Greta Thunberg has said she has taken part in her final Friday climate “school strike” after graduating, but vowed to keep protesting.
“Today, I graduate from school, which means I’ll no longer be able to school strike for the climate,” Thunberg, 20, said on Twitter.
Swedish students usually complete their upper secondary studies at 19 but Greta took a year off to campaign.
Unless you’ve been living in an underground cave, you’re aware that there’s been a massive explosion of forest fire activity across Canada that’s sending clouds of smoke south to our American neighbours. Not surprisingly, they’re not happy — the orange skies are more than a bit reminiscent of Hollywood post-apocalyptic movies.
Lightning has been starting forest fires for millennia
Is the hazy stuff out there smoke billowing down from Québec, or hot air emitted from smoggy-brained politicians and journalists? Chuck Schumer told the Senate on Wednesday that the smoke drifting over the Eastern Seaboard was caused by climate change. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez said it showed the urgency of going greener faster. Proof of carbon pollution, lectured the Canadian minister of the environment. A stark reminder of climate change, intoned Biden.
It’s not about the climate.It’s about the revolution.
It’s about total control. They rather ruin our world than see us prosperous and free…
h/t Kiki9
A growing number of Canadians are finding it increasingly challenging to maintain their standard of living, with more and more people struggling just to afford basic necessities.
Even though a range of contributing factors — such as rising commodity prices, or supply disruptions due to the war in Ukraine — are beyond our government’s control, Canadians nonetheless hold the belief and expectation that any actions or interventions taken by the government will lessen the burdens we face. Unfortunately, too often government policies often have the opposite effect and financially burden Canadians further.
It’s a war designed to impoverish us.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is shrugging off the blame for the ferocious wildfires wreaking havoc on the northeast, attributing them entirely to climate change and ignoring any suggestion that poor forest management may have played a role.
Biden yesterday sent 600 American firefighters to Canada to help battle the fires that have been raging for six weeks north of the border.
Those fires came into sharp focus yesterday when a choking blanket of smoke blew south, giving New York City the unhealthiest air of anywhere on earth and sparking chaos in many other states.
Accurate?
"How did the Quebec wildfires start all at once?!" is a question we've been receiving quite a bit.
We were curious too so we decided to review the data. Using GOES-16 satellite data for fire hotspots and by overlay lightning data, the answer becomes pretty clear.
Of course, not… pic.twitter.com/R0CbhGU1mY
— Instant Weather Ontario (@IWeatherON) June 8, 2023
h/t Mauser
California lawmakers want the state’s public pensions to get rid of fossil fuel stocks, claiming that will help save the planet. Who are they trying to kid?
Eleven years ago, the prominent climate activist Bill McKibben wrote an article for Rolling Stone magazine in which he acknowledged that decades of effort to slow global warming had been largely ineffective, and proposed a new tactic: divestment.
Taking his inspiration from the divestment campaign that preceded the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, McKibben called on institutions that managed money to sell their shares in fossil fuel companies. He quoted Bob Massie, an investor who had been active in the anti-apartheid campaign, as saying, “Given the severity of the climate crisis, a comparable demand that our institutions dump stock from companies that are destroying the planet would not only be appropriate but effective.” McKibben soon founded a grassroots organization, 350.org, that made fossil fuel divestment one of its primary goals.
Stellantis has what it needs to make decision on Windsor battery plant: Champagne
OTTAWA – Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne says Stellantis and LG Energy Solutions have what they need to make a decision on a proposed electric vehicle battery plant in Windsor.
A spokeswoman for Stellantis says the two companies received a “written offer” and are currently analyzing it.
The companies put the brakes on construction of the plant in May after their talks with Ottawa stalled.
Logistics companies are scrambling to meet California’s upcoming 2024 mandate that all trucks servicing ports, railyards, and distribution centers in the state be zero-emission vehicles, with experts questioning limited access to charging stations and the viability of switching from diesel to electric fleets.
Availability of electric semi-trucks is a concern, as is the price of the vehicles, the number of miles they can go on a charge, and the cost of maintenance and replacement parts, all of which currently remain unknown variables, according to industry experts.
Insanity, it’s as if California’s government lives in some kind of altered reality.
The developing world needs rapid growth, not lectures on sustainability.
The Western democracies appear united in their support for Ukraine, but they may also be losing the bigger, more consequential battle for the loyalties of the developing world. Virtually no developing country – including democracies like India, Brazil, Nigeria and South Africa – has chosen to take steps opposing Russia’s aggression (in fact, South Africa may have joined Iran in sending weapons to Moscow). This is a stark reflection of the West’s waning influence.
The far-right Alternative for Germany is flying high, reaching 18% support in two nationwide polls. The party is sharpening its profile by attacking the Green Party’s climate policies.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been in an uproar for weeks. According to the opposition party, the policies of the federal government are not only failing, but a threat to peace and prosperity.
The far-right party positions itself for confrontation in almost all areas of policy: When it comes to the war in Ukraine, the AfD calls for peace negotiations instead of weapons deliveries. For migration, the party advocates tightening the borders instead of recruiting skilled workers.
Above all, the far-right populist party portrays itself as an aggressive opponent to the government’s energy and climate policy.
“Drill, baby, drill”: When Donald Trump blurted this during the recent CNN Town Hall, the crowd went wild. Remember?
American energy independence and energy dominance were key successes of Mr. Trump’s first term. There was virtually no inflation, interest rates were low, and, along with tax cuts and deregulation, the moribund Obama economy came to life. That was then, this is now.
While they are being promoted around the world as a crucial weapon in reducing carbon emissions, solar panels only have a lifespan of up to 25 years.
Experts say billions of panels will eventually all need to be disposed of and replaced.
“The world has installed more than one terawatt of solar capacity. Ordinary solar panels have a capacity of about 400W, so if you count both rooftops and solar farms, there could be as many as 2.5 billion solar panels.,” says Dr Rong Deng, an expert in solar panel recycling at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
Canada sticking with 2050 net zero targets, but progress may come faster than expected, minister says
Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson says the federal government is not ruling out finding ways to achieve net zero sooner than the existing 2050 goal, but would not say whether there would be a definitive commitment to move up the target.
The government’s current target is to hit net zero emissions — the point at which the amount of greenhouse gas emitted is equal to the amount that is removed from the atmosphere — by 2050, a goal shared by the other G7 countries. But in March, a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prompted United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to encourage developed countries move up their net-zero timelines to 2040.
Net Zero Lunacy from the Times – Time’s up for Drax’s tree-burning racket
… The most heinous example of this racket is the way the government has subsidised the wood-chip burning (“biomass”) of Drax to the extent of many billions of pounds. This Yorkshire-based power station company does not burn a single British tree among the 27 million it gets through a year. It imports all its wood chips — mostly shipped in colossal diesel-powered vessels across the Atlantic from forests in Canada and Louisiana.
As I wrote here in February: “The CO2 ‘chimney emissions’ in the process are not recorded in the UK’s carbon accounts . . . they are on the American and Canadian carbon balance sheet.” Crazier still, more than £6 billion of subsidies have been funnelled to Drax — it would not have a viable business model otherwise — on the basis that its contribution to the national grid is “carbon neutral” because these millions of trees are replaced by newly planted ones that will absorb carbon in the atmosphere as they grow.
The Trudeau government’s carbon pricing regime and climate change policies are adding to the financial hardships faced by Canadians
Here’s the thing.
Making people pay more to heat their homes in Atlantic Canada isn’t going to stop wildfires in Alberta, or for that matter in Atlantic Canada.
