UK Guardian: "Census data from the US released last week showed the number of babies born in the country in 2020 dropped to the lowest level in more than four decades. The same day, Japan marked Children’s Day by announcing that the number of under-14s in the country had fallen for the 40th consecutive year to a record low." ... "It is not just in the rich world that the appetite for having children is falling. Also in 2020, China may have recorded its first overall population decline since a catastrophic famine in the late 1950s, the Financial Times has reported." ... 

"Last century, the global demographic panic was about an overpopulated world running out of food. Those fears have long looked out of date, but it is only recently that we have understood how soon much of the world may be grappling with shrinking populations. ... An end to global population growth could have advantages, including relieving pressure on our battered environment, particularly if the decline is centred in carbon-intensive wealthier economies."

Uk Guardian: "The funeral, a stunt held by worried glacier researchers on the steps of the state capitol in Salem...Worried researchers hold ceremony for Clark glacier to illustrate how the climate crisis is eroding icepacks. ‘It’s like a rotting carcass of its former self’: funeral for an Oregon glacier.

"The funeral was a suitably solemn affair. The small casket was placed on a table covered in a black drape, a maudlin yet defiant speech quoted a Dylan Thomas poem, a moment’s silence was held. Inside the casket, however, was not a body, but a vial of meltwater."

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Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore responds: "Ridiculous, a requiem for melting ice. Glaciers are not alive. Now some trees will be able to grow where the glacier had rendered the land lifeless. There is nothing “good” about glaciers except perhaps their scenic appeal. When they advance they gouge massive scars in the landscape, destroying all life before them. Would the 'greens' prefer that the glaciers were advancing into what is forest and farmland today? Or do they think glaciers can just freeze in time and never shrink or advance again? Given the choice between advancing versus retreating I say let them melt in peace to expose new land for greening. Our CO2 emissions will accelerate the greening so the Earth will be more bountiful as it was before this Pleistocene Ice Age set in 2.5 million years ago, ending 250 million years of a much warmer climate during which life flourished from pole-to-pole."

2019: Media still hyping melting glaciers despite historical context of faster melting in 1930s– Study finds glaciers in Glacier National Park retreated up to 6 times faster during the 1930’s than the past 40 years — Paper published in Quaternary Science Reviews

Climate Depot's Morano comments: George Soros is the founder and the chair of the Open Society Foundations. The new Union of Concerned Scientists president is Johanna Chao Kreilick, who managed the Open Society Foundations’ strategy unit and she founded the $43 million Climate Action Initiative.

Why is this so important? The Union of Concerned Scientists essentially oversaw the U.S. federal government's National Climate Assessment in 2017. The extreme catastrophic climate scenarios used in the 2017 National Climate Assessment report read like a press release from environmental pressure groups — because it was! Two key authors were long-time Union of Concerned Scientist activists, Donald Wuebbles and Katharine Hayhoe.

Fast forward to 2021 and the new head of the Union of Concerned Scientists comes fresh from left-wing activist George Soros' foundation. It is amazing how easy it is to purchase climate policy based on discredited extreme climate scenarios in the United States of America. We don't face a 'climate emergency', but we do face left-wing climate activists running U.S. government science reports and policy."

Green fraud: Why the Green New Deal is worse than you think, by Marc Morano

Curry: 'Anyone who wants to understand the U.S. political debate over climate change should read this book...The book does not ‘deny’ the basic science of climate change, but challenges whether it is ‘dangerous’ (and this topic comprises only one chapter). The book is not about the science, but rather our political response and the failure of the ‘solutions.’. The book includes carefully crafted arguments, spiced with many amusing anecdotes. The book has almost 90 pages of endnotes and references. ... The response from the climatariat has been attempts to get the book ‘cancelled’. ... Anyone who wants to understand the U.S. political debate over climate change should read this book. Climate activists should read this book to understand what they are up against (and also some of the foolishness in the name of climate activism). I would love to see a real attempt at critiquing this book (rather than attempts to cancel it or smear Morano)."

Morano said, "If you actually cared about the environment the most, you would do the opposite of what the UN and the Green New Deal want to do. You would want free markets, economic prosperity, technological revolution, and wealth because those are the cleanest environments." ... 

"COVID and climate are merging now," says Morano. "COVID lockdowns are going to morph into climate lockdowns. Every major climate figure praised the COVID-19 government lockdowns around the world."

“Climate activists are now trying to cancel pets. Pet Police have arrived,” writes Marc Morano, founder of ClimateDepot.com, an admirable news site which chronicles climate activism. ... The ever-watchful Mr. Morano points out that the ecological mindset toward dogs and cats has evolved, and not in the pet’s favor. In 2016, EcoWatch.com — an environmental news source — was more concerned about the climate’s negative impact on pet populations, publishing an investigative study titled “How climate change affects our pets.”

Morano: 'We already have Park Service, all sorts of government agencies doing exactly what this program is claiming to do. This is just a big political patronage effort...This is how you do favors in politics, this is how you get loyal voters. And again, this is not something that, that is needed because it's already duplicating what we have.

The real question is given they've gone after hamburger eating and even owning dogs and cats in the climate agenda, are they going to lose the 'R' in 'Climate Corps' and become 'Climate Cops' and start admonishing people, knocking hamburgers out of their mouth at a park or telling them they shouldn't own a pet dog?

This could go in a whole bunch of different ways. But bottom line, this has nothing to do with the climate. It's not going to stop the Biden administration from trying to push the UN Paris Agreement on us. It's just another nonsense, government job instead of actually creating wealth and giving people real opportunities.'

Japanese environment minister Shinjiro Koizumi: Japan has just raised its target for reducing carbon emissions from 26 per cent to 46 per cent (by 2030 from 2013 levels). But how was this figure arrived at, environment minister Shinjiro Koizumi was asked? Through a careful analysis of the threat and a realistic assessment of what could be achieved, taking all relevant factors into consideration? Well, er no, according to Koizumi, the number 46 just appeared to him in ‘silhouette’ in a sort of vision.

Shinjiro Koizumi, son of former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, made the comments in an interview with the TV station TBS last weekend. The interviewer, despite her face mask, was clearly stunned by the revelation that the country’s emission target did not appear to have any scientific basis. She asked the minister to confirm what he had said; and he did.

“They're the experts and they can tell us what we can own, what we can eat, how we can travel, when we can travel, if we can travel. And dogs and cats are just one of them,” says the Climate Depot's Marc Morano, author of ‘Green Fraud: Why The Green New Deal Is Even Worse Than You Think.'

“They're so emboldened by how compliant the public was with lockdowns. Stay in place. Curfews. You can't leave, it has to be essential services. They're just ramping it up now. Not only can you not leave your house. Not only can you not travel anymore. Now you can't even own a dog and cat anymore. That's where this is headed.”

Morano says liberals make the same argument about children. “Bill Nye wanted to ponder the idea of carbon taxes on kids, not allowing people to have more than one kid. And other activists have done that.”

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Climate Activists Target Pet Owners, Dogs & Cats – Morano: ‘They’re just ramping it up now. Now you can’t even own a dog or cat anymore. That’s where this is headed’

Round-up of recent news in the wacky world of climate change activism

Pielke Jr.: "There is an interesting investigative journalism project to be done on the revolving door between climate science & policy and private sector climate services. Just as one example, John Kerry's predecessor as 'climate envoy' co-founded a consulting firm that feeds off of RCP8.5. Absolutely fascinating how climate scenarios (RCPs, SSPs & their derivatives) are enabling entirely new markets for consulting based on financial risk assessments of fictional futures. 

It is also amazing how much money is being paid to explore these outdated, fictional futures...

Here is a cozy eco-system: 

Former gov't officials
Scientists w/ specialized knowledge
Venture capital
Energy companies
Current federal policymaking

Has always been so. But it is interesting how these dynamics promote implausible scenarios & keep bad science going."

NY Post: The couple now owns more than 1,300 acres on Kauai, known as the “Garden Island” for its extensive tropical rainforests. They began assembling their fiefdom in 2014 with the 357-acre Kahuaina Plantation. ... It is set  far back from publicly accessible areas, with a controversial walled perimeter. According to building permits that total $83 million, one application called for a 57,059-square-foot home with eight bedrooms, nine full baths, and 16 half baths.

“Mark Zuckerberg is the sixth richest man in the world … and he is suing Native Hawaiians in Kauai for their land so he can build a mansion. He’s building a mansion to do what? Live in Kauai for two months out of the year? This is inhuman.”

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March 2021: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg thinks smart glasses could help combat climate change: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that by 2030, people could use advanced smart glasses to “teleport” to locations like other people’s homes, and speak to them as if they’re physically present, allowing in-person meetings to be replaced by a headset-based digital experience. ... “We talked a little bit about climate change before just being so important,” Zuckerberg said. “People are just going to want to maybe travel a little less in the future and do it more efficiently, and be able to go places without having to take the travel or commute time.”

Flashback 2017: Mark Zuckerberg says Donald Trump’s decision on the Paris agreement ‘puts our children’s future at risk’ - “Withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement is bad for the environment, bad for the economy, and it puts our children's future at risk,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post. “For our part, we've committed that every new data center we build will be powered by 100% renewable energy. Stopping climate change is something we can only do as a global community, and we have to act together before it's too late.”

Shalanda Baker, Biden's nominee for director of the department's Office of Minority Economic Impact, wrote in "Revolutionary Power: An Activist's Guide to the Energy Transition" that climate change solutions must also address racial justice.

"The transition away from the fossil fuel-driven energy system offers an opportunity to upend existing socioeconomic inequality and foster lasting structural change," Baker wrote.

VOX mag goes full pet police, asks: "Are our pets gobbling up the planet?": Gregory Okin, a Professor in the Departments of Geography and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability: "Reducing the rate of dog and cat ownership, perhaps in favor of other pets that offer similar health and emotional benefits, would considerably reduce these impacts."

"Proper poop disposal is important. Okin found that pet poop is equivalent to the annual trash of 6.6 million humans." That's more trash than Maryland produces!

But wait! Pets cause global warming and global warming harms pets! - Flashback 2016: 'Climate Change Impacts Our Pets'

"It's not nice to have climate action, it's our fundamental right that the government protects us from the climate crisis." ... Crucially, the governments are starting to lose, Neubauer's victory came just months after a court in Paris ruled that France was legally responsible for its failure to meet emission cutting targets. ... Climate lawsuits are becoming an increasingly popular and powerful tool for climate change activists. A January report released by the United Nations Environment Programme found that the number of climate litigation cases filed around the world nearly doubled between 2017 and 2020.

Reuters: Beyond Meat Inc (BYND.O) reported a wider quarterly loss than expected, as the plant-based meat maker incurred higher freight costs, spent heavily on testing new product launches, and sold less to pandemic-hit restaurants. Shares of the California-based company fell nearly 7% in extended trading...As restaurant sales fell, the company accumulated more pea protein, leading to higher costs for warehousing, it said.

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Flashback: Al Gore’s Quest to Be the First Fake Meat Billionaire - Former Vice President Al Gore, who saw his wealth skyrocket from his climate change crusade after he lost the presidency in 2000, has a new way to profit. ... This pseudo-meat company, called Beyond Meat, was the most successful 2019 IPO in May, as determined by CBS News. Gore’s climate groups invested $200 million in this company, while studies from organizations to which he also has connections urged stores and consumers to look for meat alternatives – the very types of products in which Gore had just placed a massive investment.  The former vice president is a partner and adviser to Kleiner Perkins, an investing firm that is the single largest investor in Beyond Meat.

Bloomberg News: China now accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than all of the world’s developed nations combined, according to new research from Rhodium Group. China’s emissions of six heat-trapping gases, including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, rose to 14.09 billion tons of CO2 equivalent in 2019, edging out the total of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development members by about 30 million tons, according to the New York-based climate research group. The massive scale of China’s emissions highlights the importance of President Xi Jinping’s drive to peak carbon emissions before 2030 and reach net-zero by 2060. China accounted for 27 per cent of global emissions. The U.S., the second biggest emitter, contributed 11 per cent while India for the first time surpassed the European Union with about 6.6 per cent of the global total.

John Stuart Mill: In 1848, decades into the Industrial Revolution, Mill wrote that “[h]itherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment...”^[3]Mill’s answer as to why this was the case was, at its core, Malthusian. The fruits of innovation had not been equally shared, he argued — a few made fortunes, and productivity growth had increased the comforts of the middle classes, but most saw no benefit and would not do so until “the increase of mankind shall be under the deliberate guidance of judicious foresight.”^[4]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive lawmakers are calling for the creation of a 1.5 million-strong group of civilians to work on federally funded projects addressing climate change as part of their sweeping Green New Deal legislation. Members of the Civilian Climate Corps would receive on-the-job training and work with community groups on initiatives to "reduce carbon emissions, enable a transition to renewable energy, build healthier and more resilient communities, implement conservation projects with proven climate benefits, and help communities recover from climate disasters." ...

At least 50% of the funding would be reserved for "environmental justice" communities, which would also provide at least 50% of the Civilian Climate Corps members. Another 10% of funding would be reserved for tribal communities.

Biden asked for $10 billion to jumpstart the CCC, an amount that Mark Paul, an assistant professor of economics and the environment at the New College of Florida, says is far too low. According to his calculations, that could fund somewhere between 150,000 to 200,000 workers. In comparison, the AOC and Markey bill would employ 1.5 million people over a span of five years, increasing the program’s scope nearly 10-fold.

Equity: Another unique aspect of the plan: It calls for half of the climate service projects to be based in low-income communities and communities of color,

John Kerry: "We have to establish a baseline of truth or we can’t build consensus in a democracy." ... "Paid-for denial" are "costing us enormously", he added.

Kerry said achieving climate goals fast enough amounted to "a moonshot on steroids" - and called on scientists to help communicate to the public the urgent need for swift action. "Scientists want to avoid the fray - but we are in a war against denial," he said. "I think we have to fight back, and I think scientists have to be at the front of that fight."

He believes the world is "right now crossing the long-awaiting tipping point" toward greater action on climate change, as social movements, innovation and falling costs help drive more net-zero emissions promises and accelerate green measures. "We have the solutions we need, and we are gaining the political will to implement them," he said.

“The climate crisis is a crisis born of injustice, and it is a crisis born of the pursuit of profit at any and all human and ecological cost,” the New York Democrat said as she again pushed the Green New Deal.

“Which means that we must recognize in legislation that the trampling of indigenous rights is a cause of climate change, that the trampling of racial justice is a cause of climate change,” she insisted to clapping. “Because we are allowing people … to deny ourselves human rights and deny people the right to health care, the right to housing and education,” AOC said.

"I think Chevron's benefited society in all kinds of ways, and I think it continues to do so," said Buffett, whose company at the end of last year owned a 2.5% stake in the California-based driller. "We're going to need a lot of hydrocarbons for a long time, and we'll be very glad we've got them." ... "Believe me, Chevron is not an evil company," he added. "I have no compunction — in the least — about owning Chevron. And if we owned the entire business, I would not feel uncomfortable about being in that [industry]."

"What's happening will be adapted to over time, just as we've adapted to all kinds of things," said Buffett, who has a net worth north of $103 billion.

VP Charlie Munger was even more skeptical of the scientific consensus. "I don't think we think we know the answer to all these questions about global warming and so forth. And the people that ask the questions think they know the answers," he said. "We're just more modest."

Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the EU commission, said that if social policy and climate policy are not combined, to share fairly the costs and benefits of creating a low-carbon economy, the world will face a backlash from people who fear losing jobs or income, stoked by populist politicians and fossil fuel interests.

He said: “It’s not just an urgent matter – it’s a difficult matter. We have to transform our economy. There are huge benefits, but it’s a huge challenge. The biggest threat is the social one. If we don’t fix this, our children will be waging wars over water and food. There is no doubt in my mind.”