Tag Archives: #Climapocrisy

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How wealthy blue staters fight #ClimateChange

We have had four separate articles in our series “How wealthy New Englanders fight #ClimateChange,” noting how our blue state brethren, the ones who gave so many of their votes to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Emhoff in the 2020 election. We take the assumption that those who voted for the Democrats agreed at least in part with the Democrats’ plans on fighting global warming climate change, and looked at how New Englanders with money, at least enough money to afford a major remodeling job featured on the long running PBS series This Old House.

In season 46, the program selected a project house in Ridgewood, New Jersey, not New England, but still among the bluest of blue states. In the 2020 election, Garden State voters gave 2,608,400 votes, 57.33%, to former Vice President Biden and Senator Emhoff, and 1,883,313 votes, only 41.40%, to President Donald trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Thats a landslide margin. Four years later, the election was closer in New Jersey, but Vice President Emhoff and her running mate, Governor Tim Walz, received 2,220,713 votes, 51.97%, to 1,968,215, 46.06% for former President Trump and Senator J D Vance. While closer, the outcome in the state was never in doubt.

Bergen County, a sort-of suburb of New York City, was carried by the Democrats, 232,660, 50.68%, to 217,096, 47.29%.

So, how did the wealthy couple from Ridgewood heat their home?

In the basement, Richard Trethewey meets with plumbing and heating expert Kordian Rak, who explains the benefits of the home’s new combination boiler, capable of powering both the radiator heating and water heating systems. Together, they review the new piping system that runs from the basement to the attic and back, including a specialized setup that generates heat beneath the new kitchen floor slab.

It’s a brand new, very efficient boiler, and it’s a natural gas boiler. An original fireplace from the 1920s was retained. The kitchen range is not mentioned, but it is electric, where their older range was gas.

The Garden State does not have any mandate to ban gas heating in new construction, and even if such existed, this was a remodel, not a new build, so a gas heating system would have been grandfathered. But an extensive remodel, in a home in which the old gas-fired boiler had just failed, could have gone with an all-electric heating plan, but did not. If solar panels were to be added to this home, they were never mentioned.

As I write this, it is 17.2º F outside, and we’re in the early stages of the dreaded Snowpocalypse. It started snowing five hours ago, but there’s still only ¾ inch of snow on the ground. Our propane fireplace has occasionally supplemented our heat pump based HVAC system, to keep the house nice and warm. I can see how people in further north than me would want a steadier, more reliable gas heating system, but in very blue state New Jersey?

Well, who knows? Perhaps the homeowners were among the 47.29% of Bergen Countians who cast their votes more sensibly that the majority of residents in the state.

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Not everything has to be a federal government project!

Under our 47th President, the sensible people in charge are looking at all of the spending in which the federal government engages. With the FY2024 federal budget deficit at $1.83 trillion — that’s trillion, a thousand billion, or a million million dollars — and FY2025 possibly going to be more, the Trump Administration is taking a battle axe to spending where it can, because a battle axe is what is needed. Tiny little cuts by going over everything with a fine-toothed comb will never work, because there’s always some purportedly good reason to spend for someone’s pet project. The battle axe method is the right thing to do, and then, after that is done, we can check to see if anything truly essential was cut and needs to be restored.

Trump administration freezes $12 million meant to help Philly plant thousands of trees

Continue reading →

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Bad causes attract bad people

This might be more in William Teach’s wheelhouse than mine, but when this article came up in my feeds, I couldn’t resist. From London’s The Telegraph:

Gen Z’s hypocrisy on climate change has made Greta Thunberg look a fool

If her generation are so worried about the ‘climate emergency’, explain the findings of this new poll

by Michael Deacon | Tuesday, February 18, 2025 | 7:00 AM GMT

At the UN Climate Action Summit of 2019, a 16-year-old Greta Thunberg gave the most famous speech of her young life. I’m sure we all remember. It was the one in which she indignantly squeaked “How DARE you!” at older generations for ruining their grandchildren’s future.

“You are failing us!” she hissed. “But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: we will never forgive you!”

Continue reading →

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That this has led to fraud is no surprise at all!

My good friend and occasional blog pinch-hitter, William Teach of The Pirate’s Cove, has an article this Friday morning on the Biden Administration prosecuting a major ‘carbon offset’ sales company for fraud:

C-Quest Capital LLC Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Newcombe, who stepped down as CEO in February, was indicted Wednesday in New York on wire fraud and commodities fraud charges. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on the most serious charges.

C-Quest develops emission-reduction projects to earn carbon credits that can then be sold to companies or other entities that wish to offset their own emissions. Newcombe, a onetime Goldman Sachs Group Inc. managing director and World Bank official, founded C-Quest in 2008.

You can read the rest on Mr Teach’s fine site.

But this one speaks to me, due to my experience. It was 2003, and carbon offset salesmen came and made a presentation to the concrete company at which I worked. Ready-mixed concrete producers use pozzolans, materials which are not cementitious alone but when mixed with Portland cement during the production of concrete utilize the excess calcium hydroxide liberated to become cementitious. We use them because they are less expensive than cement. The two most frequently used are flyash, which is harvested from the ignition byproducts of burning coal in power plants, and ground granulated blast furnace slag, the material left over from the smelting of iron ore.

The manufacture of Portland cement is a major carbon dioxide (CO2) emitter, so by the partial substitution of flyash, ready-mix companies reduce their carbon footprint. The salesmen told us that we could gain carbon credits every time we used flyash instead of cement, and that we could sell those carbon credits to other companies, to make it look like they were doing something to help fight global warming climate change, but, since it wouldn’t have changed how we did business since we were already using flyash — other than requiring some bookkeeping — it wouldn’t have reduced CO2 emissions at all! It was simply a way to take money, taking it from one CO2 emitter and giving it to a company which emitted less CO2; virtue signaling for the first, without having to actually spend significantly more money to reduce their emissions, and extra money for us, for doing what was already in our own economic interest.

Is anyone really surprised that fraud would be involved? When it comes to global warming climate change, the scammers and fraudsters will always be buzzing around.

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NIMBY! Don’t build your damned solar farm next to my neighborhood!

Lexington/Fayette County, Kentucky, was one of the only two, out of 120, counties in the Bluegrass State to cast a majority of their ballots in 2020 for Joe Biden. The good people of Lexington — the city comprises the entire county — gave 90,600 votes, 59.25% of the total, to Sundowner Joe, compared to 58,860, or 38.49%, to President Donald Trump. That was a slightly higher percentage for Mr Biden than the Commonwealth’s largest city/county, Louisville/Jefferson County’s 58.87%.

So, with so many, many people on the liberal side of the political spectrum, you’d think that Lexingtonians would support Mr Biden’s policies, right? Continue reading →

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The left are pro-choice on exactly one thing

There was a subscriber comment on an article in The Washington Post on the political polarization of plug in electric vehicles that made me chuckle. The commenter styling himself oneofmanyopinions wrote:

I’m not a tree hugger, but every time I hear a Republican, such as Bill Barr, say things like “they want to take our gas stoves” as justification to vote for Trump, I know I’m witnessing ignorance at a high level.

I responded, noting that immediately to the right of the article was a blurb for one entitled “Gas stoves spread harmful pollution beyond the kitchen, study finds.” Continue reading →

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NIMBY! Don’t you dare build windmills where we can see them from the beach!

In November of 2020, the good people of the Garden State gave 2,608,400 votes, 57.34% of the total, to Joe Biden, and only 1,883,313, or 41.40%, to President Trump. One would think, then, that New Jerseyites must approve of Mr Biden’s plans to develop alternative sources of energy to generate electricity, right?

Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm in New Jersey would have 157 turbines and be 8.4 miles from shore

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will begin an environmental review of the Atlantic Shores project on Monday.

by Wayne Perry, Associated Press | The Ides of March 2024 | 1:39 PM EDT

ATLANTIC CITY — An offshore wind power project proposed for New Jersey would have 157 turbines and be located 8.4 miles from shore at its closest point, data released by the federal government Friday shows.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said it will begin an environmental review Monday of the Atlantic Shores project. It released key details of the project in announcing the environmental review.

New Jersey energy regulators approved Atlantic Shores’ 1,510 megawatt project in 2021. It would generate enough electricity to power more than 700,000 homes.

The federal agency said the project’s operations plan proposes two potential export cable corridors that would make landfall in Sea Girt, N.J., with a second one either in Asbury Park or in the New York City area, possibly on Staten Island.

But naturally, there are plenty of people who are opposed, because, Heaven forfend!, they might be able to see the tops of some of the turbines, and the power cables running onto the shore, and sea birds might be killed, etc, etc, etc.

The groups Protect Our Coast New Jersey and Defend Brigantine Beach and Downbeach filed an appeal to the approval last week in state court, saying that power contracts granted to the project developers violate state law that mandates that any increase in rates for offshore wind must be exceeded by economic and environmental benefits to the state.

In 2020, New Jersey generated 65,060,636 MegaWatt hours of electricity, but used 74,442,735 MWh, meaning that the Garden State imported 14.42% of its total electricity consumption. With an average retail price of 14.80¢ per kWh, electricity was 19.74% higher than the national average of 12.36¢/kWh. Just as an economic calculation, one would think that the good, liberal voters of New Jersey would want this project. But no, they would prefer to import electricity from Pennsylvania, which exports 39.29% of the electricity it generates — primarily by burning natural gas — and West Virginia, which exports 41.79% of the electricity it generates, primarily by burning coal. Much better to do that than to possibly see the tops of the windmill blades from the beach!

Liberal New Jersey will need the electricity, too. As William Teach reported, the state plans to ban all fossil-fueled new car sales by 2035, the New Jersey Star-Ledger is demanding quicker action than that, and the majority of the voters in that heavily “blue” state just don’t want plug-in electric vehicles.

They will be made to comply, but they don’t want the sparktricity that they use generated anyplace where they can see it.

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How wealthy New Englanders fight #ClimateChange The well-to-do sure love their gas appliances!

This article title, “How wealthy New Englanders fight #ClimateChange” is one we have used thrice previously. In the first, we noted the PBS television series This Old House and its renovation of the Seaside Victorian Cottage, in Narragansett, Rhode Island. Those wealthy New Englanders didn’t choose electric heat pumps, but warm, dependable gas heating for the cold, Rhode Island winters. Their HVAC system appears to allow the large, new exterior condensers to be used for heating as well, but the gas furnace is new and in place. The homeowners had a new, fairly sizable gas fireplace installed, an oversized Wolf gas range, and three gas-fired instant hot water heaters. More, they had a gas fireplace installed outside, on their backyard patio. The series was filmed following the panicdemic[1]This is not a typographical error, but spelled exactly as I saw the whole thing, an exercise in pure, unreasoning panic. restrictions of 2020. Continue reading →

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↑1 This is not a typographical error, but spelled exactly as I saw the whole thing, an exercise in pure, unreasoning panic.
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It was -4.1º Fahrenheit on the farm this morning.

When I arose, at 7:05 this morning, it was -4.1º Fahrenheit outside. No wind is showing, but there’s a possibility that the anemometer is frozen in place; I’ll tap it loose when I go outside.

I have previously noted that we have backup heat here on the farm, with a propane fireplace, something we installed during our 2018 remodeling project, because our primary heat is an electric heat pump. The thermostat for the fireplace was set at 64º F, so that it would come on if the primary heat failed overnight, but shouldn’t come on as long as the heat pump was engaged. Guess what: even though the primary heat was on and working, the fireplace still came on, which tells me that the heat pump was unable to keep up! Heat pumps work by extracting heat from the atmosphere around the outside condenser, but when there’s not a lot of heat to extract, they lose efficiency. Continue reading →