The ultimate put-down of the anti-meat scammers

 

Watts Up With That? links to this tweet.  Click the image below for a larger view on X.com.

That's a beautifully simple explanation - and every word of it is true.  You'll never hear vegetarian and vegan activists admit to that, though.  If they did, they'd expose their scam operation for what it is.  They rely on scaring people into taking them seriously - and this tweet demonstrates that they're anything but serious.  Their loud screams about the permanent climate damage caused by eating meat and breeding cows are nothing more than "sound and fury, signifying nothing".

Pass it on.  The more people who understand this, the better.

Peter

Bloody cheek!

 

If Greenpeace wanted to make at least half of America fighting mad, it's chosen a good way to go about it.

A North Dakota jury ordered Greenpeace in March to pay pipeline company Energy Transfer $667 million for the environmental group’s rogue campaign to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. Now, Greenpeace is trying to get a Dutch court to nullify the jury award, which the trial judge reduced to $345 million in October. Energy Transfer is asking the North Dakota Supreme Court to block the activist group’s attempt to end-run the U.S. legal system. If Greenpeace’s efforts succeed, they would harm much more than the pipeline company. They’d open the door for activists to torpedo other American critical infrastructure projects under European law.

. . .

The suit claims that Energy Transfer’s litigation violated Greenpeace International’s rights under the European Union’s 2024 anti-Slapp law, an anagram for strategic litigation against public participation. The law seeks to protect journalists and nonprofit organizations from meritless lawsuits designed to silence or intimidate them.

Greenpeace’s case isn’t an ordinary appeal, in which a party asks a higher court to review a lower court’s application of the law. Rather, Greenpeace is asking a Dutch court to reassess the merits of the North Dakota case under Europe’s sweeping anti-Slapp directive. The case marks the first attempt to apply the law “extraterritorially” to stymie a lawsuit brought in a country outside the European Union.

If the European directive achieves this reach, it would extend the EU’s regulatory imperialism to the political and social spheres where Europe and America follow starkly different legal norms: In a nutshell, Europe’s speech rules are based on values, while America’s are based on rights.

. . .

Under the EU directive, courts can award damages to parties that have been subjected to “abusive court proceedings,” including those involving “an imbalance of power between the parties” or “excessive” claims.

Greenpeace claims in the Dutch lawsuit that the financial resources of Energy Transfer constitute an “obvious” imbalance of power and that the company’s demands for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages are “clearly excessive.” But the rule of law is based on whether the parties acted within their legal rights, not on whether they happen to run a successful business like Energy Transfer that is seriously affected by a shutdown in operations. If Greenpeace succeeds, expect other activist organizations to incorporate in Europe so they can wiggle out of liability by invoking the EU’s loosely drawn “abusive court proceeding” standard against U.S. companies.

There's more at the link.

I don't know whether the European Union envisaged its anti-SLAPP law being used in this way, to undercut and nullify the duly constituted courts and legal system of a nation that's not a member of the Union.  Nevertheless, it was worded loosely enough that Greenpeace sought to take advantage of it.

What happens if the Dutch court rules in Greenpeace's favor?  For a start, no US court will issue an order making the Dutch ruling binding under US law.  That right does not exist in terms of our constitution.  So, let's say the US court goes ahead with its proposed ruling, and orders Greenpeace to pay damages.  What if Greenpeace refuses, citing the Dutch court's ruling?  If the US government sues them in a US court to recover the money, they'll simply file another Dutch lawsuit in retaliation.  If the US does nothing, our laws will quite obviously no longer be adequate protection for our constitutionally enshrined property rights - and that will open the door to a Pandora's box of litigation, countersuit and wealthy lawyers.  What if the US tries to sue Greenpeace in a European court?  What if the latter rules that the US has no standing to do so, not being a member of the EU?

This is an appallingly complex can of worms.  What it might lead to is anybody's guess.  However, one thing I'm sure of:  from now on, if I come across anything Greenpeace wants, or motivates, or works towards, I'm going to oppose it.  I'll even donate to their opponents, whether or not I agree with their perspective.  Try to thwart our laws, would they, without so much as a "By your leave" to the American people?  To hell with them!

Delenda est Greenpeace!

Peter

A travel tip I wouldn't have considered

 

I've never thought that wrapping up my vehicle might be a worthwhile precaution before hiking a trail, but it turns out that in parts of this country, it's not a bad idea.

From the awe-inspiring views of the Grand Canyon to the geysers of Yellowstone, millions of people travel to national parks across the United States every year. The parks are home to countless animals, including one mountain-dwelling critter that can ruin a day in the great outdoors.

Marmots will pillage backpacks left unattended in search for a snack, and at Sequoia National Park's Mineral King trail, the rodents have been known to chew on tubes and wiring on the underside of vehicles.

To prevent damage in such a remote location, officials recommend hikers wrap their vehicles in a large tarp, which looks unusual, but deters marmots from chomping on a radiator hose or a brake line.

. . .

In the past, hikers used to surround their vehicles with chicken wire, but over time, the marmots learned how to evade the wire and reach the vehicles.

"On several occasions, marmots have not escaped the engine compartment quickly enough and unsuspecting drivers have given them rides to other parts of the parks; several have ridden as far as Southern California," the NPS explained.

There's more at the link.

I'm not familiar with US marmots, but I've had lots of encounters with the very similar species that South Africans familiarly refer to as dassies (actually a species of hyrax).  They're endemic on Table Mountain in Cape Town, and have "colonized" the area around the upper cable car station.  They unashamedly beg food from patrons at the restaurant there, so much so that they're typically so rotund and corpulent that they can't move in a hurry.  That provides the local eagles with a plentiful meat diet, but there are so many dassies waiting their turn at the tourist buffet that the numbers never seem to drop.

No need to tarp your vehicles there - for a start, they're 3,000 feet below, parked on the road leading past the lower cable car station, and besides, the dassies are so well fed by tourists that they'd turn up their noses at engine cables and wires.

Be that as it may, I suppose marmots, hyrax and similar critters have developed all over the world to fill a specific ecological niche.  We're simply supplementing their diet by parking nearby.  Does that mean that tarping one's car to keep them out is interfering with natural selection?

Peter

Ho hum... a million here, a million there. Who cares? It's only taxpayer money...

 

Elon Musk and D.O.G.E. are investigating current expenditures and recovering them wherever possible, but what about past expenditures that don't pass the smell test?  Here's one report that should make any taxpayer see red.

If the Biden administration’s green energy agenda were a bus, it would have no wheels, a dead battery, and a $160 million price tag. Enter Lion Electric, a Canadian electric school bus company that was handed nearly $160 million in taxpayer-funded subsidies—only to collapse into bankruptcy, leaving school districts across America high and dry​.

Now, watchdogs like EPA administrator Lee Zeldin are demanding answers, exposing yet another mismanaged, wasteful, and completely avoidable green energy failure.

As part of Biden’s $5 billion Clean School Bus program, Lion Electric was awarded $159 million to produce 435 electric buses. The administration touted it as a hallmark of its climate agenda, with Kamala Harris herself front and center, gushing over the initiative​.

Fast forward to today:

• Lion Electric has stopped manufacturing.
• It has laid off its workforce.
• It hasn’t delivered $95 million worth of promised buses to 55 school districts​.

. . .

Here’s the kicker: Lion Electric was in deep financial trouble long before Biden started funneling money into it.

Since 2020, the company has lost $301.6 million.

Its stock price has collapsed from $33.48 per share to just $0.08—a staggering 99.7% wipeout​.

It was hit with a class-action lawsuit after allegedly misleading investors with “grossly unrealistic financial projections”​.

And yet, the Biden administration kept the money flowing, rewarding a failing company because it fit the “green energy” narrative.

There's more at the link.

So . . . where's that $159 million?  Since no products were delivered in exchange for it, can the money be recovered from either the company, or its (presumably long-departed) executives?  Can their property be escheated or seized, and sold to recover some of the money?  What about the new factory the company built, which is now deserted and abandoned?  Can it be sold?

And what about the bureaucrats who approved that investment despite knowing - as they must surely have known - about the company's existing financial difficulties?  Malfeasance, perhaps?  That should be investigated with a fine-tooth comb.

As a taxpayer, I'm infuriated.  As an American, I'm disgusted that those who were supposed to lead and build up and support the country turn out to have done anything but that.

Peter

Greenpeace vs. US Navy nuclear submarine. Guess who won?

 

This video (about nine minutes long) is highly amusing, at least to most of us veterans.  It contains a fair amount of bad language (also familiar to veterans), but if you'll forgive that, I think you'll find it entertaining.  The submarine in question was the USS Flying Fish.

I think this encounter with Greenpeace offers an excellent example of what Massad Ayoob calls "a sudden and acute failure of the victim selection process" (by Greenpeace, of course).

Peter

Recycling... and also nauseating!

 

This is one news story I would never have expected to read.

In a gleaming laboratory in Edinburgh, robotic machines whirr and mix. The final product that they are creating will be a pine-smelling chemical that can be used as an ingredient in perfumes. But the starting point is very different: a brown, gloopy, fat mixture, recently fished out from below ground - fatbergs.

Fatbergs are the foul phenomenon found lurking in (and blocking up) sewers. The development of the technology used to perform this apparent alchemy is being described by some as a new industrial revolution.

. . .

Prof Stephen Wallace from the University of Edinburgh is among those turning the fatbergs into perfumes. "It's a crazy idea," he admits to me, "but it works."

Fatbergs are accumulated lumps of fat from cooking oils, toilet and other food waste that people put down their drains. Prof Wallace gets his from a company that specialises in fishing them out of sewers and turning them into biofuels. They arrive at the lab in a tube.

The first step is to sterilise the material in a steamer. Prof Wallace then adds the specially modified bacteria to the remnants of the fatberg. The bacteria have a short section of DNA inserted, to give the bacteria their particular properties.

The fatberg gradually disappears, as the bacteria eat it, producing the chemical with the pine-like smell - this can be used as an ingredient in perfumes.

There's more at the link, including more maggot-gagging pollutant products that are being "reprocessed" into something useful.

Would you apply a perfume to your body that had started out as a fatberg?  I find the very concept repulsive . . . but I guess it's not much different from drinking recycled, purified sewer water, as millions of us do in many cities every day.  In this day and age, we have so much waste to dispose of that it makes sense to recycle and reuse it, rather than create even more pollution by dumping it somewhere.

Nevertheless, the thought of a fatberg being used as a perfume ingredient is about as cringe-worthy as anything I've ever heard!

Peter

The cold, hard truth about the Los Angeles fires

 

Two of my favorite and most knowledgeable bloggers have weighed in on the fires currently ravaging parts of Los Angeles.  What they have to say is anything but comfortable . . . but it's true, and until that truth is addressed, the problem will simply recur.  Let's take them in alphabetical order.

Karl Denninger observes:

At the end of the day life is about balancing risks, rewards and costs.

. . .

The same is true out in Southern California.  Fires aren't new there and the Santa Ana winds are an annual phenomena that have occurred long before the California Gold Rush brought a large influx of humans.  No, humans are not making it worse but we are putting more and more "stuff" of ever-increasing value in the way that can be destroyed.  Couple high wind with dry conditions, given that part of the country is borderline desert, and you've got a high-risk environment with vegetation which reflects that and in some cases actually requires fire to propagate!  Add to that state government policies that do not clear brush (on purpose!) and in other areas do not conduct control burns during the part of the year when high winds do not occur and you've got the natural environment and its oscillations -- including much larger fires simply because there's more fuel available and you refused to reduce said fuel load despite having the opportunity to do so in advance.  Now add deliberate refusal to build out fire-suppression infrastructure (in this case California residents approved a bond issue many years ago to do exactly that but it wasn't done!) and you have all the ingredients for what is now occurring.  If you want to know why insurance companies left they asked for rates that reflected this deliberate neglect and foolish set of decisions by said government agencies and, when you get down to it, the people who live there and kept voting those government agents into office.  The firms had already taken large fire losses as a result and thus they had no evidence any of that would change.  The rate adjustments were refused and thus their only sane option was to withdraw offering coverage and leave.

. . .

The remaining question is whether those impacted will force those who had responsibility for said mitigations, in many cases explicitly funded with tax dollars yet they did not act in accordance with their responsibilities and either did nothing or spent the funds elsewhere, to be held personally responsible for any and all of their malfeasance.

There appears to be plenty of that to go around.

There's more at the link.

Larry Lambert, writing at Virtual Mirage, has this to say.

In the 1950s, the average timber harvest in California was around 6.0 billion board feet per year. That number has dropped to ~1.5 billion board feet per year. California’s forests cover a third of the state and are now choked with nearly 163 million dead trees. California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and other regulatory policies limit the ability of local government and fire management services to clear dead trees and vegetation. (This is a big deal and prevents much of the controlled burns desperately needed.)

Multiple bills, including AB 2330, AB 1951, and AB 2639, were rejected by the Democrat-controlled legislature or vetoed by the Governor that would have exempted wildfire prevention projects from CEQA and other permitting issues. Other legislation, including SB 1003, would have provided CEQA exemptions for utility undergrounding projects, as power lines that are not adequately cleared of debris present creating wildfire risks. These bills also failed to reach the Governor’s desk. California has prioritized “suppression-only” strategies and failed to remove accumulated vegetation, leading to denser forests with increased fuel loads – our forests have become tinderboxes, leading to devastating outcomes when a fire starts.

The bottom line is that many of the wildfires CA experienced could have been prevented or significantly mitigated with better management, policies, and funding.

Again, more at the link.

And yet, despite the undeniable truth of both bloggers' comments, we see and hear plaintive cries from those who've lost their homes to the fire, "Why didn't the government do something to stop it?  Why isn't the government doing something now to help us?"

My dear people, you voted that government into office, and you kept it there, with all its daft, ineffectual, touchy-feely, environmentally sensitive policies that doomed your neighborhoods to the death by fireball that they're currently enduring!  When push comes to shove, it's your fault that your government isn't doing anything, because you elected politicians, and they appointed bureaucrats, who don't know how to do anything and are incompetent to act!

Do you think that truth will seep through into the California-dreamin' consciousness?  Or is it too far gone to be able to distinguish reality from pie-in-the-sky happy dreams any more?

Peter

Something else for President Trump to hammer into the ground

 

It looks as if environmental groups are actively seeking to convert the court system in the United States into a rubber-stamp machine for their aims and objectives.  RealClear Wire reports:

Over 30 lawsuits, modeled after the tobacco cases of the 1990s, have been filed by state, county, and city attorneys against energy companies seeking damages for the alleged effects of greenhouse gas emissions. An important factor in these lawsuits is the role of third-party funding and nonprofit activists working behind the scenes to shape the litigation and influence the courts.

One such organization that has taken center stage is the Environmental Law Institute’s Climate Judiciary Project, which claims to educate judges on climate science and related legal issues. According to the ELI website, the project’s goal is to “provide neutral, objective information to the judiciary about the science of climate change as understood by experts.” Since 1990, the CJP says it has trained more than 3,000 judges across 28 countries.

But judges are supposed to be disinterested arbiters of the facts and the law – and critics point out that on climate issues, the CJP is anything but neutral. In a 12-page report, the American Energy Institute accuses the CJP of “teaching judges about debatable climate science” and compares it to “working over the referees before the game even starts.” AEI contends that the so-called “objective” materials used by the CJP are crafted by activists who either advise the plaintiffs in these cases or support their claims through legal briefs.

AEI also claims that the CJP has ties to many of the plaintiffs suing energy companies. The CJP denies these allegations, telling RealClearPolitics that it “does not participate in litigation, provide support for or coordinate with any parties in litigation, or advise judges on how they should rule in any case.”

Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Energy Alliance, also criticized the CJP’s efforts to influence judges before they rule on climate-related cases. She told RealClearPolitics that the connection between nonprofit groups, judges, and attorneys involved in these cases forms a “tangled web” of “foundation activist groups, law professors, and judges attempting to use lawsuits to enact climate change policy.”

“The Environmental Law Institute, through its Climate Judiciary Project, is trying to control the entire process – from who’s suing, what they’re suing for, to what judges think about it,” she continued.

There's more at the link.

This is a tried and tested method.  The EPA and other radicalized agencies of government have used it far too often, to implement legal and regulatory powers they could not get through Congress.  The process works something like this:

1.  The government agency makes a grant to one or more non-governmental organizations (NGO's) to do a particular thing.

2.  The NGO sues the government, claiming that it has to protect that thing (butterflies, or fish, or whatever).  Adding insult to injury, it uses the government grant money to do so.

3.  The (usually sympathetic) judge, sometimes "trained" in the subject through "courses" offered by an NGO, indicates that he's going to rule in the plaintiff's favor.

4.  A consent decree is agreed between NGO's and the government, and made an order of court by the judge, in effect forcing the government to do what the NGO wants (including budgeting whatever funds are needed to implement and monitor the consent decree).

5.  The government, and taxpayers, are now on the hook for that expense in perpetuity, unless the court order is modified or overturned.  At no time did lawmakers get the opportunity to debate the issue or pass laws about it:  they were completely sidestepped by the court process.

If environmental groups can't get their way democratically, they'll do it through lawfare, using the courts to force the rest of us to toe their line.  I think President Trump is going to have to crack down hard on this - but what about existing court orders?  Can they be overturned?  That's a head-scratcher.

Peter

German raccoon sausage???

 

I was intrigued to learn that first, Germany is being overrun with raccoons brought over there from America a century ago:  and second, that a local butcher (with official permission) is making a range of consumer meat products out of them.

A butcher in northeast Germany has come up with what he believes is an innovative solution to the country’s growing raccoon problem: turning them into sausages and other meat products.

Michael Reiss, a hunter who set up a butcher’s shop in Kade, about 90 kilometers (60 miles) west of Berlin, in 2022, told CNN Wednesday that he developed the idea after trying to think of a standout product to take to the Green Week international food fair.

He realized that raccoons who are killed as pests are simply thrown in the bin, and decided to ask local officials if they could instead be processed and turned into food.

After receiving the green light, Reiss started making his “raccoon balls,” meatballs made from raccoon meat, which he said turned out to be a hit at the fair and with customers at his shop, which is called Wildererhütte.

Soon Reiss was selling online, and he now makes a total of seven raccoon meat products, including salami.

. . .

After being introduced to Germany for use in fur farms in the 1920s, raccoons were first released into the wild in 1934, according to the Nature And Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU).

Since then, the mammals, who are highly adaptable and can live in towns and cities as well as forests and grasslands, have bred swiftly.

There are now an estimated 2 million raccoons in Germany, reported German press agency DPA, citing researchers at the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt.

The animals, who are originally from North America, typically weigh around 10 kilograms (22 pounds), but large males can reach 20 kilograms (44 pounds).

They now represent a danger to domestic biodiversity, especially the reptiles and amphibians that they eat, according to Germany’s Senckenberg Nature Research Society.

There's more at the link.

Considering that large parts of North America (including our cities) are overrun with trash pandas (a local nickname for raccoons), we might have a new export market here!  I daresay any number of locals equipped with air or rimfire rifles could stack up a bountiful harvest to send to Germany.  Perhaps we could add possums, skunks and sundry other wildlife of similar size?

On second thought . . . skunks . . . perhaps not!  On the other hand, if we exported them to Ukraine, would they be a suitable biological weapon to unleash against Russian invaders?

Peter

Heh

 

Courtesy of The Free Press's newsletter this morning, a cartoon by David Mamet (clickit to biggit):

So much for sustainability!  Now what about eatability?

Peter

So much for sinking islands...

 

Remember the kerfuffle raised by climate change activists over the past three or four decades, alleging that many island chains would soon be submerged beneath the waves due to rising sea levels?

Not so fast . . .

The Guardian was in fine form last June stating that rising oceans will extinguish more than land. “It will kill entire languages,” it added, noting the effect on Pacific islands such as Tuvalu. Those areas of the Earth that were most hospitable to people and languages are now becoming the “least hospitable”.

Silly emotional Guardianista guff of course, but happily it does not seem to apply to Tuvalu. A recent study found that the 101 islands of Tuvalu had grown in land mass by 2.9%. The scientists observed that despite rising sea levels, many shorelines in Tuvalu and neighbouring Pacific atolls have maintained relative stability, “without significant alteration”. A comprehensive re-examination of data on 30 Pacific and Indian Ocean atolls with 709 islands found that none of them had lost any land. Furthermore, the scientists added, there are data that indicate 47 reef islands expanded in size or remained stable over the last 50 years, “despite experiencing a rate of sea-level rise that exceeds the global average”.

The Maldives is also a poster scare for rising sea levels, with the attention-seeking activist Mark Lynas – he of the nonsense claim that 99.9% of scientists agree humans cause all or most climate change – organising an underwater Cabinet meeting of the local Government in 2009. As it happens, the Maldives is one of a number of areas that have seen recent increases in land mass. Other areas include the Indonesian Archipelago, islands along the Indochinese Peninsula coast, and islands in the Red and Mediterranean Seas. Notably, the  coastal waters of the Indochinese Peninsula had the most substantial gain, with an increase of 106.28 km2 over the 30-year period. Of the 13,000 islands examined, the researchers found that only around 12% had experienced a significant shoreline shift, with almost equal numbers experiencing either landward (loss) or seaward (gain) movement.

. . .

Sea level rise is not a “predominant” cause of the changing coasts, the scientists note.

There's more at the link.

I find it interesting that the climate change alarmists made claims such as "submerged islands!", then insisted that there was no time to waste, we had to act now, and we had to throw millions (if not billions) of dollars at the problem to "protect vulnerable populations", as well as damage our own economies by cutting back on anything and everything that might contribute to rising sea levels.  When research over several years (in some cases, decades) has now proved that their claims were wrong, they're conspicuous by their deafening silence.  All the money they gouged out of politically correct governments and "woke" corporations . . . what good did it do?  Where did it go?  Who benefited most from it?  No good asking those questions;  they won't answer them - but we all know where the money came from that's kept them employed and living comfortably - some would say high on the hog - all this time.

Almost the entire climate change industry is based on pseudo-scientific twaddle.  Go watch the video report at that link.  It's the truth.

Peter

Federal regulations, environmentalism, and cleaning

 

I've long been frustrated (as, I'm sure, have many of my readers) with the declining effectiveness of laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, floor cleaners and other cleaning products.  They just don't seem to work as well these days as they used to.  The reason is pretty clear:  the EPA and other Federal agencies have been trying to legislate or regulate many effective cleaning materials out of existence in the name of "environmental protection" or "pollution control" or whatever is the reason du jour.  (That's not helped by new "efficiency" regulations that hobble the performance of new clothes and dish washers, even if they had the old full-strength detergents to use.)

I've tried to get around the problem wherever possible by "adding back" some of the missing ingredients to the cleaning products I use.  One of the most common "hacks" is to add a little TSP (trisodium phosphate) to laundry or dishwasher detergent.  Until recently I've bought a box of the stuff at home improvement stores (Home Depot, Lowes and the like) when needed, and it's lasted two or three years when used sparingly.  I find it particularly useful for mopping dirty floors and cleaning grimy, greasy paintwork.  I don't do that often, but when I do it makes the job much easier.  It makes cleaning a charcoal or gas grill much faster, too, and a lot less effort.

Unfortunately, when I went shopping for a box of TSP yesterday, I found that the major home improvement chains in a nearby city have all stopped carrying it.  Instead, they're selling what they call "TSP Substitute Phosphate-Free".  The packaging claims that it's as good as the real stuff, but many customer reviews online are pretty emphatic that it's not.  I daresay the EPA and/or other agencies "leaned on" those stores to stop carrying TSP.

Fortunately, there are still ways around that.  One can get TSP online from various suppliers in 1lb. or 4½lb. boxes, or even in 40lb. buckets.  Buying in bulk, like the latter option, is also quite a lot cheaper than the current substitutes.  I've just ordered enough to keep us going for the foreseeable future, plus a little extra in case the bureaucrats shut down even the online channels.  If you, like me, have been accustomed to using the stuff, or you want a powerful cleaner that just plain works, you might want to stock up on some yourself while the going's good.

Another bone of contention is pre-mixed or pre-diluted solutions of common cleaning products, whether spray bottles or aerosols or whatever.  I may be wrong, but the small consumer-ready bottles on the racks seem to be less effective than before.  I suspect the concentration of cleaning product has been reduced, and/or some of the chemicals used to make it have been replaced by environmentally friendlier alternatives.  That's great for the eco-weenies, but not so useful if you're trying to get something clean in a hurry.  I've therefore started to buy one-gallon bottles of concentrated cleaning detergents and products (e.g. Simple Green, Zep, bleach, vinegar, etc.) and mix my own solutions in my own spray bottles to higher concentrations than those sold commercially.  No more problems with weak-kneed solutions!

I hear that some people add TSP to their solutions of such cleaners.  I'm leery of that, because I don't know all the chemical reactions involved.  Instead, I'll have a spray bottle of TSP solution right alongside the bottle of cleaning detergent solution.  I'll apply first one, then the other, then use a mop or cloth to rub the combination into the surface I'm cleaning.  Works like a charm.

Finally, if the supply chain goes to hell in a handbasket and we can't get the cleaners we need in a timely manner, it's good to have extra in your emergency supplies to take care of that until supplies are restored.  (I wonder how many of them are made here, and how many come from China?  Even if the products are made here, where do their containers come from?)  Buying cleaners in bulk makes that easy.  One can put aside a year or two's worth of concentrated product in not very much space, and for a lot less money per unit than buying small consumer-size containers.  Add a few spray bottles to your preps to mix them, and you're all set.

Just a thought.

Peter

Our skin may actually cause ageing

 

The BBC reports:

The latest research suggests that our skin is not just a mirror for our lifestyles – reflecting the effects of years of smoking, drinking, sun and stress – and hinting at our inner health. No, in this new upside-down-world, the body's largest organ is an active participant in our physical wellbeing. This is a strange new reality where wrinkles, dry skin and sunspots cause ageing, instead of the other way around.

In 1958 ... [a] major project was quietly conceived. The Baltimore Longitudinal Study was to be a scientific investigation of ageing with a daring and rather unorthodox premise ... The research followed thousands of adult men (and later, women) for decades, to see how their health developed – and how this was affected by their genes and the environment.

Just two decades in, scientists had already made some intriguing breakthroughs, from the discovery that less emotionally stable men were more likely to be diagnosed with heart disease to the revelation that our problem-solving abilities decline only slightly with age.

But one of the most striking findings confirmed what people had long suspected: how youthful you look is an impressively accurate expression of your inner health. By 1982, those men who had been assessed as looking particularly old for their age at the beginning of the study, 20 years earlier, were more likely to be dead.  This is backed up by more recent research, which found that, of patients who were judged to look at least 10 years older than they should, 99% had health problems.

It turns out skin health can be used to predict a number of seemingly unconnected factors, from your bone density to your risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases or dying from cardiovascular disease. However, as the evidence has begun to add up, the story has taken a surprise twist.

. . .

As the largest organ in the body, the skin can have a profound impact. The chemicals released by diseased and dysfunctional skin soon enter the bloodstream, where they wash around, damaging other tissues. Amid the ensuing systemic inflammation, chemicals from the skin can reach and harm organs that seem entirely unrelated, including your heart and brain.

The result is accelerated ageing, and a higher risk of developing the majority of – or possibly even all – related disorders. So far, aged or diseased skin has been linked to the onset of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and cognitive impairment, as well as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

. . .

... there is direct evidence that [using sunscreen and moisturizing the skin] does reduce inflammation – and that it may help to prevent dementia ... adding moisture back is not particularly complicated, whatever cosmetics adverts seem to suggest. And in the field of ageing, this simple intervention is showing remarkable results.

There's more at the link.

I'm intrigued by this research because, like many others, I was exposed to particularly harsh conditions for my skin during my military service.  When you're deployed, nobody's going to provide sunscreen or moisturizer for your skin - at least, no military organization of which I've ever heard has done so.  You provide your own, or get sunburned and wizened like a dried-up prune.  (Yes, there are other similes.  No, I'm not going to mention them in a family-friendly blog like this!)

When I look at my catalog of health problems in later life (it's a depressing list), and read this article, I find that many of the illnesses and conditions it identifies are among my issues.  I wonder if there's a correlation between years of one's skin being baked and fried and rained on and frozen in the field, and health in later life?  It sounds as if there may be.  Might veterans be able to use this evidence to get more medical assistance for such issues as they get older?  How would one prove the connection?

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say . . .

Peter

Traveling (very!) light

 

Remember "You'll own nothing and be happy"?  Well, it looks like that day may be drawing nearer, if at least some airlines and resorts have their way.  In an article titled "Are luggage-free trips the future?", the BBC observes:

To highlight how travelling sustainably first starts at home, here are some places that are challenging the long-established idea of packing before you leave – and offering shortcuts to a more streamlined holiday.

Japan 

In a daring move towards a more sustainable aviation industry, Japan Airlines recently launched a pilot programme giving overseas travellers the option to rent clothes for their stay in the country in advance – thus eliminating the need to lug and load. 

. . .

The Alps 

Around the world, skiers are trying to lower their carbon footprints. But while winter sports holidays have long been the domain of excess oversized baggage costs, there is an element of changing perceptions. A new idea is emerging in resorts across France, Switzerland and Austria: leave the gear at home and rent it at the resort.

. . .

Dubrovnik 

While Venice was the first destination bold enough to consider banning wheelie suitcases to better preserve the city's overcrowded streets in 2014, Dubrovnik has turned the argument into action – now recommending visitors leave their rolling luggage at home ... the city now recommends visitors not disturb the historic cobbled streets by carrying – not dragging – wheeled baggage around.

. . .

East Africa

Safari lodges in national parks across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda offer a different proposition to most holidays ... while there is no ban on certain types of luggage, restrictions are commonly in place and there is an expectation for travellers to understand and respect the need to arrive light.

There's more at the link.

That's all very well for the well-heeled;  but what about the rest of us, who don't have spare cash to burn?  It's also great for the resorts, which can "rent out" clothing, sports gear and other goodies (at a significant extra profit to themselves), then wash and clean it and do the same thing over and over again.  I daresay they'll end up making a profit of at least ten times what they paid for the stuff, all at our expense.

(One can only hope that their laundry and cleaning services are up to the job.  Given how many hotels already have problems with bedbugs, how many more will find unwanted insect visitors in their rented clothing or sports gear?  Who's to say that the person who rented those clothes before me was as clean and hygiene-conscious as I am?)

I can't help wondering whether this isn't being pushed by those who stand to benefit most from it.  The resorts and sports lodges are obvious winners, but there's also the airlines, who won't have to devote as much hold space to carrying passengers' luggage - they can instead fill it with higher-profit air freight containers.  There's also the perspective of those who want to "save the earth" by (among other things) reducing leisure travel.  If it becomes a lot more expensive to travel, through having to rent what you need at your destination rather than carry it with you, won't that play right into their hands?  They won't have to legally restrict leisure travel;  the costs involved will do it for them.

This may be on a par with the "eat insects!" crowd:  yet another attempt to modify our behavior to fit in with the "green revolution".  Hard pass from me, thank you very much!

Peter

Tucker Carlson and Ice Cube: the studio interview

 

Yesterday I posted a "street" interview between Tucker Carlson and rapper Ice Cube.  Today, let's follow that with the next episode from Tucker:  a twenty-minute studio interview with Ice Cube, talking in greater depth about some of the subjects raised yesterday, and going into new areas.  Like yesterday's excerpt, this is (or should be) very interesting to many who've never been exposed to the inner-city environment that produced Ice Cube and many others.  I think it's very important for that reason.

Full marks to Tucker Carlson for stretching the boundaries for many of his fans;  and full marks to Ice Cube for doing the same, and for speaking out about current affairs and America's problems without fear or favor.

Peter

Tucker Carlson and Ice Cube talk about "the hood"

 

This is a very interesting and worthwhile discussion between Tucker Carlson (who needs no introduction) and rapper Ice Cube.  Highly recommended viewing to get an idea of what life is like in "the hood".

A very useful look at how many Americans live today.  Many of us aren't exposed to that way of life at all.  I saw its effects when serving as a prison chaplain, where many of the inmates to whom I ministered came from that background.  That's not to say that everyone in the hood is a criminal, of course;  it's just that many in that environment see no other way out but to turn to crime, which is tragic in itself.

Peter

Not what I would have expected

 

We've been enduring a typical Texas summer heatwave over the past couple of weeks, with temperatures routinely well above 100° Fahrenheit.  There have been warnings from electrical utilities to conserve power, or risk cascading power failures;  but as far as I know, there haven't actually been any of the latter.  The reason, according to Oilprice.com, may surprise you.

Peak energy demand has reached an all-time high in Texas, where temperatures have been hotter than 99% of the world over the last few weeks. The prolonged heat wave is shattering records now but is likely just the beginning of what scientists predict will be a pattern of increasing and increasingly extreme weather events associated with climate change.

In Texas, the expectation that summer heat waves as well as winter storms will continue to get more and more intense has been of particular concern, due to the fragility and isolated nature of the state’s power grid. That fragility was made infamous in 2021, when the grid collapsed under the strain of increased heating demand during the disastrous Winter Storm Uri. Tragically, at least 246 people died from the storm and the related grid failure, with stated causes of death ranging from hypothermia to carbon monoxide poisoning according to the state’s official death toll. However, a BuzzFeed News analysis says that the official count is far lower than the real death toll, which they calculate to be around 700 lives lost.

. . .

The New York Times has called the Texas grid “the nation’s most extensive experiment in electrical deregulation,” and experts have been nervous that that experiment could go terribly wrong all over again under the strain of an extreme weather event such as the one Texas is experiencing now. But so far, the grid has held up, even with peak energy demand reaching a record-breaking 81,000 megawatts (MW), a significant uptick from the  69,000 MW peak demand that left the grid in ruins during Winter Storm Uri.

How is this possible? The Lone Star state has quietly been building out its renewable energy industry at a breakneck clip. “It’s all thanks to the rapid additions of solar, wind, and grid-scale battery storage in the last two years,” reports Forbes. The state has added almost 3,000 MW of wind since 2021 and 10,000 MW of solar since 2020, with utility-scale solar doubling every year since then. Its solar energy installment rate has surpassed that of California, and its new grid battery installations are a very close second to the Golden State. “During this historic heat wave, it’s been all these new, low-cost wind, solar and batteries that have kept the grid afloat and Texans cool – in many cases saving lives,” Forbes writes.

All of this added renewable energy production capacity has made the Texas energy grif much more resilient. Not only does it give the grid a greater diversity of energy sources to fall back on in case of disaster, it’s also easing the state’s reliance on fossil fuels for energy security. Past grid failures in Texas have shown that coal and gas plants are much more vulnerable than renewable ones to extreme weather events in both hot and cold conditions. In fact, when the state lost 9,600 MW of electricity capacity last week due to the failure of several natural gas and coal plants, solar and wind provided that lost energy and then some, generating a record 31,500 MW on Wednesday.

There's more at the link.

I've always regarded increased dependence on so-called "renewable" energy sources - solar, wind, etc. - as a potential weakness, a likely point of failure.  I'm honestly surprised to read that they've actually relieved the pressure on traditional electricity generating plants during a peak consumption period like this.  I can understand solar energy being more than usually efficient during such heatwaves, but the winds have often been less than usual as a hot blanket has dampened normal weather patterns, so I'd discounted it as a major contributor.

Are these reports trustworthy, or are they just hype on behalf of the renewable energy industry?  I don't know, but Oilprice is normally a reasonably trustworthy source.  Can knowledgeable readers chime in with their input?  I'm sure we'd all like to know more.

Peter

As always... follow the money

 

Neil Oliver points out that the so-called "green" revolution is all about money for its promoters, and nothing else.

As always:  follow the money.  Look at who most benefits from every green initiative.  For example, as Twitter user Arwenstar points out:  "When climate alarmist Al Gore ran for US president in 2000 he was apparently worth $1.7M.  After decades of travelling the world in private jets to frighten the wits out of the proles he has amassed an estimated $313M."  I'm sure he finds that a very congenial change in his financial climate!

Peter

Natural gas and electric compressors - a marriage made in freezing hell?

 

Courtesy of Watts Up With That, here's a little fact of which I wasn't aware.

From the beginning of natural gas pipelines, compressors were powered by natural gas. That made sense because the pipelines were full of natural gas, so pipelines powered themselves. But gradually, compressors were electrified so slowly that, to follow the parable, they, like the frog, didn’t notice what was about to happen.

. . .

The anti-fossil fuel movement started pressuring North Texas cities and towns to require electric compressors on natural gas pipelines based on arguments that the air pollution from natural gas-powered compressors was causing increased asthma and other health problems. In 2012, the Denton City Council invited me to participate in their project to rewrite city ordinances that regulate natural gas drilling and pipelines.

I distinctly recall a public meeting in which I said that electrifying natural gas pipeline compressors was a terrible idea that could affect the availability of natural gas when it was needed most, such as during bad weather events. Unfortunately, I lost that debate, and the City of Denton changed its city ordinances to require electric natural gas compressors within its city limits. Similar ordinances quickly spread to other municipalities within the state of Texas and eventually to other natural gas-producing states that pipelines pass through.

As shown in the map above, the use of electric compressors on gas pipelines has now become so pervasive that the entire interstate natural gas pipeline network is effectively compromised. An interruption in the generation of electricity can cause some natural gas pipelines to shut down, which interrupts other parts of the natural gas pipeline grid and potentially shuts down multiple pipelines.

An early indicator of the problems caused by the electrification of natural gas pipelines was Winter Storm Uri which hit Texas and much of the nation in February 2021. This was detailed in my article “The Texas power grid was minutes from collapsing in 2021 and declaring an emergency in 2022.”

Here’s what happened. The entire state of Texas was hit by Winter Storm Uri, which resulted in all 254 counties in the state experiencing below-freezing temperatures, with much of the state temperatures in the teens and below zero in some areas for almost an entire week. Freezing temperatures affected all forms of electrical generation, starting with frozen wind turbines, freeze-offs at natural gas wells, and even problems with coal-fired generators and nuclear power generation plants.

As the temperatures dropped and people turned up their heat, the demand for electricity exceeded the supply, and rolling blackouts were ordered to maintain the integrity of the electrical grid. The grid operator, ERCOT, ordered rolling blackouts to balance supply and demand. Unfortunately, some local electricity companies did not have good information on the location of natural gas wells and compressor stations, so some blackouts shut down natural gas wells and pipeline compressors. In turn, this reduced the natural gas supply to gas-fired power generators. This caused a death spiral in electricity generation to the point where the Texas grid was within 4 minutes and 37 seconds of completely collapsing.

There's more at the link.  I highly recommend that you read the whole thing.

Was this an innocent mistake, where concern about pollution gave rise to a "solution" that inadvertently increased risks to natural gas supply?  Or was it a deliberate "stealth" move by anti-energy crusaders that was intended to cause disruptions to our energy supply at a critical time?

I know they say that "correlation is not causation", and I know I should "never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity".  Nevertheless, the ongoing campaign against fossil fuels - including natural gas, most recently resulting in the banning of gas stoves in new construction in New York State - suggests that there may be some fire to back up the smoke, if you know what I mean.

Next question:  Now that this vulnerability is known, how many municipalities are reversing their previous regulations and allowing gas pipeline companies to use natural-gas-powered compressors on their pipelines within municipal areas?  If they aren't, I suggest it would lent additional weight to the "deliberate" argument.

Peter

What climate emergency?

 

Armstrong Economics reminds us that the much-ballyhooed "climate emergency" is no such thing.  It's a cynical ploy designed to grab more and more power over us in the name of a non-existent crisis.

The Global Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL) is an independent foundation founded in 2019 by emeritus professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and science journalist Marcel Crok. “The climate view of CLINTEL can be easily summarized as: There is no climate emergency.” Over 1540 experts respected in their independent fields have joined CLINTEL to spread the message that there is no scientific data to indicate that climate change is [anything other than] political propaganda.

“Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. In particular, scientists should emphasize that their modeling output is not the result of magic: computer models are human-made. What comes out is fully dependent on what theoreticians and programmers have put in: hypotheses, assumptions, relationships, parameterizations, stability constraints, etc. Unfortunately, in mainstream climate science most of this input is undeclared.

“To believe the outcome of a climate model is to believe what the model makers have put in.  This is precisely the problem of today’s climate discussion to which climate models are central. Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science. We should free ourselves from the naïve belief in immature climate models. In future, climate research must give significantly more emphasis to empirical science.”

. . .

We MUST question why governments across the world are fighting tooth and nail to eliminate fossil fuels and our way of life as we know it. Why are we following the World Economic Forum’s 2030 agenda to save a planet that does not need saving? Why are we allowing our elected officials to spend endless funds on an imaginary cause? Everything has a cycle, including the weather. So while the climate may be changing, there is absolutely nothing humans can do to alter the course of nature, and those stating otherwise are lying.

There's more at the link.

So, when you hear politicians and pressure groups demanding that we sacrifice this, or that, or the other, in the name of "climate change" . . . remember that they're all lying through their teeth.

Peter