By: Clear Energy Alliance

“Signal-to-noise ratio (abbreviated SNR or S/N) is a measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise.”, everything.explained.today

One of the primary focuses of climate science is the change in global near-surface temperature, particularly the changing anomaly between current global near-surface temperature and the average global near-surface temperature during a reference climate period.

The graph above shows the annual average near-surface temperature for the contiguous United States, as measured by the US CRN weather stations, over the entire period of operation of the CRN through 2018. The “signal” climatologists are seeking is the long-term average rate of increase of near-surface temperature, or the long-term average rate of increase of the anomaly relative to the climate reference period. In the graph above, the increase in the annual anomaly over the 14-year period from 2005-2018 appears to be approximately 0.1°C, or 0.07°C per decade.

In this graph, the individual annual anomalies vary over a range of approximately 1.7°C, or approximately 17 times total change in the average anomaly over the period of operation of the US CRN. The rate of change of the annual average anomalies varies from approximately 0.1°C per year to approximately 1.6°C per year. This is the “noise” from which the long-term anomaly “signal” must be distinguished. This represents a formidably low “signal” to “noise” ratio.

The graph above, also from NOAA, shows the monthly anomaly values for the entire period of operation of the US CRN through July 2019. This graph also includes a plotted trend line for the period, showing an increase of approximately 0.5°C over the 14.5-year period. This is a significantly higher rate of increase than is indicated by the annual average values in the previous graph. Note also the extent to which annual averaging diminishes the relative magnitude of the “noise”; and, that the rate of change of the monthly anomalies ranges up to 4°C per month.

The graph above displays the annual average anomalies for the contiguous US over the period from 1988 through 2018. The anomalies for the period from 1988 through 2005 are from the US Historical Climatology Network, which are also shown overlaid on the US CRN values for the period 2005-2012. The total annual anomalies vary over a range of approximately 2.2°C. In the graph above, the increase in the annual anomaly over the 30-year period appears to be approximately 0.7°C, or approximately 0.23°C per decade. This is approximately 3 times the rate of increase over the final 14 years of the period.

These differences highlight the importance of the period selected for analysis, especially in a situation in which the “signal” to “noise” ratio is substantially less than 1. It is also important to note that the US CRN values are unadjusted, while the US HCN values are “adjusted” in an attempt to correct biases and errors in the raw data. It is reasonable to assume that the close match between the US CRN values and the US HCN values over the period of overlap from 2005-2012 is the result of “adjustments” to the US HCN data.

The magnitude of the anomaly variations (“noise”) over the period relative to the magnitude of the warming ”signal” is a clear illustration of the effects of natural variations in the earth’s weather relative to the magnitude of the “forced” climate warming.

From: The Pipeline

By: Christopher Horner

Date: February 19, 2020

When 'Climate' Isn't About the Climate At All

"Opinion polls confirm that “climate change” is still valiantly holding on in its fight to remain dead as an issue of actionable public concern. Some state attorneys general claim this is because of dark forces, and they will use their law enforcement powers to ensure the public hears only the one, sanctioned Truth. Ominous threats aside, reasons for the rejection are sometimes humorous – polls also show that the public feels it's doing its part by recycling and turning off the lights when leaving a room, so why lard big energy taxes on top?

Still, “climate” is where both parties’ donor bases are. It is an inescapable litmus test for the Democratic party’s increasingly left-wing base. So candidates for the Democratic nomination for president shout about climate being the “challenge of our time,” and “the greatest threat to our national security.”

Spoiler alert: It isn’t." ...

When 'Climate' Isn't About the Climate At All

The 1970s were the decade of global cooling, hyped in the media with cover art and major articles in Time, Newsweek and other media outlets. Scientists were also concerned about global warming during that period, but the actual cooling which was occurring could not be ignored. Since then, the focus of attention has been on global warming and later on the broader issues of climate change, including: sea level rise; drought and excess precipitation frequency, intensity and duration; tropical cyclone frequency and intensity; tornado frequency and intensity; receding glaciers; and, declining Arctic and Antarctic sea ice.

Since the early 1980s, there has been a growing effort on the part of climate scientists, many national governments and the United Nations to raise public consciousness and concern regarding global warming and climate change. The UNFCCC has held annual Conferences of the Parties (COP) to develop and coordinate international efforts to halt and ultimately reverse observed changes in the global climate. These COPs have received extensive media coverage of their expressed concerns regarding future climate change and their proposed approaches to dealing with the changing climate and its effects.

The IPCC has produced five Assessment Reports prepared by participating scientists, dealing with the perceived causes of the observed climate change and the perceived effects of the changes which had already occurred and the anticipated future changes. These reports were accompanied by a Summary for Policymakers, prepared by non-scientists, to guide policymakers and provide fodder for the global media. National governments funded climate studies for inclusion in the IPCC Assessment Reports and the development of climate models to be used to project future climate changes.

The climate sensitivity, forcing and feedback information developed for the IPCC reports were combined with Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) in the computer models to develop scary scenarios of potential future climate changes, typically based on the RCP8.5 scenario, which represented the highest projected emissions pathways forward. These scenarios were intended to arouse public awareness of and concern about climate change, so that the public would perceive climate change as a potential threat and agree to support government actions to halt and reverse climate change. These efforts have so far been relatively unsuccessful; and, climate change remains of little concern to most of the public, based on repeated surveys regarding issues of concern.

Several governments have attempted to get ahead of the public concern, instituting climate taxes and activity restrictions. These efforts have been met with aggressive public resistance, including the “yellow vest” demonstrations in France and the demonstrations in Chile which caused the relocation of COP25 from Chile to Spain. Numerous efforts to pass climate-related taxes in the US have been defeated at the ballot box.

This general failure to raise public awareness, concern and willingness to sacrifice has frustrated governments and environmental activists. This frustration has led to massive demonstrations by environmental activist groups, most notably the Extinction Rebellion, some of which have resulted in property damage and personal violence. Even more concerning than these demonstrations is the apparent unwillingness of some governments to appropriately manage the demonstrations in the interest of public safety. There appears to be a growing unwillingness on the part of some government agencies to arrest and prosecute those directly responsible for personal injury and property damage during these demonstrations, as well as to protect journalists and others not among the demonstrators.

There is some concern that these uncontrolled demonstrations could lead to anarchy on a broader scale. The angry, desperate, sponsored activism of agitators such as Greta Thunberg makes this outcome more likely, particularly in light of the unwillingness of government representatives to question her actions and motives. The streets are not the proper venue for rational climate discussion and debate. Government ignores that at our peril.

The total quantity of water in the earth system, in all physical states and in all locations, is fixed (with the exception of water vapor emitted by the combustion of hydrocarbons, which is relatively trivial). The vast majority of this water exists as saltwater in the globe’s oceans. Most of the remainder exists as freshwater in glaciers, snow fields, land and sea ice, aquifers, lakes, rivers and streams or as brackish water at the interfaces between fresh water sources and the oceans.

Accessible freshwater resources provide water for residential, commercial, institutional and industrial consumption and for agricultural irrigation. These resources are replaced by precipitation, although that replacement is not always contemporaneous or complete. The result can be excessive precipitation and flooding, or insufficient precipitation and drought. These situations can be adapted to with the construction of additional water impoundments, such as artificial lakes and reservoirs.

Many areas on the globe are exposed to very large variations in precipitation on a seasonal basis, such as the monsoon, hurricane and typhoon seasons in many nations, the impacts of El Nino and La Nina events and the snow melt at the end of winter. In many cases, failure to impound the large quantities of water made available during these events result in both flooding during the events and inadequate water supplies between the events. These situations are exacerbated by increasing population, which puts additional pressure on resources and also increases the percentage of impervious surfaces, which increase and accelerate runoff.

In coastal regions which rely on aquifers for significant portions of their freshwater supplies, land subsidence has become a growing issue which has aggravated the effects of rising sea levels. This has been an issue along the US East Coast, specifically around Norfolk, Virginia and Miami, Florida. It is also an issue on the US Gulf Coast, specifically in the Mississippi Delta around New Orleans, Louisiana. Some areas have installed reinjection pumps to move surface water into the aquifers to restore capacity and avoid or minimize subsidence.

California has experienced rapid population growth over the past 50 years, However, it has not built a new reservoir during that period. This has resulted in significant pressure on water resources during normal years and rationing during periods of drought, which are frequent since much of California is desert. Then, in recent years, there has been greater than average rainfall and snowfall, much of which has flowed unused to the sea rather than being stored for use in the inevitable periods of drought. Water rationing has begun to impact California agriculture, causing large orchards and farms to be abandoned.

It is clearly time to move from a sole focus on climate change mitigation to a broader focus which includes significant adaptation efforts. Water should be a high priority focus of these adaptation efforts, with regard to both increasing impoundment for future use and more effectively channeling water which cannot be impounded.

From: Watts Up With That?

By: Neil Lock

Date: February 29, 2020

On Cambridge University, post-modernism, climate change, Oppenheimer’s Razor, and the Re-Enlightenment

"In the early 1970s, I studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. I enjoyed it at the time, but was left with a feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Although I scraped a First, and was offered a place on Part III of the Tripos, I decided to go out into the real world instead. Never did I make a better life decision.

Over the intervening decades, I have come more and more to question the value of universities. I would have expected the remit of a university to be (1) to seek, (2) to develop, and (3) to pass on, ideas and practices to improve the human condition, both today and in the future. There should be no dishonesties in their processes, no imposed orthodoxies, and no restrictions on the freedom to seek, or to tell, the truth. Yet, universities – not just at Cambridge, but world-wide – seem to have become bastions of political correctness. Anyone in the faculty, who doesn’t toe the party line and parrot the narrative of the moment, will find difficulties in funding or in getting papers published, or may even be in danger of dismissal. Peter Ridd in Australia and Susan Crockford in Canada are topical examples.

CAM
Today, Cambridge University seeks assiduously to cultivate its alumni; for the purpose of donations, no doubt. And they do this through a glossy called CAM (Cambridge Alumni Magazine), which they send out three times yearly. To a mailing list which includes me.

I confess that, for me, CAM has previous. In 2016 [[1]] it published what I can only describe as a full-page ad for nanny-statism. This article talked of: “increasing support for interventions – often by governments – to forcibly change environments to make easier the healthier behaviours that many of us prefer.” And of “how to increase public demand for such interventions.” Yet the author, Professor Theresa Marteau, stands high in the favour of the UK’s current ruling class. Even having, in 2017, been made a Dame Commander of the British Empire." ...

On Cambridge University, post-modernism, climate change, Oppenheimer’s Razor, and the Re-Enlightenment

The sensitivity of the global climate to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, specifically to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from 270 to 540 ppm, is one of the most critical issues in climate science. Sensitivity in combination with projections of future atmospheric CO2 concentrations essentially drive the climate model projections of potential future global average temperature increases.

The IPCC currently estimates the range of climate sensitivity to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration at 1.5-4.5°C. Recent research suggests that climate sensitivity is near, at or below the bottom of the IPCC range.

Research using several different approaches by Lewis and Curry, Spencer and others suggests climate sensitivity in the range of 1.3 – 1.75°C, though there are lower estimates, as shown in the graph above.

Spencer also suggests that 40% of the warming in the post-1979 period is the result of volcanic cooling early in the satellite temperature record.

Further, Spencer observes that “Nature Has Been Removing Excess CO2 4X Faster than IPCC Models”, which means that atmospheric CO2 concentrations would not increase as rapidly as suggested by the IPCC Representative Concentration Pathways would suggest.

Also, recent research suggests that ozone depleting substances were responsible for half of the Arctic warming in the 20^th century; and, that these substances were responsible for one third of the global warming over that period. This research has also determined that China is the primary source of emissions for these gases. These results further reduce the effective climate sensitivity to CO2.

Perhaps the most interesting recent research deals not specifically with climate sensitivity, but rather with the prospect that the globe would not achieve a doubling of atmospheric CO2. This result is based on EIA projections of future CO2 emissions and Spencer’s observation above regarding natural rates of CO2 removal from the atmosphere. Spencer suggests that doubling, if it were to occur, would not occur until the 2200s.

The EIA projection of future CO2 emissions suggests that RCP8.5 is hardly a “business as usual” scenario; and, while not impossible, is highly implausible. However, RCP8.5 has been the basis for most of the scary scenarios of future climate change effects.

This research suggests that the “climate crisis” is anything but a crisis. The “climate crisis” appears to be exclusively a political “crisis” devoid of scientific support, intended to achieve results beyond mitigating climate change.

In light of the research discussed and linked above, it is difficult to understand how the CMIP6 ensemble of climate models could project even more rapid increases in global average near-surface temperatures than the CMIP5 models, which are already projecting rates of temperature anomaly increase more than twice the rates observed by both HadCRUT and UAH.

The graph above clearly demonstrates that climate science is hardly settled with regard to one of the major issues regarding projected future climate change – climate sensitivity to increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration.

From: Climate Etc.

By: Alan Longhurst

Date: February 24, 2020

Australian fires: Climate ‘truth bomb’?

"Recipe for Australia’s climate ‘truth bomb’:  dubious manipulations of the historical temperature record, ignorance of the climate dynamics of the Southern Hemisphere, and ignorance of Australia’s ecological and social history.

A correspondent of The Guardian newspaper writes that her personal ‘climate truth bomb’ hit her while she was picking ash from her glass at a wine tasting event – the Sydney Harbour bridge being dimly seen through the murk of bushfires. The truth came to her, she wrote, in the eloquent rage of Greta Thunberg and also in heat, smoke and fire.

Although anthropogenic climate change sells well, especially at The Guardian, their Sydney correspondent cannot be so ignorant about the climate of Australia or about bushfires as she pretends. Put briefly, bushfires in Australia and elsewhere have two main sources: from thunderstorms or from human activity, deliberate or otherwise – cigarette butts, sparks from brakes on railway trains, from incautious welding on farm machinery and from electric transmission lines. In California, where almost 2 million acres burned in 2018 and claimed many lives, the electricity supply company now closes down its transmission lines in windy conditions to prevent sparking and fires." ...

Australian fires: Climate ‘truth bomb’?

George Orwell’s novel, 1984 describes a dystopian future in which history is routinely rewritten to fit the requirements of the government and in which independent thought is actively discouraged. Orwell intended 1984 as a warning, not as a script. However, it is progressively being treated as a script, notably in the consensed climate change community. Orwell introduced Big Brother, the Ministry of Truth, the Memory Hole, Thoughtcrime, the Thought Police, Newspeak and Doublethink to the lexicon. Consensed climate science has analogues.

The UN Secretariat and the UNFCCC aspire to the role of Big Brother, attempting not only to halt climate change, but also to control the actions of global governments and institutions in the process, ultimately becoming a global government. In this role, the UN would collect and redistribute funds among nations to fund mitigation of and adaptation to climate change, as well as to compensate nations for loss and damage “caused by” climate change. They would also collect and redistribute funds to achieve social, gender, racial and environmental “justice”.

The UN and the UNFCCC have developed the climate version of Newspeak, progressing from global warming through climate change, global climate weirding, climageddon, global heating, climate crisis, climate emergency, existential crisis, fireball earth and numerous other descriptors. This evolving Newspeak does not correspond to a worsening climate, but rather to the realization that the public has not “appropriately” acknowledged and reacted to the perceived threat.

The UN and UNFCCC have adopted a version of Doublethink which demands that developed countries dramatically reduce their CO2 emissions, regardless of the magnitude of those emissions, while accepting that developing nations which are large and growing emitters continue to grow their emissions. Certainly, the UN and UNFCCC are aware that global CO2 emissions cannot stabilize or begin to decline until the largest emitters halt the growth of their emissions.

The IPCC, NOAA, NASA GISS and the Hadley Center at UEA appear to be the principal components of the climate Ministry of Truth. Perhaps the poster child for revisionist climate history is the Mann “hockey stick”, which removed the Roman Warm Period, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age from broadly acknowledged climate history, replacing them with a virtually featureless flatline global average near-surface temperature until the advent of significant growth of anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the mid-20^th century.

This climate Ministry of Truth also collects and analyzes climate research and aggregates the research conclusions into technical reports, which are then educed to a Summary for Policymakers. This summary portrays the working group reports consistent with the accepted narrative of the consensed climate science community. In the research aggregation process, research which does not comport with the accepted narrative is dispatched down the Memory Hole, never to be seen again. Researchers who object to this treatment of their research are judged to be guilty of a Thoughtcrime. Some such researchers have also been pursued and attacked by the climate Thought Police, as documented in the Climategate e-mails.

The media have developed their own analog of the Two Minutes Hate, criticizing skeptical science and skeptical researchers, as well as those who fund their research, thus advancing the propaganda efforts of the climate Ministry of Truth.

George Santayana warned that those who will not learn from history are destined to repeat it. However, constantly revised history makes learning useful lessons from that history both difficult and questionable.

From: Watts Up With That?

By: Andy May

Date: February 23, 2020

Do We Really Have Only 12 Years to Live?

"Why have uninformed celebrities and politicians been telling everyone, who will listen, we are all going to die in a climate catastrophe in 10 to 30 years? U.N. General Assembly President María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés of Ecuador warned us that:

    “We are the last generation that can prevent irreparable damages to our planet”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, once said:

    we only have 12 years or “the world is going to end.”

Prince Charles of the UK on July 11, 2019:

    “Ladies and gentlemen, I am firmly of the view that the next 18 months will decide our ability to keep climate change to survivable levels and to restore nature to the equilibrium we need for our survival.”

However, these absurd statements are not supported by even the most fanatical climate alarmists, like Kate Marvel (NASA), Gavin Schmidt (NASA), Katharine Hayhoe (Texas Tech), or Andrea Dutton (University of Florida) (link). The original inspiration for these statements came from a 2018 IPCC report entitled Global Warming of 1.5°C. Even the alarmist Scientific American does not think the world is ending in twelve years." ...

Do We Really Have Only 12 Years to Live?

-phobia (noun combining form)  (Merriam Webster)

1. exaggerated fear of
2. intolerance or aversion for

The consensed climate science community has not been particularly congenial to, cooperative with or even tolerant of scientists skeptical of the consensus climate change narrative. The earliest public manifestations of these attitudes were the use of epithets including “denier”, “anti-science”, “climate mis-informer”, “climate zombie” and “oil industry shill”. The use of these epithets has been persistent but not particularly effective, largely because of the professional reputations of the skeptical scientists and the popular response to juvenile “name calling”. These efforts continue to be pursued by numerous organizations, using funding from unnamed sources.

More effective approaches to dealing with skeptical scientists were exposed in 2009, with the release of the “Climategate” e-mails. These approaches included: preventing skeptical research from being reviewed and included in the IPCC Assessment Reports; refusal to provide access to research data and analytical methods for skeptical review; efforts to keep skeptical research papers from being published in the premier scientific journals; attempting to have skeptical scientists fired from their positions at scientific journals, state climate offices and universities; and, attempting to have skeptical scientists doctorates revoked.

These approaches were followed by requests by members of Congress to the employers of skeptical scientists to provide voluminous information regarding the scientists work and the entities which provided the funding for their work, in an attempt to associate the scientists work with companies in the energy industry or conservative organizations. These efforts were aggressively resisted by both the scientists and their employers because of the enormous time and effort which would have been required to comply.

The next step in the process has been decisions by various media organizations to exclude skeptical opinions from their reporting, exclude skeptical scientists from their panel discussions, refuse to publish skeptical letters to the editor, etc. These media outlets have decided that the consensed climate science community narrative will be accepted and defended as “real truth”. This has since evolved to an organized and coordinated “climate week” saturation campaign which completely excluded skeptical facts and opinions. This “climate week” represented a transition from selective reporting to focused promotion (propaganda).

Fear that the skeptical scientists continue to have influence has led environmental activists and their allies in the media and government to ratchet up their rhetoric, proclaiming a “climate crisis” or “climate emergency” and demanding immediate and heroic efforts to avert the perceived impending cataclysm. These hysterics are a reaction, not only to skeptical scientists and other “non-believers”, but also to members of the consensed climate science community who are viewed as being too circumspect and cautious in their approach to supporting aggressive CO₂ emissions reduction efforts. Even the IPCC is being criticized for being too cautious in its Summary for Policymakers.

The early intolerance or aversion for skeptical scientists and their research has evolved into an exaggerated fear that their efforts are delaying the time-critical efforts to avoid “climageddon”. Calls for prosecution of energy companies, skeptical scientists and other “non-believers” are just the latest efforts to discredit skepticism and demand acceptance of climate change “sackcloth and ashes”.

"Let the jury consider their verdict," the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
"No, no!" said the Queen. "Sentence first–verdict afterward."
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Alice loudly. "The idea of having the sentence first!"
"Hold your tongue!" said the Queen, turning purple.
"I won't!" said Alice.
"Off with her head!" the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.
"Who cares for you?" said Alice. (She had grown to her full size by this time.) "You're nothing but a pack of cards!"

            Lewis Carroll, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

Sound vaguely familiar?

From: Climate Etc.

By: Judith Curry

Date: February 13, 2020

Plausible scenarios for climate change: 2020-2050

"A range of scenarios for global mean surface temperature change between 2020 and 2050, derived using a semi-empirical approach. All three modes of natural climate variability – volcanoes, solar and internal variability – are expected to act in the direction of cooling during this period.

In the midst of all the angst about 1.5^oC or 2.0^oC warming or more, as defined relative to some mythical time when climate was alleged to be ‘stable’ and (relatively) uninfluenced by humans, we lose sight of the fact that we have a better baseline period – now. One advantage of using ‘now’ as a baseline for future climate change is that we have good observations to describe  the climate of  ‘now’.

While most of the focus of climate projections is on 2100, the period circa 2020-2050 is of particular importance for several reasons:" ...

Plausible scenarios for climate change: 2020-2050

The graph below from Dr. Roy Spencer’s website shows the entire history of the UAH satellite temperature anomaly record, which began in 1979. The anomaly has increased at a relatively consistent rate of 0.13°C per decade over the 40-year period, though there have been rapid and large short-term deviations from this trend.

The graph below from the ggweather.com website shows the history of the ENSO phenomenon since 1950. The dark blue arrow on the graph marks the start of the UAH satellite temperature anomaly record.

Several significant messages emerge from these graphs. Comparison of the graphs illustrates the influence of ENSO on global average temperatures, particularly the super El Ninos in 1997/1998 and 2015/2016, but also the weaker 2009/2010 and 2018/2019 El Ninos, as well as the strong La Ninas of 1988/1989, 1998/1999, 1999/2000, 2007/2008 and 2010/2011. These El Nino events produced increases in global average temperature anomalies of as much as 1°C (1997/1998) in a few months, or at as much as 20 times the decadal trend rate. Note that there was no strong La Nina after the 2018/2019 super El Nino. ENSO clearly illustrates he strong impacts of natural variation on global climate.

The UAH graph also illustrates that global warming has been occurring at a relatively constant rate over the satellite period, showing no significant acceleration despite continual increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the period. The graph below from the climate.gov website shows that atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased approximately 80 ppmv over the period from 1975-2019, approximately 1.8 ppmv per year. This rate would indicate a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration from the pre-industrial level of approximately 270 ppm in 1950 to approximately 540 ppmv in 2100.

Assuming the rate of increase of the UAH temperature anomaly continues at the rate of approximately 0.13°C per decade, the UAH temperature anomaly would increase by approximately 1.04°C through 2100, or to approximately 1.6°C above the 1981-2010 climate reference period. This would place the increase at the low end of the range of climate sensitivity estimated by the IPCC and used in the climate models. This result would be consistent with numerous recent estimates of climate sensitivity.

There is no support in these numbers for a “climate crisis” or a “climate emergency”. There are no climate “tipping points” in the picture. These numbers do indicate that the total temperature anomaly increase through 2100 will be very close to the 2°C target set by the UNFCCC, assuming current trends continue. Should the rate of growth of global annual CO2 emissions stabilize, or begin to decline, as the result of increased national “ambition” in response to the Paris Accords, the expected temperature anomaly increase through 2100 could be somewhat less than 2°C and perhaps even approach the 1.5°C revised target established after COP21 in Paris.

From: U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Energy Institute

Date: Fall 2016

What If Hydraulic Fracturing Was Banned?

"The U.S. shale energy revolution was not an accident. It was the result of innovation, strategic investment, and old fashioned hard work. More than anything, it was an event made possible by the development, refinement and application of cutting-edge technology – technology developed by engineers, geologists, and other scientists who spent decades trying to “crack the code” of tight oil and gas. These efforts delivered nothing short of an energy renaissance. After years of projections that America’s energy future would grow more dependent on imports, the U.S. energy landscape is now defined by abundance, not scarcity.

We don’t have to look back very far to see the significance of this technological breakthrough. In July 2003, TIME Magazine carried a feature story entitled, “Why U.S. Is Running Out of Gas,” which boldly predicted that the United States was heading to its “first big energy squeeze since the 1970s.” The magazine claimed further that “the U.S. is finally beginning to run out of domestic oil and easily recoverable natural gas.” A few years later, in 2008, oil was nearly $150 per barrel, and gasoline prices spiked to more than $4 per gallon. Henry Hub natural gas prices were also above $8 per million BTU, or about two and a half times what they are today." ...

What If Hydraulic Fracturing Was Banned?

Ambition          a : an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power

(link)                 b : desire to achieve a particular end

“I expect from the COP (COP25) a clear demonstration of increased ambition and commitment showing accountability, responsibility and leadership.”, Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General (link)

The UN call for increased ambition from the signatories to the Paris Accords is focused on definition “b” above: “desire to achieve a particular end”. That end includes: halting climate change before the global annual temperature anomaly increases by 2°C (1.5°C?); providing financial and other assistance necessary to assure appropriate mitigation and adaptation actions by affected nations; and, providing funding as compensation for “loss and damage” caused by climate change. The total estimated cost for all required mitigation and adaptation actions and expected “loss and damage” compensation is $100 – 150 trillion.

The UN’s ambition regarding climate change is focused primarily on definition “a” above: “an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power”. The UN’s ultimate ambition is global governance by the UN. The details for the pursuit of this ambition are contained in Agenda 2030. Climate change is merely a subset of Agenda 2030, specifically calling for carbon pricing, fossil fuel abandonment, net-zero CO2 emissions and massive fund transfers by 2050. Achievement of the climate change objectives would be far easier and far more likely if the UN had the authority to compel compliance, rather than being limited to moral leadership and cheerleading.

Agenda 2030 is a blueprint for global socialism which calls for income and wealth redistribution, both within and among nations and nationalization of the means of production. Agenda 2030 also addresses social and environmental justice, universal health care, reproductive health and numerous other social issues.

Agenda 2030 was agreed to by the UN membership in 2015. The Obama Administration signed the Agenda, but chose not to submit it to the US Senate for ratification, in the certain knowledge that it would fail. It is highly unlikely that the suspension of national independence and identity, the abjuration of the US Constitution, the nationalization or internationalization of the means of production, the abolition of private property rights, and the international redistribution of wealth and income are high on the list of priorities of the Trump Administration, which is not obligated by Agenda 2030.

It is extremely unlikely that the objectives of Agenda 2030 could be achieved unless the UN was established as a global government with the power to compel compliance. Clearly, Agenda 2030 is far more attractive to the developing and not-yet-developing nations than it is to the developed nations, whose economies would be eviscerated in the process.

There was a suggestion recently that the UN might eventually choose to use military force to compel compliance with its climate change objectives. Such action might more likely be necessary to compel acquiescence to Agenda 2030 on the part of the developed nations. The concept of the UN using its “Blue Helmets” to enforce compliance with Agenda 2030 by the nations with standing militaries, such as the US, Russia, Australia, UK, China, India, Pakistan, Canada, etc. is surreal.