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Posts Tagged ‘climate change’

Nantucket Current opinion piece challenges Select Board rhetoric

Posted in Offshore Wind, energy policy, climate, tagged , , , , , on August 6, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Victoria Bonnet’s piece in the Nantucket Current challenges certain assertions made at the Select Board’s July 29 press conference. Key points:

“The government documents for ALL the Atlantic projects make it clear that there will be no benefit to climate change from implementing wide scale offshore wind.”

“And how is it possible that an attorney representing an island that is receiving the full brunt of the environmental impacts from this massive industrial project is lecturing the press that historic preservation can co-exist with offshore wind? The sight of just the first 40 towers from Vineyard Wind makes it clear they can’t.”

“Blindly following public relations statements about offshore wind as a critical solution to climate change that must be implemented immediately is how we got here in the first place. It has become clear that Nantucket receives no benefits from, but is significantly harmed by, Vineyard Wind. Our Select Board’s role should not be to advocate for any energy source that harms Nantucket.”

“Dawn Hill, a signatory to the Good Neighbor Agreement and the current Select Board Chair, was a bright spot in the meeting. Her acknowledgment that the project is way more impactful than communicated at the time the Good Neighbor Agreement was signed gives hope that more rational thinking and action is on the way.“

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How do you invalidate a lease sale mandated by Congress?

Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , , on March 31, 2025| Leave a Comment »

OCS Lease Sale 259 was mandated by Congress, and was held on March 29, 2023, two days before the deadline established in the Inflation Reduction Act. Ah, but compliance with environmental law, which is of course subject to interpretation, was still required.

So the formula for eNGOs in such cases is to sue on NEPA grounds in a friendly Federal court. In the case of Sale 259, the plaintiffs asserted that BOEM’s climate change and Rice’s whale analyses were inadequate.

With regard to climate change, the reality is that incremental Gulf of America production will have virtually no effect on petroleum consumption and global GHG emissions. Increased GoA production will actually have a slight positive effect on worldwide GHG emissions given the relatively lower carbon intensity for deepwater Gulf production.

With regard to the Rice’s whale, Darren Ireland’s analysis is compelling:

“Based on the limited data available on the use and occurrence of Rice’s whale in the central and northwestern GOMx (one acoustic study (Soldevilla et al. 2022b), one confirmed sighting (NMFS 2018a) and a few unconfirmed sightings (Rosel et al. 2021)), there is insufficient scientific evidence to determine that essential features for Rice’s whale conservation are indeed present in the central and northwestern GOMx. In fact, data on the life-history requirements of Rice’s whale even in the core habitat are still lacking and need further investigation.“

Unsurprisingly, Judge Amit P. Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, has ruled that BOEM’s environmental assessments on climate change and the Rice’s whale were deficient, and has ordered the parties and intervenors to jointly submit a proposed briefing schedule by April 3, 2025. “The court will also order additional briefing on remedy” (e.g. onerous operating restrictions).

In case you haven’t suffered enough, the judge’s full opinion is attached.

show_public_docDownload

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Good news! Woods Hole study finds that the AMOC has NOT declined in the past 60 years. Let’s party! 😀

Posted in climate, tagged , , , on March 24, 2025| Leave a Comment »

WHOI graphic: The AMOC not only distributes the ocean’s heat, moisture, and nutrients, but regulates the Earth’s climate and weather.

Contrary to alarmist forecasts that climate change could cause the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) to collapse as soon as 2025, an important Woods Hole study found that the AMOC has not declined in the last 60 years.

“Based on the results, the AMOC is more stable than we thought,” co-author Linus Vogt said. “This might mean that the AMOC isn’t as close to a tipping point as previously suggested.”

Of course, the usual caveat about past performance not necessarily being predictive applies:

Co-author Nicholas Foukal: “That doesn’t say anything about its future, but it doesn’t appear the anticipated changes have occurred yet.”

Perhaps the urgent warnings about the collapse of the AMOC, if not unfounded, were at least premature.

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WSJ: “Why Climate-Change Ideology Is Dying”

Posted in climate, energy policy, tagged , , on January 31, 2025| Leave a Comment »

link

“For three decades you were labeled a crank, a “climate denier,” someone who pigheadedly rejects “settled science,” if you didn’t embrace the belief that life on earth faces imminent extinction from “global warming” and, later, “climate change.” The possibility that an entire academic discipline, climate science, could have gone badly amiss by groupthink and self-flattery wasn’t thought possible. In many quarters this orthodoxy still reigns unquestioned.“

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Energy related Executive Orders

Posted in Alaska, energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Offshore Wind, Regulation, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 21, 2025| 1 Comment »

Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change Agreement:The US Ambassador to the UN shall immediately submit formal written notification of the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. 

Regulatory Freeze: Agencies may not propose or issue a rule until approved by a Presidential appointee. OMB may exempt emergency or urgent rules (déjà vu for regulators 😉).

Alaska: Withdraws a Secretarial Order intended to halt ANWR oil and gas leasing. Rescinds cancellation of ANWR leases.

Gulf of America: Renaming the Gulf of Mexico.

Unleashing American Energy (long, main items highlighted below):

  • Encourage energy exploration and production on Federal lands and waters, including on the Outer Continental Shelf.
  • Eliminate the electric vehicle (EV) mandate.
  • Requires immediate review of actions that could burden the development of energy resources.
  • Develop and begin implementing action plans to suspend, revise, or rescind all unduly burdensome agency actions.
  • Revoke climate change and “clean energy” EOs.
  • Terminate all activities, programs, and operations associated with the American Climate Corps (RIP 😉).
  • Expedite and simplify permitting processes.
  • Facilitate the permitting and construction of interstate energy transportation and other critical energy infrastructure, including pipelines.
  • Disband the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases.
  • Terminate the Green New Deal.  All agencies must immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (Public Law 117-169) or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117-58).
  • The Secretary of Energy is directed to restart reviews of applications for LNG export projects as expeditiously as possible.

Offshore Wind

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Climate change is happening today! 😉

Posted in climate, energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Wind Energy, tagged , , , , on April 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »

… and you deniers are fully responsible. There’s a reason why Texas is the most affected state 😉

But fear not, we will line our shores with wind turbines, restrict offshore oil and gas leasing, and subsidize carbon disposal in the Gulf of Mexico. All of this “help” will have a negligible effect on the climate, which will continue to change as it always has and always will.

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Smug BBC reporter tries to lecture the President of Guyana on climate change ….

Posted in climate, Guyana, tagged , , on April 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »

…. and gets slammed. 😁

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