Alarmists Claim Maple Syrup Climate Crisis, Yet Production Sets New Records

by James Taylor

The 2019 maple syrup harvest brought another opportunity for global-warming alarmists to gin up a fictitious climate scare.

With feel-good stories abounding about hardy Canadians and Americans collecting sap from their sugar maples from February to April, The New York Times and other media outlets attempted to turn the news into a maple syrup climate crisis. Objective facts, however, reveal maple syrup production is setting new records nearly every year, as temperatures continue their modest recent warming trend.

According to The New York Times: “In fact, climate change is already making things more volatile for syrup producers. In 2012, maple production fell by 54 percent in Ontario and by 12.5 percent in Canada overall, according to data from the Canadian government, because of an unusually warm spring.”

“Warm weather can hurt syrup production because the process depends on specific temperature conditions: daytime highs above freezing with nighttime lows below freezing. But because of climate change, some years those key temperatures are more elusive,” The Times added.

Taking its cue from the establishment media, the Care2 Healthy Living website was even more direct. “Expect maple syrup shortages,” the website reported.

A look at objective data on maple syrup production shows the exact opposite is happening. The New York Times had to dig up very old news, all the way back to 2012, to find a production year it could describe as discouraging. And even 2012 saw merely a 12.5 percent decline relative to 2011. Interestingly, maple syrup production has increased every year since then.

Strikingly, The New York Times chose not to mention that Canadian maple syrup production set records in 2016 and 2017. After failing to set a record in 2018, the outlook is promising for a new record this year.

“Sweet sap is making for an even sweeter maple syrup season for producers in Waterloo Region,” observed The Waterloo Record, in Ontario, Canada.

“Wilfred Schmidt of Schmidt Family Syrup in New Hamburg said he has cut his sap boiling time by 10 percent this year because of higher than normal sugar content in the trees,” The Record observed. “That’s a good thing for producers as a shorter boil means more syrup.”

“We set some records this year and we haven’t changed the amount of trees (tapped) in 10 years. All of a sudden, we’re getting a lot more syrup from the same amount of sap—it makes a huge difference,” said Schmidt.

Maple syrup producers in the United States are enjoying even greater success than their Canadian counterparts.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that U.S. syrup makers produced a record 4.27 million gallons of maple syrup in 2018. That total beat the previous record of 4.21 million gallons in 2017.

Final data for the 2019 season isn’t yet available, but early indications are once again promising.

The Maple News, published in Greenwich, New York, described the 2019 season as “a winner for most.” The Maple News cited U.S. farmers as predicting record 2019 production.

The public messaging regarding maple syrup production is typical of how global-warming issues are portrayed in the establishment media. Climate change alarmists look for a popular news or culture item and then find a way—whether supported by science or not—to assert that global warming is making things worse. They trust most people won’t have the time, inclination, or ability to research the issue themselves and discover the truth. As a result, people are led to erroneously believe that objectively good news is actually bad news.

In this case, people are being led to believe global warming is damaging maple syrup production and maple syrup shortages are imminent. In reality, maple syrup production sets new records on a near-annual basis as our climate modestly warms.



James Taylor (JTaylor@heartland.org) is a senior fellow for environment and climate policy at The Heartland Institute. The article first appeared here

Don’t Buy The Carbon Dioxide Tax Myth – It Just Means More Government Control

By H. Sterling Burnett


The carbon dioxide tax is like the Hydra of myth. Every time some hero cut one of the Hydra’s heads off, two more sprang up in its place. The same is true for the carbon dioxide tax. Every time a version of the carbon dioxide tax is proposed, economists and other analysts deftly cut its head off, showing its promises of climate salvation and economic prosperity to be false, myths like the Hydra itself, yet two more versions of the tax arise.

Progressives and socialists embrace the carbon dioxide tax myth to promote more government control, their control, over the economy and peoples’ lives.

Sadly, a number of old mossback, Rockefeller Republicans have also embraced the myth of the carbon dioxide tax. The main attraction for them seems to be their belief they can create a revenue-neutral carbon dioxide tax. For them, it’s just a matter of political engineering. The problem is, the idea a carbon dioxide tax can be revenue neutral is just as much of a myth as that it will save the earth from climate doom (as if the earth needed saving, which the best science shows it doesn’t), or that it will increase jobs and boost the economy.

As my colleague James Taylor has persuasively written, no carbon dioxide tax is revenue neutral for the households being taxed. A carbon dioxide tax raises the price of coal, natural gas, and gasoline in an attempt to force consumers to purchase more expensive wind power, solar power, and electric vehicles. Although consumers will spend substantially more money on energy and energy-related bills, the wind and solar industries will pay no carbon dioxide taxes.

As Taylor points out, the tax revenue generated by a “successful” carbon dioxide tax — one that significantly reduces carbon dioxide emissions — will decline sharply over time, leaving little money to return to the people. Thus, although the government would not receive much revenue to return to consumers from the tax, people, now paying substantially more for their energy bills, will face a dramatic decline in their discretionary household incomes.

Nor will the tax be revenue neutral for households with workers in the fossil fuel industry or related fields. The idea that all the oil field workers, coal miners, coal and natural gas power plant operators, and those working in chemical and plastics manufacturing will be able to smoothly transition to other jobs without a hitch is a myth as well: their household incomes will fall sharply in the short-term if not permanently. And even if they could simply snap their fingers and magically switch jobs, the jobs they would be taking installing and servicing solar panels and wind turbines simply don’t pay as well as the jobs they will be forced out of by the carbon dioxide tax.

Nor, in truth, could any carbon dioxide tax be truly neutral in terms of government revenue.

Even if Congress and the president keep their hands out of the till, not finding creative ways to spend whatever new revenue a carbon dioxide tax generates, and returns it through some scheme to the people being taxed, it’s simply a fact a good portion of the revenue generated by the tax will be diverted to the bureaucracies involved in collecting it and disbursing the tax checks. No government program is cost-free.

Just as with every other government program, there will be huge transaction costs for collecting, tracking, auditing and archiving taxes paid and revenues paid out. New employees will have to be hired, or existing federal government workers will have to divert their time from other responsibilities, to account for the carbon dioxide taxes to be paid, assure that they are paid, to police the program, and to send out the revenue checks and handle complaints when disputes arise.

These and other costs will eat up billions of dollars each year. Unless these costs are paid directly out of the carbon dioxide tax revenues — in which case all the revenues will not be returned to taxpayers as promised — then the government will have to impose other taxes or take on additional debt to pay for the program. So much for revenue neutrality.

Anyone who tells you paying a new tax will be good for you, especially a tax on fossil fuels that serve to power the economic prosperity we currently enjoy, is lying. In the meantime, hang onto your wallets and when the time comes, vote any and all policymakers who support carbon taxes out of office.


Acid Rain - Monitoring SO2 in a Flue Gas Desulfurization Unit

by Applied Analytics


From the 1970s through the 1990s, acid rain was the main environmental concern. Lakes1, vegetation2 and animals3 were affected.

The New York Times reported in 1979:“The rapid rate at which rainfall is growing more acidic in more areas has led many scientists and governmental officials to conclude that acid rain is developing into one of the most serious worldwide environmental problems of the coming decades.”4

What is acid rain?
 
Acid rain simply refers to rain or other precipitants that have uncommonly high acidity. This is a result of SO2 in the air that dissolves in water creating sulfuric acid. The source of this SO2 is largely power plants that burn fossil fuels.
 
EPA
 
The EPA, under the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, created the Acid Rain Program (ARP). The aim was to reduce the amount of NO2 and SO2 emissions, while allowing for the industry to employ cost-effective technology to achieve this goal. As the following graph shows, the program was a remarkable success.

Figure 1. SO2 Emissions from CSAPR and ARP Sources, 1980–2016 (ARP- The Acid Rain Program; CSAPR -Cross-State Air Pollution Rule)5

The EPA reports concluded that experience with the Clean Air Act since 1970 has shown that protecting public health and building the economy can go hand in hand.6 Furthermore, “The emissions reductions have led to dramatic improvements in the quality of the air that we breathe. Between 1990 and 2017, national concentrations of air pollutants improved... 88 percent for sulfur dioxide”7


Figure 2. Note. Data for SO2 concentration from SO2 Air Quality, 1980-2017 (Annual 99th percentile of Daily Max 1-hour Average) National Trend based on 42 sites. 90% decrease in national average8

The Technology
 
Flue gas desulfurization units are used to remove SO2 from flue gas; the process is also called scrubbing. The most common type is limestone scrubbing, in which the flue gas is stripped by dissolution into water. The stripped gas reacts with the limestone (CaCO3) resulting in solid residue, in this case calcium sulfite (CaSO3). The scrubbing efficiency is usually higher than 90%. To achieve this level of efficiency, the concentration of SO2 must be monitored both before and after the process.
 
The Analysis
 
The OMA-300 measures a full, high-resolution spectrum. This allows for both applications to be monitored continuously by the same analyzer, from 4000 ppm to 10 ppm full scale. Hence, it provides an indication of the process’ effectiveness by measuring the SO2 before and after the flue gas desulfurization unit.


Figure 3: Absorbance spectra of SO2 40 ppm and 4000 ppm, demonstrating that one analyzer can be used for both applications simultaneously. The absorbances at different wavelengths are correlated to the SO2 concentration.

The Future
 
While controlling industrial SO2 emission in North America and Western Europe has been largely successful, acid rain is still a problem in rapidly growing economies such as China and India. Even the famous Taj Mahal in Agra is facing corrosion of its marble9. Hopefully, in the very near future, these burgeoning regions will implement the same technology and regulations that worked so well in more established countries.
 
References
 
1. WILLIAM K. STEVENSJAN , ‘Study of Acid Rain Uncovers a Threat To Far Wider Area’, New York times, 16, 1990.
2. WILLIAM K. STEVENSAPRIL, ‘The Forest That Stopped Growing: Trail Is Traced to Acid Rain’ New York Times, 16, 1996 .
3. LES LINEMARCH ‘Acid Rain Leading to Moose Deaths’ , New York Times, 12, 1996.
4. (BAYARD WEBSTERNOV. “Acid Rain: An Increasing Threat” New York Times 6,11, 1979).
9. Henry Fountain and John Schwartz ‘Have We Passed the Acid Test?’ New York Times May 2, 2018


EPA restores common sense to overaggressive water regulations

by Tim Huelskamp and James Taylor


The Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday it is rolling back some of the excessive, and possibly illegal, water regulations imposed by the Obama administration. EPA’s announcement is a welcome relief for homeowners and property owners impacted by overly aggressive EPA officials.

As a federal executive agency, EPA can only enforce laws that have been passed by Congress. While EPA has some rule making authority, it cannot make up laws of its own and then decide to enforce them. This is a very important check against a dictatorial presidency or executive branch. Regarding water regulations, Congress, via the Clean Water Act, has given the executive branch authority to regulate only those bodies of water that are “navigable waters of the United States.”

EPA has always asserted a broad definition for navigable waters. Dating back to the 1980s, EPA has asserted it can regulate smaller, streams and tributaries that cannot be navigated but that flow into navigable waters. EPA has also asserted it can regulate wetlands that are adjacent to navigable waters.

The Obama administration attempted in 2015 to further expand the definition of navigable waters to include such entities as isolated ponds, dormant stream beds that are dry most of the year, and minor depressions in the land that hold water only in the immediate aftermath of significant rainfall.

The consequences of the 2015 regulatory overreach can, and have been, devastating. Overly aggressive EPA officials tell farmers they cannot manage or cultivate farmlands that hold isolated puddles merely a few days of the year. Homeowners are told they cannot landscape or fill in nuisance depressions in their property that hold water briefly after a heavy rain. Federal bureaucrats have stripped homeowners and families of practical ownership rights to property they have purchased and managed for generations. Property owners who defy the EPA and other federal bureaucrats face steep penalties and fines.

Citizen lawsuits have been moderately successful challenging the Obama administration’s overreach. Courts have blocked enforcement of the Obama administration’s 2015 regulations in 28 states. Still, homeowners and landowners in the remaining 22 states remain subject to the oppressive 2015 regulations. The issue has been a likely candidate for eventual Supreme Court review, but in the meantime, people remain subject to the unfair policy.

The Trump EPA is thankfully proposing to restore common sense to EPA regulatory authority. The agency proposes to walk back the Obama administration’s asserted authority to regulate stream beds and land depressions that are usually dry. EPA will no longer regulate wetlands unless they are “physically and meaningfully connected” to waters under EPA jurisdiction. EPA will also eliminate subjective criteria for determining whether land or water features qualify under navigable waters jurisdiction, granting individuals more certainty about how they can use their property. These corrections are long overdue, and represent another example of President Trump keeping campaign promises to reduce environmental and regulatory overreach.

Environmental activists are sounding an alarm about potential environmental harms, but their arguments are weak. EPA will still regulate all navigable waters, as well as meaningful permanent and intermittent tributaries to navigable waters. Also, very importantly, all 50 states have their own environmental laws and regulations, allowing regulation above and beyond navigable waters as defined by EPA. For normally dry streambeds, isolated depressions that only occasionally hold water, and other land features that the Obama administration sought to regulate, regulations will once again come from state and local governments that are more responsive and accountable to the people and communities being regulated.

EPA’s proposed rule will continue to provide strong environmental protection for the waterways Congress authorized EPA to regulate. At the same time, the proposed rule will roll back executive branch overreach and protect the rights of homeowners and landowners.