Governor Newsom announces signing of $15 billion climate change, wildfire funding packages in Sequoia National Park on 9/23/21. (Photo: gov.ca.gov)
Harebrained Study Behind Gov. Newsom Blaming Fossil Fuel Companies for California Wildfires
Biased study admits conclusions are based on ‘idealized, modeled version of the world’
By Katy Grimes, May 18, 2023 8:20 am
Earlier this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a $60-million plan to build a special “fish” channel to allow salmon and steelhead, sturgeon and lamprey to swim around a dam on the Yuba River. More on that later.
Newsom also blurted out that he blames California’s now-annual-wildfires on fossil fuel companies.
Wasn’t it only a couple of years ago the governor accused PG&E of causing wildfires, and placing profits over safety?
So now it’s fossil fuel companies? Governor Shapeshifter is trying to blame fossil fuel companies for a deadly crisis the government created by imposing environmental laws that have made forest management nearly impossible. And, with his oil and gas ban looming in the near future, he clearly needs a boogey man.
Last September, Gov. Newsom signed a package of “sweeping legislation” to achieve statewide carbon neutrality as soon as possible, and no later than 2045, by establishing an 85% emissions reduction target, capping oil wells, slowing oil and gas permitting, making it impossible to increase refining capacity, and entirely phasing out oil and gas starting in two years. And that’s just the start.
In addition to California’s gas taxes, state regulations create a more demanding and exacting process on oil and gas as well.
Newsom also conveniently bases his oil company accusation on a conveniently timed study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a “leading activist group promoting left-wing public policy approaches targeting alleged catastrophic man-made global warming,” Influence Watch reports. “The group’s websites makes extreme and apocalyptic predictions about the future of the Earth’s climate, attributing a supposed increase in ‘wildfires, flooding, [and] extreme heat and drought’ to climate change and projecting the disappearance of ‘entire island nations.’”
The new study blames “a rise in vapor pressure deficit (VPD), a measure of the atmosphere’s drying power that is significantly influenced by human-caused climate change.”
The study’s authors claim “Previous research has quantified the contribution of carbon emissions traced back to a set of 88 major fossil fuel producers and cement manufacturers to historical global mean temperature rise.”
The authors even claim megadrought and record-breaking heat is drying out vegetation due to climate change. What about the fact that forest management has been halted for decades? “Draconian restrictions on logging, grazing, prescribed burns and herbicide use on public lands have made modern land management endlessly time consuming and ultimately cost prohibitive,” Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) said in January as he introduced H.R. 188, the Proven Forest Management Act.
“Beginning in the 1970s, we began imposing environmental laws that have made the management of our lands all but impossible,” McClintock said. “When we granted a categorical exclusion from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to our Tahoe Basin foresters, these provisions for the Tahoe Basin expedited the clearance of excess timber, were instrumental in slowing the Caldor fire, and need to be applied nationally.”
“H.R. 188 expands throughout the entire National Forest System the categorical exclusion for forest management projects that was secured for the Tahoe Basin in the 2016 WINN Act,” McClintock said.
Newsom’s ridiculous study by the radical climate change non-profit, which goes after “climate change deniers,” claims that “since 1901, the fossil fuel activities of these companies, including ExxonMobil and BP, among others, warmed the planet by 0.5 degrees Celsius — nearly half of the global increase during that period,” CNN reported. “Fossil fuel companies have denied the conclusions of those reports,” CNN added, linking to their own article titled “Big Oil has engaged in a long-running climate disinformation campaign while raking in record profits, lawmakers find.”
“Extreme and apocalyptic predictions” indeed.
How did the Union of Concerned Scientists climate activists come to their conclusion blaming fossil fuel companies for wildfires?
“Researchers behind the study came to their conclusions using a method that scientists have relied on in recent years to quantify how much of a role the climate crisis is playing in extreme weather and environmental disasters: They took actual climate data and compare it to an idealized, modeled version of the world where there was no fossil fuel pollution from the 88 companies,” CNN reports.
Yep – they compared actual climate data to their “idealized modeled version of the world…”
This is straight out of the “You can’t make this @#$! up” file. These “scientists” actually left science at home the day they published this study.
If these deceptive “scientists” create a study to further their leftist causes, they know CNN will report it. CNN even finds a climate scientist to say, “human-caused climate change plays a key role in making these extreme fire events worse and more likely to happen.”
Carly Phillips, a research scientist with the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists and co-author on the study said, “the key message they want people to take away from this study is that fossil fuel companies need to be held accountable for exacerbating extreme climate events like wildfires, which are putting lives at risk.”
“It didn’t have to be this way,” she said. They “should pay their fair share of the costs of these climate impacts.”
And that is where this is going: this study and others like it, will be used by the government to sue and further regulate oil and gas companies into nonexistence, if they are allowed.
Influence Watch reports between 2001 and 2018, Union of Concerned Scientists reported total revenues of $396 million and total expenditures of $332 million (lobbying). “Much of UCS’s lobbying has been directed towards nominations of individuals to science-related positions in the federal government, climate-related energy bills, and general environmentalist issues.”
Gov. Newsom’s statement about fossil fuel companies being responsible for wildfires was no accident – this is a coordinated attack on the oil and gas industry backed by some really heavy hitters.
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November 10, 2018 -
Grifters gonna grift….
They already said it was from global warming!! The same global warming that somehow doesn’t affect the other 49 states with millions of acres of out of control wildfires! About 60% of the population in California is just plain stupid.
From Geo engineering is another bank robbery for taxes they blame everything on global warming anything to distract you from the planes spraying massive amounts of aluminum barium, strontium, into the atmosphere, these are the accelerants that cause these huge wildfires. I have two lab test, basic labs of California and a local lab test on the pond water in our area. of California both lab tests results are very close to one another in their findings. They are loaded with these chemicals. The goats and livestock will not even drink the water. On Geo engineering site I think it was president Harold Ford speaking on controlling the weather (Geo engineering . org)stated, He controls fhe weather controls the world there are probably more scientist that believe the climate change is being controlled by the government or governments of the world. Go to Geo engineering.org watch the movie on YouTube the Dimming.
Belkabeast ….. you’re being very generous about how many people in California are intelligent and I’m a Californian.
This is what it comes down to these days with regards to climate change: Lay people with little to no understanding of the the topic (or the scientific method) running with specious “research” to further a political agenda.
I just don’t like when they pose as scientists when they probably didn’t even finish junior college.
Really, it’s beyond belief how full of it Newsom is. We know it and he knows it. And we know he knows it. On top of everything else, he’s such a lazy student, smirking at the teacher as he turns in a half-finished term paper full of whatever B.S. he came up with that morning. That’s the kind of contempt Newsom has for the residents of this state, who by the way are rightfully angry and concerned about being thrown into poverty and misery because of Gavin’s pitiful and unworkable green agenda and his endless lies — that he can’t even keep straight — about “Big Oil” and “fossil fuels.” Newsom actually thinks the public will buy into a bogus, lame, left-wing study like this one.
Also I think we have seen enough of the Gavin & Friends’ “idealized vision of the world” (!!!) to definitively know we DON’T WANT IT. Duh!
What’s been revealed in this report from Katy Grimes should be enough to immediately shut down Gavin’s entire green charade. His whole “green legislation package” needs to be shredded and tossed in the garbage ASAP.
These are the same clowns, er “scientists” that regularly come out with earth shattering findings such as BBQ will give you cancer, etc ,etc. To call them hacks is an understatement. They have been pushing destructive policies for decades.
This is a group that consists of nothing but leftists agendas with a micron thin layer of “science” to make it palatable to the useful idiots.
Thank you for the reminders of the main cause of catastrophic fires on federal lands in California, that being lack of active forest management, and the primary party responsible for starting many of California’s largest wildfires, that being PG&E. Newsom’s attention here is focused on the oil and gas industries, both of which his party wants to run out of the state by mid-century, and Gavin seems to conveniently ignore facts that are inconvenient to his target du jour.
And speaking of the Union of Concerned Scientists, I first became aware of them when Al Gore attended a big dog and pony show in San Francisco about Global Warming. That’s what they were still calling it when this conference took place. The picture accompanying the article showed the revered keynote speaker surrounded by members of the Union of Concerned Scientists, adoringly gazing at their hero. That one picture told me everything I needed to know about the Union of Concerned Scientists and their ‘objective’ scientific research.
Climate Change is all knowing and all encompassing.
It is a man made invention turned new age religion.
Al Gore is the biggest charlatan to live. He lost an election and found a new grift. Unfortunately, we get to foot the bill.
Bow down to the great, holy Climate Change(global warming).
Newsom is auditioning to be the high priest of Climate Change. He plays the part well, don’t you think?
Newsom probably considers himself a scientist because he has a bachelors degree in political science.
Oil isn’t a “fossil fuel.” It doesn’t come from dinosaurs. Oil is constantly renewing, so it is actually “renewable” energy.
EXACTLY
CULT OF ANTHROPOGENIC CLIMATE ALTERATION (CACA);
“While poly-cyclic hydrocarbons may be toxic, carbon dioxide is vital: Al Gore’s “Reinventing Government” program created the political science of human-caused climate change. Real scientists explain it: water vapor keeps us from freezing; CO2 is vital but not a significant greenhouse gas — https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/clima… [but URL might have been changed]
Also, carbon dioxide is essential for life. Al Gore is not. Mitigate the inevitable climate extremes by making energy abundant and affordable.”
It’s hard to believe that it was Getty oil money that helped foist this dimwit governor into power? When will Californians finally be free of him?
Isn’t Governor Gruesome do for his next booster? I’m praying to the deities that this will be the one that kills him.
Anything related to ‘hair’ is high on Governor Grabby Hands list or priorities.
One problem. There is no increasing drought trend, in CA or elsewhere in the US. Check the ACTUAL NOAA data. Sorry, I don’t have the link handy. As for Gruesome, pretty much an “empty suit” egotist.
90-years-ago 50 million acres burned in wildfires
10-years-ago less than 5 million acres burned in wildfires
Fossil fuels cause wildfires myth busted
I just don’t like when they pose as scientists when they probably didn’t even finish junior college.
Newsom is a World Economic Forum globalist stooge who says and does whatever globalist masters demand of him no matter how ludicrous and hairbrained it is.
May we politely remind our California State Governor that many areas in our great state have experienced wildfire for millennia, in due season. This happening before the land first experienced a human footprint.
May we remind our distinguished Governor of the fact wildfire, in due season, has been part of California’s ecology for millennia.
So, I ask, why does public service offer such a haven for buffoonery?
If we re-elect a buffoon, during a recall, what does that say about us?
Newsom is the worst governor we have ever had. How does Newsom and the Union of COMMUNIST Scientists explain that California has had 3.3 million acres burn every year prior to California even being settled by the Europeans?
Newsom and the Democrats want to bankrupt the middle class in this state with even more taxes for the climate hoax. No wonder they are leaving. The state budget has nearly QUADRUPLED since 2000, only 22 years, but the population has only increased by 15% during that period. The Democrats are reckless and irresponsible with taxpayer money. This is not sustainable.