Links tagged “mkey”

Nature Sustainability: Authors argue COVID restrictions, smart meters & tracking apps can be used as a stepping stone for a personal carbon allowance. - Published: 16 August 16, 2021

Journal article urges for "the need for a low-carbon recovery from the COVID-19 crisis" by using "personal carbon allowances (PCAs)."  "A PCA scheme would entail all adults receiving an equal, tradable carbon allowance that reduces over time in line with national targets...encompassing individuals’ carbon emissions relating to travel, space heating, water heating and electricity." ... "Allowances were envisioned to be deducted from the personal budget with every payment for transport fuel, home-heating fuels and electricity bills. People in shortage would be able to purchase additional units in the personal carbon market from those with excess to sell. New, more ambitious PCA proposals include economy-wide emissions, encompassing food, services and consumption-related carbon emissions, for example."

In particular, during the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions on individuals for the sake of public health, and forms of individual accountability and responsibility that were unthinkable only one year before, have been adopted by millions of people. People may be more prepared to accept the tracking and limitations related to PCAs to achieve a safer climate and the many other benefits (for example, reduced air pollution and improved public health) associated with addressing the climate crisis.Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Other lessons that could be drawn relate to the public acceptance in some countries of additional surveillance and control in exchange for greater safety...Recent studies show how COVID-19 contact-tracing apps were successfully implemented with mandatory schemes in several East Asian countries, such as China, Taiwan and South Korea...Recent advances in smarter home and transport options make it possible to easily track and manage a large share of individuals’ emissions. Evidence from the roll-out of smart meters and informative displays can be used to design feedback that is highly effective in engaging individuals to reduce their energy-related emissions...In terms of implementation platforms, while in the 2000s carbon allowances were expected to be managed by a card, in the 2020s high ownership would make smartphones the preferred option for accounting and trading (while providing alternative options for the few without smartphones).

WaPo: Carter put solar panels on the White House, and he called for “shared sacrifice” to confront energy shortages. But he couldn’t overcome voters’ frustrations with fuel prices and availability. The solar panels were removed during Reagan’s presidency. But Will Pattiz, 30, said time vindicated Carter. If “President Carter had gotten an extra term in office,” he said, “we likely wouldn’t be having a climate crisis right now.”

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Climate Depot's Morano: "This may be a first: An expired climate tipping point we somehow all missed from 40 years ago!? President Jimmy Carter could not have been more wrong about energy in the 1970s. For the Washington Post to now claim that the alleged 'climate crisis' could have been avoided if Ronald Reagan lost in 1980 is a bizarro world fantasy. If Carter were concerned at all about "climate change" in the 1970s, it would have been most likely about man-made global cooling -- not warming. See: Don’t let history be rewritten! The facts about the 1970s global cooling ‘consensus’

Jimmy Carter’s Energy Speech of April 1977: Remember the 1970's energy 'consensus'?! Pres. Carter: 'The oil and natural gas that we rely on for 75% of our energy are simply running out.... World oil production can probably keep going up for another 6 or 8 years. But sometime in the 1980's, it can't go up any more. Demand will overtake production. We have no choice about that'

Reality Check: 2021: American achieves energy dominance for 1st time since Harry Truman was prez!

Jeffrey A. Tucker: "In the sweep of history, intellectuals have specialized in conjuring rationales for why freedom needs to be ended in favor of top-state statist forms of social planning. There were religious reasons, genetic reasons, end-of-history reasons, security reasons, and a hundred more. Every age has generated some fashionable and overriding reason why people cannot be free. Public health is the reason of the moment. In this author’s telling, everything we think we know about the social and political order must conform to his number one priority of pathogen avoidance and suppression, while every other concern (such as freedom itself) should take a back seat."

Vinay Prasad correctly writes: “When the history books are written about the use of non-pharmacologic measures during this pandemic, we will look as pre-historic and barbaric and tribal as our ancestors during the plagues of the middle ages.”

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As Lord Sumption writes: “There are few more obsessive fanatics than the technocrat who is convinced that he is reordering an imperfect world for its own good.”

'If their crusade succeeds, cars, meat, and seaside holidays will be for the rich, just as they were a hundred years ago'

Alexander Tomský: "Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the communist empire, the West has been pushing two ideologies...One proposes to build a new hierarchy of social and societal justice (equality), multiracial and multigender (LGBTQ+) minorities. The majority, silenced and intimidated by political correctness and egalitarian legislation, will hopefully sooner or later reject the new political religion; accusations of transphobia, innate white racism, and the enforcement of consent that there are no substantive differences between men and women are not sustainable in the long run.

The latter ideology, which has also found a home in the European Union, will have an economic impact. For the first time since its foundation, the Union has an agenda to impoverish Europeans, and it makes no secret of it. According to The Economist, which quotes enthusiastic Eurocrats, the "Green Deal" is nothing less than a painful revolution that will fundamentally change the lifestyles of Europeans, securing the EU's place in the world (presumably an honourable one) and purpose for a generation. ... 

However, the energy and climate revolution promoted here last week by EU Vice-President Frans Timmermans is a truly insane and costly road to nowhere in economic terms, an "oo-topos", as the ancient Greeks used to call an unworkable utopia. Rebuilding the power grid, replacing gas boilers and cookers, producing green electricity for all vehicles simply cannot be done. ... the Puritans of the Green Deal intend above all to reduce the consumption, rampant consumerism, and free lifestyle of Europeans. If they really believed we would be baked in twenty years' time, they would be promoting nuclear power stations. If their crusade succeeds, cars, meat, and seaside holidays will be for the rich, just as they were a hundred years ago.

Francis Menton: Biden admin "actively working to undermine the American economy and advance the interests of our geopolitical adversaries. ... The Biden Administration came in with the explicit goal of undermining American energy production. Indeed if an administration wanted to undermine American energy prosperity as much as possible and comparably benefit our adversaries, it is difficult to think of anything it would do different from what the Biden Administration is doing."

During most of my adult life, “energy independence” has been a bipartisan goal throughout the federal government. That goal was actually achieved under President Trump. Within just a few months, Biden has undone that achievement. The administration has made no secret of its goals to reduce U.S. energy production of the things that work (i.e., fossil fuels) and to drive up their price. Let’s just make a small list of key actions in furtherance of those goals:

On his first day in office, Biden revoked the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, intended to bring some 800,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Canada into the U.S.

The next day, Biden suspended all permitting of oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters.

Biden’s EPA then set in motion the reversal of Trump Administration's loosening of rules on methane emissions in the process of producing oil and gas. These tightened Biden restrictions have the effect of increasing the cost of production.

Currently in the works are rules from the SEC to require extensive new disclosures by energy producers (and others) of supposed “climate”-related risks.

Biden Puts OPEC & Russia First, US Oil Industry Last -

WSJ: "The Biden Administration is now imploring the OPEC oil cartel to pump more oil so U.S. gasoline prices don’t rise more than they already have on Mr. Biden’s watch. Oil prices climbed to a six-year high on Tuesday after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia failed to agree on increasing production quotas." - "U.S. petroleum consumption is now roughly where it was at this time in 2019."

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As Biden seeks to limit U.S. oil production, reliance on Russian imports rises: By Bethany Blankley | The Center Square Jun 18, 2021 - "Within months of President Joe Biden halting the Keystone Pipeline, pausing new oil and gas leases on federal lands, and imposing further restrictions on U.S. oil companies, U.S. oil imports from Russia set a new record in March. According to International Energy Agency, U.S. imports of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia reached 22.9 million barrels in March, the highest level since August 2010. They had reached over 25 million barrels in April 2009. Crude oil imports from Russia in March stood at 6.1 million barrels, making Russia the third-largest oil exporter to the United States.

Fox Business: "All policies implemented by the Biden administration have created jobs, prosperity and influence for Russia’s energy sector. This has come at the expense of U.S. producers and consumers who are now paying on average over $3 per gallon at the pump, per AAA."

A peer-reviewed study by five lead authors published June 29th in the journal Global Environmental Change: 

Slash annual energy use per person from Canada – 232 Gigajoules (GJ), U.S. –  204 GJ, and France 95 – GJ to a very low 27 GJ per year

“Fairer income distribution is crucial for achieving decent living standards at low energy use”

“To reduce existing income disparities, governments could raise minimum wages, provide a Universal Basic Income, and introduce a maximum income”

“We also need much higher taxes on high incomes, and lower taxes on low incomes”

Move from “an animal-based to a plant-based diet”

Move from “individual to collective transport”

Move from “motorized to active” (walking and cycling) travel

“Economic growth beyond moderate levels of affluence is detrimental for aspirations of sustainable development”.

“Degrowth… is an idea whose time has come”

“In short,” the study’s authors sum up, “we need to abandon economic growth in affluent countries, scale back resource extraction, and prioritize public services, basic infrastructures and fair income distributions everywhere.”