Utopia, you are standing in it!

Once upon a time Aucklanders were musing on the merits of  a private-sector proposal aimed at satisfying the demands from the  lycra lobby for a tolled pedestrian and cycle path across Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Orewa-based Hopper Developments – with pioneering projects such as canal housing and marina schemes at Pauanui, Whitianga and Marsden Pt under its belt – had signed a heads of agreement to work with a walking and cycling charitable trust on a $16 million pathway over the bridge.

This  differed from a proposal by Transport Agency consultants, rejected by the agency’s board in 2008, for separate paths to be cantilevered at road level off each edge of the bridge for up to $43 million.

The SkyPath project since then has become, first, a privately funded project underwritten by the Auckland Council, and then a project to be paid for by taxpayers – and the costs have burgeoned.

Tyler Durden writes a zerohedge, Russia & OPEC Ministers Blast IEA’s ‘Net Zero By 2050’ Plan As “La-La-Land” Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

After in recent months crude oil prices have clearly recovered from their COVID-19 slump on steadily increasing demand, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak addressed the much anticipated decision-making at the upcoming OPEC+ conference set for August and the expectation that it will decide to raise output significantly beyond the current pandemic-induced strategy of gradually releasing more barrels into a strengthening oil market.

Novak said in his Thursday remarks at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum that while it remains “premature” to talk about output decisions for August, he affirmed “The current oil price is good enough for Russia,” adding: “Oil prices reflect the balance of supply and demand,” and noted it’s expected the seasonal oil demand will increase in the third quarter of the…

Generalized Walker Circulation (December-February) during ENSO-neutral conditions. Convection associated with rising branches of the Walker Circulation is found over the Maritime continent, northern South America, and eastern Africa. [Credit: NOAA Climate.gov — drawing by Fiona Martin] El Niño and 100,000 year glaciation/climate cycles feature prominently in this research. The Walker circulation has been described as ENSO’s atmospheric buddy.
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While it is widely accepted that climate change drove the evolution of our species in Africa, the exact character of that climate change and its impacts are not well understood, says Phys.org.

Glacial-interglacial cycles strongly impact patterns of climate change in many parts of the world, and were also assumed to regulate environmental changes in Africa during the critical period of human evolution over the last ~1 million years.

The ecosystem changes driven by these glacial cycles are thought to have stimulated the evolution and dispersal of…

Clean’, ‘green’ wind and solar were meant to save the planet, but the obsession with the unreliables will only expedite its consumption. Every solar panel and every wind turbine are an aggregation of minerals, requiring mountains of real energy in their creation. Many of those minerals are scarce, generally referred to as “rare earths”. Thanks to the growth in the number of turbines and panels, many of those scarce minerals are likely to become rarer still.

The rent seekers that profit from the generosity of Joe Biden and his Squad can’t believe their luck. Sure, the doddering President struggles to master a complete sentence without a teleprompter (and often struggles with one). But his Squad’s desire to carpet America in a sea of solar panels and wind turbines is crystal clear; the fortunes of the wind and solar industries have never looked rosier.

As Mark Mills reports, however…