As in any enterprise, if you happily pay for little … little is what you’ll get!
From the following commentary: “The inescapable conclusion is that we are spending tens of billions of dollars on essentially pointless scientific activity: exponential increases in papers that are never read, more and more scientists who seek affirmation rather than adventure, and institutions that value money and power more than fostering scientific discovery. In other words, our $85 billion (and growing) expenditure is fostering a generation of intellectual squishes and rent-seekers. This leads, in turn, to the really uncomfortable conclusion that the Nature authors seemed unwilling to explore, and that conservative commentators seem unable to draw: we are spending too much money on science.“
From Jordan Peterson’s conversation with Dr. Richard Lindzen … Climate Science: What Does it Say?
Introduction:
“Jan 5, 2023 The Dr Jordan B Peterson Podcast Dr Jordan B Peterson and Dr. Richard Lindzen dive into the facts of climate change, the models used to predict it, the dismal state of academia, and the politicized world of “professional” science.
Richard Lindzen is a dynamical meteorologist. He has contributed to the development of theories for the Hadley Circulation, hydrodynamic instability theory, internal gravity waves, atmospheric tides, and the quasi-biennial oscillation of the stratosphere. His current research is focused on climate sensitivity, the role of cirrus clouds in climate, and the determination of the tropics-to-pole temperature difference. He has attained multiple degrees from Harvard University, and won multiple awards in his field of study such as the Jule Charney award for “highly significant research in the atmospheric sciences”.
Between 1983 and 2013, he was the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT where he earned emeritus status in July of 2013.
Dr. Peterson’s extensive catalog is available now on Daily Wire+: https://utm.io/ueSXh“
“PJM is asking consumers to reduce their use of electricity, if health permits, between the hours of 4 a.m. on December 24, 2022 and 10 a.m. on December 25, 2022,” it wrote in a statement.
Say goodbye to your Christmas lights.
In other words, the PJM’s 65 million Americans who live in between Illinois and New Jersey should “take simple electricity conservation steps such as… Turning off non-essential electric lights.”
Right! Who wants to turn on their Christmas lights on Christmas Eve? Let’s hold that off until maybe April.
As Mr. Shellenberger points out, “the nonprofit North American Reliability Corporation (NERC) warned in November that this would happen. “Limited natural gas infrastructure can impact winter reliability,” it wrote. It pointed to the closure of coal and nuclear power plants as threatening shortages.”
Please go to Mr. Shellenberger’s Substack page for the full article, it is well worth your time! Become a subscriber as well, his analysis on this and other critical issues is well worth the price!
Lessons learned from Europe’s wind/solar failures may save the US if our politicians finally wake up. Demand driven energy is provided by Nuclear, Natural Gas, Coal, etc., not power plants which rely on variable wind and sunlight as fuel.
On Dec. 5, 2022, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California conducted a fusion reaction and succeeded in releasing more energy than was used to initiate the reaction. As the Forbes article notes, “The net energy gain from the fusion reaction is the first in human history. While more research (a lot more research) is needed to make the technology replicable, scalable and more efficient, it’s an essential step on the path to clean energy.
As noted by MIT’s Technology Review, “This advance demonstrates the basic viability of fusion energy, a goal researchers have been chasing since the 1950s.”
Further noted in the Technology Review, “This puts a lot of wind in the sails of the community,” says Anne White, head of nuclear science and engineering at MIT. But, she adds, it doesn’t mean that we’re going to see fusion power on the grid tomorrow: “That’s not realistic.”
I do find the “wind in the sails” comment ironic as there will ultimately be little need for unreliable commercial wind once the safe, net positive, demand driven energy from nuclear fusion generation hits the market. I won’t live to see it, but my offspring will be all the better for it!
It should come as no surprise to anyone watching the political shenanigans of the recent past that Lucy once again picked up the football and this time, when Charlie Brown kicked air, it was West Virginia’s own Senator Joe Manchin performing the wiff. Failing to gain a simple majority, Manchin’s permitting reform legislation, which required 60 votes, lost in a 47-47 tie vote.
Failing to attract the necessary votes on his third try, Senator Manchin naturally blamed Republicans for the loss. Failing to mention in his rant that only 37 Democrats voted for this attempt Manchin said, “Once again, Mitch McConnell and Republican leadership have put their own political agenda above the needs of the American people.” But then, Senator Manchin also made an earlier attempt based on a pledge he received from Democrat leadership (aka “Lucy” Schumer) for his support of the Inflation Reduction Act, which he had to withdraw due to lack of support. Hmm, did I miss where he publicly chewed “Lucy” out?
Senator Manchin and fellow Senator Shelly Moore Capito will try again in the new session so we’ll see where that goes. But this post has nothing to do with whether or not what Manchin offered was successful. Some in his home state call its demise “another victory against Senator Manchin’s ‘Dirty Deal’ permitting bill.” Others support his permitting reform. Capito, for one, did support Manchin’s third offering even while recognizing the bill as presented was “imperfect.”
There are pros and cons, yeas and nays for this and every piece of legislation submitted. But again, that’s not the purpose of this post. This is more about what will transpire during the final two years of what could be Manchin’s lame duck session in the US Senate. The soon to be Democrat Senate majority provided by the Georgia election win removes Manchin’s role as a player on the Schumer/Biden team, and he seems good with that. He said before the election that he hoped Democrats would win in Georgia so they would have absolute majority in the Senate. When a reporter suggested to Manchin that, as a result of the Georgia Democrat win, he was losing a good amount of leverage, he replied, “Happy to do it.” He was likely tired of the push and pull from both sides and the personal threats he received from the nutjobs on both sides. It is understandable that he would like to come out from under that no-win pressure. But the cost of that choice may well be his loss of stature in the party to which he has so long been aligned. It might also suggest to some of his constituents that his loss of influence might affect his ability to sway legislation (both to the benefit of and protection from) as it relates to West Virginia. All politics is local, I seem to recall someone saying.
Maybe Senator Manchin will settle happily in his diminished role or maybe will follow in the steps of newly independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema. That would, of course, put him back on the firing line and one can’t be sure he’s up for that. But should he do so, maybe he’ll take Sinema’s move one step further and caucus with Republicans. Hard to say, but interesting to watch. At any rate, apparently, Schumer’s party will likely move on from the self-described “Blue Dog” Democrat. Only time will tell Manchin’s future and 2024 will may well give the final verdict.
Every effort has been made at AT to keep politics out of the discussion. That will continue as much as possible in the future. In fact, with all the chaos going on in DC, I’ve taken a pause on issues I would normally have posted in an effort to stay neutral prior to the election.
At this time however …
As most know, West Virginia Congressional representation was reduced from 3 to 2. The portion of the state I live in lost it’s Representative and, while I don’t like the reduction in numbers, I wasn’t all that upset to lose the Representative we had.
In the recent election, the new guy, Alex Mooney was chosen to take over the top half of the state. I was OK with that. Now we learn that he has chosen to begin his campaign to replace Senator Joe Manchin in the 2024 election.
I don’t mind that Mooney wants to move up in the world. But I have to wonder if he had this move in mind when he chose to run for the current seat, which he won’t even fill until January. If that is the case, perhaps he should have run out the clock on his current assignment, announced his campaign plan for Senate and put all effort to unseating Manchin in 2024 instead of running again for Congress.
For the sake of this discussion, I’ll give Representative Mooney the benefit of the doubt and assume he really did just wake up a day or so after the recent election and decide on the Senate run. So, in that scenario, why should his decision to run for Senate bug me a little?
One of the reasons I didn’t mind that my current Representative was removed from his post was his vote to permit spending of money we didn’t have. There’s a lot of that going around in Washington and it has to stop. Anyone who’s had the pleasure of witnessing or actually “sloppin’ the hogs” may share my image of Politicians and Bureaucrats running to the trough when the Treasury dumps the “slop.” In this case, of course, the slop is our hard earned taxpayer dollars.
Looking ahead to the the new Republican majority in the House, a great investment of time will be required of Representatives to curtail an out of control spending spree. That assumes, and you know what “assume” means, that the new majority is sincere in their claim to not abuse Taxpayers and right the ship. For the most recent history, it seems the addiction to spend other people’s money has been far stronger than the promises made when seeking our vote. But we’ll see!
So, even before my new Representative begins service to his new constituency, he is already planning to dilute the 120% effort required to make changes in Congress by starting a campaign to remove himself from his current job. Honestly, if Mooney had stated his Senate run during the primary election some months ago, I likely would have stayed with my current Representative McKinley and considered his vote to spend a one-off. My mistake!
Don’t get me wrong. Joe Manchin needs a kick in the pants. He’s played Charlie Brown to Schumer’s Lucy too many times. He was a great governor and a nice guy. In my view, as a Senator, unreliable … perhaps naive. With the new shift in power in the Senate, his role as a persuasive Senator may well diminish, especially if the Democrats pick up Georgia. He may find it necessary to move away from his lifetime party in order to protect West Virginia’s workers and economy from the destructive energy path this Administration is on, supported by the likes of Schumer and company.
Senator Manchin will likely not have an easy run in 2024. If he can’t alter his course, perhaps Mooney, or another yet to be announced candidate will gain enough popularity to unseat him. There’s a lot of time and a lot of options to play out.
In the meantime, I want a full time Congressional Representative to take up the fight for issues such as energy, better utilization of our tax dollars, runaway crime, the border and so on and so on. I hope Representative Mooney will not let his future get in the way of our present.
It seems recently “California governor Gavin Newsom issued emergency orders to procure more natural gas-fired electrical capacity to avoid blackouts. And in a possible sign of more such moves to come, earlier in the summer, California’s electric grid operator “stole” electricity that Arizona utilities had purchased and that was in transit from Oregon.“
From the GWPF: “China uses the climate agenda both as a way to strengthen its economy and as a weapon for weakening other countries. It now monopolises the global wind and solar industries, although its own renewable energy infrastructure, as everywhere, is unreliable (and therefore requires thermal generation backup), costly, and subject to high rates of curtailment. But its domestic renewables sites serve as effective demonstration projects for tours by Western environmentalists, who then lobby their governments to buy these expensive and unreliable forms of energy. When they do, it gives China two wins for the West’s two losses.”
Noted Harvard Science Historian Naomi Oreskes suggested that since the science is settled the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Working Group 1 (WG1)—the ones tasked with assessing the physical science basis of climate change—should “declare their job done.”
Sorta like: The models we use to absolutely predict that the world is ending really soon actually suck a bit, so we need a lot more money and time to kinda better settle the settled science. In the meantime of course, it’s certainly OK to purchase that $11.75 million waterfront mansion.
Like always, pull the money and out pops the truth.
American Battlefield Trust
The American Battlefield Trust preserves America’s hallowed battlegrounds and educates the public about what happened there and why it matters
Allegheny Treasures 