The previous post proposed the idea that what kids learn in school about climate change may be confusing them—or sending them on the road to an energy abyss. Today we’re going to see how our climate change leaders are deliberately and maliciously, or through sheer ignorance, telling us and our kids falsehoods about the dreaded climate change and our means of handling it.
This first one, stated by President Obama in a speech he made in November, 2015, about why he was rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline, could be funny if it weren’t intended to be serious:
Think about it. Since I took office, we’ve doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas by 2025; tripled the power we generate from the wind; multiplied the power we generate from the sun 20 times over.
Yes, as President Obama said, “Think about it!” We have doubled the distance our cars . . .? He’s talking about a projection, a model, new “standards” for fuel consumption. It hadn’t been done then, and it still hasn’t been done! Let’s take a look at the Bureau of Transportation Statistics spreadsheet for Average U.S. light duty vehicle fuel efficiency, short wheel base. In 2015 those vehicles got 22.0 miles per gallon. In 2020, the last year shown, their mpg was 22.9. Granted he has another five years to go to get to the “nearly 55” mpg, but auto manufacturers had better speed up the gain per year to make that. The figure stated for 2010 was 9.9 mpg.
Now, I have to be honest myself here. I just sold a 1998 car that I
had bought new. As old as it was, I was getting about twenty miles per gallon on local driving and close to twenty-five mpg on the highway. So I don’t know how the government generates its data, but something is wrong either with USDE data, or Barack Obama’s words, or both. That confuses me. Do you think it confuses our kids?
Let’s look at President Obama’s comment about the “power we generate from the wind.” In 2010 wind generated 1.2% of U.S. energy production, and solar generated 0.2% according to the U. S. Department of Energy Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy Data Book. That same report for 2015, the year of Obama’s speech, said wind generated 2.2% and solar 0.5% of our total energy production. Let’s see if I can do the math. 1.2% times 3 equals 3.6%. I don’t see 2.2% is triple 1.2%, do you? And even if it were, is the overall amount of generated energy worth such braggadocio? Solar generation of 0.5% in 2015 is 2.5 times that of 2010, not quite “20 times over.”
Reading further into that same 2015 speech, I had to stop and 
laugh. President Obama said, “America is leading on climate change with new rules on power plants that will protect our air so that our kids can breathe.” It’s a little off topic, but he thought new energy laws would permit our kids to breathe, and now the government is mandating masks for kids in school, so they can’t breathe. I know. Like I said. Off subject, but . . .
Back to the speech. “America is leading on climate change by
working with other big emitters like China to encourage and announce new commitments to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions.” It should come as no surprise to you that China was and still is the world’s greatest emitter of greenhouse gas. It more than doubles the output of the United States. India is responsible for only about half as much as the United States. Still, you have to remember that they don’t have the industry we do. Taking all things into consideration, Obama wasn’t very successful working with China to reduce emissions.
We can go way back to 2007 and Vice President Al Gore’s book An Inconvenient Truth. That had so many errors in it that the High Court in London said corrections had to be sent to schools in England regarding the nine errors it had identified. You can read more about this in my book Who’s Got Dibs on Your Kids?, beginning on page 50.
But let us catch up to current events. The Cornwall Alliance reminded us:
President Biden proclaimed: “We only have a brief window before us” to reduce the emissions from burning oil, gas, and coal that pose an “existential threat” to humanity.
Incredulously, all this was also occurring at a time when President Biden was urging OPEC and other of the world’s largest oil producers to increase supplies.
IEA projects that India is on track to grow its coal-fired electricity generation by 12% this year, while China’s use of coal plants is forecast to increase by up to 9% in response to recent several months of power shortages.
Following a steady decline in recent years, coal power generation in the U.S. and U.K is expected to rise by 20% in 2022, up from low levels in 2020.
Not to be left out, is the headline dated February 2, 2022, “European Commission declares nuclear and gas to be green.” (Emphasis mine.) I’ll bet that’s not in your kids’ science lessons.
I could go on, but it’s time you do a little digging on your own. I recommend The Cornwall Alliance mentioned above, and at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) website May 14, 2014 “China produces and consumes almost as much coal as the rest of the world combined.” Also high on my list is Watts Up With That?