Tag: Global Warming

Commentary: Ruling Class Disturbance

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
WEF

The last few months have been interesting. We have started to see some very public disagreements among the world’s ruling classes. The gathering of elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has long fascinated observers and become a lightning rod for criticism, becoming a bogeyman of the right, as well as the hardcore, anticapitalist left. It is a front-row seat to the thinking and priorities of the world’s most powerful people.

In Davos, the world’s media, academic, political, and financial elites spend a few days in luxurious surroundings, praising themselves and forming a consensus on solutions to what they deem to be the problems of the world. This includes everything from facilitating mass migration, tackling global warming by moving away from fossil fuel energy, and the need for economic redistribution to the poor and the third world, all through the corporatist idea of “stakeholder capitalism.”

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Commentary: Making Climate Change a Republican Issue in 2024

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Out of sheer perversity, I follow stories in the Washington Post related to weather. It matters not what the weather brings, the cause is global warming (or climate change depending on the temperature of the disaster). Having a flood? Global warming. Got a heavy snow or ice storm? Climate change. They haven’t yet figured out how to blame earthquakes on global warming, but the mainstream media will probably find a cause and effect relationship somehow.

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Biden Sets Leftist Tone for 2024 Re-Election Effort at Philadelphia Event

Bradley Vasoli

President Joe Biden held his first presidential re-election campaign event on Saturday at the Philadelphia Convention Center, making strong appeals to his left-wing base. 

Biden appeared alongside organized-labor activists and mentioned in the first few seconds of his oration that when he thinks of working Americans, he especially values the ones who associate with causes he finds politically congenial.

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Commentary: As Toxic as It Is Effective, Governments Wield Fear to Control and Manipulate People

Admin

by Kathleen Marquardt   People are excited thinking about being able to live in alternative universes. Unbeknownst to them, they already do – and have been for most of their lives. Especially those born after the era when we wore our Texas Instrument calculators on our belts (our slide rules were…

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

Bradley Vasoli

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

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

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

Bradley Vasoli

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

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

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Commentary: ‘Reasonable’ Concessions to Climate Hysteria Lack Any Reason at All

Admin

First, there is no climate emergency. Claims to the contrary are based on exaggerations of carbon dioxide’s warming effect and computer models that have proven unreliable.

As Republicans settle into the leadership of the new House of Representatives, we are hoping for clearer congressional thinking about the climate issue. However, there is work to do on the Conservative Climate Caucus.

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Commentary: It’s Time to Take Down the Cult of Climate Change for Good

Admin

When you look at climate alarmists, there are really only two options: they either don’t know what they’re talking about, or they’re lying.

The “Little Boy Who Cried ‘Wolf’”-like cries of “existential threats” brought on by climate change would be hilarious, if it wasn’t for the disastrous impact from misguided actions to “fix” the problem. However, the fable about a youngster fabricating an emergency time and again isn’t that far off from today’s climate-change evangelists; they both need to recognize their stories are quickly losing credibility.

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Commentary: Hoaxes, Scams, and the Left

Admin

Here is the hard-discovered truth.

The Left, which now controls all the centers of power and the commanding heights of the world economy, seeks to codify their ideology as science, and thereby make it irrefutable. You can’t disagree with it or you are a kook or insurrectionist. You are outside what Thomas Kuhn, called the “paradigm of normal science.”

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Republicans Introduce Bill to Defund John Kerry, Other Biden ‘Climate Tyrants’

Admin

Eight Republican House members have introduced legislation to defund climate czar John Kerry and other “climate tyrants“ inside the Biden administration, blaming them for an energy crisis that has sent gasoline soaring to $5 a gallon.

The group, led by Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, introduced the No Taxpayer Funding for CZARS Act that would ban federal funding for any activity of the special presidential envoy for climate, including salary and both administrative and travel expenses.

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Commentary: The Political Necessity of Trump’s Challenge of Climate Hysteria

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Sin, punishment, redemption: as an ideology, environmentalism shares many features with organized religion. Falling after Easter this year, Earth Day, which was celebrated April 22, focuses on the sin-and-punishment parts of the trilogy. Redemption comes later, toward the end of each year, at the annual U.N. climate conferences that will save the planet.

On Earth Day this year, however, a loud dissenting voice was heard. Speaking at a Heritage Foundation event in Florida, Donald Trump attacked climate-change catastrophizing.

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O’Neal Proposes Tax Credit to Offset RGGI Compliance Costs in Pennsylvania

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania state Rep. Timothy O’Neal (R-Washington) has indicated he’s drafting legislation to bestow tax credits on power plants to cover costs of complying with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

Pennsylvania is among eleven northeastern and mid-Atlantic states to have joined RGGI, a compact to levy de facto taxes on electricity-generation facilities for emitting greenhouse gases — chiefly carbon dioxide and methane — which are associated with global warming. Because Keystone State legislators have balked at the program, Gov. Tom Wolf (D) announced in 2019 that he would enter the state into it using his own regulatory authority. Earlier this month, Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled Commonwealth Court blocked the state’s entry into RGGI, insisting that Wolf breached the limits on his executive power, but the ruling is not ironclad as the Democrat-run state Supreme Court could reverse it.

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Commonwealth Court Blocks Pennsylvania’s Entry into Carbon Taxation Initiative

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court this week blocked the state’s entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an 11-state compact requiring de facto taxation of power plants’ carbon emissions.

Gov. Tom Wolf (D) tried to effect Pennsylvania’s participation in the initiative by issuing an executive order in 2019, thus neglecting to seek approval of the Republican-led General Assembly. The court’s new opinion comes one day after the state Senate failed to override the governor’s veto of legislation letting the General Assembly end the state’s membership in the compact. Legislative leaders have argued that the governor’s unilateral action violated the state Constitution and were heartened upon hearing of the judges’ decision.

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Pennsylvania Senate Falls Short of Two-Thirds Needed to Kill Greenhouse Gas Initiative

Bradley Vasoli
White smoke emitting from a couple of buildings

Most state senators voted to end Pennsylvania’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) on Monday but fell short of the two-thirds needed to succeed.

In 2019, Gov. Tom Wolf (D) initiated Pennsylvania’s entry into the 11-state compact to reduce carbon emissions by charging power plants for their discharge in hope of counteracting global warming. Unlike most of the other northeastern and mid-Atlantic states that participate in RGGI, the Keystone State’s governor could not get sufficient backing from state legislators for Pennsylvania’s membership and thus acted via executive order. Republicans and some Democrats have argued Wolf exceeded his constitutional authority in rebuffing the legislature.

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State Senator Yaw Proposes Legal Framework for Carbon Capture in Pennsylvania

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania state Sen. Gene Yaw (R-Williamsport) indicated Wednesday he will soon introduce legislation to create a regulatory framework for “carbon capture” in the commonwealth.

Carbon capture is the process of catching carbon-dioxide discharge from fossil-fuel-fired power plants and manufacturing facilities for either reuse or storage so that the emissions don’t make it into the atmosphere and exacerbate global warming.

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Industry and Unions Warn Pennsylvania Senate RGGI Will Kill Jobs, Hurt Consumers

Bradley Vasoli
Blue Collar Worker

In a rare moment of concord between industry and unions, representatives of both interests exhorted Pennsylvania state Senators on Tuesday to resist Pennsylvania’s entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Eleven states in the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions have joined the pact to impose prices on carbon emissions for power plants. Unlike most member states, however, Pennsylvania entered into the agreement without legislative approval though an executive order by Gov. Tom Wolf (D) in 2019. The emissions pricing has not yet gone into effect; the governor wants to implement it in the next fiscal year.

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Committee Votes to End Pipeline Bans, Check Pennsylvania Governor’s Power on Carbon Tax

Bradley Vasoli

A bipartisan majority of a Pennsylvania House of Representatives panel Monday passed several measures to increase fossil-fuel development in and exportation from the Keystone State.

One resolution, sponsored by state Rep. Stan Saylor (R-Red Lion) would call upon Govs. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) and Phil Murphy (D-NJ) to terminate their states’ bans on the building of new conduits that could carry natural gas extracted in Pennsylvania. Other legislation offered by state Sen. Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) would ensure that legislators must approve Pennsylvania’s entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a multi-state pact to which Gov. Tom Wolf (D) has committed the state by executive order. Implementation of RGGI entails effectively imposing a tax on carbon emissions.

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Pennsylvania Lawmakers Opposing Greenhouse Gas Initiative Offer Alternative Policy

Bradley Vasoli

Lawmakers who have attempted to stop Pennsylvania’s entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) are proposing alternative measures to mitigate carbon emissions in the Keystone State.

Representative Jim Struzzi has amended the anti-RGGI legislation he introduced last year to authorize spending $250 million from Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 Response Restricted Account on carbon-dioxide-reduction technologies and related items. Funded projects would include methane abatement, hydrogen-based infrastructure and stormwater mitigation as well as assistance to communities weathering electric-generation plant closures.

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Industry Groups Raise Questions After Study on Gas Stoves

The Center Square

Industry groups and others are pushing back after a study found gas stoves contribute more to global warming than previously thought at a time when some elected officials are considering policies to limit natural gas connections.

The study, published in Environmental Science & Technology, found methane that leaks from natural gas stoves in U.S. homes has a climate impact equivalent to the carbon dioxide emissions from about 500,000 gas-powered cars.

The study also tested emissions from stoves in homes. A Stanford news release that accompanied the study raised concerns about indoor air quality because of the levels of nitrogen oxides.

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Commentary: Be Grateful for Global Warming

Admin
"It's not easy being green" sign in the middle of a crowd

Present-day warming has been termed a crisis, and modern economic development a cancer. But what if I told you that much of the recent advancement in human prosperity would have been impossible without the temperature increases of the last several hundred years?

A key to the sustenance of any society is food security. Today’s world should be grateful for today’s relative warmth as well as higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels because both have been instrumental in propelling plant growth globally.

A review of human and climate history reveals a strong link between the rise and fall of temperature and the rise and fall of civilization—just opposite of what the climate doomsayers are telling you.

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Governors Using Federal Coronavirus Relief Funds on ‘Global Warming’ Initiatives Instead

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Several governors around the country are taking federal funds meant to combat the coronavirus and instead using the money to deal with so-called “global warming.”

Breitbart reports that, in addition to federal stimulus funds, such governors are taking advantage of budget surpluses as a result of tax collection and massive consumer spending following the end of most lockdowns. Among the most prominent governors engaging in such misuse of funds are Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.), and Jay Inslee (D-Wash.).

“The climate crisis is not an abstraction,” Inslee falsely claimed. “It is something that I and every governor in the United States, almost on a weekly basis, have to deal with.” Newsom, who has incorrectly described global warming as an “existential threat,” has proposed spending of up to $24 billion over the next five years, for such projects as electric school buses, more electric vehicle charging stations, and additional “clean energy” development and storage projects.

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Commentary: Six Cultish Things Globalist Elites Want You to Look Forward to in 2022—and Beyond

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

The year is 2022. The place: a New York City so overpopulated that everyone is sleeping and dying on outdoor stairways. All sweating like pigs because of global warming. People have become unwitting cannibals because there is no more food. Elites still dine on delectables, but all that remains for the hoi polloi is the promise of a green wafer allegedly made of plankton, but in reality “It’s PEOPLE!!”

That’s the setting of the over-the-top 1973 movie “Soylent Green,” produced in the wake of Paul Ehrlich’s classic fear porn book The Population Bomb. Time has proven Ehrlich’s predictions of mass starvation due to population growth to be massively wrong. Ehrlich also lost his famous wager with the economist Julian Simon who predicted a more prosperous world. Still, Malthusian propaganda dies hard because it’s such an effective tool for social engineering.

“Soylent Green” is a random example, chosen because its year 2022 happens to be upon us. Certainly, dates and science used in science fiction have a heavy emphasis on fiction. The “Blade Runner” rebellion of genetically designed replicants was set in 2019. And, of course, Big Brother ruled in George Orwell’s 1984. Though much has come to pass, including genetic engineering and the surveillance state, there’s proof enough that we can’t predict the future with certainty.

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Dr. Christopher Weiss, Professor of Atmospheric Science at Texas Tech, Talks Tornados in Out of Season December

Julie Carr
Dr. Christopher Weiss of Texas Tech

Monday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas Tech, Christopher Weiss to the newsmakers line to talk about last Friday’s out of season tornados that ravaged Kentucky and parts of Middle Tennessee.

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