Our weekly round-up of the top face-palming articles
Another week, another series of fantastical claims from the Cult of Scientism. We won’t need to plumb the depths of the bedrock this week to find absurd climate stories—it’s all in your face this week.
We’ve got animal brains being altered by climate change, an urgent demand for the United States military to pay climate reparations, and the need to eradicate “whiteness” to save the climate. Also, we reported a few weeks back on governmental subsidies for green energy dwarfing those for “fossil fuels,” but this week we have even more data showing what a terrible financial investment electric vehicles (EVs) are for the average consumer—and for the government.
Read last week’s worst climate stories here
The one nugget of good news this week? Domestic oil production has set new records, despite the Biden administration’s best efforts to force Big Oil out of business, and you’ll never guess how they’ve sidestepped regulations designed to keep it in the ground.
1. Hate the Weather? Blame Whitey
My buddy Kevin Downey, Jr. at PJ Media had a rundown of some of the radicals who have blamed whiteness for the “climate crisis.” None other than Greta Thunberg made such a proclamation at a recent rally over the weather, in which she equated Hamas terrorists to victims of climate injustice (whatever that is).
“As a climate justice movement,” St. Greta exclaimed, “we have to listen to the voices of those who are being oppressed and those who are fighting for freedom and for justice.” She then invited a Palestinian on stage, at which point another weather protester took away Greta’s megaphone.
As Downey explains, the climate justice movement claims the white, male patriarchy has created global warming, which impacts “underprivileged populations.” This is far from the first time the climate cult has tried to tie whiteness to global warming. One radical outlet laid out a loooong screed about white people being “bad for the environment.” A peer-reviewed article in a technical journal proposed using “government programming to encourage environmentally friendly food purchasing behavior” across different racial demographics that, in theory, affect the climate in different ways.
Intersectionality: is there anything it can’t prove?
2. Global boiling—Melting Animal Brains?
Here we go with “experts” again.
According to a new report, animal nervous systems may “lose their adaptive edge” due to climate change. Supposedly, the speed at which the planet’s climate is now changing will make species across the animal kingdom dumber, because they can’t keep up with the pace. A professor of Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science and Biology writes, “All major functions of the nervous system – sense detection, mental processing and behavior direction – are critical . . . Climate change will likely affect these functions, often for the worse.”
According to the professor, the climate is changing so rapidly (because you chose to warm up your SUV before commuting to work today) that environmental cues used by animals are breaking down. Things are so dire, he says, that hibernation patterns can’t rely on seasonal changes anymore, and temperature shifts are so drastic, animals can’t orient themselves to their environment.
The very process of evolution might break down, he warns, as rapidly rising temperatures disrupt animal brain development and function. After all, the paleontological record shows absolutely no evidence of animals adapting to changes in their environment.
Oh, wait.
The absurdity of this is, he’s basically describing adaptation to climate changes, which have happened throughout the history of the earth. He’s overreacting, just a touch, by ascribing negative effects and assuming we’re to blame when we turn on our natural gas furnace in the winter. He presents no evidence that any living creature on Earth will suddenly lose its ability to adapt, only more fearmongering.
3. Soros and Gates: Mob-style Climate Protection Racket
Nice military you have there. It’d be a shame if something were to… happen to it.
A white paper issued by a radical think tank says the militaries of the United States and United Kingdom need to pay up, or else:
Among all government institutions worldwide, the US and UK militaries bear some of the greatest responsibility for climate crisis. Despite this, emissions from military sources are not addressed in international climate agreements: as a result of US lobbying, overseas military emissions were made exempt from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and military emissions reporting remained optional in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Even if using opaque official data, the UK and US militaries have jointly emitted at least 430 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent since the year of the Paris Climate Agreement—more than the total greenhouse gas emissions produced in the UK in 2022.
Calling the U.S. and U.K. governments and their militaries “important architects of the modern fossil fuel [sic] economy,” Common Wealth says “ownership is the structuring force in our economy,” and “current relations of property and power … can and must be reimagined.”
Sounds a lot like, “You vill own nothing und like it.”
The other organization contributing to this white paper calls itself the Climate and Community Project, or CCP. Could they be any more obvious?
Anyway, the report demands $111 billion in climate reparations—$106 billion from the U.S. military, and another $5 billion from the U.K.—and the shutdown of military bases around the world. It also demands that the U.S. and the U.K. prioritize green industrial policy over “carbon-intensive industrial sectors” that supply the military.
The usual suspects are listed as funders for the two organizations behind these demands: George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, Tides Center, and all the rest of the radical “dark money” groups on the Left.
If it weren’t completely obvious already that wealth redistribution is the true goal of green policies, this report spells it out in detail.
4. EVs: Just Bad, Or the Worst Investment Ever?
In case you were still on the fence on whether the purchase of an EV is a good investment, several reports came out over the last week or so with definitive answers: Bad investment for manufacturers, bad investment for consumers, and bad investment for government subsidies.
Other than that, the Biden administration is on the right track!
It appears Ford, which is ALL IN on EVs, is going to lose $4 billion on this sector of its business, and is “postponing” $12 billion in EV factory construction. Ford reportedly loses $63,000 on every EV it sells.
If the mid-level EV loses that much, imagine how much luxury EVs lose.
Try $430,000.
You really have to pay extra to be able to afford to lose at the luxury level.
Lucid, a luxury EV manufacturer in California, sold 1,550 units in the third quarter of 2023, bringing in revenue of $137.8 million. Unfortunately for them, they lost $630.9 million in the same quarter, or $433,000 lost on every car they sold. The funny part? That’s an improvement over the $544,000 lost on every car sold the previous quarter. Luckily, they’re still sitting on $5.45 billion in liquidity, which will help them lose even more on their new lines of luxury EVs currently in development.
How does that investment work out for the average EV consumer? Not very well, it turns out. A new report showed EVs perform the absolute worst in the used car / resale market, depreciating 50 percent over five years—far worse than traditional gas-powered vehicles and even hybrids.
That’s if you’re even allowed to sell your EV. Tesla’s new “Cybertruck” has a clause in the purchase contract that says the consumer cannot sell the “truck” for a year after purchase.
5. Quick Hits
The Free Beacon pointed out the irony of President Biden calling climate change “the ultimate threat to humanity,” before boarding Air Force One for a carbon-intensive, cross-country flight to San Francisco to meet Chinese president Xi Jinping, “the world’s largest carbon emitter.”
The Federalist reported on Wyoming Republican Gov. Mark Gordon, getting blasted by dozens of state lawmakers for making a claim at Harvard’s Kennedy School that, “It is clear that we have a warming climate,” and dedicating the state to becoming “carbon negative.” The rebuke even came with a vote of “No confidence” from the Wyoming GOP.
Finally, Some Good News:
U.S. Oil Production Defies Biden Regulations, Hits Record High
According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), domestic petroleum production topped 13.2 million barrels per day in October. As the Daily Caller reported, that’s the highest level since 2003. Oil prices have stayed consistently above $65 per barrel due to Biden administration policies hindering the market, which has had the opposite of the intended effect.
How has the oil industry thrived while the Biden administration hamstrings its ability to expand drilling on federal land?
By expanding their production on private and state-owned land, where Biden can’t regulate them into oblivion. The administration taking more and more federal land out of production has kept prices high, ironically leading to much higher short-term profits for Big Oil. Great job, Joe!