Links to articles on the Climate Act at the Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York website, implementation overviews, background technology references and background information are provided here.
Community Leadership and Community Protection Act or the “Climate Act”
- New York State Climate Act – New York State Site
- Overview summaries– General descriptions of the Climate Act
- Pragmatic Feasibility – Potential feasibility issues
- Pragmatic Costs – Estimates of the costs
- Pragmatic Supporting Regulations – In order to promulgate the law regulations are used to implement specific aspects
- Accelerated Renewable Energy Growth and Community Benefit Act – New York State Site
- Accelerated Renewable Energy Growth and Community Benefit Act – General description of the AREGCBA
- Inconvenient Aspects of the Climate Act– Inconvenient trade-offs of the Climate Act
- Hypocritical Aspects of New York Environmental Policy and the Climate Act – Examples of New York environmental decisions that are hypocritically ignored by Climate Act implementation strategies
Implementation
Background Technology References
- Renewable Energy Systems Background – There is a perception that wind and solar development can simply replace fossil-fired generation but to understand why that is not the case background information is needed.
- Renewable Energy Feasibility – Overview articles discussing the feasibility of a transition to an energy system dependent upon renewable energy
- Clean Energy – While “green” energy is commonly portrayed as clean and without faults, there is another side to that story.
- Wind Energy – Links are provided to articles on environmental, health and costs of wind energy development.
- Solar Energy – Links are provided to articles on environmental costs of solar energy development.
- Energy Storage – Because renewable energy is intermittent energy storage is needed and this page lists links related to that requirement.
- Electric Heating – In order to meet societal net-zero goals heating systems need to be transitioned away from fossil fuels, but that is a challenge for many reasons.
- Hydrogen Issues – Hydrogen combustion does not produce greenhouse gases but can it safely and economically replace fossil fuels?
- Electric Vehicles – There are many issues associated with widespread implementation of electric vehicles
- Green Energy Costs – Links are provided to estimates of green energy costs in other countries
Useful Summary Updates of Climate Science and Green Energy
Announced every Monday at Watts Up With That: Science and Environmental Policy Project The Week That Was (www.SEPP.org)
Climate Discussion Nexus has a weekly newsletter from a group of concerned Canadians who believe more information about climate science and policy debates will lead to better decisions.
Net Zero Watch highlights and discusses the serious implications of expensive and poorly considered climate change policies in Great Britain. Because they are further ahead for their implantation plan the lessons they are learning are applicable to New York’s plan.
The Institute for Energy Research has a useful newsletter.
Background Information
The purpose of the Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York blog is to highlight the need to balance the risks and benefits of environmental initiatives. Nowhere is this more relevant than in the rush to do “something” about climate change. The risks, costs, lack of impact of global warming itself, and environmental impacts of the wind, solar, and energy storage resources development I believe are sufficient reason to consider changes to the Climate Act.
I am not only in these concerns. I recommend two books: from authors who base their belief that “global warming is mostly caused by humans” on the results of modeling done by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): “False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet” by Bjorn Lomborg and “Apocalypse Never – Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All” by Michael Shellenberger. Despite their belief that we should do something they both explained why New York is going down a path that will cost enormous sums of money, hurt more of the state’s poor than help, and will have no effect on global warming itself.
Steven Koonin has written another book that I think should be read: “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters”. He translates the IPCC scientific reports into plain English and does a great job explaining issues with the climate data and model results that allegedly substantiate the existential threat of climate change narrative. He also describes problems with the suggested solutions and makes recommendations for a different path forward. I prepared a summary of a recent lecture on this topic that gives an excellent summary of the issues described in detail in the book. Koonin summarized his belief that society needs a more considered approach to addressing climate and energy issue in a blog post.
In their 2020 documentary Planet of the Humans, Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs concluded that it is delusional to think that any form of existing green renewable energy will replace hydrocarbons. Here is a summary of their findings:
- Wind and solar energy may be renewable, but the equipment to turn them into electricity is not even recyclable and disposal is a huge problem. They need to be replaced every 10 to 20 years using the most toxic industrial processes ever created and often the hydrocarbon energy used in mining and manufacturing exceeds the green energy produced. Both need 100% hydrocarbon-driven backup on active idle.
- Batteries could replace some small fraction of the hydrocarbon backup but battery manufacturing is also environmentally toxic and hydrocarbon intensive. Batteries also have a short service life and are toxic to dispose of.
- Biomass energy is generated through destruction. In the U.S. forests are incinerated; in Brazil, the Amazon is being destroyed to grow sugar cane; and in Indonesia, jungles are being cleared to grow palm oil.
Relevant Articles
- Climate Claims – The over-riding reason to transition the energy system away from fossil fuels is the alleged threat of a climate driven existential threat. However, the proof of that is far from settled.
- Difference between Climate and Weather – Examples of weather events that are mistakenly attributed to climate change
New York Energy Policies 