Kassie Andrews: Alaska ‘Green New Deal’ lurks as a camel’s nose under the tent

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By KASSIE ANDREWS | MASTER RESOURCE 

“Senator Jesse Bjorkman is up against an army of eco-activists and lobbyists. We Alaskans have the responsibility to hand down the legacy of an affordable and reliable energy system. A Renewable Portfolio Standard is not that.”

The “camel’s nose under the tent” metaphor is: “Don’t allow even small malpractices, because they will grow big eventually.”

Realized or not, the major malpractice in question at this very moment is Alaskans being forced into anti-energy “decarbonization.”

The political war against carbon dioxide (CO2), the building block of life, has wreaked havoc on humanity throughout the world. The implementation of this decarbonization plan is the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS). This post updates the issues and what can be done to save Alaska’s largest population center from political plunder. 

Background

In early 2022, Gov. Mike Dunleavy introduced legislation for an RPS with the press release: “House Bill 301 and Senate Bill 179 will allow Alaska to join 30 states and two territories in creating a renewable portfolio standard in the Railbelt. A key element of the governor’s RPS is a firm commitment to transitioning to 30% sustainable power by 2030 and 80% by 2040.”

Sustainable? That’s a political term. Consumers and taxpayers would beg to differ. So why is a conservative governor no longer disbanding former Gov. Bill Walker’s Green New Deal adherence but going to full-throated adoption and implementation of the anti-energy, anti-industrial globalist agenda?

Much of what is going on today was spawned from policies that were adopted in 2010 when the Alaska State legislature adopted the state’s energy policy and intent.  This document outlines a non-binding goal to reach 50% renewable energy by 2025.  The sponsor statement written in January 25, 2010, confirms that our legislature had environmental activists writing state policy:

The House Special Committee on Energy Co‐chairs Rep. Bryce Edgmon, D‐Dillingham and former Rep. Charisse Millett, R‐Anchorage used a unique method to draft the bill ‐ they didn’t write it. Instead, they assembled a diverse group of Alaskans with decades of experience in energy policy to come together and write what they believed would make a good energy policy for Alaska.

The Alaska draft climate change policy dated July 27, 2018, is our state-level Green New Deal Implementation Plan. This plan was enabled by the aforementioned 2010 Alaska Energy Policy, which was the creation of Gov. Walker’s 15-person Climate Action for Alaska Leadership Team. This team contains one of the key authors of the 2010 Alaska Energy Policy, who is now lobbying overtime to help push through RPS through at our state capital.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 created massive amounts of inflationary matching funds and subsidies. There has been a full-court press led by the feds, environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), government agents, academia, and private equity pirates to take advantage of this money and use it to transform and gain control of the reliability and affordability of our energy. This will guarantee inflation and higher energy costs for Alaskans. The current RPS legislation is the final evolutionary step toward the implementation of the carbon reduction plan that we should be protected from.

RPS in Alaska

RPS is carbon management policy. This idea has been sold to well-meaning people as something that is effective in controlling climate change. Carbon control and management was designed to be “people control” policy.  Carbon management has no proven ability to control the climate. This control of energy is nothing but government energy planning, a march down the Road to Serfdom (in the words of free-market economist F. A. Hayek). This policy specifically sets arbitrary mandates requiring that utilities generate a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable sources, not including nuclear. 

Many of the advocates for this legislation are against further hydro development, which so strongly makes up their renewable energy percentages. This will greatly escalate the cost to meet the mandates of RPS. Twenty-nine states and the District of Colombia have adopted RPS. Sixteen of these with targets of at least 50% renewable and seventeen states at 100%. Look no further than Germany for an example of how RPS and the premature phase-out of reliable and affordable energy will serve up grade A industrial and economic sabotage, generational debt, and the current aggressive resurgence of carbon based energy power generation.

In one of the most comprehensive studies on RPS completed, at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, the authors concluded:             

First, these programs’ mandated increase in renewable generation are often smaller than is advertised. Seven years after passage the RPS programs requires a 1.8 percentage point increase in renewable’s share of generation and 12 years after it is 4.2 percentage points. 

Second, RPS program passage leads to substantial increases in electricity prices that mirror the program’s increasing stringency over time. Seven years after passage, we estimate that average retail prices are 1.3 cents per kWh or 11% higher than they otherwise would be. The corresponding effect twelve years later is 2.0 cents per kWh or 17% higher. 

Third, the estimates indicate that passage of RPS programs lead to reductions in the generating mix’s carbon intensity, although these estimates can be noisier and more sensitive to specification than is ideal.

And if you are a person that believes that we need to “do something” with carbon, and you buy into putting a price on it: 

Putting the results together, the cost per metric ton of CO2 abated exceeds $130 in all specifications and ranges up to $460, making it at least several times bigger than conventional estimates of the social cost of carbon.

While Dunleavy’s RPS bill did not pass, a very similar bill, SB 101, was introduced by Alaska State Senator Loki Tobin (D) on March 15, 2023.  The senate bill was followed by HB 121 two days later by “conservative” Alaska State Representative Jesse Sumner (R).  

The senate bill is currently in the Labor and Commerce committee. The committee Chair, Senator Jesse Bjorkman, vowed that it would not be taken up in his committee, so hopefully it will languish there and wait.

Green Conflict-of-Interest at CEA

In the throes of all this is a menacing constant: the Renewable Energy Alaska Project (REAP), whose CEO Chris Rose has been involved from the very beginning, having authored the state’s initial energy policy.  As such, REAP has been working to force their agenda on the rate payers of Chugach Electric Association (CEA) and the State of Alaska in more than one way.

CEA is the sole electric utility provider responsible for providing power to 90,000 members where roughly 40% of Alaskans reside in the Anchorage area.

REAP’s entire existence relies on their business model being mandated for intermittent and expensive renewable energy on us all. RPS is currently being heavily lobbied by REAP at the capital.

Jim Nordlund is a CEA board member who has been in and out of the boardroom for years. He also serves as the chair of REAP’s board and in more than one capacity. 

A CEA board meeting was held on Wednesday, Jan. 24. The agenda took up new business to discuss Jim’s perceived conflict of interest, with the discussion taking place well beyond a reasonable hour. This had to be done because REAP was chomping at the bit for the Board to act on their most important resolution of the night, the support of a renewable portfolio standard.

Ultimately CEA corporate counsel was symbolically trotted out to determine that Jim was not a conflict of interest because a resolution has to be passed before a conflict of interest can be realized.

Chugach Electric Board took up public testimony at the beginning of the meeting and a few rate payers voiced opposition to an RPS resolution. The rate payers presented compelling information to the board regarding their concerns. Most of the testimony in support of RPS was emotional and devoid of facts. One man was permitted to testify well over the two-minute timer, which was manned by the Board Chair, Sam Cason.

The board moved to pass (6-1) a resolution to support “A renewable portfolio standard,” and Nordlund did not recuse himself from this vote.

It is no surprise the board voted this way, as most CEA board members are supported by ENGOs. ENGOs place no value on the reliable and affordable energy infrastructure we have today.  These ENGOs, under the guidance of Chris Rose and Jim Nordlund, have played their part by instituting the narrative that we are facing an energy crisis and must act now to transition to their fanciful toys – windmills and solar. Good ideas in the free market don’t require mandates. In a resource rich state, we have the capability to power our grid with reliable and affordable sources for generations.

Also interesting is the Chugach Board’s complete disregard for the unreported fact that two of the testifiers referenced.  There was a unanimous decision by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska on Dec. 13, 2023, to unanimously oppose RPS legislation. 

Pointing to Germany’s demise, RCA Commissioner Robert Pickett stated: 

“We’ve heard about the German miracle for, I would say, at this Commission, for six or seven years at least, that it’s a shining example, points in time where the penetration of renewables has been 70 percent, 80 percent, but if you look at what’s happened in the last couple of years, it is clear it is not an economic miracle. In fact, it has devastated German industry and the German government itself is forced to pour in massive amounts of subsidy and Germany has some of the – if not the highest rates per kilowatt in Europe, it’s right at the very top and it’s getting worse, and reliability issues are associated with that.”

RCA Commissioner Pickett went on:

“And so, I guess what has sort of shaped my thinking, when I look at the bill, and there’s some very aggressive, by admission of the bill sponsors for SB 101 and HB 121, that today, they’re estimating about 15 percent of the supply is renewable. And they’re proposing by 2027 to get that up to 25 percent and here we are almost 2024 and so, how does that work? It takes 50 years to get to 15 percent and you’re going to increase that by, you know, 65, 67 percent in the next three years? It doesn’t make any sense and that’s even if the external environment was more stable. I mean, our financial system is sort of on the cusp right now with 35 trillion dollars’ worth of debt and a massive wall of federal debt coming back to the market in the next two years and the interest rates, compared to what they were a year ago, are astronomically higher and all the project sponsors are going to be confronted with that.”

It is with much fecklessness and hubris that the six Chugach Electric Association board members ignored the Regulatory Commission of Alaska’s ruling.

Deep State Forces at Work

According to their website, REAP is supported monetarily by National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a federally funded program with an annual budget of over half a billion dollars. Their mission is heavily geared towards “Energy Justice,” aiming to convince folks that windmills and solar panels equate to equity and diversity. Equitable distribution does not mean everyone gets ample energy – we are just all expected to be equally energy poor.

REAPs non-profit/educational institution/local government constituency includes the Alaska Center and Launch Alaska.

Launch Alaska is a “non-profit accelerator” according to their mission statement: “We’re on a mission to decarbonize the globe, starting in Alaska.  We envision equitable, resilient, and prosperous communities rich in economic opportunities, sustainable systems, and clean energy.” Their website discloses “Launch Alaska receives major support from the Office of Naval Research and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Technology Transitions, as well as McKinley Alaska Private Investment, LLC.”

Alaska Center is an extreme left wing, dark money nonprofit who endorsed three of the two CEA board members (Jim Nordlund and Susanne Fleek-Green) who successfully infiltrated the utility in last years’ election.  Along with REAP, Alaska Center also supports a carbon tax.

Nordlund stated in his campaign statement last year:  

“While Chugach is a well-managed organization with good employees, they have not been advocating strongly enough for renewable energy since I left the board in 2015…Since that time, the impact of climate change has become more obvious, and Chugach as a member/citizen-owned organization, should do more to reduce our carbon impact by burning less natural gas. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that less expensive natural gas is running out in Cook Inlet. And now, new federal infrastructure acts are providing over $100 billion to electric cooperatives to improve their systems and adopt clean energy. The time to act on renewables is now, and that is why I want to be on the board.”

As these individuals are so convicted in their principles, I’m sure the offices and homes of everyone employed at these ENGOs are 100% powered by renewables, as well as their work products produced from hamster-powered hemp tablets.

Chugach Board “Progress”

Since the board was handed over to the greens last year, the actions of the board, and those who helped put them there, speak for themselves:

  • – Requested an average 5.8% rate increase for rate payers.
  • – Gave themselves a 150% increase in regular board meeting base fees escalating from 2023 to 2026.  Rate goes from $300/day in 2023 to $600/day in 2025, to $750/day in 2026.
  • – Approved a resolution supporting RPS
  • – While adopting the RPS standards, the board currently sits juxtaposed with a situation where over 80% of the board members are currently siding with the Alaska Center, which favors removal of the Eklutna hydroelectric dam in contradiction with supporting a renewable portfolio standard.

The question one really needs to ask themselves is this:  Is carbon dioxide truly the evil molecule that it is portrayed to be? If so, why not target the low hanging fruit such as carbonated beverages, dry ice, yeast and beer? Why you say? Outlawing beer would cause a civil rebellion, the likes of which Bud Light has never seen.

Responding to a false crisis has significant consequences. There has never been a more critical time to care about what is going on at your boring local utility. Beginning mid-April of this year, the members of CEA have the opportunity to right a wrong before it takes us down an unrecoverable path. There are two seats up for reelection this spring of the which the current incumbents are in favor of RPS. 

Please let your voice be heard, not only figuratively during the voting period, but literally as well – speak with your friends and neighbors about the perilous path we are currently headed.

Defending Our Energy Infrastructure

As of this writing, Senator Jesse Bjorkman is in the unenviable position of stopping the madness.  He is up against an army of eco-activists and lobbyists. If we care about the affordability and reliability of Alaska’s energy, we should wholeheartedly support Senator Bjorkman as he fights off the implementers of RPS.  We Alaskans have the responsibility to hand down the legacy of an affordable and reliable energy system.  RPS is not that.  This is for all Alaskans, for all of time.

Please contact Sen. Jesse Bjorkman to reaffirm him that his rejection of this bill within the Labor and Commerce Committee is the right thing to do for Alaska: (907-465-2828;  [email protected]).

Kassie Andrews is an energy expert on Alaska politics and resource development. A lifelong Alaskan, her career in energy has involved project management, construction, and finance. This opinion first appeared in the Master Resource free-market energy blog and is reprinted with permission.

Kassie Andrews: ‘Green’ rate case puts Chugach Electric vs. ratepayers and taxpayers

103 COMMENTS

  1. my opinion is we should explore and research alternatives to oil and gas including more, not less, hydro, atomic, wind, electric, hydrogen. but not to replace because of the fake notion that we are creating climate change, global warming or cooling depending win the day or to create equity by destroying the us etc.

  2. Love the comments regarding outlawing beer! I’ll drink my beer and piss on Dunleavy as it passes through! No worries I absorbed the carbon!

  3. Alaska like Canada has very small carbonization. Why do idiots want to punish us with nonsense. please never vote for another Democrat for anything. Be baptized and allow Christ to save you and your family if you have a privilege of family. Christ owns the earth. Fortunately God is love.

  4. This is one of the best summations of the stupidity of some of our current policy makers. Not only stupid, but now good men and women are supporting the evil this will create to the dread, damage and disaster of our children.

    Shame on all of you who let this stand.

  5. We are fast approaching the point in time that it makes a lot of sense to develop “The List” and let James Reece cut the cancer from the patient(!!!)

  6. Very good article. This would be an excellent article to share to start some conversations about what is happening in our state.

  9. All this carbon crap is a hoax. BIG HOAX. It’s simply a way for the politicians and the rich to get richer, and to control and tax the common man. Man is not in charge. Man does not control the earth or it’s future. Never has never will. Only the scientists that are incentivized (paid) by the government go along with the carbon hoax… (they have to or get cut off). The other scientists are either silenced or threatened. Earths climate is to complex with varying factors for any computer program to figure it out. Anyone who thinks otherwise has been brainwashed. Heck, only 50 years ago the headlines were “the earth is cooling”. Several simple facts, the suns output cycles, the earths orbits cycles, and volcanoes, (both on land and under the sea). Many of the sun cycles and earth orbit cycle changes are in the tens and hundreds of thousands of years. And man doesn’t control that, but some silly politicians actually think they have that power. Earth has been cooling and warming for eons and man had no part in that, not then, not now and not in the future. Volcanoes create enough pollution to overshadow 100 years of automobiles and there are hundreds of volcanic vents a month going off under the sea that we don’t see or know about. Man is on this planet, along for the ride. Dispose of your trash properly and don’t let these idiots threaten or scare you with their foolish tactics. Enjoy the ride on Spaceship Earth while it lasts.

  10. Alaska has the strongest consequences of global warming in the United States. With proper design, renewable energy, grid level storage, and transmission can give Alaskans the kind of energy they need and deserve. Fossil fuels delivers stronger consequences of global warming to future generations of Alaskans.

        • Do you mean The Science™?

          Like the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia who committed climate data fraud for over a decade?

          Or climate researcher Patrick Brown’s confession after being caught manipulating data in 2023, “I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell.”

          I can go on and on with these stories.

          Why are all the conclusions for “climate change” more centralization of state control and a reduction of individual liberty and economic capacity?

          In the immortal words from the prescient movie Idiocracy, “says on your chart that you’re f’ed up. You talk like a fag, and your sh-t’s all retarded.”

          • Micah. I know what you mean especially since it’s come out that the Chinese have been marketing thermometers that read up to 5 degrees F than reality

    • Jeff,
      The problems are the design is not proper for the application, renewable energy isn’t properly developed for the application, grid level storage is in its nascent phase, and transmission across the extreme terrain and distances found in Alaska are cost prohibitive. Other than that, what’s the worst that could happen when it’s 30 below and there’s no wind and almost no sun?

      Who cares if hundreds of thousands of people freeze to death while global warming causes record lows and record highs and record snowfall and record drought…

      • I was once on a failed videoconference from Ketchikan to Juneau.

        Why did it fail? Easy. The relay station used solar power. We have cloud cover 2/3 of the year here in the Tongass.

      • Alaska has sun 24 hours per day for about 1/2 the year. It would foolish not to use solar. I didn’t mention hydro along with wind, batteries and other storage. That at the least would be a whole lot less fossil fuels used cutting down on the cost of utilities.

        • In Alaska we need the electricity during the time of year when the sun doesn’t shine, so while SOME of the state has usable solar for LESS than half the year not one single part of the state has 24 hours of usable solar for 1/2 the year. The angle of the sun in Alaska even during the summer months does not provide reasonable output per installed capacity (design is not proper for the application). Large swaths of Alaska do not recieve consistent solar radiation to provide for grid scale operation (design is not proper for the application). The amount of installed solar capacity to make grid scale operation feasible for a few months every year would require clear-cutting of forests beyond anything seen in state (design is not proper for the application). Even if we were to clear-cut forests beyond anything seen in state we would require battery storage on a scale that to date has only been implemented on grids factors of magnitude larger than ours (design is not proper for the application and grid level storage is in its nascent phase). Solar has its place, it’s just not in Northern climates at grid scale. It would be beyond foolish to try and make actual grid scale solar an integral part of the Alaskan grid.

          Anchorage is trying to remove hydropower, Susitna-Watana is a pipe dream, where do you suggest this new hydropower come from?

          Wind is intermittent and hard to regulate into a small grid like we have here in Alaska, we are arguably at saturation without more storage and regulation but then we are back to the design is not proper for the application and grid level storage is in its nascent phase.

          All of the things you mentioned will cost utilities more than what current costs are, and while you may cut down on the cost of some fossil fuels it will come with other costs. I sometimes use wood to provide heat, if I had to heat my house primarily using wood what do you think that would do? What if I burned all the trees I possibly could but still needed to heat my house, well I could go gather coal from the beach…that is something still done in Alaska, what do you think that would do? I’m not sure where you’re from or where you live, but here where I live in Alaska it has been below zero Fahrenheit for a couple weeks, and I live in a warmer part of the state. I burn wood to stay warm when I need to, natural gas is a much cleaner fuel and it’s much less work for me. Solar will not provide heat for me this time of year, full stop. Wind might provide electricity to provide heat for me this time of year…might but I also use natural gas for heating, I suppose I could go to electric heat but that’s cost prohibitive now and would be so much more so with your plan. People are talking about removing hydropower, that won’t provide heat.

          You clearly do not understand this issue, but then you probably don’t care what people in far away Alaska think.

          • We all share the same atmosphere. Alaska is increasing in temperature over twice as fast as the rest of the earth. Glaciers are receding farther and farther adding to sea level rise. Alaska is a good example of this. Sea ice is decreasing making it more difficult for polar bears to hunt and eat. The 32*F thaw line is moving north thawing land that has not noticed temperatures above freezing for thousand of years. ALaska is changing faster from AGW than the rest of the lower 48.

            I have been active in global warming conversation for 18 years now. I understand it very well.

            It is your world view that is getting in the way of accepting the truth about Alaska and AGW (anthropogenic global warming)

          • Jeff,
            You’ve been involved in global warming conversation for 18 years now? That’s impressive, some of us have been involved for much much longer. Some of us have been involved in conversations about power generation and living in norther climates for much much longer. What you’ve suggested here is so easily refuted and demonstrably naive, as I said you clearly donot understand the issue. But you being involved in conversations with people who understand the issue is a good place for you to start, while it will take some time to get the 18 years of indoctrination behind you I have hope that you can overcome the years of propaganda that has been forced upon you.

          • STeve-O
            If the sun is shining you can use it. Especially at 24 hours.

            If food grows in Alaska, you can make electricity with sunlight.

            You Can’t Grow Anything in Alaska
            With 24-hour darkness (or close to it!) for much of the year along with regular snowfall, many people assume Alaska doesn’t have an agriculture industry. On the contrary! Even though their window is smaller than the rest of the US, the long hours of sunlight create quite a bounty during the spring and summer months. Some of Alaska’s produce grow huge too. Alaska has won world records for their 76-pound rutabaga and 127-pound cabbage.

          • Jeff,
            Just because the sun is shining does not mean you can use it. A plant has many leaves and those leaves surround the plant, they gather light from all over. A solar panel is a flat panel that in most instances is pointed in one direction and so it can only gather light for a limited amount of time, flat solar panels gather light for a short 4 hour peak period typically when tye sun is highest in the sky…in Alaska the sun circles the sky and does not rise in the east and set in the west like you are familiar with…this reduces the output of a solar panel. Since you don’t seem to be aware that the majority of Alaska does not receive 24 hours of daylight, you should know that only areas above the Arctic Circle receive 24 hours of day light. Because of the tilt in the axid of the earth Northern climates Climates receive solar radiation at a level of less intensity than areas closer to the equator due to solar radiation having to travel through more of the earth’s atmosphere, this further limits the output of a solar panel. But don’t believe me, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory will tell you the effectiveness of solar panels in different areas ‘https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php’

            An enormous amount of solar panels would be required to generate grid scale power in Northern climates during summer months when electricity isn’t needed as much as the winter when it’s dark and cold.

          • Steve-O February 6, 2024 At 11:50 am
            Jeff,
            Just because the sun is shining does not mean you can use it.

            If there is measureable electricity produced, your getting energy from it for 24/7. Alaska grows some interesting crops during spring and summer. Crops growing, panels producing electricity. Panels will produce electricity in early morning and late evening. 24 hours of that and you have something that you can work with.

            There are dealers of solar panels in ALaska. Its already working.

          • Jeff,
            Take a book and set it room round table in the middle of the room. Get a flashlight and point it at the spine of the book then start circling the table while keeping the flashlight pointed at the book in the center of the table. You will notice that as you circle the table you only shine the flashlight directly at the front of the book for a fraction of the time that it takes you to do a 360 revolution around the table. Now do it with the light at an angle of 60-75 degrees above the level of the table, you will notice the difference in light hitting the book. That is what it’s like using stationary solar panels in Northern climates, but then you still need to add in the fact that the atmospheric penetration of solar radiation is lower the closer to the poles you get and don’t forget cloud cover…

          • Angle of incidence does make a difference. Your point is noted.

            If you decide to follow me on this, let me put this in a different way. I not talking full output of solar panels in the artic. I’m talking partial potential compared to the lower 48 states.

            For instance, say you have a 3 kw system, but not this system is placed in the artic circle with 24 hour sun spring and summer. Lets take some imaginary lower output of 10% of the 3 kw potential. That would be 300 watts times 24 hours. Which would be 7.2 kw-hrs for the day. 10% is really low and more than likely it is some higher percentage. 7.2 kw-hrs is quite usable and welcome for people off grid.

            There are now heat pumps that go down to -20*F. Burn wood or natural gas when it gets lower than that. Wife and I put in a heat pump in our cottage on a lake replacing baseboard electric heat. Big difference showed up in our electric bill.

            Heat pumps have a 3 or 4 to 1 ratio of energy input to energy output. 1 part electricity in and 4 parts heat out.

            Last year heat pumps outsold natural gas furnaces by 27%. I’m aware Alaska gets way cold than the lower 48. I assume you are spending a good deal of money on insulation to lower your electric and natural gas bills.

            I didn’t think much about Alasks nor much of most parts of the US. Its been an education as I research how Alaska has been effected by climate change. Some people on here refuse to believe climate change effects Alasks when by the data Alaska is warming far faster than the lower 48.

            I also know that Alaska is quite a beautiful state. It would be interesting to go there sometime during the warm season.

            I have active in renewable energy education for myself and others for about 30 years. A lot of people I talk to with your similar view want to say I don’t know much. But on the contrary, I’m quite good at it. I have a bachelor’s degree in engineering technology and undrestand power produciotn reasonably well.

            We are in a challenging time transitioning out of fossil fuels. If your state is doing its homework right, they will provide a path out of fossil fuels and into cheaper to operate electirical society. It is challenging to do so. Even my wife can’t handle some kinds of change about this. But she is open to changing sometime down the road.

    • Are you nuts Jeff ? There are tropical dinosaurs buried in the ground in the arctic. The climate on this planet has been changing since the day it was formed. I’m over hearing about this climate change BS. China and Russia are pushing this crap non stop. They must be laughing their heads off realizing that a portion of or population is this stupid.

    • Jeff,

      Beyond being a buzzphrase of the radical left, there is NO SUCH THING as “renewable energy”, outside of burning biomass. ALL of the so-called “renewable energy” boondoggles that you suggest, particularly solar and wind, require vast amounts of fossil fuels for the mining, refining, processing, installation, maintenance, and decommissioning of the physical components needed for them.

      What is “renewable” about the unrecycleable and environmentally toxic and unrecycleable fiberglass wind turbine blades, or the unrecycleable and even more environmentally toxic photovoltaic panels?

      This leftist obsession with so-called “renewable energy” is just another reflection of their hopelessly shallow and simplistic thinking (sic).

      • Recycling of renewable energy is in its infancy. Mineral mining is starting to adapt battery driven mining equipment. What there is no such thing as is safe long term use of fossil fuels.. That is what will make our world society harder to live in over time.

        • Recycling? Do you mean collecting all our garbage then shipping it over (usually at a great distance) to a poor country for them to recycle it? That’s efficient.

          You have no problem with “climate change”™ in poor countries do you? Out of sight, out of mind.

          • That is what the US is doing now with waste electronics. RE is still in its infancy. I’m reading articles of startups now in about every area of RE for recycling. We will see if it works or not. It is still new

    • 1. Go tell China if you actually believe the carbon narrative.

      2. Why should Alaskan’s pay full freight for something they effect none at all.

      3. You make quite the supposition when you state “With proper design” and go on to include three very expensive, wasteful, inefficient, unreliable and completely inappropriate methods of creating an affordable and reliable grid. The spectacularly expensive transmission upgrades are only needed if these are allowed.

      4. As far as Alaskan’s needs: This is very welcome sentiments as the act of infrastructure sabotage of artificially killing the Cook Inlet gas production is being conducted.

      5. Regarding the word “deserves”: Did you actually just throw that in there like croutons on a word salad? Deserve would imply merit and productivity, or else Alaska is just one big socialist science fair project designed to keep people like zoo animals! Who is the current and future arbiter of who deserves what? Is this some globalist social justice mantra? Will we have income based energy billing based on social merit? What the heck does deserving mean? Are those of us who produce deserving and not others or is the other way around?

      6. People either forget or are too ignorant to understand that this isn’t just about using petrochemicals to burn. The petrochemical industry supplies us with everything we move, need and consume. I challenge anyone who thinks otherwise to go a week without touching or using a petrochemical by product or any not moved with it.

      Carbon control is a clever construct designed to control people, not the climate. This is proven that no metric can be assigned per effort or cost per ton or trillion dollar. One does not commit industrial and economic suicide for suppositions and to make people feel good. I refuse to allow such a fascism inducing mass psychosis prevail.

      • 1. China just may beat us to a clean energy society.

        2. All of humanity is responsible for polluting our skies. Everyone needs to pay their fair share. Wouldn’t want to welch out on your part.

        3 We all share the sky. You burn fossil fuels you pollute the sky. Time to stop treating the sky as your personal sewer.

        4.Natural gas can be very leaky in piping making it worse than coal for polluting the sky. Going clean energy is the eventual way of the world.

        5. Checking what I said, I did not use the word deserve.

        6. Its about burning. If we really need oil, then just don’t burn it.

        Get some science under your belt. CO2 in the atmosphere got its global warming understanding clear back to the 1800s. The knowledge of global warming is deep and wide. You are entitiled to not like it, but can’t prove the science wrong.

          • China put in more renewables last year alone, that we have in total in the United States.

            the increasing co2 in the sky is human sourced.

            Natural gas leaks all over the place. The United States system just isn’t that tight.

          • Jeff,
            I’d like to see something to support your claim, I won’t hold my breath. But let’s assume China may have put more renewable capacity into service than actual renewable generation in the US, which I doubt. China is still at somewhere around 15% renewable saturation, in the US we are at 21% according to the US Energy Information Administration ‘https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3’

            We also know that China put in 96% of all new coal plants worldwide to back all the renewable capacity they installed, about two new coal plants per week…how’s that clean or renewable?

    • JG … If you’re going to pursue this specific argument, your best choice is to champion the Susitna Hydro Power Dam as Priority #1. Your second best choice should be Modularized Small Reactor Nuclear, especially appropriate in remote Villages. Any other alternative option (ie: Solar, Wind, Moose & Mosquito Dung, etc.) is nothing short of Pipe-Dream and a real Donny Brook, that will only result in wasted time … wasted resources … higher risks to citizens!!!

      • Each geographic area on earth has its ways to use renewable energy. The solutions project has come up with what it would take for Alaska to get off of fossil fuels. If you are totally in denial, you will not read this. If this can’t reach 100% clean energy 24/7, you will burn a whole lot less fossil fuels saving millions of dollars over time. Go to the bottom of window and see the savings. If not, you just can’t call yourself open to learning.

        solutions project

        what-we-do/inspiring-action/why-clean-energy/#/map/states/location/AK

        • 7.81cent/kWh … wind, solar, water??? Pretty slide pak but, I think you’ll have a tuff time proving that cost to rate payers, as well as, consistent reliability … 24/7. At best, and quite honestly, the math doesn’t add up.
          Good Luck!

    • Start developing that “List” now, and never forget that names – addresses are discoverable on the Muni website, under the “Property Tax Information.”

      • The science? The EPA just released a report stating that over 85% of their global temperature measuring devices have shown a decrease in global temperatures, and units that did show an increase were in dense cities. Wake up! There is no climate crisis. When will you realize it’s a narrative designed for you to feel okay with paying more to lower your standard of life, while the wealthy increase their standard of living? The science? What a joke. Fossil fuels, as we all call them, are renewable. We will never run out, and they are incredibly efficient and effective at increasing the quality of life for everyone equally. More abundant energy means more freedom through a healthy GDP. No one wants to look at solar panels and windmills everywhere, and absolutely no one is talking about the environmental impact of solar panels, batteries, and broken windmills. What will be the cost of replacement and recycling? On and on I could go. It’s a scam just like carbon credits, carbon taxes, border carbon adjustments, and CCSU. Shame on you, Dunleavy. You have let someone infect you with an idea that will only bring harm for many years to come to the Alaskan economy through inflation and increased cost of production. Soon, we will no longer be 100K homes shy because the decline will only continue as will citizens leaving for more affordable economies. Same on Jeff green for supporting such uter nonsense.

  12. I have been following the links provided in the article. These companies affiliated with Launch Alaska are not good. There’s dark money and stacks of businesses upon stacks (to cover up?). The EU farmers might be the folks to be watching for advice.

  13. Evidence shows that rising carbon dioxide levels increase plant growth, and thus potential food production. It may ultimately help to reverse desertification. It would seem that increasing the use of natural gas would be a major environmental policy goal, for those who truly want to improve the environment.

    • If the world were a simple green house that might work. But its not. If this warming gets out of hand, crops will have to move northward to stay in their growing zones. Farmers invest hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions per farm. This would be a massive change needed.

      • 420ppm is today’s atmospheric content of co2
        280ppm is atmospheric content of co2 in 1850

        420ppm co2 minus 280ppm co2 gives 140ppm co2 difference.
        140ppm co2 is what humans have added to the atmoshere. 140 divide by 420 = .333 times 100% =33.3% of the atmosphere is what we have added

        140 divide by 280 =.500 Humans have increased the co2 content of the atmosphere by 50%.

    • You know not the whole picture on this. Changing climate zones for growth of our essential crops can spell lots of trouble for us down the road. Time for you to educate yourself on this. Simple rebuttals don’t work in this game.

  15. Doug Glenn, you are spot on! Agree 100% and huge Kudos to the author. Any carbon attack should be deemed a direct threat to every Alaskan including the climate change cult! Anyone North of Richmond is in deep trouble staying alive without affordable carbon.

      • Actually, the world is not moving off of fossil fuels; in fact, the world is using more and more. And not merely for energy production (that’s just one part).
        Your beloved wind & solar you keep squawking about and hawking in this forum will never be the energy panacea your ideology claims they will be, no matter how you manipulate and propagandize The Science (TM). Your ideology will always be held hostage at the crossroads of the Laws of Thermodynamics and the Law of Diminishing Returns. If the actual purpose and end game of your ideology was to solve this faux “crisis” then the high priests of your ideology would embrace the energy technology already in existence that would bring about that solution (hint: it’s not wind & solar); but they don’t because the true purpose and endgame has nothing to do with solving anything that actually benefits mankind or the earth.

        • 1.8 trillion dollars were spent on renewable energy last year. New renewable energy grew more than new fossil fuels last year. At some point the world kicks in a carbon tariff. The carbon it takes energy wise to make a product the more the tariff. You can still choose FFs as your energy choice, you just pay is all.

          • According to the Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy 2023, global consumption of fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, coal) for 2022 was 494.05. exajoules of energy while renewables only represented 45.18 exajoules (less than 10 percent of fossil fuel use for energy). In addition, energy production is only one piece of the fossil fuel consumption pie. Ammonia, plastics, steel, and concrete (identified by Vaclav Smil as the “four pillars of modern civilization”) make up the rest of the pie. According to Smil’s data research and consolidation, the world produces annually about 4.5 billion tons of cement, 1.8 billion tons of steel, nearly 400 million tons of plastics, and 180 million tons of ammonia. (P.S. three of these “pillars” are primary inputs to manufacturing renewable energy technology infrastructure, not including the mining of non-steel-production metals).
            These “four pillars” ALL require fossil fuels.
            Now consider that roughly 4/5 of the world’s population live in developing economies. As these economies evolve and grow (comprising most of the world’s population), they will continue to increase both their rate of consumption of the “four pillars” but also the world’s cumulative annual usage, and subsequently thus an increasing volume of fossil fuels. So even as the rate-of-use of renewables as a percentage of overall energy production increases, so too does the use of fossil fuels, not merely for energy production, but for every facet of the existence of modern civilization. Fossil fuels are here to stay for the indefinite future. That is reality.

          • You’re Missing The Fossil Fuel Big Picture

            John Deere is coming out with battery powered equipment soon. 16% of new cars in the world were BEVs. Sweden has developed green steel while some car manufacturers are now adopting this for their production. Mining equipment using power like the old cable cars are now operating in mines and are more productive than their diesel counterparts. Not only is electrification is working, its working better.

  16. Okay, Kassie… alarm raised and acknowledged.
    .
    Which of these villains is most deserving of a rhinotomy to keep their nose out of our tent; how might we amateur rhinotomists accomplish this worthy outcome?

  17. Carbon dioxide is not the enemy! The enemy is political science. Climate change will be accelerated by the climate change hoax. Raping the land for lithium and other minerals, cutting trees down for solar panels, filling landfills with wind towers, solar panels and toxic materials that don’t have a return on investment is NOT a solution.

    Electric vehicles are an abomination! The corrupt media is hiding the catastrophes related to EV fires, devastating accidents and too much weight on roads, bridges, parking ramps and the list goes on and on.

    We need clean energy – natural gas, hydro, etc. Corrupt politicians, board members, etc. must be held accountable for their stupidity and self-enrichment at tax payer/rate payer expense! Vote them all out or chase them out!

    • I have driven electric for 8 years. Very reliable and will only improve more with time. EVs are the least of vehicles to catch fire, while fires on ICE vehicles have several times the fire rate. You can repeat all the myths that you want, but you will always be wrong.

      • Wow, Jeff, the cult-like fervency of your climate alarmism is literally off the charts!

        I am guessing that you are a Californian, possibly from Taxachusetts. Few Americans outside of those insular havens of elitism are as clueless and as arrogant as you are.

        • Point is Jefferson, its all possible and some of us are doing it now. Down the road FFs are giong to be a minority energy provider. They are losing more of their market every year to clean energy. Its just a matter of time.

  18. All polls should include the following question “Are you willing to accept a substantially lower standard of living to help finance green energy”?

    • That’s interesting. The lower standard of living is staying in fossil fuel burning. The better life in cost savings, health and climate is renewable energy.

  20. We should all get behind building Susitna-Watana. We should have done it 30 years ago. Thirty years from now we will be glad we did.

  21. Being old, I clearly remember the first Earth Day, and the apocalyptic warnings of the ice age to come.
    Oddly, it hasn’t yet.

    I then remember it suddenly, overnight, became global warming. Not too long after we (America) has several colder than average years. It got so embarrassing Al Gorevwas quietly taken off the stage by the Democrats.

    Then, suddenly, overnight, it became an even more nebulous “made made climate change”. If there is are no specifics, can’t be held accountable. But that blew up. Several cities did make some common sense alterations and their microclimates did improve. But the world did not. Why? Climates tend to be local and the Democrats had zero intention of asking Russia, China, India, etc to do the same. Just us.

    It was falling apart and the Democrats looked like idiots. So here’s where they made two smart moves. They exported this stupidity to Europe, and the not too bright socialists (yes, Europe is Socialist) bought the con big.
    It’s the second stupidest thing they’ve done since WW 2. They started killing their energy industry and import everything from Russia. Side note: the stupidest thing was surrendering national, cultural, ethnic and every other possible sovereignty to North Africa and the Islamic world.

    Their other smart move was to align even closer to the teachers unions, who agreed wholeheartedly to push the climate change hoax with everything they had.

    Boom. Now they had a foothold to exploit. And to their credit, they did. Big time.

    Our “elites” in the northeast saw how quickly the idiots in Europe bought it, and used Europe as an example to show us/force it down our throats. The teachers abandoned teaching for propaganda, saw we wouldn’t push back, and set about to change every aspect of society via our children. And they are succeeding.

    So now, lessons learned, “man made climate change” becomes “climate change”. No targets to hit, it means anything they want it to mean. And those of us who saw the massive flaws in the new orthodoxy were labeled “ deniers”. No attempt to justify what they couldn’t justify. Just shout the heretics down and shame them.

    Then, the left actually struck gold. They saw the failings of religion in the days of TV preachers and woke clergy, and stumbled into the new religion of “Earth”. The dull, gullible, and disillusioned bit hook, line, sinker.

    They have their rituals, priests, litany, orthodoxy, doxology, sins, holy books, saints, all of it. And millions of idiotic true believers.

    Like Jeff.

    • The resistance to change to clean renewable energy is funded by the fossil fuel industry. And they are very good at writing to bring you into their game. The people that did the dirty work for tobacco cancer connection moved into the denial of anthropogenic global warming. AGW. Keep on with your denial if you wish. Just know fossil fuels loves you and won’t give you a dime.

  24. Well written article. Want to mention one correction pertaining to the comment on the 2010 state energy policy legislation & state that it was put together by the Parnell administration instead of the Walker administration.

    The energy policy statements as outlined in 2010 contained an all of industry approach to get us to and keep us in sustained energy output for the state of Alaska.

    It wasn’t until Alaskan voters started political suicide by electing Walker in 2014 that the state went all in on the renewable energy concept and started flirting with the carbon capture crowd.

    Carbon Capture, Carbon Taxes, Renewable Portfolio Standard, Renewable Energy Alaska Project, Environmental Non-Government Organizations & The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act {Should be called the 2022 Inflation Enhancement Act}, all have one single thing in common.

    They work together to saddle down tax paying citizens with greater debt, less freedoms, more regulations & more government oversight.

    The Dungleavy administration is complicit in the complete handover of the entire state of Alaska to the whims of the special interest groups that are currently in control of & are running our insanely corrupt & bloated federal {Ferrel} government.

  25. I understood the main reason to pursue this carbon offset/sequestration regime is because it is necessary to attract major investors these days. If you want money to invest in fossil fuel projects of any kind you need offsets & sequestration or forget about it. You have to play the game. So Alaska was going to offer the offsets etc to enable projects like the gas line to Nikiski and others. That was it. You get the income from providing a place for offsets & you get the projects too. You want money for fossil fuel energy projects you must toe the line. Of course that is aggravated by federal policies touted publicly which advocate the elimination of all fossil fuels, not to mention all the appliances and machines that use them. Who wants to invest in something (like more Cook Inlet Gas development!) the government wants to outlaw or at best, severely restrict? The whole thing stinks. If we don’t need to play the game in order to attract investment we should not. But is the investment money there someplace (other than China😁)if we do not? I’m sure if we resist federal money will suddenly be harder to come by, but that’s ok. We depend on it too much already. Our federal reps spend too much time bringing federal cash to Alaska as it is, and it’s all deficit spending. We need to develop our own private sector, which will help support the state’s economy, despite federal interference.

  26. Great Article with tons of REAL information regarding the Green New Deal. We need to get out of it now!.
    Climate Scientists Say We Should Embrace Higher CO2 Levels
    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)
    By Katie Spence
    |
    December 30, 2023
    Updated:
    January 03, 2024
    The Earth has entered “uncharted territory,” and life is “under siege.” The public has failed to heed this message, and now, “time is up,” according to a recent report from Oxford Academics’ BioScience.
    The authors of the report wrote that the catalyst behind the dire warnings is escalating concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2).

    The authors said that to salvage what remains, a much faster phase-out of oil, coal, and other fossil fuels is necessary. Failure could cause water and food shortages, plus extreme heat, for a third to half of the world’s population.

    The message is similar to that of the United Nations, U.S. President Joe Biden, the World Economic Forum, and countless government leaders: CO2 concentrations are too high, and the continued burning of fossil fuels, which release CO2, will cause people to die.

    Thus, the U.N. states that it’s necessary to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars on “climate-friendly initiatives” such as wind and solar energy and to eat less meat, and the Biden administration has called for a full transition to electric vehicles.
    However, not all scientists share this view.

    According to Patrick Moore, chairman and chief scientist of Ecosense Environmental and co-founder of the environmental organization Greenpeace, the climate change messaging isn’t based in fact.

    “The whole thing is a total scam,” Mr. Moore said. “There is actually no scientific evidence that CO2 is responsible for climate change over the eons.”

    Mr. Moore said that over the past few decades, the climate message has repeatedly changed; first, it was global cooling, then global warming, then climate change, and now, it’s disastrous weather.

    “They’re saying all the tornadoes, all the hurricanes, all the floods, and all the heat waves are all caused by CO2. That is a lie. … We’re part of the cycle,” he said.

    “We don’t need CO2. For us, it’s a waste product—we need oxygen. But plants are the ones who made the oxygen for us, and we’re making the CO2 back for them.”

    He said the burning of fossil fuels—which emits CO2—is a good thing for plant life.

    “We are replenishing the atmosphere with CO2 up to a level that is much more conducive to life and growth of plants, in particular.”

    Weather-related deaths and climate disasters have in fact declined “precipitously” over the years, according to John Christy, a climatologist and professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the director of the Earth System Science Center.

    image-5555361
    Game ranger Simba Marozva removes a tusk from a decomposed elephant, which died in a drought in Hwange National Park in Hwange, northern Zimbabwe, on Dec. 16, 2023. (Zinyange Auntony/AFP via Getty Images)
    In 1925, there was an average of 484,880 climate-related deaths worldwide, according to Human Progress. Since then, it’s steadily decreased, with the latest report, from 2020, showing there was an average of 14,893 climate-related deaths worldwide.
    “CO2 is portrayed now as the cause of damaging extreme weather. Our research indicates these extremes are not becoming more intense or frequent,” Mr. Christy told The Epoch Times. “Thus, CO2 cannot be the cause of something not occurring.”

    The U.N. is planning for countries to cut emissions to as close to zero as possible by 2050.
    The plan is “collective suicide,” according to Malgosia Askanas, a senior research and development associate at Aurora Biophysics Research Institute.

    Ms. Askanas said the concern over CO2 isn’t based on science.

    “It started with the hysteria of the New Ice Age and a little-known CIA report in 1974 that claimed that a major climatic change was underway,” she said.
    “Later, the ‘global cooling’ alarmism morphed into its opposite, by employing the false notion of global warming due to excess CO2—which is chemically a falsehood.”
    Carbon Dioxide and Life
    Mr. Christy said the earth’s climate has “tremendous natural variability” and that it’s currently in a gradual warming phase.
    “CO2 has been unfairly demonized because it is actually plant food in its atmospheric form, and it is the consequence of generating carbon-based energy, which unquestionably improves lives around the world,” he said.

    He calls CO2 the “currency of life.”

    “In past epochs, there were many times more CO2 levels in the atmosphere than today.”

    Mr. Moore pointed to a graph that charts CO2 and temperature over the past 500 million years.

    “It’s very clear that CO2 and temperature have been out of sync more often than they’ve been in sync,” he said. “That more or less negates the whole idea that there’s a direct cause-effect going on there.”

    image-5555212
    Takuya Sato checks young rose plants under ducts emitting CO2 in a greenhouse in Rokkasho, Japan, on June 9, 2008. (Toru Yamanaka/AFP via Getty Images)
    Mr. Moore said that current CO2 concentrations are “historically low.”

    “Going back 150 million years, CO2 was somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 parts per million (ppm),” he said.

    Generally, atmospheric CO2 is low (around 180 ppm) during glacial periods and higher during interglacials, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

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    Before the Industrial Era, circa 1750, atmospheric CO2 was about 280 ppm for several thousand years, the IPCC states.

    The current peak level in the atmosphere is around 420 parts per million (ppm), according to 2021 data from NOAA Research.
    Mr. Moore said that that’s a good thing and that the push for net-zero CO2 is a disastrous policy. Anything under 150 ppm is “starvation level” for most plant species.

    “CO2 is only now at 0.042 percent of the atmosphere. And the fact of the matter is plants would prefer between 1,500 and 2,000 ppm for optimum growth,” Mr. Moore said.
    “Commercial greenhouse growers worldwide purposefully increase the CO2 level in their greenhouses to between 800 and 1,200 ppm. Really, it’s about 2,000 where you’re at the optimum level for trees and plants, in general.”

    Patrick Hunt, president of Climate Realists of British Columbia, said people don’t generally understand CO2.

    “They’ve been told that a warmer Earth is bad, although evidence shows that’s wrong,” he told The Epoch Times. “In the Dark Ages, it was colder. It was colder and not nearly as comfortable living during the Little Ice Age.

    “But during the medieval warming period, they had enough money left over to build cathedrals.”

    image-5555213
    A bulldozer operates atop a coal mound at the CCI Energy Slones Branch Terminal in Shelbiana, Ky, on June 3, 2014. (Luke Sharrett/Getty Images)
    Mr. Hunt said that biomass, or plant growth, on earth has increased by 20 percent over the past 40 years, “and 70 percent of that 20 percent growth is attributed to CO2.”

    In 2018, NASA published a report showing that the Earth’s “greenness” was increasing, which showed that the health of forests, grasslands, and farms was more robust.
    “It is ironic that the very same carbon emissions responsible for harmful changes to climate are also fertilizing plant growth, which in turn is somewhat moderating global warming,” the report co-author, Jarle Bjerke of the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, said.

    Subsequent maps have continued to show increases in the Earth’s “greenness.”
    Temperature and CO2 as a Net Good
    Since 1950, CO2 emissions from humans have risen “exponentially,” Mr. Moore said, but the temperature hasn’t responded the same way.
    “There’s no way that that can be a cause-effect relationship. The cause is supposed to be CO2. But if CO2 was responsible for warming, it would have warmed more than it has,” he said.

    The main global movement against temperature rises is the U.N.’s Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty to “substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions” in order to limit global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.
    Global surface temperature from 65 million YBP showing the major cooling trend over the past 50 million years. While the poles were considerably warmer than they are today, there was much less warming in the tropics, which remained habitable throughout. The Earth is now in one of the coldest periods during the past 600 million years. (Courtesy of Dr. Patrick Moore)
    Global surface temperature from 65 million YBP showing the major cooling trend over the past 50 million years. While the poles were considerably warmer than they are today, there was much less warming in the tropics, which remained habitable throughout. The Earth is now in one of the coldest periods during the past 600 million years. (Courtesy of Dr. Patrick Moore)
    The agreement was enacted in 2016, and more than 195 countries have entered into it. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement in June 2017.
    image-5555381
    “The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving … taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production,” President Trump said at the time.

    President Biden rejoined the agreement on his first day in office, Jan. 20, 2021. The White House said that the “climate crisis” is one of the “four crises” the administration would focus on addressing and that rejoining the agreement was an important way to do that.
    Mr. Moore said the 1.5 degree Celsius limit imposed by the Paris Agreement is “garbage.”

    “This 1.5 degrees that’s going to destroy the whole Earth? The Earth has been way more than 1.5 degrees warmer throughout most of its history,” he said.

    “We happen to be in a warming blip now called the Modern Warm Period. But the Modern Warm Period is coming out of the Little Ice Age, which peaked around 1600—long before we started using fossil fuels.”

    In a peer-reviewed paper he authored, Mr. Moore wrote that, according to 800,000 years of historical patterns, a major glaciation period would have occurred if humans hadn’t caused an uptick in CO2.
    image-5393959
    Villagers use their new well built by Water Wells for Africa in Khobwe Village 2, Malawi, on July 6, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
    Mr. Christy said the extra CO2 might put off the next ice age, but not by much.

    “I suspect CO2 has a net benefit when you weigh the advantages of energy and carbon-based products compared with living without this energy or these products,” he said. “I lived in Africa and can assure you that, without energy, life is brutal and short.

    “The concentration of CO2 is increasing because humans use carbon in many ways to enhance living standards. The response of the climate system is gradual and, in my opinion, entirely manageable, especially considering the massive benefits to human life it brings.”

    Geological Timescale: Concentration of CO2 and Temperature Fluctuations. (Courtesy of Dr. Patrick Moore)
    Geological Timescale: Concentration of CO2 and Temperature Fluctuations. (Courtesy of Dr. Patrick Moore)
    Politics Versus Science
    Mr. Christy said climate science has become a “failed science” as the questioning of its claims is “discouraged or even prevented.”
    “This is especially true among certain political groups and the majority of the media outlets that I see.”

    Ms. Askanas pushed back on the widely propagated concept that there’s scientific consensus about “the harmfulness of CO2, about global warming trend, about the increase in natural disasters, about the melting of arctic ice.”

    image-5555383
    “These are all politically motivated dogmas that are buttressed by careless or outright fraudulent data, statistics, and arguments,” she said, calling the U.N. net-zero plan “fascistic through-and-through.”

    She said she sees the climate agenda as a way for governments to gain total political control.

    Ms. Askanas outlined several government-imposed climate remedies, including carbon footprint regulations, carbon credits, skyrocketing transportation costs, and huge government subsidies for so-called green initiatives.

    In his fiscal 2024 budget, President Biden included $52.2 billion in discretionary spending “to tackle the climate crisis,” according to a White House statement. It’s an increase of $10.9 billion over fiscal 2023.
    image-5555376
    National Security Council spokesman John Kirby (L) and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre arrive for the daily briefing at the White House on Dec. 21, 2023. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
    “As president, I have a responsibility to act with urgency and resolve when our nation faces clear and present danger,” President Biden said on Aug. 16, 2023. “And that’s what climate change is about. It is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger.”
    Mr. Moore expressed particular concern over the effect of spending on the phasing out of fossil fuels in energy systems.

    “With wind, you can’t predict it very far into the future, and neither can you with solar because the clouds are going to come. And so, you have about one-third of the time when those two technologies are producing,” he said.

    “So, what do you do the other two-thirds of the time if you shut off fossil fuels? Well, the first answer would be nuclear energy, because that can do it. But no, we don’t want that in the West.”

    Wind and solar, he said, “are not feasible.”

    “It’s just a total pipe dream, a fantasyland. It can’t be done.”

    Ms. Askanas agreed.

    “Converting the Earth into a desert of solar panels and wind generators will still not provide enough energy. Although it might make the planet unlivable enough so no energy would be required.”

  27. “Converting the Earth into a desert of solar panels and wind generators will still not provide enough energy. Although it might make the planet unlivable enough so no energy would be required.”

    A little over 1% of the earth’s surface is needed to make the clean energy we need.

    • Oh, so an area more than half the size of the United States…how clean would that be to wipe everything off of more than half of the United States and cover it with solar panels made with all kinds of heavy metals and then continually replace these panels since they degrade in 20 years or so?

      A little over 1% doesn’t sound like a lot until you put it in perspective and know what that number represents.

      • If it were up to you, global warming or one percent of the earth’s land surface in solar and wind, you would choose global warming. Part of that 1% is rooftops, parking lot covers, along roads etc. Agrovoltaics is photovoltaics and farming taking place in the same field. Several hundred locations are active in the United States now. Utilities are going with photovoltaics now since it is clean, cheaper than coal. This is happening and will keep on happening.

        • Jeff,
          I’m obviously a glutton for punishment and enjoy conversing with fanatics named Jeff.

          You have no idea what I’d do if it were up to me.

          You very clearly have no idea what you are talking about regarding grid scale electrical generation using fossil fuels, nuclear, or renewables. You very clearly have no idea what you are talking about when dealing with such matters in Northern climates.

          There is a place in electrical power generation for renewables and there always has been, some of the first power generation facilities in Alaska were hydroelectric power plants. They remain some of our most cost effective, reliable, and environmentally responsible sources of power statewide.

          You should do your self a favor and actually try and understand the words that are written before you respond to them, is that just another weakness of people named Jeff?

          • Hi Steve O

            I thought I replied earlier to you here. It could be just the funkiness of how this comment section works. Alasks’s hydroelectric power becomes a source of storage if Alaska so chooses. There was mention of natural gas before as your heat source. Renewables reaches large percentage of saturation, hydro, batteries, natural gas are used for the fill in. Geothermal has possibilities for a constant source of power New technology allows drilling to 12 miles deep. How Alaska puts these tools together is up to them. There are plenty of goodies to pick from to get the job done.

Comments are closed.