness who would testify on the issue and Axelrod objected. Judge Henry had had enough and blew up at CNN. He read back Axelrod’s comments and said “You called him a liar multiple times there.” He told Axelrod that he owed an apology to the plaintiff. After telling CNN that “this isn’t Kindergarten, ” he added “Right now, your credibility with me, Mr. Axelrod, is about none.”
That is never a good thing to hear from a judge.
Axelrod apologized but the damage is clearly considerable.
The most chilling aspect from a litigation perspective? Axelrod replaced the earlier lead counsel who also imploded in court over ill-considered arguments…”
