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.

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]

“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.”

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,

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

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.

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

“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."

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."

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.”

Axios: Kerry was the advisory board chairman for Climate Finance Partners, which "creates innovative and globally needed finance solutions that address climate change."

He was also the president of the Vietnam Sustainable Energy Corporation.

He drew a $5 million salary from Bank of America. He was tapped as chairman of the bank's global advisory council months after his tenure as Barack Obama's second secretary of State

He landed $382,400 in speaking fees from entities including Deutsche Bank, Waste Management and Cornell University.

Kerry also reported compensation "in excess of $5,000" for more than a dozen other speeches in 2019, including ones to Barclays, Zurich Insurance and the foundation run by Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk.

Scientists turn political lobbyists: 

Will Steffen’s co-authored piece on “climate tipping points”, was headlined, “The growing threat of abrupt and irreversible climate changes must compel political and economic action on emissions.” The Nature paper included political rodomontade like: "In our view, the consideration of tipping points helps to define that we are in a climate emergency and strengthens this year’s chorus of calls for urgent climate action — from schoolchildren to scientists, cities and countries." ...

The ABC interviewer spliced in tape of Hoegh-Guldberg addressing a conference in Saudi Arabia (of all places) and saying, “Let’s now change the world.” ...The Academy – its members are overwhelmingly taxpayer-funded – wants to force Australia’s blue-collars, tradies and non-public servant middle classes into unpalatable and dark-green lifestyle changes. ...

Canadian investigative journalist Donna Laframboise has provided detailed history on Professor Hoegh-Guldberg, under the header, The WWF Activist in Charge at the IPCC (March 30, 2014). "The fact that he has spent his career cashing cheques from Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) was no impediment to him participating in the latest [Fifth] IPCC assessment. The geniuses there decided he wasn’t merely lead-author material, but that he deserved to be placed in charge of a chapter it’s called  The Ocean."

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.

Bloomberg Green: "Two-thirds of America's total energy footprint is devoted to transportation fuels produced from agricultural crops, primarily corn grown for ethanol. It requires more land than all other power sources combined but provides just 5% of the nation's energy...The most land-intensive plan eliminates all fossil fuels and nuclear plants." ... 

"Is there even enough open land to build 250 million acres of new wind farms? The short answer is yes, according to estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture." ... "If the U.S. wants a carbon-free economy by 2050 using the least amount of land, it will need to rely less on wind and solar and instead build hundreds of nuclear plants and natural gas plants outfitted with systems to capture carbon dioxide."

"By 2050, when Biden wants the entire economy to be carbon free, the U.S. will need up to four additional South Dakotas to develop enough clean power to run all the electric vehicles, factories and more." ... "No matter how you slice it, the U.S. will need to dedicate more land to producing power in an emissions-free future."

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'

"According to Nye, both him and Mann are frequently asked two common questions: “What can I do about climate change,” and “What can be done to convince someone who’s a climate denier?” Nye calls these the $10 trillion questions, because climate deniers are so “dug in” to their beliefs, which only makes it harder to convince them of what the science suggests.

The only definitive way to see significant action to prevent climate change is to simply wait for deniers and contrarians to “age out,” according to Nye. “There’s an old saying — ‘science proceeds one funeral at a time,’” Nye said, “but it’s not happening fast enough.”

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2017: Watch: Morano on Fox News slams Bill Nye for wanting skeptics dead: Older people are ‘less susceptible to Nye’s propaganda’ - Morano on Fox: "This is in line with the debate of intimidation and science, and Bill Nye is the leader of that now, unfortunately, and a big influence with young minds and that’s why he’s so confident he can convert the young people to climate action but he is having trouble with anyone his age and older because frankly they’re wiser and they have experienced a lot, so they are less susceptible to his propaganda.”

Bill Nye says skeptics will die off. Instead young gullibles grow up to be old skeptics

Bill Nye: Old People Have To Die For Us To Stop Global Warming

Bill Nye: Older ‘climate deniers’ need to ‘die’ before climate science can advance

Joe Biden: “The United States accounts for less than 15 percent of carbon emissions. The rest of the world accounts for 85 percent. That’s why I kept my commitment to rejoin the Paris Accord, because if we do everything perfectly, it’s not going to matter.”

Climate Depot Response: "Biden admits it's all a waste of time and he joins John Kerry in admitting it as well! First off, the climate accords not only won't impact the climate or weather, but these climate pacts do not even impact global emissions! See: Shock graph of rising CO2 emissions despite ‘planet-saving’ UN climate pacts shows ‘farce’ of ‘climate action’

See: John Kerry again admits climate futility: If U.S. & China ‘could go to zero (CO2 emissions) tomorrow… the world would still have a problem’

BBC: India lambasted the richer world's carbon-cutting plans, calling long-term net-zero targets, "pie in the sky." Their energy minister said poor nations want to continue using fossil fuels and the rich countries "can't stop it". China meanwhile declined to attend a different climate event organized by the UK. ...

India, the world's fourth-largest emitter, doesn't seem keen to join the club. "2060 sounds good, but it is just that, it sounds good," Raj Kumar Singh, India's minister for power, told a meeting organized by the International Energy Agency (IEA). "I would call it, and I'm sorry to say this, but it is just a pie in the sky."

To the discomfort of his fellow panelists, Mr Singh singled out developed countries where per capita emissions are much higher than in India. "You have countries whose per capita emissions are four or five or 12 times the world average. The question is when are they going to come down?" "What we hear is that by 2050 or 2060 we will become carbon neutral, 2060 is far away and if the people emit at the rate they are emitting the world won't survive, so what are you going to do in the next five years that's what the world wants to know."

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Flashback: Growth will be a thing of the past if businesses choose ‘net zero’ emissions – ‘A blueprint for the extinction of capitalism as we know it’ – – “There was more rationality to Soviet-style central planning, which at least had the aim of producing something of value rather than producing nothing.”

AJ Dellinger of Mic.com: "Many people, particularly white people, [climate change] has felt like a threat that exists somewhere in the future but not quite right now...But while they might be dreading the future, people of color are living with the consequences right now. Marginalized communities and Indigenous people are on the frontlines of the climate crisis thanks to systemic racism. They have had their land stolen and exploited, deal with more pollution, are displaced by extreme weather at a higher rate, and receive far less support to build back their communities after disasters."

Sarah Joy, a professor of environmental studies at Humboldt State University: "If we believe the models and the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and 99% of scientists, the prospects of what the planet is going to be like in the next 10, 20, 30 years is not looking good." ... white students in the class were grieving about the environment. She dismissed it as white fragility."

"The climate movement, which has been predominantly white, has not been thinking about existential tools because of their privilege...Social justice movements like Indigenous rights or Black Lives Matter are shaping the climate movement now."

"To rewild our environment, we need to create the correct conditions. This can be done through actions like reintroducing species that have disappeared, allowing forests to regenerate and preventing the fragmentation of rivers."

"Why eat less red meat when India has more than 300 million cows — the most of any country in the world and three times that of the United States — and lets millions of them roam at will because that nation’s Hindus consider them sacred? And what about China, which now has more cattle than the United States? Climate activists praised China’s 2016 dietary guidelines for recommending a 50 percent reduction in meat consumption, but Chinese per capita consumption of meat has continued to grow. Chinese beef consumption alone rose by 11 percent in 2019. And this doesn’t even address beef-hungry nations in South America, where per capita consumption equals or exceeds America’s."

"All models only say what they are told to say, because all models are lists of premises put there by scientists." 

"It’s silly because (a) no probability proves a model is true, and (b) model statements get probabilities from the premises scientists’ choose. They can pick what they like, and make the model’s statements appear as sure or as unsure as they like because of these choices."

"Attribution studies are fundamentally flawed..."

"The words from John Kerry and Gina McCarthy reveal this is not about climate, but about using climate as a means to an end, the end being the transformation of the very system that enabled our country to become the envy of the world."

Jason Isaac: "The best solution for preserving the natural beauty of our nation, contrary to the president’s pontificating, is to fully embrace domestically produced energy. Long-term environmental quality is a product not of big-government mandates, but of freedom and economic prosperity...Energy is a necessity, not a luxury; because of this, even the most draconian federal emissions rules won’t exterminate fossil fuels. The American people won’t stop using the resources that give us 80% of our energy. They’ll just be forced to import more from overseas, ceding economic and political power to unstable nations instead of supporting responsible American energy producers.

Ironically, this means Biden’s emission mandate will actually increase, not decrease, global carbon dioxide emissions. American energy companies have developed such rigorous emission controls that natural gas shipped to Europe from the United States produces far less greenhouse gas emissions than gas imported half the distance from Russia — or even a quarter of the distance from North Africa."

"If President Biden really wanted to protect our environment — plus fight poverty and boost our economy — he would embrace, not penalize, American produced fossil fuels." 

"America isn’t leading the world in environmental quality despite our use of fossil fuels — we’re leading because of them."

Life:Powered's Jason Isaac delivered invited testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee explaining why a national climate bank would impose a massive cost to taxpayers — but provide no environmental benefits whatsoever. Click here to watch the 5-minute testimony.

Jason Isaac: "Climate Bank Would Not Change the Climate" - "The National Climate Bank would be one of the most flagrant examples of the government picking winners and losers at the taxpayers’ expense in American history." ... "The National Climate Bank Act would impose a massive cost to taxpayers and create an uneven regulatory playing field but provide no environmental benefits whatsoever." 

"This climate cartel will prove a disaster for our entire economy."

Friederike Otto, a climate expert at the University of Oxford: ‘Unlike every other branch of climate science or science in general, event attribution was actually originally suggested with the courts in mind." 

In fact, Otto herself has relied on climate attribution work to support climate lawsuits as a 2019 E&E News story mentions: “Friederike Otto, a climate expert at the University of Oxford and lead scientist at the World Weather Attribution project, said she talks ‘a lot with lawyers’ about how attribution science could be used as a litigation tool.” ... Otto also signed onto a motion in support of San Francisco and Oakland’s climate lawsuit and the E&E News article mentions that she works with Myles Allen, another climate academic at Oxford, who, the publication notes, “authored what is widely considered the first attribution study on the 2003 European heatwave,” and he wrote an op-ed that same year linking attribution science and lawsuits.

"Some of the UK’s biggest renewable energy developers are using panels made by Chinese solar companies accused of exploiting forced labor camps in Xinjiang province, a Guardian investigation has found."