As The Federal Government Abandons The Climate Fantasy, New York Doubles Down
By Francis Menton – Manhattan Contrarian – May 13, 2025
The first 100+ days of the second Trump administration (it’s now actually 113 days) have seen a near total abandonment of the fantasy that this one country’s government can change the weather and “save the planet” by suppressing use of hydrocarbon fuels and impoverishing the people. Biden administration “climate” and energy policies amounting to thousands of pages in regulations and hundreds of billions of dollars in grants and subsidies to uneconomic energy projects have been swiftly reversed. Examples in just the past few weeks include:
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The announcement by the Department of Energy just yesterday (May 12) of no fewer than 47 regulatory reversals, covering everything from ovens. to dehumidifiers, to clothes washers and driers, to shower heads, to dishwashers, and much, much more.
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Rescission of hundreds of grants from the Department of Energy for so-called “green energy” projects.
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Similar rescission of hundreds of grants from EPA, supposedly to fund “greenhouse gas reduction” and “climate justice” initiatives.
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Commencement by EPA of a process to undo the “Endangerment Finding” — a regulatory action that underlies essentially all climate and energy regulation by that agency — and some 30 other climate and energy actions of EPA.
And these are just examples. There are many more.
At this point, you would think that the blue states might take the hint. As a blue state, you had thought that you were embarking on an energy “transition” with the full backing and support of the federal government, complete with its vast powers and its infinite checkbook. Sure, this was going to cost trillions of dollars; but it was almost all their money, not yours. If somehow it all didn’t work out, you were not going to be the main one on the hook.
Now, all that has changed. In the blink of an eye, there is no more support to be had from the infinite deep pocket. Not only is the federal government no longer your partner and financial sugar daddy, but it is even taking steps to obstruct and hinder your efforts.
So going forward, is there any point? As a lone blue state, you don’t remotely have the resources to expunge fossil fuels from your energy system on your own. Maybe, would it be best just to lie low for a few years and wait for the next friendly administration in Washington?
Well, if you are New York, that is not how you react. Your religious fervor is such that you are now prepared to proceed totally on your own to defy the laws of physics and thermodynamics. Even as the federal government is telling New York to take a hike, here are some of the latest antics on the climate front from New York officials and climate activists:
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The State’s 2025-26 budget just got enacted on Friday, May 9. ESG Today reported excitedly on Monday (May 12) that the budget includes “over $1 billion investment in decarbonization.” Excerpt:
New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the state’s 2025-2026 budget on Friday, which included more than $1 billion in climate change-focused investments, including funding to lower emissions from buildings and accelerate the rollout of electrified transportation. . . . Key climate-focused allocations in the new budget include $450 million targeting reductions in building emissions, including investments in energy-efficient retrofits and clean heating technologies like heat pumps, more than $200 million for thermal energy networks, $250 million to support electric school buses, fast-charging stations and a NYSERDA rebate program for installing EV charging stations, as well as $200 million for renewable energy expansion and grid modernization.
Nobody is impolite enough here to mention that $1 billion is chump change in the effort to get rid of hydrocarbon fuels. If you were serious about the effort, the number would be more like $1 trillion. But don’t worry, nobody reading this stuff has sufficient numeric competency to understand that.
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New York City Comptroller Brad Lander — who is also a candidate for Mayor in the current election cycle — fancies himself a leader in the climate movement. Lander put out a statement on April 22 (“Earth Day”) setting forth his position:
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander decried threats from the Trump administration to dramatically roll back climate progress and stood with climate activists from New York Communities for Change, 350 NYC, and Fridays for Future to announce new actions by the Comptroller’s Office to reduce New York City’s emissions. . . . [T]o stand strong against federal rollbacks, Comptroller Lander is demanding more from the asset managers who manage funds for the New York City Employees Retirement System (NYCERS), Teachers Retirement System (TRS), and Board of Education Retirement System (BERS).
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In a prior statement on March 26, reported in Net Zero Investor, Lander vowed that the City “will not retreat one inch” on its climate program, despite the actions of the Trump administration.
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Our local environmental activist groups brook no dissent from climate orthodoxy. On March 31, a group of four climate activist organizations sued the State government in an effort to force faster progress on greenhouse gas reduction goals. From New York Focus, March 31:
Four environmental and climate justice groups filed a lawsuit Monday in a state court, claiming that New York is “stonewalling necessary climate action in outright violation” of its legal obligations. By not releasing economy-wide emissions rules, the suit alleges, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, or dec, is “defying the Legislature’s clear directive” and “prolonging New Yorkers’ exposure to air pollution … especially in disadvantaged communities.” It’s the first lawsuit to charge the state with failing to enforce the core mandate of its 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, or clcpa: eliminating nearly all of New York’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
So, there is plenty of bluster from local politicians and activists. But despite that, I can’t find a word as to how they plan to meet the greenhouse gas reduction and green energy mandates of the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, now that all federal backing is withdrawn. As just one element, there was supposed to be 9000 MW of offshore wind built to replace on-shore fossil fuel power plants. Now the Trump administration is obstructing the offshore wind development. I haven’t been able to find a word from New York elected or energy officials on how they plan to transition the energy supply if they can’t build the offshore wind facilities.
So we move forward with our officials in a state of bluff and bluster and denial, and no plan of any kind to meet the impossible mandates of the Climate Act. We all know that this is doomed to failure, but it will likely be a couple of years before we see the failure unfold.
Net Zero Fades As the Deluded Cling to Its Fantasy
By Vijay Jayaraj | Townhall | May 9, 2025
The grand vision of “Net Zero” initiatives – by which emissions of carbon dioxide magically balance with expensive and futile capture and storage systems – have long been sold as the redemption arc for humanity’s profligate modern ways. Yet, like a poorly scripted dystopian thriller, the holes in this plot are glaring.
Net Zero was always a fragile concept. It rested on shaky and illogical assumptions: that wind turbines, solar panels and “green” hydrogen could reliably replace fossil fuels, that governments could redesign economies without unintended consequences, that voters would accept higher costs for daily necessities, and that developing countries would sacrifice growth for climate targets they had no hand in creating.
None of those fantasies held. Countries did not decarbonize nearly at the speed promised, even though climate bureaucracies clung to the illusion. Long-range targets, five-year reviews and international pledges lacked common sense and defied physical and economic realities. The result? An unaccountable machine pushing impractical policies that most people never voted for and are now beginning to reject.
If Net Zero were a serious endeavor, its architects would confront the undeniable: China and India are more than delaying their decarbonization timelines – they’re burying them. Why has this been ignored?
China and India – responsible for more than 40 percent of global CO2 emissions in the last two decades – are accelerating fossil fuel use, not phasing it out. In Southeast Asia, coal, oil and natural gas continue to dominate. Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines are building new electric generating power plants using those fuels. These countries understand that economic growth comes first.
Africa, too, is pushing back. Leaders in Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal have criticized Western attempts to block fossil fuel financing. African nations are investing in exploitation of the oil and gas reserves.
If Asia represents the global rejection of Net Zero, Germany and the U.K. are poster children of the West’s self-inflicted wounds. Both nations, once hailed as Net Zero pioneers, are grappling with the harsh realities of their green ambitions. The transition to “renewables” has been plagued by economic pain, energy insecurity and political backlash, exposing the folly of policies divorced from facts. When the war in Ukraine cut off energy supplies, Germany panicked. Suddenly, coal plants were back online. The Green Dream died a quiet death.
Trump funding cuts likely will accelerate the fall of Net Zero’s house of cards. The president’s decisions to slash financing for international and domestic green programs has severed the lifeline for global climate initiatives, including the United Nations Environment Program. Trump also vowed to redirect billions from the Inflation Reduction Act – Biden’s misnomered climate law – toward fossil fuel infrastructure.
The retreat of Net Zero interrupts the flow of trillions of dollars into an agenda with questionable motives and false promises. Climate finance had developed the fever of a gold rush. Banks, asset managers and consulting firms hurried to brand themselves as “green.” ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) investing promised to reward “climate-friendly” firms and punish alleged polluters.
The fallout was massive market distortions. Companies shifted resources to meet ESG checklists at the expense of fiduciary obligations. Now the tide is turning. The Net Zero Banking Alliance comprising top firms globally has been abandoned by America’s leading institutions. Similarly, a Net Zero investors alliance collapsed after Blackrock’s exit.
Perhaps the fundamental failure of Net Zero was political. Permission was never sought from taxpayers and consumers who would pay the costs and suffer the consequences of an always ill-fated enterprise. Climate goals were set behind closed doors. Policies were imposed from above. Higher utility bills, job losses and diminished economic opportunity became the burdens of ordinary families. All while elites flew private jets to international summits and lectured about the need to sacrifice.
A certain lesson in the slow passing of Net Zero is this: Energy policy must serve people, not ideology. That truth was always obvious and remains so.
Yet, some political leaders, legacy media and industry “yes-men” continue to blather on about a “green” utopia. How long the delusion persists remains to be seen.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.
Alberta Could Hold Secession Referendum – Premier
RT | May 6, 2025
Alberta could hold a public referendum on breaking away from Canada next year if a citizen-led petition gets the required number of signatures, the province’s Premiere Danielle Smith said on Monday.
The western province has long clashed with the federal government over legislation limiting fossil fuel development and promoting clean energy, which Alberta officials say unfairly targets their economy. Smith’s announcement comes days after the Liberal Party secured a fourth consecutive term in the federal election, deepening political divides between Ottawa and oil-rich Alberta.
Following the election, the Alberta Prosperity Project launched a petition calling for a referendum on the province’s independence. The petition garnered more than 80,000 signatures within 36 hours of its May 2 launch and remains open for public support.
“Should Ottawa, for whatever reason, continue to attack our province as they have done over the last decade? Ultimately that will be for Albertans to decide,” Smith said.
She added that although she does not personally support the idea of separation, she would respect the will of voters. “I will accept their judgement,” the premiere said.
Recently, Smith’s government also introduced legislation to lower the threshold for referendums initiated by citizen petition. The bill reduces the number of signatures needed from 20% to 10% of eligible voters from the last provincial election and extends the collection period from 90 to 120 days. In order to pass the threshold, a petition would need about 177,000 signatures.
Smith noted that Alberta doesn’t want “special treatment or handouts;” it just wants to be free to develop its “incredible wealth of resources” and choose how to provide healthcare and education. She expressed hope that secession would not be necessary and that her government would be able to reach an agreement with Prime Minister Mark Carney and Canada’s new government.
Last week, Carney’s Liberal Party retained power after a campaign that focused heavily on what he called the existential threat posed by US President Donald Trump, who has floated the idea of Canada becoming the 51st US state and imposed extensive tariffs on most of its neighbor’s goods.
The outcome of the election has added to long-running tensions in conservative regions. In Alberta, where the Conservatives won 34 out of 37 seats, many residents have expressed frustration with their federal leadership. Similar dissatisfaction has been reported in neighboring Saskatchewan, and to a lesser extent in British Columbia.
Tesla picked up $595,000,000 in regulatory credits for Q1 2025
By Jennifer Mahorasy | April 25, 2025
Tesla had a 71% drop in first quarter profits compared to last year, but those losses were minimised because they picked up $595,000,000 US in regulatory credits for the quarter.
Indeed, according to Tesla’s Q1 2025 earnings, net income fell 71% to $409 million from $1.39 billion the previous year, driven by a 13% drop in vehicle deliveries (336,681 vehicles) and a 20% decline in automotive revenue to $14 billion.
Regulatory credits, however, did bring in $595 million, up from $442 million the prior year, which was critical—without those credits, Tesla would’ve posted a loss for the quarter.
So, the credits acted like a financial lifeboat, keeping Tesla in the black despite weak sales and operational challenges, like updating factory lines for the refreshed Model Y and lower average selling prices due to discounts.
What Are Regulatory Credits, and Are They “Free Cash Ripped Off” from Petrol Car Makers?
Regulatory credits aren’t exactly “free cash” handed to Tesla like a government cheque, but they’re not pure market magic either. Here’s how they work:
The System: In places like the U.S., EU, and China, governments set emissions standards for automakers. Companies that sell zero-emission vehicles (like Tesla’s EVs) earn credits. Automakers who miss emissions targets—often those heavily reliant on gas-powered cars—must buy credits to avoid fines or bans. Tesla, producing only EVs, generates surplus credits and sells them to legacy automakers (e.g., Stellantis, GM, or Volkswagen). In Q1 2025, Tesla earned $595 million this way.
All prefaced on the need for an energy transition because apparently we have a climate catastrophe.
Germany On the Path to Tyranny
By Jurij Kofner & Glenn Diesen
Glenn Diesen | May 2, 2025
AfD has polled as the most popular political party in Germany, and the political-media class has openly discussed banning the party. AfD as the main political opposition has now been designated as an “extremist organisation”, which opens up for the German intelligence service to surveil and crack down on the political opposition. This is reasonably interpreted as the first step to banning the main opposition party.
Both Marco Rubio and JD Vance have warned against Germany’s drift toward tyranny:
I discussed these issues with the economic advisor to AfD, Jurij Kofner.
Yet more legacy media deception on a vital issue
By Alex Berenson | Unreported Truths | April 29, 2025
I can’t believe I have to call out my old editors at the New York Times for running blatantly dishonest journalism for the second day in a row.1
But I do, so here goes.
Yesterday, just past noon local time, the electric systems in Spain and Portugal failed without warning.
Power remained out across both countries for much of the day and wasn’t fully restored until today. The disruption was profound. Subway riders evacuated stalled trains in darkened tunnels. Cellular service (which, unlike landlines, does not have backup batteries) went down. Elevators were stuck. ATMs and traffic lights went out.
Not across a city, or a state, but two nations that together have almost 60 million people. (Small parts of southern France were also affected.)
The outage attracted worldwide attention — and legacy media headscratching.
The usual explanations for blackouts were nowhere in sight. No earthquakes hit, no hurricanes or forest fires were raging. Even climate change, the usual media bugaboo for all disasters natural and manmade, couldn’t be blamed. It’s April, not July, and the weather was mild across the Iberian peninsula, in the 70s from Lisbon to Barcelona, 700 miles northeast. Nor was demand for power particularly high yesterday.
Just after the outage, Portugal’s electric network operator supposedly blamed “extreme temperature variations” in Spain for “induced atmospheric vibration.” Those led to “oscillations” on high voltage lines, according to several newspapers, including England’s Guardian.
“Millions without power in Spain, Portugal after ‘induced atmospheric vibration’,” a USA Today headline incoherently but confidently explained.
Of course. Induced atmospheric vibration. If that sounds like gobbledygook, it’s because it is. By Tuesday morning, the Guardian had disappeared those words, claiming the Portuguese company “said the statement was falsely attributed to it.”
Oh. Other unlikely explanations included cyber attacks and solar flares, eruptions of radiation from the sun that can disrupt powerlines. But solar flares are hard to miss, and none were a problem on Monday.
But even as the legacy media offered bizarre theories, power industry analysts and energy experts on X proposed a far simpler, more plausible explanation: Spain’s near-total reliance on green energy had left it very vulnerable to cascading blackouts.
For all its magic, electricity is actually relatively easy to understand at the theoretical level; it is the flow of electrons — negatively charged particles — that carry energy. Scientists began to understand this fact in the 1700s. A century later they had realized that swinging magnets along coils of wire would produce usable current. The energy to swing the magnets comes from steam heated in coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear plants, or directly from the flow of water in hydropower dams. (I remember the basics from AP Physics, and Google confirms them.)
After the electricity is produced, grids of wires carry it to homes and businesses, where it makes lights, computers, and motors run.2 Here, the engineering gets complicated. Electric plants produce “alternating” current, because of the way the magnets spin, and most household devices run on it.3 Demand for electricity fluctuates by the second, and supply must exactly match demand to keep the grid functioning properly. Traditional power plants have several different ways to manage this task. Their success in doing so is a key reason that modern, wealthy countries almost never have widespread blackouts.
But solar plants produce direct current, which must be “inverted” into alternating current before it is added to the grid. Wind turbines have their own hurdles adding power. As a result, wind and solar plants cannot manage unexpected changes in frequency nearly as well as older sources.
This risk is not a secret to power companies — or renewable energy suppliers. In 2022, the consortium of companies that runs Europe’s electricity network released a 63-page report on the issue.
It is highly technical and obscure (perhaps deliberately so), but it notes that older plants “have traditionally provided various ‘inherent’ capabilities to the system critical to ensure the stable operation of the power systems…” and that wind and solar power have a “lack of these system capabilities.”
But in the rush last decade to pacify climate change activists and decarbonize the world (except, of course, for India and China), niceties like the realities of physics seem to have been overlooked. European countries have moved quickly away from boring, reliable sources of power generation and towards solar and wind.
No country has moved faster than Spain, which has sol to spare. In mid-April, Spain ran its electricity grid fully on renewable energy on a weekday for the first time.
Oh well. Renewable energy was fun while it lasted. Heck, I’ve got panels on my roof (the tax credit didn’t hurt).
But well-defined theoretical risks that are ignored for political reasons have a strange way of coming true. The strong consensus on X is that the lack of simple, reliable, fossil fuel or nuclear-powered baseload generation with high “inertia,” as the engineers say, is a big reason that Spain’s grid failed so fast and took nearly a day to reboot fully.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media keeps scratching its head and staring into the sun for solar flares. “The cause of the outage remained unclear,” the Times’s current headline explains helpfully.
If this were 2021, the Biden Administration would no doubt call blaming renewables “misinformation” and Twitter and Facebook would be censoring articles like this one as Russian propaganda or whatever. At least now the skeptics can call the media out without fear of being banned.
Progress, I suppose.
Though it doesn’t fix the underlying problem. After two decades of putting up solar and wind farms at massive taxpayer expense, Europe has turned electricity from cheap and reliable to the reverse. If the sun shines too brightly, the lights go out.
Congrats, Greta Thunberg!
I know, you can. As cynical as I’ve become, I guess I’m still not cynical enough.
Along the way the voltage – a measure of the “pressure” causing the electrons to move — is raised in order to reduce the energy wasted as the current flows, then lowered so it is safer for household use.
In Europe, alternating current is produced at 50 hertz, or cycles per second. In the United States, it’s produced at 60.
Net Zero Watch warns of growing grid instability
Net Zero Watch | April 29, 2025
With more than 50 million EU electricity consumers suffering blackouts yesterday, campaign group Net Zero Watch has reiterated its warning that the UK power grid is also becoming increasingly unstable.
Grid analysts have suggested a high likelihood that the extent of yesterday’s blackout in Iberia was a result of the Spanish grid operating almost entirely on renewables at the time. The stability of power grids depends on so-called ‘inertia’, a resistance to rapid change that is an inherent feature of large spinning turbines, such as gas-fired power stations, but not of wind and solar farms. Too much renewables capacity on a grid can therefore mean inadequate inertia. As a result, in grids dominated by wind and solar, faults can propagate almost instantaneously across grids, leading to blackouts.
In a recent Net Zero Watch paper, entitled Blackout Risk in the GB Grid, energy system analyst Kathyn Porter pointed out that Britain’s electricity system is also becoming increasingly unstable. Large fluctuations in grid frequency – the first sign of problems – are becoming much more common.
In the past four years, the upper operational [frequency] limit was breached around 500 times in each winter season… the number of such breaches has also been growing steadily, which is consistent with falling grid inertia… and a perception that the grid is becoming less reliable.
In addition, Ms Porter points out that the GB grid experienced a ‘near miss’ at the start of the year.
Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
For 20 years, every aspect of the grid has been subordinated to the concerns of the eco-warriors. It’s no surprise that our electricity system is now both unaffordable and dangerously unstable. We can no longer afford to have energy policy determined by fantastists.
Airbus pulls back on ‘green’ jet – WSJ
RT | April 21, 2025
European aircraft manufacturer Airbus is scaling back its hydrogen-powered jet project after spending nearly $2 billion, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing sources.
The company announced in 2020 that it aimed to launch a zero-emission, H2-powered aircraft by 2035, calling it a potential breakthrough for aviation. Some industry executives had questioned whether the technology would be ready in time.
People familiar with the matter told the WSJ that Airbus had already spent more than $1.7 billion on the project, but concluded over the past year that technical hurdles and sluggish adoption of hydrogen across the economy would prevent it from meeting its target, according to a report on Sunday.
In early February, Airbus informed staff that the project’s budget would be cut and its timeline delayed, the sources said. A new schedule was not provided.
Later that month, CEO Guillaume Faury – who had initially described the hydrogen push as “a historic moment” – admitted the effort had not led to a commercially viable aircraft. Engineers would return to the drawing board in a second “development loop,” he reportedly said.
Airbus’s efforts to enlist a dozen airlines and more than 200 airports to explore hydrogen integration raised eyebrows, with airline and supplier executives privately doubting the 2035 target. At US rival Boeing – long skeptical of hydrogen – executives voiced concerns over safety and the technology’s readiness.
The EU has pushed aviation to decarbonize under its Green Deal, which aims to make the bloc climate-neutral by 2050. Airbus, partly owned by the French state, was required to channel part of a €15 billion (over $16 billion) Covid-era bailout into green aircraft development.
According to the WSJ report, the hydrogen program had helped Airbus unlock additional public and private green funding.
The retreat comes as wider enthusiasm for hydrogen fades, with companies like oil major BP and Finnish producer Neste scrapping plans for hydrogen projects. Some major European power companies have been rethinking amid high costs and difficulty transitioning away from fossil fuels, according to leading industry magazine Windpower Monthly.
Green Policies, Not Trump Tariffs, Killing British Steel
By Vijay Jayaraj | RealClear World | April 4, 2025
British Steel, the U.K.’s last bastion of primary steelmaking, announced plans to shutter its two blast furnaces at Scunthorpe, effectively ending 150 years of virgin steel production in Britain. Media outlets have rushed to pin the blame on U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent 25% tariffs on steel imports.
But this narrative is a convenient distraction from a far more insidious culprit: the U.K. government’s relentless pursuit of self-destructive green policies that have crippled British manufacturing for nearly a decade.
During the Industrial Revolution, Britain’s steel industry forged the island’s ascent as a global superpower. Steel was the sinew of progress, enabling the nation to outpace rivals and cement its economic and military supremacy well into the 20th century. Once the backbone of its industrial might, steel manufacturing has been suffocated by exorbitant energy costs and uncompetitive pricing – both direct consequences of a cult’s dogma that prioritizes reducing emissions of harmless carbon dioxide over economic survival.
Having produced over 20 million metric tons annually in the 1970s, output dwindled to a paltry 4 million tons by 2024. Meanwhile, imports have surged to 68% of domestic consumption, up from 55% in 2022, as cheaper foreign steel floods the market. The government’s pledge to “rebuild” the sector rings hollow when its own policies paved the way for this collapse.
British Steel’s owner, Chinese-owned Jingye, cited “highly challenging market conditions, the imposition of tariffs, and higher environmental costs” as reasons for the Scunthorpe closure, which threatens up to 2,700 jobs and could commence as early as June.
This shutdown is not a sudden reaction to external trade pressures but rather the inevitable outcome of a self-inflicted death spiral. While China and India make cheaper, carbon-intensive steel with no apparent “climate guilt,” the U.K.’s obsession with net-zero “virtue” turns its producers into sacrificial offerings at the green altar.
Green Policies: The Silent Assassin
Let’s dispense with the pleasantries: Britain’s green policies are more a national suicide than a noble crusade. For nearly a decade, successive governments have chased emissions targets with a zeal that ignores the realities of industrial survival. The Climate Change Act of 2008 set the stage, committing the U.K. to slash carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050 – a hideous impossibility that was later tightened to the holy grail of the even more stringent “net zero.”
This ambition birthed a web of regulations, taxes, and subsidies that have jacked up energy costs to levels unmatched among Britain’s peers and made steel manufacturing impossible without incurring heavy losses.
One proposed solution was a shift to electric arc furnaces, which recycle scrap steel rather than producing it from raw materials with more carbon-intensive blast furnaces. However British Steel’s Chinese owner reportedly sought a $1.3 billion subsidy to fund the $2.6 billion change.
In addition, the U.K.’s industrial electricity prices are approximately 40% higher than France’s and about four times more than those of the U.S. For energy-guzzling steelmakers, such price differentials – a product of “green” energy choices – are a death sentence.
Adding to the pain of British Steel is the U.K. Emissions Trading Scheme that adds costs to the company’s emissions of carbon dioxide, a penalty largely evaded by Chinese and Indian rivals.
The world’s steel leader, China produces more than 1 billion metric tons annually – exceeding the U.K.’s total output over the past 47 years. India follows closely, churning out the metal at prices Britain can’t match.
The steel industries of China and India are fueled by cheap coal and minimal constraints on carbon dioxide emissions. Neither faces the punitive energy costs or emissions taxes that hobble British Steel. While the U.K. levies up to $103 on each ton of carbon dioxide emitted, China charges its manufacturers but a fraction of that. India has no national charge at all. The result? British Steel, saddled with green compliance costs, is priced out of the global market.
China and India didn’t need to lift a finger as Westminster policymakers chased a utopian vision that delivered industrial ruin. The media can spin its tariff tales, but the truth is plainer: Britain’s steel industry was slowly bled dry by a government too enamored with green dogma to see the carnage it wrought.
The demise of British Steel serves as a stark warning to manufacturing giants in Western Europe and the U.S. Trading cost-effectiveness for climate compliance is a Faustian bargain to be resisted by corporate executives and lobbyists.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.
Saskatchewan becomes first Canadian province to fully eliminate carbon tax
Life Site News | April 1, 2025
Saskatchewan has become the first Canadian province to free itself entirely of the carbon tax.
On March 27, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced the removal of the provincial and federal carbon tax beginning April 1, boosting the province’s industry and making Saskatchewan the first carbon tax free province.
“The immediate effect is the removal of the carbon tax on your Sask Power bills, saving Saskatchewan families and small businesses hundreds of dollars a year. And in the longer term, it will reduce the cost of other consumer products that have the industrial carbon tax built right into their price,” said Moe.
Under Moe’s direction, Saskatchewan has dropped the industrial carbon tax which he says will allow Saskatchewan to thrive under a “tariff environment.”
“I would hope that all of the parties running in the federal election would agree with those objectives and allow the provinces to regulate in this area without imposing the federal backstop,” he continued.
The removal of the tax is estimated to save Saskatchewan residents up to 18 cents a liter in gas prices.
The removal of the tax will take place on April 1, the same day the consumer carbon tax will reduce to 0 percent under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s direction. Notably, Carney did not scrap the carbon tax legislation: he just reduced its current rate to zero. This means it could come back at any time.
Furthermore, while Carney has dropped the consumer carbon tax, he has previously revealed that he wishes to implement a corporation carbon tax, the effects of which many argued would trickle down to all Canadians.
The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) celebrated Moe’s move, noting that the carbon tax was especially difficult on farmers.
“I think the carbon tax has been in place for approximately six years now coming up in April and the cost keeps going up every year,” SARM president Bill Huber said.
“It puts our farming community and our business people in rural municipalities at a competitive disadvantage, having to pay this and compete on the world stage,” he continued.
“We’ve got a carbon tax on power – and that’s going to be gone now – and propane and natural gas and we use them more and more every year, with grain drying and different things in our farming operations,” he explained.
“I know most producers that have grain drying systems have three-phase power. If they haven’t got natural gas, they have propane to fire those dryers. And that cost goes on and on at a high level, and it’s made us more noncompetitive on a world stage,” Huber decalred.
The carbon tax is wildly unpopular and blamed for the rising cost of living throughout Canada. Currently, Canadians living in provinces under the federal carbon pricing scheme pay $80 per tonne.
New York Takes A Stab At A Green New Deal Demonstration Project: The Case Of Ithaca
By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | March 20, 2025
Many political jurisdictions claim to be on a path to eliminating emissions of carbon dioxide from their energy systems. Notable examples include California and New York in the U.S., and the UK and Germany in Europe. The Biden administration during its term in office even claimed to have set the entire U.S. onto a path toward what they called “net zero.” But so far none of these places has gotten anywhere near the goal. Indeed, as of today, many hundreds of billions of dollars into the effort, not one of them has even issued a detailed engineering plan of how this is supposed to be accomplished.
For reasons expressed in some dozens of posts on this blog, with the exception of a vast expansion of nuclear energy, I don’t believe that this “net zero” thing can actually be done, at least without entirely impoverishing the people. However, I’m completely willing to be proved wrong. For many years, I have been calling for a Demonstration Project to prove whether or not an economically-developed community is capable of achieving zero carbon emissions, or anything close to that (example here from 2022). Surely, if the entire U.S. can be expected to accomplish “net zero” in response to a government command, then it should be simple to build a working “net zero” Demonstration Project for a small town of, say, a few tens of thousands of people.
I’ve even proposed the perfect place as my candidate to be the guinea pig for the “net zero” demonstration: Ithaca, New York. After all, Ithaca is the most exquisitely climate virtuous place in what is already a deep blue state. It is home to two thoroughly left-wing academic institutions (Cornell University and Ithaca College), with their thousands of radical left-wing climate activist faculty and students. These people should leap at the chance to show the rest of the world how this “net zero” thing can be done. Also, the population (approximately 50,000) is in about the right range for a net zero demonstration project. (Note that the 50,000 is the combined population of the City of Ithaca and Town of Ithaca. Yes, for reasons known only to the geniuses of New York State local governance, Ithaca consists of two independent adjoining municipalities, a City and a Town, sharing the same name.). If “net zero” doesn’t work in a small place like this, the loss of investment could be large, but not catastrophic.
And in fact, when it comes to talking the talk, Ithaca would appear to be at the forefront of the green energy transition. Back in June 2019, the Ithaca City Common Council unanimously adopted what they called the “Ithaca Green New Deal.” A few months later, in March 2020, the Ithaca Town Council, also unanimously, adopted their own “Green New Deal Resolution.” Although there are differences, the Town’s Resolution incorporated much of the language of the City’s Resolution word-for-word. Not to be caught standing still, the next year, 2021, the City of Ithaca went a step further and announced that it would electrify all of its 6000 buildings. They didn’t actually use the words “demonstration project,” but clearly the key elements were now in place. Should we check in on how it’s going?
The short answer: It’s a complete joke.
First, let’s take note of some of the official goals. From the City of Ithaca Green New Deal resolution:
RESOLVED, That the City of Ithaca adopts a goal to meet the electricity needs of City government operations with 100% renewable electricity by 2025. . . . RESOLVED, That the City of Ithaca hereby adopts a goal of achieving a carbon neutral city by 2030. . . . RESOLVED, That the City of Ithaca endorses the following actions to achieve these goals: Create a climate action plan (CAP) in 2020 to provide details on how to achieve the Ithaca Green New Deal, and update the CAP regularly. . . .
And then there’s this, not found (at least today) on the City of Ithaca’s website, but reported on January 29, 2025 at the website of WSKG, the Ithaca PBS affiliate:
In 2021, the small city of Ithaca announced it would electrify all of its 6,000 buildings.
And how exactly was Ithaca going to electrify 6000 buildings within a few short years?
[Ithaca planned to achieve building electrification] with the help of one key partner: a technology company called BlocPower, whose then-CEO Donnel Baird said the company would make the mass electrification process fast and affordable. “There’s a lot of expensive engineering and financial and workforce development costs,” Baird told Ithaca’s common council in 2021, after it approved the mass electrification plan. “Our job is to remove all of that friction.”
OK, those were the goals. Now for the progress toward achieving them. If you go to the website of the City of Ithaca today, everything seems great:
Ithaca is leading the world. On June 5th, 2019, the City of Ithaca Common Council unanimously adopted the Ithaca Green New Deal resolution, a government-led commitment to community-wide carbon neutrality by 2030 that focuses on addressing historical inequities, economic inequality, and social justice. Two years after the resolution was signed, Ithaca established itself as a world-leader in climate mitigation planning and continues to pave the path forward as a blueprint for other cities across the U.S. and the globe.
But how about some actual facts on the ground. Let’s start with that building electrification thing. From that same January 25 WSKG piece:
[I]n recent months, BlocPower has quietly deserted its electrification and workforce training programs in Ithaca and several other cities, according to municipal leaders and organizations that worked with BlocPower. . . . In Ithaca, BlocPower ended its collaboration with the city after completing the electrification of only 10 buildings, according to Ithaca’s current sustainability director, Rebecca Evans. Last November, the company furloughed its Ithaca staff members and ended all partnerships in the city, Evans said.
6000 buildings, 10, whatever. Here is a picture from WSKG of “sustainability director” Rebecca Evans:
So, Ms. Evans, how about the big Climate Action Plan by which Ithaca will instruct the ignorant world how to get to carbon neutrality? Here’s another piece from WSKG, this one from several months ago (October 2024) reporting on recent revisions to the Plan. Excerpt:
The [Green New Deal] resolution . . . charged city staff with creating a formal climate action plan that would outline how the city would achieve those goals. Ithaca’s sustainability director, Rebecca Evans, wrote in a post on LinkedIn last month that she recently decided to scrap the version of that plan she had been working on. The decision, she said in an interview with WSKG, does not change the goals of the Green New Deal, but instead reframes the city’s approach of how it will achieve its commitments. Evans said that rather than prioritizing reducing emissions, the new plan will prioritize helping residents adapt to living in a warming world, while also working towards the city’s emissions-reduction goals. That could include providing residents with better access to social services, like housing and job training, and improving the city’s emergency response and electricity reliability.
Got it — They’ve given up on reducing emissions. And how about the City’s promise to get 100% of its own electricity from renewable sources by 2025? Are they really doing that right now? I can’t find a recent report, but there’s this from back in December 2011:
Beginning in January [2012], the City of Ithaca will purchase 100% of its electricity consumption from renewable sources. Under a new agreement with Integrys Energy Services of New York, Inc., Ithaca will purchase Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) certified by Green-e Energy for all of its electricity.
Aha! It’s the magic of “Renewable Energy Certificates.” Apparently, those make it possible to get your electricity from wind turbines and solar panels on completely calm nights. If you are willing to believe it. Al Gore would be proud.
In short, everything about Ithaca’s Green New Deal is either a scam, or has been quietly abandoned, or both.
Here in New York City we have our own building electrification mandate called “Local Law 97” that is said to require some 50,000 buildings to convert to electric heat and cooking by 2030. Does anybody really think we can make any more progress toward such a goal than Ithaca?
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How Ukraine Tortured and Slaughtered Donbass
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | July 11, 2024
Almost immediately after the proxy war erupted, ISIS-tier footage of the torture and murder of Russians in Ukrainian custody emerged.
On July 6th, the New York Times published an astonishing investigation: In Ukraine, Killings of Surrendering Russians Divide an American-Led Unit. The article documents in grim detail how Chosen Company, an international volunteer battalion for Kiev, routinely executes Russian prisoners of war. It is the very first mainstream admission that this practice – a brazen breach of the Geneva Conventions, and a grave war crime – is widespread among Ukraine’s fighters, both foreign and homegrown. … continue
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