DV Journal

(For an alternate viewpoint see:  “Counterpoint: The Economy, Threats to Democracy Are Top Issues”)

As the 2024 presidential election approaches, a critical issue remains largely unaddressed: the alarming deficiencies in the U.S. military.

Political debates about the extent of our engagement in foreign conflicts — whether in support of Ukraine, Israel or the defense of Taiwan — assume that the United States has the necessary hard power. This hard power comprises manpower and equipment — two areas where the U.S. military is falling short.

The manpower shortage is stark. Over the past three years, the U.S. military has consistently faced recruitment shortfalls across several branches. In 2022, the Army fell short of its recruiting goal by 15,000 active-duty soldiers, 25 percent below its target. This deficit compelled the Army to reduce its planned active-duty end strength by 10,000. In 2023, the Army recruited 54,000 soldiers, falling short of its target of 65,000. This year, the recruitment goal has been adjusted to 55,000, a significant reduction from last year’s target.

The Army is on its way to meeting its abbreviated goals, with much credit given to the new recruitment campaign, which shifted away from the cartoonish efforts in 2022 and 2023. Making what was old new again, the Army returned to the “Be All You Can Be” slogan and stylized ads that debuted to great success in the 1980s.

While the Army has touted its “downsize” as predominantly a reflection of necessary changes in force structure and a shift toward air defense capabilities, it feels more like an exercise in expectation management. At a time of perilous global insecurity and increased operational rotations in Europe and the Pacific, the harsh reality is the primary U.S. land force is experiencing a nearly 7 percent reduction when it really can’t afford it.

The Army is not alone in its struggles. Although other services met their recruiting goals in 2022, this was mainly due to the acceleration of their delayed-entry applicants This success was not repeated in 2023. In 2023, the military collectively missed recruiting goals by 41,000 recruits.

These trends reflect broader issues, with the number of young Americans eligible to serve at a catastrophic low of 23 percent. Factors contributing to this crisis include a decline in the desire to serve, exacerbated by negative perceptions of military life and service. Only 9 percent of American youth desire to join the military. This devastatingly low number undermines the sustainability of the all-volunteer force.

This decline is compounded by increasing physical and mental health issues among potential recruits, including rising obesity rates and psychological distress. Worse, declining patriotism and confidence in the military have contributed to the recruitment crisis, necessitating efforts to rebuild trust and inspire future generations to serve.

Concurrently, the U.S. military industrial base is facing severe challenges. The military industrial base comprises government-owned and private factories, shipyards and ammunition plants that produce military equipment. It includes businesses and institutions of all sizes, from large prime contractors to small component manufacturers and tech innovators, supported by a skilled workforce.

Historically, U.S. industrial might ensured military strength, with manufacturing underpinning the economy. During crises like World War II, industry met demand with extraordinary output by establishing the War Production Board and rapidly converting manufacturing plants to military production.

Today, this would be nearly impossible. The U.S. economy has shifted to a more services-based economy, with a decades-long decline in manufacturing leading to poor supply chain resilience. This shift means that the military cannot rely on industrial capacity. Despite recognizing the deficiencies, Congress and the executive branch have not significantly increased military funding or reallocated spending to bolster this capability. As a result, there are significant gaps in the production of critical munitions and weapon systems and shipbuilding.

Moreover, the Biden administration has prioritized climate change as a primary national security threat, which appears disconnected from the immediate and tangible needs of revitalizing industry and manufacturing.

The combination of these manpower and equipment deficiencies poses a severe threat to national security, as the foundation of any military engagement lies in having a capable and well-equipped force.

These systemic issues, which are not receiving adequate attention in political discourse, compromise the U.S. military’s ability to engage effectively in global conflicts. Without a comprehensive and strategic approach to address these deficits, discussions about supporting international allies or defending against adversaries like China become moot.

As we head toward the presidential election, candidates must address this issue head-on with clear and actionable plans to restore the strength and readiness of the U.S. military.

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(This article first appeared in Broad + Liberty.)

The nonprofit trying to persuade local governments to sue “Big Oil” producers for damages allegedly caused by climate change has been making steady advances to Chester and Delaware counties, according to an email provided to Broad + Liberty.

The revelation comes just two months after the Bucks County Board of Commissioners announced it would sue major oil producers like BP, Chevron, Exxon, and others, arguing that the companies knew for decades that their products would cause climate change yet took no action. Several days after the announcement, the only Republican on the three-person board, Gene DiGirolamo, withdrew his support for the suit.

Indeed, it appears as if the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) was eager to use its success with Bucks County as a springboard.

Bucks County became the first local government in the commonwealth to take up the kind of suit that first began to sprout up about a decade ago. For example, in 2016, San Francisco and some other California municipalities sued longtime oil producers. Bucks County is being represented by the law firm DiCello Levitt on a contingency basis, meaning the county does not pay the lawyers unless the lawyers win the case.

In an email sent March 18, 2024, a senior political associate for CCI emailed Delaware County Councilmember Christine Reuther, and cc’d Bucks Commissioner Bob Harvie, both Democrats.

“My name is David Zeballos and I’m with the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), a nonprofit that helps elected officials and their communities hold oil and gas corporations accountable for the massive costs of climate change. I’ve met with a number of folks who have told me about the southeast PA regional call that you are now leading! That includes Council Member Elaine Schaefer, Commissioner Bob Harvie, Commissioner Josh Maxwell, and Commissioner Marian Moskowitz, who all expressed support about the work CCI does,” Zeballos wrote.

“Do you have any availability for a 30 min Zoom meeting to talk about our work in Pennsylvania and areas for collaboration?” Zeballos wrote later in the email.

The Center for Climate Integrity is a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that says its mission is to “educate communities and elected officials about the role of polluters in causing climate change and the need to hold polluters accountable for their actions.”

A spokesperson for Chester County said no action is imminent, but noted that could change.

“Chester County is not considering a similar lawsuit at this time,” spokesperson Michelle Bjork said. “However, we will continue to monitor any developments in Bucks County’s case and will reevaluate as needed.”

“Chester County’s commitment to protecting the environment and our residents is demonstrated by our efforts to preserve more than 30 percent of the County as permanently protected open space and we will continue to explore all avenues to safeguard our community,” Bjork said.

Requests for comment to Delaware and Bucks counties were not returned. A request for comment to CCI was also not returned.

Delaware County already has something of an established relationship with CCI. County Council Chair Monica Taylor (D) is listed as a member of CCI’s “leaders network” and recently participated in the press roll out of a major CCI study.

In November, Taylor rattled her rhetorical sword about the need to punish oil producers in a Politico article.

“I agree that it’s not fair for this burden of addressing climate change to fall only on our residents,” Taylor said. “Polluters should and must pay.”

Yet the politics of oil are very different between Bucks and Delaware counties. In Delaware, thousands of people are employed in the industry at places like the Marcus Hook LNG terminal.

Counties do receive annual payouts from Pennsylvania’s “Act 13” of 2012, commonly known as the “impact fee” imposed on “unconventional” gas wells and distributed to counties and municipalities to help them maintain the environment, or to offset the wear on infrastructure from oil and gas drilling.

For example, for the five years from 2019 to 2023, Bucks County received $2.76 million from the impact fee, even though there are no active wells in the county. Delaware County took in $2.45 million over the same period, according to a state website devoted to Act 13 revenues and disbursements.

The impact fee delivered $179 million across all governments in the commonwealth in 2023.

In Western Pennsylvania, CCI gave a presentation in April on “climate accountability” to an environmental subcommittee of the Allegheny County Council. At the time, a council member said it would be premature to assume the county would sue oil producers.

Some of the initial lawsuits against Big Oil have already failed. In 2019, a New York judge ruled in Exxon’s favor, but as is often the case, the message of the ruling was nuanced, with Justice Barry Ostrager of the New York State Supreme Court writing, “this is a securities fraud case, not a climate change case.”

Other cases remain in progress, and, “[t]he number of climate-related cases against Exxon continues to grow,” the Wall Street Journal recently reported.

“In February, the city of Chicago sued Exxon and other major oil companies alleging they deceived Chicagoans about climate change. In March, Bucks County, Penn., filed a similar suit. The Center for Climate Integrity, an environmental group the Rockefeller charities helped create, swayed officials in both places to bring the suits.”

IRS filings show CCI is predominantly funded by the Rockefeller Family Fund, the philanthropic endeavor established by the legendary New York family whose business pursuits in the earliest parts of the 20th century produced Standard Oil, the petroleum monopoly whose most prominent corporate successor is Exxon.

The Journal also reported that the Rockefeller Family Fund “influenced President Biden’s decision in January to pause approval of new liquefied natural gas exports,” — a decision that touched off bipartisan condemnations in Pennsylvania, the nation’s largest LNG exporter.

“While the immediate impacts on Pennsylvania remain to be seen, we have concerns about the long-term impacts that this pause will have on the thousands of jobs in Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry,” Democratic U.S. Senators Bob Casey and John Fetterman said in a joint statement. “If this decision puts Pennsylvania energy jobs at risk, we will push the Biden Administration to reverse this decision.”

Numerous other politicians, including many Republicans, and associations also heavily criticized the Biden LNG “pause” — something that could easily become an issue in the presidential election this year if circumstances continue to make Pennsylvania a crucial battleground state.

The email cited in this story was obtained via the Pennsylvania Right to Know Law by the nonprofit organization Government Accountability and Oversight. A database search of nonprofit tax filings did not reveal any significant grant donations to GAO in order to be able to characterize its funding.

For an alternate point of view see: Counterpoint: Climate Change Fear-Mongering Isn’t Working Anymore

The  Colorado State University Tropical Weather and Climate team made a news splash on April 4, forecasting a disturbingly above-average number of storms expected in this year’s hurricane season. The forecast was also notable in that it was announced earlier in the year than ever by the hurricane forecasting team at CSU, which has been making annual forecasts of the year’s expected hurricane activity for 39 years.

The Colorado team is considered among the two most trusted and sophisticated forecasting groups, and the other is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Other forecasters that use complex models to predict hurricane activity, such as AccuWeather, concur with the CSU and NOAA predictions.  AccuWeather expects this year’s hurricane season to be “super-charged.”

Notwithstanding the methodological rigor and success record of the forecasters — who incorporate into their models 70 years of historical data on factors including sea surface temperatures, sea surface pressure, and wind shear — conspiracy-peddling voices will politicize the issue of how many hurricanes are expected. Such bearers of misinformation maintain that NOAA intentionally amplifies its forecasts of hurricane activity to drive a climate change agenda.

One such voice is that of conservative commentator Matt Drudge, who once infamously maintained NOAA’s Hurricane 2017 Matthew forecast was intentionally inflated. Another was Rush Limbaugh, who declared, without evidence, “It’s in the interest of the left to have destructive hurricanes because then they can blame it on climate change, which they can desperately continue trying to sell.” Commentator Tucker Carlson also joined the conspiracy caucus, declaring the government hypes warnings about hurricanes because private interests profit from sales of water and batteries.

Yet another voice, emanating from a think tank, states that there “has been no long-term trend in the strength or frequency of hurricanes, tornadoes, U.S. floods and drought.” This flies in the face of R Street Institute research. Observing that pronouncements on natural catastrophes too often were politically influenced, we undertook a fact-based, data-based project to compile conclusions on natural catastrophe frequency, severity and attribution reached by 18 noted meteorologists, climate researchers and data scientists. Our published study found the 18 sources t largely agree that catastrophe frequency and severity have increased.

As for what we are facing now, the CSU unit forecasts 23 named storms for the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, spanning June 1 to November 30. This is significantly higher than the average of 14.4 between 1991 and 2020. It forecasts 11 hurricanes this season, up from the historical average of 7.2. It expects five of the 11 to reach major hurricane strength (category 3, 4, or 5), with sustained winds of 111 mph or more.

The CSU forecasters found that the combination of conditions in 2024 (sea surface temperature, sea level pressure, vertical wind shear (change in wind direction and speed) and the El Niño effect (water warming in the central and eastern tropical Pacific) resemble those in past years with active Atlantic hurricane seasons: 1878, 1926, 1998, 2010 and 2020.

Misinformation promulgated by the likes of Limbaugh and Carlson can be dangerous. To the extent people in harm’s way ignore warnings about the threat of coming dangers they face from destructive storms, lives may be lost. Another source of dangerous misinformation is random postings on social media platforms by people lacking subject matter expertise.

In January 2024, an actress posted a warning, spreading panic, of an apocalyptic approaching California rainstorm, which did not exist. This recalled the “Sharpie hoax” of 2019 when then-president Donald Trump displayed a map of the expected path of Hurricane Dorian. The map included an extension of the path hand-drawn with a Sharpie indicating that the storm would strike Alabama, breaking a law prohibiting the publication of a falsified official weather forecast.

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season will likely not include exactly 23 named storms and 11 hurricanes. There is, however, a high degree of confidence that the model-driven forecast will be directionally correct. After all, as the British statistician George E.P. Box once said, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.”

Storms have consequences. Mighty winds care not a whit about the ideology of those whose houses they destroy. So beware this year of conspiracists soft-pedaling threats that are all too real.

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For an alternate point of view see: Point: Counting Hurricanes in a Post Truth World

The adage that “nothing is certain except death and taxes” ought to be updated for our modern times to: nothing is certain except death, taxes, and government-generated climate alarmism.

In late May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that the “coming Atlantic hurricane season is expected to have above-normal activity due to a confluence of factors, including near-record warm ocean temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean.”

Specifically, “NOAA is forecasting a range of 17 to 25 total named storms … including 4 to 7 major hurricanes.”

Of course, NOAA points to “human-caused climate change” as the primary culprit for its apocalyptic hurricane season warning. According to NOAA, “human-caused climate change” is solely responsible for “warming our ocean globally,” “melting ice on land,” and “sea level rise.”

In 2022, NOAA issued a very similar hurricane season prediction, which was way overblown. “Overall, the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season featured near normal activity in terms of the number of named storms and hurricanes, but was slightly below average in terms of the number of major hurricanes,” notes the National Hurricane Center.

Just because NOAA was wrong in 2022 does not mean that its 2024 prediction will be wrong, too. However, more important, the entire narrative about hurricanes becoming more frequent and more intense due to anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change is not true.

Consider.

In 2012, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated, “Many weather and climate extremes are the result of natural climate variability (including phenomena such as El Niño), and natural decadal or multi-decadal variations in the climate provide the backdrop for anthropogenic climate changes. Even if there were no anthropogenic change in climate, a wide variety of natural weather and climate extremes would still occur.”

In 2014, the National Climate Assessment stated, “There has been no significant trend in the global number of tropical cyclones nor has any trend been identified in the number of US land-falling hurricanes.”

Moreover, in 2018, the IPCC reported that there is “only low confidence for the attribution of any detectable changes in tropical cyclone activity to anthropogenic influences.”

In 2019, a peer-reviewed report in the American Meteorological Society stated, “The majority of authors had only low confidence that any other observed tropical cyclone changes were beyond what could be attributed to natural variability.”

In 2020, the World Meteorological Organization acknowledged that “any single event, such as a severe tropical cyclone, cannot be attributed to human-induced climate change, given the current status of scientific understanding.”

Perhaps Steven E. Koonin, the undersecretary for science in the Department of Energy in the Obama administration, put it best when he said, “Pointing to hurricanes as an example of the ravages of human-caused climate change is at best unconvincing, and at worst plainly dishonest.”

Over the past century, the number of hurricanes on a per-decade basis making landfall in the United States has declined. For instance, in the 1850s, well before humans harnessed fossil fuels as a viable energy source, 20 hurricanes made landfall, including six “major” storms. In the 1940s, 24 hurricanes made landfall, including 10 significant storms.

Obviously, the experts at NOAA can read graphs that illustrate the frequency and severity of hurricanes striking the United States have not increased over the past several decades.

So, why does NOAA, along with so many other government-affiliated organizations, continue to engage in public fearmongering regarding hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes and so forth? They need to create panic and instill fear to justify their very existence. It is self-preservation.

Like it or not, climate change is big business. Over the next decade, the United States will spend at least $500 billion to “combat” climate change. To keep the money flowing, the government needs an endless list of scary predictions to keep the alarmist narrative going.

The good news is Americans are beginning to realize that they are being lied to about climate change. More and more, polls show that Americans no longer automatically believe that climate change is an existential threat. Because they are starting to lose their hold, the alarmists are resorting to even more desperate measures.

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Liquefied Natural Gas, or LNG, has been at the forefront of the global discussion on climate policy, energy, and emissions for decades. Natural gas advocates say it is an environmentally safer alternative to traditional, emissions-heavy fossil fuels such as coal and heating oil.

The Biden administration, which just two years ago called for more production of natural gas in efforts to blunt the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has now pivoted away from it. In January 2024, the administration announced a temporary ban, or “pause,” on new LNG export licenses to suppliers to assess the greenhouse gas impact of LNG in global supply chains. Administration officials, under pressure from climate activists, have rallied against LNG’s purported eco-friendliness vis-a-vis other fuel sources. They also argue the pause is necessary to incorporate LNG’s climate impact in the “public interest” when determining the approval or rejection of LNG export projects.

But what does the science say?

A new study published by Berkeley Research Group (BRG), a leading economics and industry research firm, represents a watershed moment for emissions-based data collection. Its findings clarify the contentious dialogue surrounding LNG in the United States and around the world and show its true impact on the environment.

By comparing the greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy output of U.S. LNG, pipeline natural gas, and coal in 13 international markets in Europe and Asia, the study found that U.S. LNG is cleaner in its lifecycle than coal and cleaner than Russian pipeline natural gas in every case studied. Importantly, by analyzing emissions from production, processing, shipping, and ground transportation, the study captures the complete value chain of each fuel type.

The data also shows that American LNG produces less than half of the resulting emissions of coal-generated electricity in international markets in Europe and Asia. In fact, if U.S. LNG replaced coal-generated power in these 13 markets for just one year, it would save the emissions equivalent of 153 million to 397 million cars (or 170,000 – 440,000 kilotons of carbon dioxide equivalent).

This remarkable finding conclusively shows that LNG is a dramatically safer, cleaner alternative to burning coal. This should not be overlooked because global coal use is not decreasing. On the contrary, electricity generation and exports from coal hit record highs just last year.

The environmental advantage of U.S. LNG also holds true when compared to piped natural gas in foreign export markets.

Put simply, American LNG is now among the least emission-intensive sources of energy in the world.

These findings are enormously important to understanding global environmental realities. They should inform dialogue and relevant policy decisions in energy security and climate policy within the Biden administration.

For years, experts on energy policy and American LNG producers have urged federal officials to continue to approve new LNG export licenses because LNG is the best way to secure our energy independence and reliability, while still minimizing the overall risk to our communities and environment. Now they have reinforced scientific evidence to support those claims.

Today, people around the globe rely on natural gas to generate electricity, heat, and fuel in homes and businesses. In one of the most remarkable sources of strength, American LNG is helping our allies push back against Vladimir Putin’s Russia. American natural gas is protecting democracy now and in the future. Without it, the alternative is greater reliance on Putin and other authoritarians.

The results are in: American LNG is the safest, cleanest option we have to power our economy through increasingly uncertain global market forces, while ensuring that we act responsibly and use energy like natural gas that makes for a cleaner and greener country and world. The Biden administration would be wise (and would receive due credit) to reverse the LNG pause and harness the potential of American natural gas.

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Last month, the three Bucks County commissioners entered the national debate over climate policy by filing a lawsuit against the world’s major oil companies, blaming them for local damages allegedly caused by global warming. It’s part of a coordinated strategy by green activists hoping to use local courts to either damage the fossil fuel industry or force a massive payout similar to the tobacco industry settlement in 1998.

On Wednesday, Republican Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo backed out.

“Madame Chair, I have considered this for the past seven or eight days,” said DiGirolamo. “And at this point, I would like to withdraw my support for the lawsuit.”

There was some scattered applause from the audience.

Bucks County is far from alone. Similar lawsuits have been filed by state and local jurisdictions from Hawaii to California to Delaware. In Wilmington, a Superior Court judge set aside key elements of the lawsuit attempting to declare global energy companies a “public nuisance” in The First State.

Critics of the aggressive litigation strategy say it’s intentionally abusing the legal system by forcing a federal issue into state courts. In response, 20 state attorneys general this week asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

During public comment, Bucks County resident Ed Mackhouse said the oil companies are being sued because they have money and not because they bear responsibility for “the climate hoax.”

“Where is this coming from that Bucks County is going to sue oil companies?” asked Andy Warren, a former Bucks County commissioner. “We’ve got to have more substantial things about Bucks County than to start a crusade about oil companies.”

Warminster resident Beth Curcio said, “I’m not surprised you would look for the press by suing the oil companies. The very companies that make your clothes, shoes, furniture, heat your homes, run all your transportation — I could go on forever. Over the years it’s become cleaner and safer to transport through pipelines.”

DiGiralomo could not immediately be reached for comment.

In response to complaints about the use of county resources, Chair Diane Ellis-Marseglia said the lawyers handling the lawsuit against the oil companies are working on a contingency basis so the county will not have to pay legal fees unless it wins damages.

Vice Chair Robert Harvie Jr. pushed back on the criticisms from the public, as well asDiGirolamo’s announcement.

“A comment was made, ‘Why does this matter?’

“It matters because… in the next 16 years, Pennsylvania municipalities are expected to spend $16.5 billion to deal with issues regarding climate change, extreme heat, extreme precipitation, rising sea levels, or, in our case, river levels. That includes $1.2 billion in air conditioning in schools, including $6 million in air conditioning added to schools just in Bensalem Township.”

Harvie said towns that border the Delaware River could spend $172 million on flood control.

“We’ve already seen a 5 to 10 percent increase in rainfall over the past several years,” he said. “It’s really about a negligence issue.”

However, Dr. Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and a leading academic on climate change policy says impacts from climate disaster have been overstated. He notes the number of hurricanes making landfall in the U.S. has declined over the past century and the relative cost of flood damage in America is one-tenth what it was in the early 1900s.

“The cost of climate-related disasters has dropped five-fold since 1980,” Lomborg adds.

The Bucks County commissioners announced Monday they are suing some of the world’s largest global oil producers over the local effects of climate change in Bensalem and Yardley.

The lawsuit, filed in Common Pleas Court against BP, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, Exxon Mobil, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute, claims they knew their product was causing climate change and failed to warn the public. Bucks County argues that those companies should be held liable for the local impacts of warmer temperatures.

“In recent years, we have experienced unprecedented weather events here in Bucks County that have repeatedly put residents and first responders in harm’s way, damaged public and private property, and placed undue strain on our infrastructure,” said Commissioner Chair Diane Ellis-Marseglia (D). “We’re already seeing the human and financial tolls of climate change beginning to mount, and if the oil companies’ own data is to be believed, the trend will continue.”

Bucks County is “following the model established in suits (it) brought against PFAS manufacturers, social media giants, and opioid companies. This complaint seeks to shift the financial burden of the climate crisis from the taxpayers of Bucks County to the companies responsible for creating the crisis,” according to a statement from the county.

At least eight states and more than two dozen local governments have filed similar lawsuits.

Critics, like David N. Taylor, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association, have accused the county of political posturing that is unconnected to reality.

“Suing oil and gas companies for providing an essential product that not only enables modern life but drives significant economic growth in our state is nonsensical and will result in higher costs for manufacturers, businesses, and consumers alike,” Taylor said.

“It’s unfortunate Bucks County took the bait of a copy-and-paste-lawsuit pushed by out-of-state activists and billionaire hypocrites over the well-being of Pennsylvanians.”

But commissioners from both parties supported the lawsuit.

“These companies have known since at least the 1950s that their ways of doing business were having calamitous effects on our planet, and rather than change what they were doing or raise the alarm, they lied to all of us,” said Republican Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo. “The taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for these companies and their greed.”

“This suit is our tool to recoup costs and fund public works projects like bolstering or replacing bridges, retrofitting county-owned buildings, and commencing stormwater management projects, all of which will put us in the best possible position to weather what is certain to come,” Ellis-Marseglia added.

Can a company whose product is being used in every nation in the world be held responsible for alleged local consequences from impacts on global climate?

A Delaware judge took a dim view of that legal strategy and tossed out significant parts of a similar case. On Jan. 9, Delaware Superior Court Judge Mary Miller Johnston ruled the Clean Air Act preempts Delaware’s core allegations for public nuisance, trespass, and failure to warn since it sought damages for activity resulting from out-of-state or global greenhouse gas emissions. Delaware can only proceed with claims proving alleged injuries were the cause of emissions from sources within the state. Prevailing with that claim isn’t possible in this case. The judge found that in-state Delaware emissions cannot have a material effect on the global nature of climate change.

Energy companies argue addressing climate change and public policy is a job for the federal government, not local governments.

“Addressing climate change requires a coordinated international policy response, not meritless local litigation over lawful and essential energy production,” said Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr. of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, counsel for Chevron Corporation.

Others in the energy sector accused Bucks County of hypocrisy.

“Bucks County and its elected county officials have relied on oil and natural gas for decades to meet their transportation needs and to power their once-mighty steel industrial base,” said Curt Schroder, executive director of Pennsylvania Coalition for Civil Justice Reform. “Yet the commissioners have filed climate change litigation for a situation they helped cause. When can we expect all county-owned vehicles to be electric or all the county buildings to be powered by renewables?

“One would expect such actions to follow immediately upon the heels of the action taken by the county leaders. Pennsylvanians already pay a hefty ‘tort tax’ that goes right into the pockets of out-of-state trial lawyers, and this lawsuit will only raise costs even higher for hard-working people across the state – all without advancing real climate solutions. Lawsuits targeting the lawful production of energy are an abuse of our state’s civil justice system and an end-run around the democratic process,” Schroder added.

And both supporters and opponents of the legislation agree that a Bucks County lawsuit isn’t going to solve the problem of climate change.

“These local lawsuits do nothing to address our real energy challenges. In fact, lawsuits like this actually undercut Pennsylvania’s role in addressing climate change. Electric sector-related emissions have plummeted in recent years as more natural gas has come online to meet our growing power demands,” said Kurt Knaus, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Energy Infrastructure Alliance.

“That has led to cleaner air across our commonwealth. The United States is reducing greenhouse gas emissions faster than any other country in the world, an achievement tied to our emergence as the world’s top natural gas producer.

“The timing of this lawsuit has little to do with environmental concerns and everything to do with concerns over the coming election,” Knaus said.

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Last year, the Maryland General Assembly announced plans to reduce its output of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions 60 percent by 2031. The Climate Pollution Reduction Plan was sold as a roadmap to achieve near-term climate goals and a path to reach net zero emissions by 2045, setting the tone for environmental and energy decision-making throughout the state.

The problem with this roadmap is that it leads to nowhere but disruption to the reliability of our electric supply and a higher cost to all ratepayers, including Pennsylvanians. Yes, Pennsylvania ratepayers will pay part of the costs generated by the closure of thermal generation like coal, natural gas, oil, or nuclear facilities in Maryland.

The City of Baltimore is served primarily by a coal-fired thermal electric generation facility known as Brandon Shores. Brandon Shores and the nearby Wagner facility supply approximately 2200 megawatts of thermal electricity to PJM, the organization designated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to manage the mid-Atlantic power grid and the safe and reliable flow of electricity for 65 million people from Chicago to Philadelphia and many places in between.

Talen Energy, the owner of Brandon Shores, had been discussing the conversion of the facility from coal to oil. In mid-2023, unbeknownst to PJM, Talen entered into an agreement with the Sierra Club to close Brandon Shores in June 2025, taking enough electricity to power about 2 million homes from the supply available to the grid.

PJM analyses show that without proper upgrades, the deactivation of Brandon Shores would cause a severe voltage drop across seven PJM zones, leading to a widespread reliability risk not only in Maryland but in the surrounding zones including Northern Virginia, the District of Columbia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. This is a scenario that FERC Commissioner Mark Christie called “potentially catastrophic.”

But why should Pennsylvanians care? Because Maryland and the City of Baltimore don’t exist in a vacuum, and they will still need electricity. To replace the production at Brandon Shores with solar, it would require a minimum of 15,400 acres of solar panels or about 1400 windmills. There are no such projects underway. The only answer for Maryland, short of shuttering the City of Baltimore, is to import the electric power needed to replace the capacity of Brandon Shores from generation states like Pennsylvania.

To import more electricity into Maryland from other generation facilities requires approximately $800 million worth of upgrades and new construction to high-voltage power lines throughout Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. The cost of the upgrades will be passed onto ratepayers in the areas where the upgrades are made. While the majority of the costs will be borne by Marylanders, about 20 percent or $160 million will fall on ratepayers in Pennsylvania. The crux of the problem, however, is that the upgrades will not be completed until sometime in 2028.

The real question is, what happens to Maryland and the City of Baltimore for those three years between the announced closure date of June 2025 and the necessary transmission line upgrades which are projected to be completed in 2028?  PJM has requested a voluntary agreement to delay the proposed shutdown to allow time to bring replacement power online. So far, that effort has been rejected. Frankly, it is unclear whether Maryland or the City of Baltimore understand the dilemma they are in and just how rapidly disaster is approaching.

Unfortunately, this scenario is being repeated throughout the PJM grid and the United States. The knee-jerk reaction to move to so-called “green energy” is occurring without considering the ramifications of what powers our daily lives.

For many years, we have become accustomed to flipping a switch and our lights come on. That reliability rests solely on thermal generation that can be brought online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year without regard to weather, time of day, or duration. The inevitable fact is that as we introduce more of the so-called renewable electric generation, which is intermittent and of limited duration, into the grid, the more the grid will become intermittent and of limited duration. States like Maryland will soon face the consequences of short-sighted energy decisions. Sadly, Pennsylvanians will pay for it.

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For an alternate viewpoint see: “Point: No Need to Panic on Climate Change”

It’s not time to panic about climate change. It’s past time.

Usually, panic is the wrong response to almost every situation. It implies irrational overreaction to threats, often producing unproductive or harmful handling of them.

Yet, the existential threat that climate change poses to life on Earth and the very planet itself requires at least an element of panic as a catalyst to a meaningful, sustained response.

Worry hasn’t worked. Concern hasn’t worked. Alarm hasn’t worked.

Globally, June of this year was the hottest June on record, going back almost two centuries when the United States and Britain first began tracking atmospheric temperatures.

On July 3, the hottest daily mean global temperature ever was reached at 62.69 degrees Fahrenheit. The next day set another record. So did the next, and the next. From July 3 through July 29, the Earth experienced 29 consecutive hottest days — in any month, in any year, ever.

History’s greatest physicists and mathematicians, from Isaac Newton to Albert Einstein, loved the certainty of numbers.

It’s impossible to argue with the grim certainty of the ever more frightening climate numbers on our precious planet.

Whether or not panic is warranted, our anxiety is already rising, almost in concert with the inexorable increase in global temperatures.

While “climate anxiety” is not yet an official psychological disorder, therapists report a growing number of patients with what some call eco-anxiety, a term first coined in 2007, especially among young people. A peer-reviewed article published in May 2023 in the journal Nature Mental Health cited a recent study of 10,000 people ages 16-25 in 10 countries: Fifty-nine percent of those polled said they were very worried or extremely worried about climate change — and 84 percent were somewhat worried.

It makes sense that young people feel the most urgency about climate change. They have the longest still to live on a planet enduring more uncontrollable wildfires, more unbearable heat waves, more glacial melting, more warming of both the deepest seas and the blankets of air above them, more hurricanes unleashed by warmer oceans, more deforestation, more destruction of the life-saving trees that combat global warming by removing carbon dioxide from the air and releasing oxygen into the atmosphere.

We owe enormous gratitude to one singular young person who, as much as anyone else, has compelled her elders to finally take climate change seriously. Swedish savant Greta Thunberg began her relentless campaign as a teenager. At age 16, Time magazine named her among the 100 most influential people in the world, and, still just 20, she has been nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Our house is on fire,” Thunberg told the World Economic Forum in January 2019.

New economic powerhouses such as China and India protest that they are being asked to burn less fossil fuel, release fewer greenhouse gases, and take other remedial steps that the United States, Japan, Germany and other industrialized nations did not have to take in earlier decades.

China and India are right: the evolving requirements of responsible global stewardship are unfair. Their economies happen to be booming in a more perilous era, one in which the very future of life on Earth hangs in the balance for the first time.

Such inequity is no excuse for inaction on their part.

There have been signs of growing international resolve against the ravages of climate change. The Paris Agreement, an international treaty adopted in 2015, has been signed by 193 countries plus the European Union, pledging to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and give developing nations money to fight global warming. The historic accord aims to limit the global temperature increase this century to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) while pursuing efforts to hold it to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Even those relatively modest temperature hikes would cause more wildfires, hurricanes and other destructive climate events.

Disgracefully, former president Donald Trump pulled the United States from the Paris Agreement. His successor, President Biden, restored U.S. membership on his first day in office.

More ambitiously, the European Union has joined the United Nations, China and 69 other countries, which combined emit three-quarters of all greenhouse gases, in pledging to reach zero net emissions by 2050. More than 1,000 cities worldwide, including Los Angeles and Houston, are part of the same initiative.

Not surprisingly, even such a dangerous threat as climate change, one that should be uncontroversial, has been politicized in our deeply polarized era. Conservative commentators blame environmentalists’ longstanding opposition to nuclear power for contributing to climate change. Nuclear power production does not emit greenhouse gases, but it entails other risks involving the storage of spent fuel rods and the cataclysmic, if rare, danger of nuclear meltdown.

France has gone against the grain of most other industrialized countries in obtaining more than two-thirds of its energy from nuclear power, compared with just one-fifth in the United States.

While we’ve picked up the pace in mitigating climate change, however belatedly, it’s still far from enough. If we want to save our grandchildren and their grandchildren from even worse natural catastrophes, we will have to do far more.

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For an alternate viewpoint see: POINT: Reaping the Whirlwind

Peck’s Beach, better known as Ocean City, New Jersey, is according to the Washington Post, the center ring in the debate over wind turbines being placed off the Jersey shore.

How ironic that the town’s very early history was as an outpost for the whaling industry. John Peck was a major whaler.  At that time, people used whale blubber for oil lamps, soap, paint and varnish. Today whales dolphins and other sea creatures are collateral damage as Gov. Phil Murphy, Orsted, the Danish energy company, and others push forward with wind turbines for billions of dollars and, just as relevant, major liberal credit for fighting climate change.

In his July 7th open letter to citizens in Ocean City, Mayor Jay A. Gillian stated that “One thing is certain – everyone’s electric rates are going up. That much we’ve been assured of by the developer and our state.”

“More importantly, we have no idea what impact this massive wind farm project will have on our ecosystems and environment, our economy, and our health,” the mayor said.

As more people learn about the project, this view is becoming the consensus. And that change in public opinion is  the reason Murphy, Orsted and a small cadre of supporters are trying to race this project to completion.

In this same letter, Gillian talked about the fact that the day after the federal government approved these 98900-foot-tall offshore wind turbines carrying 1,100 megawatts of electricity via a transmission line under our beaches and dunes, the state of New Jersey informed Ocean City that a single piping plover had hatched chicks in the dunes near 16th street.

The mayor used this occurrence to make the point that piping plover set off extraordinary care to protect the chicks including removing trash cans from the beach, routine beach patrol and police patrols by vehicle were prohibited and a litany of other measures were put into place. Why is the same care and effort not being put into place  to protect whales and other sea life for the wind turbine project?

Just in the last week we’ve seen whales die near the beaches of Deal and Long Branch New Jersey and off Long Island, N.Y.  Whales, dolphins and other sea creatures off the Jersey Shore are dying in historic numbers, as the preliminary work for the wind turbines takes place. Yet, we’re told nothing to see here, move along because ‘we must save the planet.’

It certainly seems that all this planet saving might be greased by all the money that is sloshing around this project. Orsted recently was given state tax credits by the legislature that might be worth billions to further bolster its bottom line.

But what about the economy of the various Jersey shore towns? A recent study by the Cape May County Commissioners concluded that these wind turbines would cost them billions of tourism dollars. It’s believed that the skyscraper windmills will be visible from many beaches spoiling the beautiful views that draw tourists to the area.

In fact, I’m writing this column from North Wildwood and the beauty of the beaches and ocean is part of the birthright of those of us lucky enough to grow up in the Delaware Valley- South Jersey area. Why not start by putting windmills throughout Phil Murphy’s estates? I believe Murphy is shoving this project through because he has national aspirations and this project would be a gold star many times over among progressives.

I am hopeful that Orsted and Murphy can be defeated. In a recent joint statement, Senate President Nick Scutari and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin questioned the impacts of the wind projects.  Also, groups fighting the wind turbines have gotten a major celebrity ready to speak out forcefully against the project.

If you care about whales, other sea creatures, and the beauty of the Jersey shore, get involved.

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