Category Archives: global warming
G7 American Allies Battle
There was discord during the buildup to the G7 meetings of rich nations in Quebec. Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau was insulted because he thinks Trump considers Canada to be a security threat.
But President Trump did say he had to hit American allies with high tariffs for national security reasons.
G7 American Allies
Then on Thursday, which happened to be the D-Day anniversary, French President Macron took a shot at Trump saying, “No leader is forever.” He also said, “the six G7 countries without the U.S. are bigger than the American market.”
The next day Trump waded into the meetings insisting that Russia be included.
President Obama Legacy
Aside from ObamaCare, most of President Obama’s legacy was achieved through executive fiat.
Except for the Nobel Peace Prize. And even the guy responsible for that has had second thoughts.
The Iran Nuclear deal would have had staying power as a treaty with two thirds U.S. Senate approval. But Obama couldn’t get that. So he settled for the authority of a narrative by aspiring novelist Ben Rhodes.
Here’s Dan Henninger in the WSJ:
The Iran nuclear deal is just that—a deal Mr. Obama did with the mullahs, Russia, Germany, France, the U.K. and China, with no formal instrument of ratification.
And the same goes for the Paris Climate Accord:
The Paris climate agreement is an “accord” with so little domestic support that even some Democrats would have voted “no” if Mr. Obama had submitted it to the Senate for approval.
President Obama Legacy
Not that Trump has any better luck getting the approval of Congress. But then, he doesn’t need it. He’s unraveling the Obama Legacy with the same pen and phone Obama used to create it.
War on Coal
Trump ended Obama’s war on coal, as promised. Come to think of it, I don’t know why Obama declared the war in the first place. Or why Hillary signed on for it. The natural gas industry went to war against coal for them. Gas is cheap, clean, and – despite President Obama’s efforts – plentiful.
So, looks like a rout.
Tesla Autopilot Crashes
I got to drive a Tesla once. It was cool. Like driving one of the HO slot cars I had as a kid.
But I think I’d be queasy about letting the car drive itself. There are those who say it’s a great innovation. Like speed control on steroids. But the car can kill.
Tesla Autopilot Crashes
The WSJ reports Tesla is being investigated by the SEC for not informing shareholders of a fatal crash involving its autopilot system.
Update:
Daily Beast says Tesla is misleading about autopilot safety. If you don’t brake it’s your fault because your weren’t paying attention. If you do brake it’s your fault because you were driving.
Holman Jenkins says the autopilot feature has been around since 1995. It’s basically cruise control and the driver still has to pay attention.
Coal Country Candidate
Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in the West Virginia primary 51.4% to 35.8%.
Before the primary an unemployed coal miner confronted Hillary for acknowledging that her policies would put a lot of coal miners out of work. She claimed that her remarks were taken out of context. Here are her remarks in context from Politifact:
So for example, I’m the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right?
And we’re going to make it clear that we don’t want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories.
Now we’ve got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don’t want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.
Aside from EPA mandates, coal is being displaced by a cheaper and cleaner fuel – natural gas produced by fracking.
